tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69364205600662677252024-03-13T23:17:08.744-07:00Change for EthiopiaDawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.comBlogger1091125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-71790938799039979562015-11-27T11:50:00.003-08:002015-11-27T11:50:35.043-08:00Famine in Ethiopia: Due to bad weather or policy Failure?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1.wp.com/ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Creeping-famine-in-ethiopia-300x173.jpg?resize=300%2C173&9db0ce" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A young boy waiting in front of his tukul for his mother as she arrives with a body of his 4-year old dead sister who died of malnutrition in Shashemene, Ethiopia: Source: NBC: & .Creeping famine-is-back-to-Ethiopia" border="0" class="size-medium wp-image-22636" height="173" src="http://i1.wp.com/ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Creeping-famine-in-ethiopia-300x173.jpg?resize=300%2C173&9db0ce" style="border: 0px none; height: auto; list-style: none; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">A young boy waiting in front <br />of his tukul for his mother <br />as she arrives with a body <br />of his 4-year old dead sister <br />who died of malnutrition <br />in Shashemene, Ethiopia: <br />Source:</span><span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"> NBC</span><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">: </span>& .<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">C</span></span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">ree</span></span><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;">ping<br /> famine-is-back-to-Ethiopia</span></td></tr>
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<em style="border: 0px none; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.5; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Asnake Demena</span></em></h1>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Twenty four years ago Meles Zenawi, the late Prime Minister of EPRDF was asked about his vision for Ethiopia and its people when he assumed power as head of the state after seventeen years of civil war. Meles declared that if his government remains in power, in ten years every Ethiopians will have at least three meals a day. He also anticipated that if his government remains in power from then onwards for twenty years, Ethiopians not only have three meals a day but also will have the luxury of choosing what to eat. More recently in 2011, the same Meles Zenawi said that “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Here we are now, after twenty four years of power monopoly by the EPRDF regime and five years later after the implementation of the so-called Growth and Transformation Plan, more than 11.3 million Ethiopians have nothing to eat let alone to choose what to eat. Arsi, Hararghe, Afar, Borena and Somali are the hardest hit areas of the latest famine in the country. Children are dying in the hands of their parents and suffering from famine related diseases. Nevertheless, the EPRDF regime has been blaming on bad weather particularly the El Niño for the recent brutal famine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Even if the El Niño is partly attributed for drought in general, the famine we are witnessing toady, in Ethiopia is not the result of seasonal crop failure due to bad weather or natural calamity as the EPRDF regime would like us to believe. As a matter of fact, drought, climate variability and other natural calamities occur not only in Ethiopia, but also in any part of the world. However, drought does not necessarily result in famine. This implies that droughts are a normal component of Ethiopian life making famines inevitable unless the proper preventive measures are adopted. Hence, in examining the current famine in Ethiopia, I will stress the structural links between food shortage and the lack of good governance in general and the failure of policies and strategies in particular.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Fifty years ago, famine was simply understood as the result of food shortage due to seasonal crop failure or natural disasters. At that time, it was not difficult to understand the reasons for famine when poor technology and static economic systems hampered human beings from getting access to food, especially in the face of regional natural disasters. But today, natural forces and other climatic conditions cannot be responsible for famine causation as was the dominant mode of thinking five decades ago. So that it is logical to ask why famine is persist in Ethiopia in the ear of global surplus, high-technology early warning systems and “vibrant economic growth” in the country. Answering this question requires looking beyond technical factors, towards political explanations. This means that the real causes of famine in Ethiopia deeply rooted in the country’s history of civil war and repression. Therefore, analysis of the past and present famines in Ethiopia should focus on root causes of the problem, instead of seasonal symptoms.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Currently, Ethiopia has faced the world’s gravest hunger problems and these problems are getting worse in the coming few months. As it was mentioned above, more than 11.3 million people are in need of urgent food aid. There is no doubt the failure of policies and strategies are causes of the recent famine. For instance, the Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) strategy of the EPRDF regime was formulated to keep 84 percent of the population in Ethiopia to live in rural areas and heavily depend on the natural environment for food production, animal husbandry, forestry, water and fuel. Keeping people in rural areas in which land belongs to the state and can’t be sold is one of the mechanisms of the regime to marginalize the majority of the population from political involvement and to prevent urban unrest. Consequently, the sizes of agricultural lands are diminishing from 0.5 hectare to 0.2 hectare per house hold due to high population pressure. This means that too small farmlands are passed down to the generations, which can’t provide enough food for the families that work on it even with normal rainfall conditions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In addition to the population pressure put on farmlands, there is a large-scale land acquisition for floriculture and biofuel production. According to the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE2014), the Ethiopian government has allocated 23.3 million hectares of land (equivalent to 20 percent of the whole country), for biofuel production alone. These ambitions were intended to position Ethiopia as a leader in Africa, in the emerging push for biofuels to provide energy security for the rest of the world. However, the growing demand and support for biofuels in the United States and the European Union, has increased the competition for land that impacted food security in the country. A study conducted by Lester R. Brown in 2013 reported that between 1980 and 2005, the amount of grain used to produce fuel ethanol in the United States gradually expanded from 1 million to 41 million tons. This is an alarming call not only for Ethiopia but also for the rest of the world to stop the crime against humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">To add further insult to injury, all agricultural inputs and outputs in Ethiopia are highly regulated and manipulated by the party-associated enterprises called EFFORT. EFFORT stands for the Endowment Found for the Rehabitation of Tigray and established in 1995 by the TPLF. Their activities ranged from agriculture to trade, textile, livestock, mining, transport and to the financial sector. Members of the party manage the fund. This dominancy in the private sector especially party-owned enterprise has made the emergency of new private entrepreneur close to impossible. Furthermore, the Midroc business empire owned by Sheik Mohammed Alamoudi accounted for 70 percent of the so-called foreign investment and displaced millions of small farmers from their livelihood to leave them hungry.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Therefore, attributing the current famine directly to climate change is impossible. Because, extreme climate events such as El Nino may be an immediate trigger of famine but cannot be a root cause for it. In the Ethiopian context, famine is a prolonged and preventable geographical phenomenon caused by the lack of good governance in general and failure of policies and strategies in particular. Among the many coping mechanisms, mobility from region to region or from one sector to another sector is crucial to prevent persistent famine in Ethiopia. A number of scholars agreed that genuine democracy and political institutions are the critical factors in the struggle against famine. A free and independent media on which freedom of expression might depend on also plays another crucial informative role by providing information on the symptoms of the crisis both to individuals and to political parties. Furthermore, news media can put direct pressure on the government and other actors in charge of taking action. But sadly enough, the regime in Ethiopia don’t have the political willingness for such kind of genuine democracy. So that, we must stand together to struggle for total regime change from top to bottom. We must eliminate officials of the dictatorial and corrupted regime of EPRDF and make them accountable for the crime they have committed against humanity in the name of development. Down with dictators! Ethiopia shall be free!</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-53757897715925906982015-11-18T14:04:00.000-08:002015-11-18T14:04:52.213-08:00Remembering the Meles Massacres of 2005 in Ethiopia Ten Years After<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span class="post-meta-author" style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px none; display: inline-block; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"> by: <a href="http://ecadforum.com/author/al-mariam/" style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">Alemayehu G. Mariam</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span class="tie-date" style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px none; display: inline-block; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">November 18, 2015</span></span></h1>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Ethiopian-martyrs1.gif?f7eebf" style="border: 0px none; clear: left; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto 1em; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><img alt="Ethiopian martyrs of June and November, 2005" class="size-full wp-image-26244" height="180" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Ethiopian-martyrs1.gif?f7eebf" style="border: 0px none; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px;" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;">We remember the Ethiopian <br />martyrs of June and </span>November,<span style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;"> 2005</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">In </span><em style="border: 0px none; font-size: 17px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">keeping silent about evil</em><span style="font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">, in </span><em style="border: 0px none; font-size: 17px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">burying it so deep within us</em><span style="font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"> that no sign of it appears on the surface, </span><em style="border: 0px none; font-size: 17px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">we are implanting it</em><span style="font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">, and </span><em style="border: 0px none; font-size: 17px; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">it will rise up a thousand fold in the future</em><span style="font-size: 17px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers</em>, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, <em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is for this reason, and not because of the ”weakness of indoctrinational work’, that they are growing up ‘indifferent.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Young people are acquiring the conviction that foul deeds are never punished on earth, that they always bring prosperity</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">It is</em> going to be uncomfortable, <em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">horrible, to live in such a country</em>! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, <a href="http://www.thechristianidentityforum.net/downloads/Gulag1.pdf" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">The Gulag Archipelago</a>, 1918-1956</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How time flies!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Tick tock…tick tock… tick tock…tick tock…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The years fly, but do we remember those who die?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How time stands still! Tick…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The clock stopped.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">November 2015 is the 10<sup style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">th</sup> year of remembrance for the victims of the Meles Massacres of 2005 in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wish there was No-vember!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No Meles.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No EVIL in No-vember!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Has it really been ten years since November 2005?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ten years and no justice for the victims of the Meles Massacres?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ten years and no accountability for those who committed the Meles Massacres?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ten years and no redress for the victims of the Meles Massacres?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Damn No-vember!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Every November for the last nine years, I have remembered the victims of the Meles Massacres of 2005 by writing a commemorative tribute for their personal sacrifices to establish democracy in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles Zenawi, the late ringleader of a vicious gang of criminal thugs in power in Ethiopia I call the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF), <u style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">personally</u> ordered the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters following the 2005 election.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On May 16, 2005, one day after the general election, Meles Zenawi declared a state of emergency, outlawed all public gatherings and placed under his direct personal command and control all police, security and military forces, and replaced the capital’s city police with “federal” police and special forces.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In the coming weeks and months, Meles personally authorized his commanders and police and security forces to use deadly force against any group or individual who showed opposition to his regime.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Between May and November 2005, the Meles Massacres resulted in the slaughter (by conservative official account) of 193 unarmed protesters and severe gunshot injury to 763 others. (The actual number of victims is much more than the casualties reported by the Inquiry Commission. See footnote 2 below.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The unarmed protesters were hunted down and shot in the streets and inside their homes simply because they chose to exercise their right to peaceably protest the outcome of Meles’ rigged election.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Those protesters died as martyrs to Ethiopian democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have remembered the victims of the Meles Massacres for the last nine years, every single week, in my Monday commentaries, or “sermons” as some would like to affectionately refer to them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have preached about the wickedness, viciousness, degeneracy, depravity, villainy, atrocity, contemptibility and abominability of Meles Zenawi, when he was alive and post-mortem, and his gang of thugs in power today, the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am convinced to ultimate moral certainty that no greater EVIL has befallen Ethiopia than the curse, the blight, the scourge of Meles Zenawi and the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I joined the struggle for human rights in Ethiopia <u style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">solely</u> because of the Meles Massacres of 2005.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles flippantly and heartlessly called the 2005 massacres, “a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl0JWRgnCJ4" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">traumatic event</a>.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Like Stalin, Meles believed “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The wanton massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters is a “traumatic event”?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For whom?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I doubt it was a “traumatic event” for Meles and his TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles coldly reminded the “people [to] distinguish between riot and demonstrations.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Incredibly, Meles shamelessly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRaUyuK87So" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">threw his entire police and security force</a> under the bus to exonerate himself from any moral and legal responsibility in the massacres.</span></div>
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<img alt="MelesTPLF1" class="alignleft wp-image-54043" height="170" src="http://i1.wp.com/almariam.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/MelesTPLF1.jpg?resize=343%2C170&f7eebf" style="border: 1px solid rgb(203, 205, 204); display: inline; float: left; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 2px 8px 3px 3px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px; text-align: justify;" width="343" /></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;">Meles said the “post-election violence” was the result of “lack of professionalism on the part of the police force in terms of managing such events. The government recognized that the police were under-trained for the task and under-equipped for the task. As a </span>result<span style="line-height: 1.5;"> we have worked on this and I believe it is now adequately addressed.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Simply restated, Meles said, “Blame the ignorant militiamen I authorized to use deadly force against the unarmed protesters, not me.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles, the “commander-in-chief” (massacerer-in-chief) sold his troops, lock, stock and barrel, down river to exonerate himself from charges of crimes against humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Meles and his underlings are directly responsible for the massacres, not just the “under-trained” and “under-equipped” security forces Meles tried to depict as nothing more than clodhopping militiamen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles security forces would not have fired on unarmed protesters over a period of months culminating in the killings of November 1-4, 2005 unless they were given specific authority to shoot-to-kill.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Those responsible for supervision of the security forces could have stopped the killings at the very first instance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But they did not. Not once. Not ever.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They let the security forces make a killing fields of the streets for months on end.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The fact of the matter is that the security forces Meles tried to underplay as militiamen were equipped with high-powered rifles and so well-trained that they were able to target the heads of the protesters and blow their brains out as Meles’ own Inquiry Commission later confirmed in 2006 following a through investigation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Those responsible for supervision of the security forces could have brought the killers to justice. They did not because they licensed them to kill innocent demonstrators.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We know the names of the 237 security personnel who pulled the trigger and committed the atrocities in the Meles Massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We also know the names of every single one of the officials from top to bottom involved in executing Meles shoot-to-kill order in 2005.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let me ask the question again: Why were the killers of the unarmed protesters in 2005 not prosecuted? The T-TPLF regime is swift in prosecuting a few bloggers for writing on social media but is unable to prosecute known criminals against humanity?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The fact of the matter is that the Meles Massacres were part of Meles’ and the T-TPLF’s long-term strategic planning to consolidate power by hook or crook and cling to power indefinitely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles wanted to <em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">shock and awe</em> his opponents by massive and indiscriminate use of deadly force.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles wanted to communicate the message to friend and foe that he will kill, slaughter and massacre as many people as necessary to maintain himself and his gang of thugs in power indefinitely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles wanted to send a clear message to friend and foe that he is one ruthless, merciless, vicious, vindictive, unforgiving, brutal, vengeful, pitiless, cold-blooded and meaner-than-a-junkyard-dog S.O.B.!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles was all those things and more; ain’t no doubt about it!!!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/the-fantastic-somalia-job_b_792234.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">invaded</a> Somalia in violation of international law in 2006 and delivered the same message.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In December 2006, Meles publicly declared he will kick butt in Somalia and be out in two months.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">By August 2007, Meles’ expeditionary troops were bogged down in Somalia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles made Somalia “one of the worst humanitarian situations in Africa.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Meles invasion of Somalia resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Somali civilians and displacement of over <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2009/country-chapters/somalia" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">870,000 Somalis</a> from Mogadishu alone. That is an undeniable fact!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who now remembers the victims of the Meles Massacres in Somalia!?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles delivered the same message in the Ogaden region in 2007-08.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2008/06/12/ethiopia-army-commits-executions-torture-and-rape-ogaden" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">reported</a>, “The government’s attacks on [Ogadeni] civilians, its trade blockade, and restrictions on aid <em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">amount to the illegal collective punishment of tens of thousands of people</em>. Ethiopia’s army has subjected civilians to executions, torture, and rape.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who now remembers the victims of the Meles Massacres in the Ogaden?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In Gambella Meles delivered the same message.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In so many other places in Ethiopia, Meles delivered the same message.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who remembers the victims of the Meles/T-TPLF massacres?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the Meles Massacres of 2005.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles coldly reminded the “people [to] distinguish between riot and demonstrations.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He meant the victims of the massacres were raving and thuggish rioters not ordinary demonstrators.</span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let the facts speak: </span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2006, under pressure from his foreign aid quartermasters, Meles established an Inquiry Commission to look into what he euphemistically described as “the post-election disturbances.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Inquiry Commission examined 16,990 documents, and received testimony form 1,300 witnesses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Inquiry Commission visited prisons and hospitals, and interviewed members of the Meles regime over several months.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Inquiry Commission by an overwhelming vote concluded Meles Zenawi and his lieutenants are guilty as sin on all counts in the 2005 massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">During a Congressional hearing held on November 16, 2006, the Inquiry Commission released its <a href="http://www.ethiomedia.com/addfile/ethiopian_inquiry_commission_briefs_congress.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">findings</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For the actual video recording of the Inquiry Commission vote on the factual findings <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_KCsJVRenU" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For the extended video of the Commission’s final vote proceedings, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gisf3MenFs" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Inquiry Commission by an 8-2 vote determined:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There was no property destroyed [by the unarmed protesters].</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade (as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs). [parenthesis original]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Shots fired by government forces were not to disperse the crowd of protesters but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protester. For this reason, it was clear that the law was violated, and government forces had used excessive force.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Police and security officials intentionally shot and killed 193 persons and wounded 763.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance in Kality prison that lasted 15 minutes, prison guards fired more than 1500 bullets into inmate housing units leaving 17 dead, and 53 severely wounded.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There was no evidence that any security officers involved in the shootings were attacked or killed by the demonstrators.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Security forces which are alleged to be killed by demonstrators were not taken to autopsy, even there is no evidence of either photograph or death certificate showing the reason of death and couldn’t be produced for police as opposed to that of civilians.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Inquiry Commission Chairman Judge Frehiwot Samuel noted:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Many people were killed arbitrarily. Old men were killed while in their homes, and children were also victims of the attack while playing in the garden.</strong>”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">During the Meles Massacres over 30,000 civilians were arrested without warrant and held in detention.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is no evidence whatsoever that the victims of the Meles Massacres were “rioters” or even violent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF committed crimes against humanity by massacring unarmed demonstrators.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They say time heals all wounds and you forget.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It does not, if “healing” means forgetting the crimes against humanity committed by Meles and his T-TPLF in the aftermath of the 2005 election.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Every single Monday for the past nine years, without missing a single week, I have written a commentary <strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">in remembrance of the innocent victims of the Meles Massacres</strong>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Some people express amazement how I can manage to write every single Monday commentaries in thousands of words.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The answer is simple: I promised the victims of the Meles Massacres that I will be their voice for as long as the Good Lord allows me to speak out for them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I was once asked why I care so much about people I have never seen, met or heard of. “You have to let it go, man!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am tempted to ask, “Would you let it go if the victims were your mother, father, brother, sister, friend…?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They become silent as the grave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Of course, none of the victims of the Meles Massacres are related to me. I know none of them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Does that mean the crimes committed against them must be forgotten? Ignored?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Elie Wiesel said, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is true that I am powerless to prevent injustice or bring to justice those who have committed the ultimate injustice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I am not and will never be powerless in speaking up against injustice and in shrilly protesting crimes against humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There must never be a time when we become indifferent to the suffering of others, no matter their race, nationality, religion…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I say living life in silence without lashing out in outrage against man’s inhumanity to man — brutality, injustice, oppression and abuse — is not worth living.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is true I do not know any of the victims of the Meles Massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I know that every one of the victims is the daughter, son, father, mother, uncle, aunt, cousin or friend of someone who is alive today.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know each one of the victims left behind a father, mother, daughter, son, uncle, aunt, cousin or friend who is brokenhearted and misses them dearly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know all of the victims came from humble backgrounds. None of them were fat cats living high on the hog of corruption and predation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know no one has stood up, challenged the T-TPLF and sought compensation for the survivors of the victims.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know no one will even dare to hold the T-TPLF legally accountable for the crimes against humanity committed in the Meles Massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know the family members and survivors of the Meles Massacres have no one to speak on their behalf consistently and relentlessly inside or outside of the country.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know the family members and survivors of the Meles Massacres have no one to seek justice for their loved ones.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know the family members and survivors of the Meles Massacres have no one to stand up for them; to remember them every day and every week and bring those who committed the massacres to justice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I have tried to be a voice for the victims of the Meles Massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I take no special credit for what little I have done to plead their cause before the court of international public opinion every single week for the last nine years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No amount of vainglory could sustain nine years of relentless struggle against EVIL.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am the voice of the victims of the Meles Massacres but I have no illusions about my bootless cries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know mine is voice in the wilderness calling for the way of justice to be made as once prophesied.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is November doomed to be the cruelest month of all?</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As I remember the Meles Massacres of November 2005, I remember the innocent victims of EVIL in Paris.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In April 2015, the apotheosis of <a href="http://almariam.com/2015/04/26/ethiopia-cry-once-again-our-beloved-country/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">EVIL</a> which calls itself “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) (also known as Islamic State of Iraq and (Syria) al-Sham (ISIS)) in Libya” beheaded 30 Ethiopian refugees in Libya.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On Friday November 13, 2015, the same ISIL massacred and injured hundreds of innocent people in Paris.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">ISIL said it was defending Islam by massacring innocent French citizens and people from 15 countries who happened to be in Paris.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">To paraphrase Shakespeare, “The devil can cite the Ko’ran for his purpose.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember and pray for the innocent victims of ISIL in Paris and for the Ethiopian victims beheaded by ISIL in Libya.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I also remember November 1938, the Night of Broken Glass when EVIL showed its ugly face to the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On 9-10 November 1938, the Nazis killed nearly 100 innocent Jewish people and arrested and deported 30,000 others.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Nazis burned thousands of Jewish synagogues and businesses. That was Krystallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). It was the forerunner to the Jewish Holocaust.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who remembers the victims of Krystallnacht?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it,” cautioned Albert Einstein.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I would say Ethiopia is a dangerous place to live, not because of the evil rulers, but because of Ethiopian inside Ethiopia and the Diaspora don’t do anything about it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">EVIL must never be allowed to prevail in November, December, October, September…</span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Oh! Cruel is the month of November.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In the melancholy verse of Thomas Hood:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No comfortable feel in any member–</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">November!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In my own free verse, “No Justice for the Victims of the Meles Massacres of November”:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No justice for the hundreds Meles massacred,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No redress for the countless men, women and children,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No restitution for the survivors or victims’ families.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No reprieve for the tens of thousands illegally jailed,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No trace of those who disappeared,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No atonement for the Meles crimes of September, October, November, December….</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No absolution for the Meles slaughter of November…,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No repeat of November,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">November is to remember.</span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember because I cannot and will not forget! Never!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the victims of the 2005 Meles Massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember each and every one of them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They are not numbers for me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For me, each individual Meles and his T-TPLF gang massacred and maimed is special.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the young women who will never get to be mothers.</span></div>
<div style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px none; list-style: none; outline: none; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the young men who will never get to be fathers.</span></div>
<div style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px none; list-style: none; outline: none; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the orphans whose parents were massacred.</span></div>
<div style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px none; list-style: none; outline: none; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the fathers and mothers who will never get to see their children and never have a chance to see their grandchildren because Meles and the TPLF massacred them all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I do not forget the criminals in the Meles Massacres.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I do not forget the 237 policemen by name who pulled the trigger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I do not forget the damnable mastermind and the arch criminals who set up the massacres and pulled the fingers of the policemen who pulled the trigger.</span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I will always remember in November, and in December and in January and in February and in April…</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Rebuma E. Ergata, 34, mason; Melesachew D. Alemnew, 16, student; Hadra S. Osman, 22, occup. unknown; Jafar S. Ibrahim, 28, sm. business; Mekonnen, 17, occup. unknown; Woldesemayat, 27, unemployed; Beharu M. Demlew, occup. unknown; Fekade Negash, 25, mechanic; Abraham Yilma, 17, taxi; Yared B. Eshete, 23, sm. business; Kebede W. G. Hiwot, 17, student; Matios G. Filfilu, 14, student;Getnet A. Wedajo, 48, Sm. business; Endalkachew M. Hunde, 18, occup. unknown; Kasim A. Rashid, 21, mechanic; Imam A. Shewmoli, 22, sm. business; Alye Y. Issa, 20, laborer; Samson N. Yakob, 23, pub. trspt.; Alebalew A. Abebe, 18, student; Beleyu B. Za, 18, trspt. asst.; Yusuf A. Jamal, 23, occup. student; Abraham S. W. Agenehu, 23, trspt. asst.; Mohammed H. Beka, 45, farmer; Redela K. Awel, 19, taxi Assit., Habtamu A. Urgaa, 30, sm. Business. Dawit F. Tsegaye, 19, mechanic; Gezahegne M. Geremew, 15, student; Yonas A. Abera, 24, occup. unknown; Girma A. Wolde, 38, driver; W/o Desta U. Birru, 37, sm. business; Legese T. Feyisa, 60, mason; Tesfaye D. Bushra, 19, shoe repairman; Binyam D. Degefa, 18, unemployed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Million K. Robi, 32, trspt. asst.; Derege D. Dene, 24, student; Nebiyu A. Haile, 16, student; Mitiku U. Mwalenda, 24, domestic worker; Anwar K. Surur, 22, sm. business; Niguse Wabegn, 36, domestic worker; Zulfa S. Hasen, 50, housewife; Washun Kebede, 16, student; Ermia F. Ketema, 20, student; 00428, 25, occup. unknown; 00429, 26, occup. unknown; 00430, 30, occup. unknown; Adissu Belachew, 25, occup. unknown; Demeke K. Abebe,uk, occup. unknown; 00432, 22, occup. unknown; 00450, 20, occup. unknown; 13903, 25, occup. unknown; 00435, 30, occup. unknown. 13906, 25, occup. unknown; Temam Muktar, 25, occup. unknown; Beyne N. Beza, 25, occup. unknown; Wesen Asefa, 25, occup. unknown; Abebe Anteneh, 30, occup. unknow; Fekadu Haile, 25, occup. unknow; Elias Golte, uk, occup. unknown; Berhanu A. Werqa, uk, occup. unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Asehber A. Mekuria, uk, occup. unknown; Dawit F. Sema, uk, occup. unknown, Merhatsedk Sirak, 22, occup. unknown; Belete Gashawtena, uk, occup. unknown; Behailu Tesfaye, 20, occup. unknown; 21760, 18, occup. unknown; 21523, 25, occup. unknown; 11657, 24, occup. unknown; 21520, 25, occup. unknown; 21781, 60, occup. unknown; Getachew Azeze, 45, occup. unknown; 21762, 75, occup. unknown; 11662,45, occup. unknown; 21763, 25, occup. unknown; 13087, 30, occup. unknown; 21571, 25, occup. unknown; 21761, 21, occup. unknown; 21569, 25, occup. unknown; 13088, 30, occup. unknown; Endalkachew W. Gabriel, 27, occup. unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam Ambaye, 20, occup. unknown; Mebratu W. Zaudu,27, occup. unknown; Sintayehu E. Beyene, 14, occup. unknown; Tamiru Hailemichael, uk, occup. unknown; Admasu T. Abebe, 45, occup. unknown; Etenesh Yimam, 50, occup. unknown; Werqe Abebe, 19, occup. unknown; Fekadu Degefe, 27, occup. unknown Shemsu Kalid, 25, occup. unknown; Abduwahib Ahmedin, 30, occup. unknown; Takele Debele, 20, occup. unknown, Tadesse Feyisa,38, occup. unknown; Solomon Tesfaye, 25, occup. unknown; Kitaw Werqu, 25, occup. nknown; Endalkachew Worqu, 25, occup. unknow; Desta A. Negash, 30, occup. unknown; Yilef Nega, 15, occup. unknown; Yohannes Haile, 20, occup. unknown; Behailu T. Berhanu, 30, occup. unknown; Mulu K. Soresa, 50, housewife, Teodros Gidey Hailu, 23, shoe salesman; Dejene Yilma Gebre, 18, store worker; Ougahun Woldegebriel, 18, student; Dereje Mamo Hasen, 27, carpenter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Regassa G. Feyisa, 55, laundry worker; Teodros Gebrewold, 28, private business; Mekonne D. G.Egziaber, 20, mechanic; Elias G. Giorgis, 23, student; Abram A. Mekonnen, 21, laborer; Tiruwerq G.Tsadik, 41, housewife; Henok H. Mekonnen; 28, occup. unknown; Getu S. Mereta, 24, occup. unknown;W/o Kibnesh Meke Tadesse, 52, occup. unknown; Messay A. Sitotaw, 29, private business; Mulualem N. Weyisa, 15, Ayalsew Mamo, 23, occup. unknown; Sintayehu Melese, 24, laborer; W/o Tsedale A. Birra, 50, housewife; Abayneh Sara Sede, 35, tailor; Fikremariam K. Telila, 18, chauffer; Alemayehu Gerba, 26, occup. unknown; George G. Abebe,36, private trspt.; Habtamu Zegeye Tola, 16, student; Mitiku Z. G. Selassie, 24, student; Tezazu W. Mekruia, 24, private business; Fikadu A. Dalige, 36, tailor; Shewaga B. W.Giorgis, 38, laborer; Alemayehu E. Zewde, 32, textile worker; Zelalem K. G.Tsadik, 31, taxi driver; Mekoya M. Tadesse, 19, student; Hayleye G. Hussien, 19, student; W/o Fiseha T. G.Tsadik, 23, police employee; Wegayehu Z. Argaw, 26, unemployed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Melaku M. Kebede, 19, occup. unknown; Abayneh D. Orra, 25, tailor; W/o Abebch B. Holetu, 50, housewife; Demeke A. Jenbere, 30, farmer; Kinde M. Weresu, 22, unemployed; Endale A. G.Medhin, 23, private business; Alemayehu T. Wolde,24, teacher; Bisrat T. Demisse, 24, car importer; Mesfin H. Giorgis, 23, private business, Welio H. Dari, 18, private business, Behailu G. G.Medhin, 20, private business; Siraj Nuri Sayed, 18, student; Iyob G.Medhin, 25, student; Daniel W. Mulugeta,25, laborer; Teodros K. Degefa,25, shoe factory worker; Gashaw T. Mulugeta, 24, student; Kebede B. Orke, 22, student; Lechisa K. Fatasa, 21, student; Jagama B. Besha,20, student; Debela O. Guta, 15, student; Melaku T. Feyisa, 16, student; W/o Elfnesh Tekle, 45, occup. unknown; Hassen Dula, 64, occup. unknown; Hussien Hassen Dula, 25, occup. unknown; Dejene Demisse,15, occup. unknown; Name unknown; Name unknown; Name unknown; Zemedkun Agdew, 18, occup. unknown; Getachew A. Terefe, 16, occup. unknown; Delelegn K. Alemu, 20, occup. unknown; Yusef M. Oumer,20, occup. unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Mekruria T. Tebedge, 22, occup. unknown; Bademe M. Teshamahu, 20, occup. unknown; Ambaw Getahun,38, occup. unknown; Teshome A. Kidane, 65, health worker; Yosef M. Regassa, uk, occup. unknown; Abiyu Negussie, uk, occup. uk; Tadele S. Behaga,uk, occup. unknown; Efrem T. Shafi,uk, occup. unknown; Abebe H. Hama, uk, occup. unknown; Gebre Molla, uk, occup. unknown; Seydeen Nurudeen, uk, occup. unknown; Eneyew G. Tsegaye, 32, trspt. asst; Abdurahman H. Ferej, 32, wood worker; Ambaw L. Bitul, 60, leather factory worker; Abdulmenan Hussien, 28, private business; Jigsa T. Setegn, 18, student; Asefa A. Negassa, 33, carpenter; Ketema K. Unko, 23, tailor; Kibret E. Elfneh, 48, private guard; Iyob G. Zemedkun, 24, private business; Tesfaye B. Megesha,15, private business; Capt. Debesa S. Tolosa, 58, private business;Tinsae M. Zegeye,14, tailor;Kidana G. Shukrow,25, laborer;Andualem Shibelew, 16, student; Adissu D. Tesfahun, 19, private business; Kassa Beyene Yror,28, clothes sales; Yitagesu Sisay,22, occup. unknown; Unknown, 22, occup. unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Police and security officers killed by friendly fire (security officers killed in each other’s crossfire): Nega Gebre, Jebena Desalegn, Mulita Irko, Yohannes Solomon, Ashenafi Desalegn, Feyisa Gebremenfes.</span></div>
</blockquote>
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<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember the massacres inside Kaliti Prison on November 2, 2005: </span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teyib Shemsu Mohammed, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Sali Kebede, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Sefiw Endrias Tafesse Woreda, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Zegeye Tenkolu Belay, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Biyadgligne Tamene, age unknown, male, charges unknown. Gebre Mesfin Dagne, age unknown, male, charges unknown. Bekele Abraham Taye, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Abesha Guta Mola, age unknown, male, charges unknown. Kurfa Melka Telila, convicted of making threats. Begashaw Terefe Gudeta, age unknown, male, charged with brawling [breach of peace]. Abdulwehab Ahmedin, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Tesfaye Abiy Mulugeta, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Adane Bireda, age unknown, male, charged with murder. Yirdaw Kersema, age unknown, male, no charges indicated.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Balcha Alemu Regassa, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Abush Belew Wodajo, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Waleligne Tamire Belay, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Cherinet Haile Tolla, age unknown, male, convicted of robbery. Temam Shemsu Gole, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Gebeyehu Bekele Alene, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Daniel Taye Leku, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Mohammed Tuji Kene, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Abdu Nejib Nur, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Yemataw Serbelo, charged with rape. Fikru Natna’el Sewneh, age unknown, male, charged with making threats. Munir Kelil Adem, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Haimanot Bedlu Teshome, age unknown, male, convicted of infringement. esfaye Kibrom Tekne, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Workneh Teferra Hunde, age unknown, male, no charges indicated.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sisay Mitiku Hunegne, charged with fraud. Muluneh Aynalem Mamo, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Taddese Rufe Yeneneh, charged with making threats. Anteneh Beyecha Qebeta, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Zerihun Meresa, age unknown, male, convicted of damage to property. Wogayehu Zerihun Argaw, charged with robbery. Bekelkay Tamiru, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Yeraswork Anteneh, age unknown, male, charged with fraud. Bazezew Berhanu, age unknown, male, charged with engaging in homosexual act. Solomon Iyob Guta, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Asayu Mitiku Arage, age unknown, male, charged with making threats. Game Hailu Zeye, age unknown, male, charged with brawling [public disorder] Maru Enawgaw Dinbere, age unknown, male, charged with rape. Ejigu Minale, age unknown, male, charged with attempted murder. Hailu Bosne Habib, age unknown, male, convicted of providing sanctuary. Tilahun Meseret, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Negusse Belayneh, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Ashenafi Abebaw, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Feleke Dinke, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Jenbere Dinkineh Bilew, age unknown, male, charged with brawling [public disorder].</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Tolesa Worku Debebe, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Mekasha Belayneh Tamiru, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Yifru Aderaw, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Fantahun Dagne, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Tibebe Wakene Tufa, age unknown, male, charged with instigating armed insurrection. Solomon Gebre Amlak, age unknown, male, charged with hooliganism. Banjaw Chuchu Kassahun, age unknown, male, charged with robbery. Demeke Abeje, age unknown, male, charged with attempted murder. 58. Endale Ewnetu Mengiste, age unknown, male, no charges indicated. Alemayehu Garba, age unknown, male, detained in connection with Addis Ababa University student demonstration in 2004. Morkota Edosa, age unknown, male, no charges indicated.</span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/2011/11/19/patriot_yenesew_gebre_give_me_liberty_or_give_me_death" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">I remember Yenesew Gebre</a>.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;">On 11/11/11, Yenesew Gebre, a </span>29 year-old<span style="line-height: 1.5;"> Ethiopian school teacher </span>and</span></div>
<img alt="Yenesew" class="alignleft" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEifTpcMFSXj0qblYemqBg62Ehbxc_TBXudC9QEN8lmyjwhNZxv_ImIiJPpd8-Q3vvOwSgPuJYgmMYB3_YaNxmBX5bD8yQrDCyYhSThkw8wgojz1FqTdY-kl0v0cXcmXXR0DnY_Jfhyphenhypheni6R8sXLhu4apb0MGPQ_a4a8nsmwLFt8rw4zj6l97LcqM0nhGvESf2U2-2sgmHJw8=s0-d-e1-ft&f7eebf" style="border: 1px solid rgb(203, 205, 204); display: inline; float: left; height: auto; list-style: none; margin: 2px 8px 3px 3px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px; text-align: justify;" width="300" /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">human<span style="line-height: 1.5;"> rights activist set himself ablaze outside a public meeting hall in the town of </span>Tarcha<span style="line-height: 1.5;"> located in Dawro Zone in Southern Ethiopia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Yenesew died three days later from his injuries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Before torching himself, Yenesew told a gathered crowd outside of a meeting hall:</span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“In a country where there is no justice and no fair administration, where human rights are not respected, I will sacrifice myself so that these young people will be set free.”</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hannah Arendt spoke of the “banality of evil”, the evil committed by ordinary people in the name of the state, in the name of religion, ideology…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am more concerned about the ephemerality of evil that spawns indifference.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In our time, an act of supreme evil in our conscience has the shelf life of an ice cube in the hot sun.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We are desensitized to evil.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We are shocked but for a day; we wait stoically for the next act of evil.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We have become indifferent to evil. Evil has sapped our moral energy. Evil has enervated our souls.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We no longer have the energy to explode in moral outrage.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Indifference has been the death of moral outrage.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On the ashes of moral outrage stands EVIL triumphant.</span></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">SPEAK UP! SILENCE IS TO EVIL AS SUGAR IS TO CANCER</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Solzhenitsyn is right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When we keep silent about the EVIL of the T-TPLF and its leaders, supporters and cronies, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Solzhenitsyn is right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When we neither punish nor reproach the T-TPLF evildoers, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Solzhenitsyn is right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Young people are acquiring the conviction that foul deeds are never punished on earth, that they always bring prosperity. They are growing up indifferent.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Many young Ethiopians are acquiring the conviction that the foul deeds of the T-TPLF leaders, supporters and cronies are never punished on earth and following their always bring prosperity. Young Ethiopians are growing up indifferent.</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As Soviet Russia was an open air Gulag for its people, I believe Ethiopia under the T-TPLF is an open air Gulag for 100 million Ethiopians.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Like Soviet Russia, under the T-TPLF rule, “it is going to be uncomfortable, horrible, to live in such a country!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“It is for this reason” that Yenesew Gebre ended his life with the following words: “In a country where there is no justice and no fair administration, where human rights are not respected, I will sacrifice myself so that these young people will be set free.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">May the victims of the Meles Massacres of 2005 rest in peace.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">May their murderers live forever looking over their shoulders in fear that the hand of justice will one day grab them by the collar.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">DO <u style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">YOU</u> REMEMBER THE VICITMS OF THE MELES MASSACRES OF 2005?</strong><strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"> </strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong style="border: 0px none; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"> </strong>======================</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;">[1] For additional data on the victims of the Meles Massacres, see Testimony of Yared Hailemariam, Ethiopian Human Rights Defender, “</span><a href="http://ethiomedia.com/carepress/yared_testimony.pdf" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px none; line-height: 1.5; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY IN ETHIOPIA: THE ADDIS ABABA MASSACRES OF JUNE AND NOVEMBER 2005</a><span style="line-height: 1.5;">” before the EXTRAORDINARY JOINT COMMITTEE MEETING THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES ON DEVELOPMENT AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND SUB-COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS May 15, 2006.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="color: white;">[2] The Commission’s list of 193 victims includes only those deaths that occurred on June 6-8 and November 1-4, 2005, the specific dates the Commission was authorized to investigate. The Commission has an additional list of victims of extra-judicial killings by regime police and security forces which it did not publicly report because the killings occurred outside the dates the Commission was authorized to investigate.</span></span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-44310424534431649972015-09-15T10:27:00.004-07:002015-09-15T10:27:59.778-07:00The betrayal by Mola Asgedom and the way I do look at it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by T. Goshu</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">1.</strong><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"> Carne Ross, in his book, The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in this 21st Century (2011) says,</span><strong style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><em>“When confronted by danger and unfathomable challenge, as we surely are, only then are we truly alive.”</em></strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Though the book is about the very indispensable role of the majority of people of the world in the struggle for bringing about fair and just political-economies, it strongly underscores that this highly desirable objective for genuine prevalence of the well-being of the people is not realizable without the roles to be played by genuinely concerned individuals, by all the people as citizens of each country, and by all truly concerned members of the larger community of the world. It is self-evidently true that this powerfully stated argument by Ross strongly reflects our own political and socio-economic reality of which we have gone through for the last quarter of a century and we still are going through.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Yes, in the faces of all the dangers and incredible challenges we continued to encounter, those truly heroic and patriotic Ethiopians are striving not only to make sure that they all are alive but most importantly they are alive as determined as ever to end the politics of ethnic division and hatred, state –terror, national disgrace, unprecedented moral degradation, the demise of justice, and the political culture of committing betrayal after betrayal motivated by very beast-like personal interests , in one way or another, like the case of Molla Asgedom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When it comes to the case of Molla Asgedom, it is fair to say that in order to draw objectively convincing understanding and conclusion, there is a need to wait for detailed and well-organized information. But, I do not think it is neither wrong nor a matter of mere speculation to express how we look at these kinds of happenings which are of course parts of our political culture of pursuing for personal or group interest over the principles we claim we do stand for. The worst side of these kinds of political personalities is that whenever we feel that the obsession of getting our egos satisfied are challenged, we do not even question ourselves about the steps we need to consider, the direction we need to take, and any other political entity we may need to realign ourselves. We just run to any political force we believe it could help us to attack if not destroy those opposition forces and friends who we believe are to be challenges to exercise our hidden and voracious self-interest over the principles we did swear to stand for. And it is this extremely self-damaging or self-spoiling political personality that surrenders itself to the ethno-centric tyrannical ruling circle that has no any hesitation to use any brutal means including its killing machine whenever it feels that its power is challenged. I would say that the case of Molla Asgedom, in one way or another, would not be an exception to this very unfortunate political reality in our country.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As any genuinely concerned ordinary Ethiopian who closely follows the political reality in our country, I would say that the betrayal by Molla Asgedom of which I strongly believe that though we cannot disregard other grounds such as the work of TPLF, I would say (at this stage of the story) that it looks very likely that it was motivated by a very wildly inflated personal aspiration to be the <strong>“very top victorious king of this generation”</strong>. I wish it could be motivated by any other genuinely justifiable ground and I could be stupidly wrong. But I do not think that would be the way it happened. It is from this angle of understanding of mine that I strongly argue that this is the case that must be understood critically, rationally and wisely, and should be dealt with accordingly. I hate to say but I have to say that if we once again get ourselves trapped by this neither surprising nor uncommon fever of political unhealthiness instead of dealing with it critically, rationally and wisely in such a way that we could move the struggle forward in a much more refined and resilient manner, we must remind ourselves that we are moving to a self-defeating destiny, and subsequently allow the evil-driven political agenda and practice of ethno-centric ruling circle (TPLF) to perpetuate its power by employing any brutal means beyond we may expect.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">I quite reasonably believe that although this type phenomenon is something that should not be taken as simple as anything, it is neither surprising nor exceptionally alarming nor something to cause panicking. Needless to say, this type of happening is one of the most notoriously ugly part of a political struggle for freedom and justice in general and that of ours in particular that cannot totally be avoided, but should be dealt with rationally, curiously and above all wisely. This is because we need to minimize harmful consequences significantly, if not to put under control.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Let me once again underscore that if we terribly fall into the very stupid/idiotic rhetoric of “it was better not to negotiate and agree to merge with this or that political entity” as some notoriously and senselessly nagging fellow Ethiopians do, we have to admit that we are not people of political animals let alone politicians in the real sense of the term. Put simply, if we allow ourselves to remain with this delusional political sentiment, it is we ourselves who are terribly wrong , not individuals such as Molla Asgedom who committed betrayal to his friends of freedom fighters and joined his ‘God-father’, TPLF.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>2.</strong> It goes without saying that we as Ethiopians whose history of wars against fascism and other external invaders had never been free from individuals who had committed notorious crimes of betrayal and treason to their own country and their own fellow patriots , not only the case of Molla Asgedom but also many other similar cases , especially during the last two decades cannot be taken as if the sky is falling on us as some fellow Ethiopians who are stupidly driven by their own notoriously voracious ego-centrism want to tell ( better to say fool) us .</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wonder when some fellow Ethiopians including those who claim themselves belonging to a social group of “Intellectualism” and being knowledgeable enough about Ethiopian political history and the on-going political reality trying to use the challenges we face such as the case of Molla Agendum to justify their clumsy arguments against getting the struggle for freedom and justice organized in Eritrea and launching its operation from there. I do not know how the political mentality of “don’t try it with those who did wrong in the past as if politics is doing things whenever things are friendly fantastic” does make sense in the real world we deal with let alone our own political arena which is characterized by a very complex and extremely challenging human behavior. It is totally absurd if not idiotic not only not to recognize the dynamic nature of political behavior and practice but also standing against something without any other more credible and feasible alternative. Author Ross is realistically right when he says, <strong><em>“Even failure is better than acquiescence.”</em></strong> Yes, if we consider ourselves as politicians or as genuinely concerned individuals or groupings who believe that negotiations and agreements are without challenges that may go to the extent of what Molla Asgedom did, we should be terribly naïve, or else intentionally spoiling factors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We are reading and hearing from the writings and voices of some fellow Ethiopians that the sky is falling kind of declaration as if it was Molla Asgedom and those who accompanied him who were firmly holding the sky from falling. I hate to say but I have to say that those, not many fellow Ethiopians in the diaspora, and particularly in North America are those who terribly suffer from serious conflicts within their own personalities or state of minds. I am saying this not because I am intended to attack them personally. Absolutely not! What I am trying to reflect is that although I agree that they should not be given attention they do not deserve, their very idiotic political mentality should cannot be ignored, but should be dealt with appropriately. Because the very mentality of seeking for self- satisfaction by watching the on-going struggle for freedom and justice in which they could not be planners, strategists and captains falling apart cannot be taken as simple as anything. I do argue that as far as our political history or experience is concerned, those cynically conspiratorial fellow Ethiopians were and still are among the most damaging factors in the process of the struggles for bringing about genuine freedom and justice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">And at this critical moment in time, they must straight-forwardly but rationally be reminded that they cannot keep playing their stupid political game in the name of being concerned about what the renegade Molla Asgedom did. They must unequivocally be reminded to honestly ask themselves if their empty – noise making, no sensibly substantiated and alternative deliberation does really make sense. Here is what Author Ross once again has to say about the stupidity of putting ourselves in a ‘mental cage’, <strong><em>“Wall surrounds our imagination, we can see nothing beyond, and dare not even conceive it. We have been numbed into inaction.”</em></strong> Unless we want to be dishonest with ourselves, this is a powerful reflection of our own political mentalities and behaviors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am not bring up this kind of madness of those fellow Ethiopians with the intention of provoking unnecessary and unproductive argument or conversation that is bound to wasting time and energy while there are multiple of big, serious and extremely urgent issues to be dealt with. But to express my sincere concern that those fellowmen/women cannot totally be ignored as these types of notoriously damaging behaviors , in one way or another, do play their own destructive role as far the struggle to shorten the ethno-centric tyranny in our country is concerned. My concern? As I mentioned earlier, the voices we hear and the wringing we read from those few fellow Ethiopians about the betrayal by Molla Asgedom are devoid of rationally and critically constructive a swell as solution-oriented way of thinking. They instead are full of the same notoriously redundant rhetoric of, “it does not work through Eritrea, the reason being Prsident Isaias (Shsbia) is our historical enemy and it has done this and that to some members of Ethiopian opposition forces.” Leaving aside the very nagging rhetoric of anti- political dynamism, if something terrible has been or is being done to those said members of Ethiopian opposition forces deliberately by the government of Eritrea, let us know what happened, why it happened, how it happened, who actually did it, and etc. in concrete terms as much as possible and hold the Eritrean government responsible and accountable. One more thing to be noted is that even if the things we are talking would be cases to be taken seriously, I do not know how using Eritrea as an organizing and preparatory ground for the struggle to get rid of the ethno-centric tyranny in our country, and dealing with all other concerns we may have with the Eritrean government accordingly is something out rightly be rejected or condemned.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Now, the people of Ethiopia are in a situation and time where they are decisively against to remain being victims of those who are the direct or indirect carriers of the deadly political virus of the inner circle of TPLF/EPRDF. The people are sick and tired of those individuals who continued allowing themselves to suffer from the political mentality of “if I am not the Machiavelli of it, let any movement terribly fail regardless of the question of whether the very objective it stands for is just and legitimate or not.” They (the people of Ethiopia) have gone through more than enough experiences of this type of very ugly political behavior which of course emanates from notoriously distorted state of political sentiment. And now, it is time to break the cycle. No matter who defects and joins TPLF such as the case of Molla Asgedom, the very momentum and destiny of the struggle which is being led by remarkably heroic and patriotic Ethiopians and unprecedentedly being taken care of by the people themselves will never and never be significantly slow down let alone reversed. And this is not because we do like it or do not like it; but it is because the objective and subjective reality of the relationship between the ethno-centric tyrannical ruling circle and the unprecedentedly dehumanized people of Ethiopia has reached at a point where things cannot go beyond except making the victory of freedom over enslavement happen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Needless to say, if we Ethiopians who are among those people of the world who are politically dehumanized and socio-economically devastated in this 21st century should not be willing and able to be parts of the struggle that is destined to the realization of freedom, justice and human dignity; it is extremely hard to comprehend who else could be. Ross says, <strong><em>“The choice will become clear; to cede our voice to those louder, to watch while governments, criminal networks, corruptions, joust control; or to join the battle for freedom over slavery.”</em></strong> True, the choice is ours as a people who desperately aspire for a political system in which we could live with freedom, peace and dignified life.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ross further argues that, <em><strong>“No longer a life of mere silent acceptance, but instead the imagining and construction of a true and direct democracy of the people, a vibrant but just economy and, with these prizes, a better world.”</strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let me conclude by saying that as among the people of the world who are politically dehumanized, economically impoverished ,and socially and morally disgraced by our own highly crooked/cynical, notoriously hypocritical and conspiratorial, and above all deadly ruthless ruling elites; the people of Ethiopia will never take any step back from the fight for freedom for the simple reason that individuals such as Molla Asgedom and ‘his guys’ did join the camp that is deadly parasitic and its life span is nearing its dead end. Should we expect the challenge we are facing right now and ahead of us not easy if not tough? Definitely we should. But, one thing should unquestionable be crystal clear ; and that is no matter how the ethno-centric tyrannical ruling circle try any remaining dirty and deadly means at its disposal, 2015/16 is not 2005 .</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-18079770370637808742015-09-09T07:29:00.001-07:002015-09-09T07:29:49.837-07:00EBAC Calls on the Ethiopian People to Reject the Redrawing of Ethiopia’s Border with the Sudan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopian Border Affairs Committee (EBAC)</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">On August 28, 2015, the Governor of Sudan’s Gedaref State, Merghani Salih “called for redrawing borders between the Sudan and Ethiopia.” This call is intended to finalize secret deals that EBAC, in collaboration with Ethiopian opposition political and civic organizations, has rejected numerous times over the past decade. Once again, we are obliged to protest this sinister act by the dictatorial governments of the two countries in the strongest terms. Among other things, ceding Ethiopia’s territories undermines its territorial integrity, sovereignty, security and the legitimate interests of the Ethiopian people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We remind both governments that the respective territorial limits of both countries were defined by the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902 at the turn of the last century when Great Britain was the colonial power </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">administering the Sudan. As is customary in international practice in delimiting national boundaries, the treaty provided for the setting up of a Joint Boundary Commission to be appointed by both sides to carry out the actual demarcation of the boundary on the ground. Upon completion of the demarcation process both parties were required to notify their citizens of the boundary as demarcated. This has not been done.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">EBAC has provided documentary evidence numerous times that, despite the clear mandate of these undertakings, the treaty has remained a dead letter for over a century and, as a consequence, the boundary between the two countries has never been demarcated by a joint commission. Contrary to both the spirit and letter of the provisions of the treaty, Great Britain appointed its own officer, Major Charles W. Gwynn, to unilaterally and arbitrarily demarcate the boundary without the knowledge and the participation of Ethiopian boundary commissioners. In the event, the demarcation line which resulted from this high-handed exercise greatly favored the Sudan while causing Ethiopia to suffer a corresponding amount of territorial loss. This was vividly affirmed by the words of Major Gwynn when he testified on his report by saying, “I acted ultra vires”, meaning, “I acted beyond my power”, referring to his give-away of vast lands to the Sudan on top of his unilateral demarcation of the border without including the Ethiopians by violating the mutual agreed border treaty signed between Ethiopia and Great Britain. Hence, the current call for “redrawing the borders” is tantamount to accepting the Sudanese claim that the unilateral demarcation undertaken by the British has validity. Our contention is that no such validity exists.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Until the current dictatorship took power in Ethiopia, successive Ethiopian governments had been consistent and unequivocal in rejecting the validity of Sudan’s claims. Instead, these governments had called for a negotiated settlement of the boundary on the basis of the original treaty with the full knowledge, participation and consent of peoples likely to be affected by the demarcation line. The current government of Ethiopia has no right to subvert and undermine this long standing position. EBAC continues to argue that the international political system grants a considerable degree of importance to rights in respect of territory. The function of a boundary between states is the attribution of territory and, thus, the extent of a state’s territorial sovereignty. When the extent and limits of a state’s territorial sovereignty are determined solely and arbitrarily by one state with the collusion of a non-representative and illegitimate state to the detriment of Ethiopia, the boundary so determined becomes an enduring source of friction and tension between the adjoining states that neither the Sudan nor Ethiopia can afford. Redrawing the border at enormous costs to the Ethiopian people will inevitably cause permanent discord and lead to more instability in the region.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">EBAC believes that neither the government of the Sudan nor the government of Ethiopia has legitimacy and legal credentials to make the secret deals that we have exposed and protested numerous times. In this regard, we call on the Ethiopian people to be vigilant and to reject the “redrawing” of their country’s borders conducted under duress and without their knowledge, participation and consent. The amount of fertile farmlands, rivers basins, mountains and hills, flora and fauna and other natural resources involved are substantial. These illegal transfers will affect Ethiopia’s 100 million people adversely and permanently. Indigenous people whose livelihoods depend on the security of these lands will end up poor and landless. No Ethiopian government can afford to sacrifice, dispossess and marginalize its own citizens in order to reward its Sudanese benefactors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On the basis of the Sudanese press and Ethiopian sources, EBAC has pointed out repeatedly that, under the secretly-negotiated and concluded deals between the President of the Sudan and the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, huge swathes of our ancestral lands will be ceded to the Sudan. The Ethiopian people received these reports with utter disbelief, resentment and anger against their own government and will continue to reject their implementation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Neither the current generation of Ethiopians nor those of future generations will allow the deal to stand. “Redrawing” our country’s borders without the consent and participation of the Ethiopian people constitutes a serious violation of the treaty regime set up at the turn of the century. It is an affront to the sacrifices of past generations of Ethiopians who struggled hard to preserve the territorial integrity of their country. As we said above, thousands of our people will be forced to lose their homes, farms and investments if the border deal is implemented without their participation and consent. On our part, we call on the Ethiopian people to hold their government accountable for this treachery.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">EBAC has sent a formal letter of protest to the Secretary General of the United Nations and to the Head of the African Union rejecting the demarcation and the “redrawing” process. We have alerted the global community that the border deal of today hatched by unelected elites will be the ticking bomb of tomorrow. Since it has neither support in law nor received the consent of the Ethiopian people, it will be a major source of friction and tension between the brotherly peoples of Ethiopia and the Sudan. The Horn of Africa is home to several failed states; it does not need an additional source of insecurity and instability beyond those that already plague the region.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">EBAC is compelled to state clearly that the government of Ethiopia has a choice. It can forestall the dangerous situation of “redrawing” Ethiopia’s border with the Sudan and honor Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and national interests; or accept responsibility and accountability for the disastrous consequences that will follow for generations to come. In this regard, we urge Ethiopia’s Defense Forces to side with the Ethiopian people and defend their lands and borders.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Last and most important, EBAC should like to go on record as asserting Ethiopia’s right to territorial sovereignty as defined by treaty – and not any other agreement that is reached behind the back of the Ethiopian people. EBAC reserves the right to not honor any boundary that results from the agreement of an unelected government that is devoid of any support or legitimacy among its own people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">EBAC also urges all Ethiopians within and outside the country to voice their rejection of the ceding of Ethiopian territory to the Sudanese government.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We never compromise with our territorial integrity and sovereignty!</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Long Live Ethiopia!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopian Border Affairs Committee</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">P. O. Box 9536</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Columbus, OH 43209 USA</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">ethiopianborders@gmail.co</span><span style="background-color: white;">m</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-12586248379808353062015-09-07T08:34:00.000-07:002015-09-07T08:34:18.509-07:00Let Teddy Afro Play On and On and On…<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; word-spacing: 0.2em;">September 07, 2015</span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Alemayehu G. Mariam</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” opens with the Duke of Orsino declaring to the assembled musicians, “If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it…</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) has pulled out all the stops to stop Teddy Afro (Tewodros Kassahun) from playing on his music of love; his music of joy and celebration that has been soul food for millions of Ethiopians for so long.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF is making Teddy’s life as miserable as their own. “Misery loves company.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Teddy is not about misery. He is about joy and cheerfulness.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He is of no use to the T-TPLF. He does not sing songs of misery.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy is incapable of singing T-TPLF songs: songs of hate, songs of revenge, songs of injustice and songs of bitterness and acrimony.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He sings happy songs, love songs, songs of peace, songs of unity, songs of love of country and continent, songs of Ethiopianity, songs of Africanity and songs of humanity. That’s all he can sing as a musician. Love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is an old saying that some people are born to hate, others destined to love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy was born and destined to spread the gospel of victory in love.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Why do they want to drive Teddy out of his beloved Ethiopia?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">According to recent online <a href="https://goo.gl/qINv11" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">reports</a> (in Amharic), the T-TPLF is determined to drive Teddy into exile or worse.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For years, the T-TPLF has been waging psychological, legal and economic warfare against Teddy in the hope of forcing to leave the country he loves.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They have tried to vilify, demoralize and humiliate him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2008, the T-TPLF arrested Teddy on a trumped up charge of hit-and-run resulting in a fatality.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He was brought before a T-TPLF kangaroo/monkey kriminal kourt and railroaded to prison for six years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">His sentence was commuted to two years and released early for good behavior.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wrote a commentary entitled “<a href="http://www.ethiomedia.com/accent/teddy_ballad.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Artist as Hero: The Ballad of Teddy Afro</a>”, examining the alleged evidence against him in the hit-and-run case and enumerating the real reasons for his imprisonment by the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When Teddy released his album “Tikur Sew” in 2012, the T-TPLF got its vilification campaign in high gear.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Using faceless drones hiding behind Facebook and other social media, the T-TPLF unleashed a clever social media smear campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF trolls took to cyberspace claiming Teddy musically glorified Ethiopia’s 19<sup>th</sup> century Emperor Menelik II as a champion of African dignity and liberation when he was allegedly a ruthless conqueror.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Of course, that was all a load of crap since Teddy lionized other prominent Ethiopian heroes from all ethnic groups who shed their blood to defend Ethiopia’s sovereignty and dignity in his album.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In December 2013, the T-TPLF orchestrated another campaign behind the scenes to demonize, smear, tar and feather Teddy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They hatched out a propaganda campaign around a single statement he allegedly made: “For me, Menelik’s unification campaign was a Holy War”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF distorted and twisted the alleged phrase “Holy War” as genocide. They sought to imply Teddy in his music glorifies those who have committed genocide in Ethiopian history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The overt purpose of the campaign was to demonize Emperor Menelik by demonizing Teddy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Of course, that was total bull.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The hidden and real purpose in the campaign was to mask the record of the T-TPLF’s late genocidal leader Meles Zenawi, who personally ordered the shooting and killing of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators following the 2005 elections.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As a result of the T-TPLF fabricated controversy, Teddy lost his concert tour contract with Bedele Beer, then freshly acquired by the Dutch company Heineken.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2014, the T-TPLF tried to jail Teddy again on “<a href="http://www.ethiopiaobserver.com/teddy-afro-out-on-bail/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">tax evasion</a> charges.” It was alleged that he had not paid tariff when he imported a vehicle 7 or 8 years earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In an act of extraordinary courage, the “court refused to grant police more days to investigate the (tax) case and the judge said there was no need to keep him in jail to conduct the investigation.” (A judge with balls standing up to the T-TPLF?!)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2015, T-TPLF goons are tailing Teddy everywhere he goes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When he goes to visit his mother, a platoon of hound dog goons follows him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When he goes about town, he is tracked by a motorcade of brutes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Plainclothes thugs are breathing down his neck. They stop him randomly in the streets and harass him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">His phones are tapped.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">His house is under continuous surveillance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He has been summoned and threatened with prosecution in T-TPLF kangaroo kriminal kourts (KKK).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF continues to use its FM stations to spread propaganda to destroy Teddy financially and soil his popular image.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They continue to scandalize his name. They defame and slander him with impunity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They have blackballed him making it extraordinarily difficult to earn a living inside or outside the country.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When Teddy’s wife was travelling to Kenya for medical treatment recently, the T-TPLF recalled the plane, manhandled Teddy out and dragged him around like a stowaway in full public view.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Time and again, the T-TPLF has acted to humiliate and demoralize Teddy and show him they are his masters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Love Supreme is the only master Teddy has!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF constantly harasses Teddy because he is not playing and dancing to their music and drumbeats of hate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That’s why they want him driven into exile.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Teddy has stayed. He ain’t going nowhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He chooses to live in chains under tyranny than live in freedom in a foreign land. That is the true mark of the patriot!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As they say, when the _ _ _ _ hits the fan, some people run, and some people stay.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy stayed to face the T-TPLF fire.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF really hates Teddy for lionizing Ethiopia’s Emperors Menelik and Haile Selassie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF leaders and members believe Menelik’s (and Haile Selassie’s) unsurpassed accomplishments dwarf their late master’s contrived accomplishments as I demonstrated in my commentary, “<a href="http://ecadforum.com/2014/01/13/demonizing-ethiopian-history/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Demonizing Ethiopian History</a>.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If Teddy had sung songs about the late Meles Zenawi and his henchmen, would the T-TPLF have orchestrated vicious and relentless attacks and persecutions on him?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If Teddy had lionized hyenas, as it were, would the hyenas have complained of being lionized?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If Teddy had sung a song which exalted Meles Zenawi as the “father of modern Africa”, would he have been smeared, tarred and feathered?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t want to insult Teddy but if he had worn a T-shirt bearing the image of Meles Zenawi at his concerts, would he have been harassed by the T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Despite relentless persecution and harassment, Teddy Afro has never complained. He just says, “Love conquers all.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sitting in the saddles of power for nearly 25 years, the T-TPLF gloats, “Hate conquers all”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It seems hate has won out, temporarily.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The only thing T-TPLF leaders love is to hate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Teddy is unconcerned. He seems to live out Dr. Martin L. King’s maxim, “Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In other words, “Love conquers all.”</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Why is the T-TPLF afraid of Teddy Afro? Why do they hate Teddy so much!?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let’s settle indisputable facts about Teddy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As a musician, Teddy Afro is peerless! He is incomparable!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He is one of a kind: He is original. His lyrics are sublime and uplifting. His melodies are pure ecstasy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy Afro is a musical genius. Straight up! No questions! None!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy Afro is also a thoughtful, caring, compassionate and insightful human being.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He teaches his life’s philosophy in all of his songs. That philosophy could be summarized in three words: “Love conquers all.” That is it! Nothing more.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy sings about forgiveness and reconciliation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He sings of love of country and continent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He sings of ethnic and religious tolerance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He sings of the glory days of Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He sings of Ethiopian heroes who gave up their lives to keep Ethiopia free; free from colonialism; free from foreign domination and free as a sovereign nation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He sings freedom songs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy, like Bob Marley, sings songs of redemption:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Won’t you help to sing/ These songs of freedom?/ ‘Cause all I ever had:/ Redemption songs/ All I ever had: / Redemption songs:/ These songs of freedom,/Songs of freedom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Redemption songs are all Teddy has.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy calls it, “Ethiopia’s Tensae” (“Ethiopia’s redemption”).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I confess I have no idea why the T-TPLF continues to relentlessly persecute Teddy today.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings the truth?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among those who hate the truth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make mortal enemies among those in whose veins courses hate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about forgiveness?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among those bristling with revenge and vengeance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about reconciliation?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among those whose life’s mission is to divide and misrule.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about the resurrection of Ethiopia?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among the killers of Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about Ethiopian unity?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among those who have chopped up Ethiopia and made it an archipelago of tribes, ethnic groups, religions and regions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about a better future for all Ethiopians?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among those destined for the dustbin of history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about Ethiopia’s former glory?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among inglorious villains, rascals, scoundrels and bush thugs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be because Teddy sings about the natural beauty of Ethiopia and its people?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can understand how he can make enemies among crass and benighted boneheads.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But these are not good reasons to hate or fear Teddy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How is it possible to hate the man whose life’s philosophy and practice is love thy neighbor; love and honor thy country; love thy continent; love and honor thy history; love and honor thy country’s people in their wonderful diversity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How is it possible to hate the messenger of love?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is a special word to describe those who hate love itself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is called “Schadenfreude” (killjoy), a German word that has found its way into the English language to describe people who get supreme pleasure from witnessing the pain, suffering and misfortunes of others. Only haters derive pleasure from the suffering and humiliation of others.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Schadenfreude is a form of sadism in which perpetrators inflict pain, suffering and misfortunes on others and in doing so find joy and self-affirmation for themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For people possessed by the demons of schadenfreude, the grief, sadness and disappointment of others makes them happy; the pain of others makes them joyous; the suffering of others gives them total ecstasy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In other words, they get ultimate joy from hate. That is the true portrait of T-TPLF leaders and members!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They love to hate those who love to love and love love itself.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Consorting with the opposition?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF alleges that Teddy “supports the opposition”. What does that even mean?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Of course, they are trying to suggest Teddy is a politician not a musician.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The day Teddy becomes a politician is the day the T-TPLF embraces genuine (not “We won 100 percent” of the 547-seat kangaroo/monkey parliament) democracy and respects human rights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That will happen exactly on the 12<sup>th</sup> of Never!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF has made “supporting the opposition” a krime in its kangaroo kriminal kourt!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is it not one’s constitutional and human right to support the political party of one’s choice?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Teddy is not a political man. He is THE music man.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The irony is that the T-TPLF wants Teddy to support them politically; to give them money; to idolize them in song, give them publicity and to sing the songs they tell him to sing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy’s response is, “Thanks but no thanks.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The fact of the matter is that Teddy has not done any of the things the T-TPLF wants him to do for any other political organization. Why should he start with the T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF bosses have more money than common sense.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They should chill and listen to the Beatles’ song, “(Money) Can’t buy me love”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Money can’t buy me love/ Can’t buy me love, everybody tells me so/Can’t buy me love, no no no, no…”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF cannot buy the love of the Ethiopian people or Ethiopia’s voice of love for any amount of money!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am Teddy Afro’s No. 1 fan!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have been Teddy Afro’s #1 fan for many years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have crooned and danced to his music. I like the way he infuses Reggae beats into traditional Ethiopian melodies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When he has a concert in my neck of the woods, I join up with all the young people and have a good time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have written about Teddy on various occasions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In my 2010 <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/proud-teddy-at-the-proud_b_448786.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Huffington Post commentary</a>, the first time I saw Teddy performing live, I wrote:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For those us who had never seen Teddy perform live and witnessed the standing-room only crowd go into semi-conscious trance, it was a walk down memory lane. I recall seeing such deep spiritual connection between an artist and his audience decades ago when Bob Marley came to my alma mater, the University of Minnesota, on May 30, 1978 (Kaya Tour) and November 15, 1979 (Survival Tour). Those fortunate enough to have been present at a Bob Marley concert know exactly what I mean.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In June 2014, I called on Ethiopians to <a href="http://ecadforum.com/2014/06/16/why-i-am-boycotting-coca-cola/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">boycott</a> Coca Cola for discriminating against Teddy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Coca Cola commissioned 32 local versions of the 2014 Brazil FIFA World Cup “anthem”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Coca Cola officially released all versions except Teddy Afro’s version. Of course, Coca Cola was ordered by the T-TPLF bosses to drop Teddy’s version.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“That ain’t right but is OK,” as Whitney might have sang it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(I have not (and will never) touched a Coca Cola product to this day! I’d rather go thirsty than drink a Coca Cola product. It is a simple matter of principle for me. I cannot support a global company that practices censorship and discrimination. In my commentary I told Coca Cola to “GO TO HELL!” I hope they have arrived there by now.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy does not sing much in English, but if he had, he would rightly have been recognized the world over as the spiritual reincarnation of Bob Marley, the “King of Reggae”, in Africa. That’s how good Teddy Afro is with his musical craftsmanship, passion and excellence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(I wonder how many people know the word “reggae” is derived from the Latin “regi” meaning “to the king”. “Reggae” music is the “king’s music”.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope the T-TPLF ignoramuses will not drag Teddy into kangaroo kriminal kourt for singing “the king’s” music because he has mentioned Emperors Menelik and Haile Selassie in his lyrics. (For the Rastafari of Jamaica, that would indeed be true.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know Teddy Afro through his music, through his videos, through his concerts, through his interviews online and most of all through his message of love, understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That’s how I became his #1 fan.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In my personal evaluation of Teddy Afro’s work as a musician, I regard him to be more than a pop music star. In my view, he is indeed a musical evangelist for the values and principles of Dr. King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy has my utmost respect, appreciation and admiration. He is truly a beacon of hope, faith, optimism and endurance to his generation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(You know, it just occurred to me!!! Could it be that the T-TPLF is persecuting Teddy Afro because he is a beacon of hope faith, optimism and endurance to his generation?)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The young Ethiopian poet Henok Yeshitela penned a few moving words recently in <a href="http://goo.gl/E9AJaI" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Teddy’s honor</a> in Amharic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wish I could translate it all. Here are just three lines:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Teddy like (King) David</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Anointed with oil from a horn</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">God has blessed him to be a shining light (on darkness)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Amen!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Please, leave Teddy the hell alone!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have said on numerous occasions that preaching the rule of law to the T-TPLF is like preaching Scripture to a gathering of heathen. It is like pouring water on a slab of granite.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let me now say that preaching love, forgiveness and reconciliation to the T-TPLF is like preaching love, forgiveness and reconciliation to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am not asking the T-TPLF to listen to me. They get an earful from me every week.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">All I am asking of the T-TPLF is to listen to Teddy Afro’s music, really listen to his music, the lyrics and melodies and feel the passion and love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I will guarantee that they will be conquered by the love that gushes out of his music; his every note will strike a chord of harmony in their distraught minds; his every beat will beat the hate out of their hearts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">William Congreve, the English playwright and poet wrote, “Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have no doubts the T-TPLF will be charmed, their rock-hard hearts softened, their savage spirits calmed and comforted and their hate knotted hearts unchained if only they really listened to Teddy Afro’s music.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Join us, T-TPLF, and partake of Teddy’s sweet soul (food) music with us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is unlikely we can talk to the T-TPLF in the language of politics, of law or of human rights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But if it is true that music is a universal language, then we may finally be able to talk to the T-TPLF through Teddy Afro’s music.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I can imagine myself talking to the T-TPLF in Teddy’s language: “Jah! Yasteseryal!” (God forgives through atonement.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">T-TPLF brothers! Try and listen, really listen, to Teddy’s songs of love!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You got nothing to lose, but your hate!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If music be the food of love, play on Teddy. Give me excess of it.</span></div>
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<em><strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Love conquers all.” Tewodros Kassahun (Teddy Afro)</span></strong></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Amen!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Teddy, we love you. We respect you. We appreciate you!!!</span></strong></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino.</span></em></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-80509745308297882342015-08-31T02:50:00.003-07:002015-08-31T02:50:30.468-07:00Ethiopia: Is the T-TPLF Ship of Hate Sinking… S.O.S.?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: black;"><i>September 01, 2015</i></span></span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Alemayehu G. Mariam</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is the T-TPLF Ship of Hate (I mean state) sinking in an ocean of fear and loathing?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF is the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front, the ruling criminal enterprise masquerading as a government in Ethiopia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This past May, the T-TPLF claimed to have won 100 percent of the 547 seats in its kangaroo/monkey parliament in a country where the T-TPLF has officially registered some 90 political parties.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But last week, the marionette (puppet) prime minister of the T-TPLF, Hailemariam Desalegn, was not talking like a champion and strutting his stuff like he had won it all by 100 percent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam sounded like he was bleating for help.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Indeed, Hailemariam seemed to be frantically tapping out an S.O.S. (Save Our Ship/Save Our Souls) message.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">…_ _ _ …</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzkh6_2tcD0#t=312" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">came out</a> of nowhere swinging his battle axe against tribalism, communalism, sectarianism, ethnic chauvinism, ethnic division, ethnocentrism, arrogance and narrow-mindedness.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He was like the crazy man swinging a machete at his own shadow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam’s T-TPLF has been investing all of its political capital promoting tribalism, communalism, sectarianism and the rest of it for a quarter of a century to entrench itself in power; and now, they have Hailemariam leading the charge against those allegedly promoting tribalism, communalism, sectarianism?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Listening to Hailemariam pontificating about the evils of tribalism, communalism and sectarianism reminded me of lines written by the Bard of Avon in “The Merchant of Venice”:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose./ An evil soul producing holy witness</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,/ A goodly apple rotten at the heart.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam presented himself as holy witness for the cause of national unity, harmony, understanding and reconciliation:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There are the viewpoints of the rent collector (“rent seeker” [social parasite]). The first one is narrow-mindedness. The second is arrogance. Third is extremism wrapped in religion. We have to develop consensus on the idea that these are things that fragment and destroy our country. The sowing of the seeds of such destructive ideas originate with teachers. [These ideas] land on students and cause clashes and warfare, but the seed is sown from the top.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam bearing holy witness for the virtues of Ethiopian national unity, identity and religious tolerance is like the devil citing Scripture for his purposes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Holy _ _ _ _!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What in the world is all this make-believe righteous indignation by Hailemariam?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What is Hailemariam doing frothing at the mouth with faux righteous indignation?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is he tapping out in Morse code an S.O.S. from the “T-TPLF Titanic” with a missing rudder heading inexorably to slam the iceberg of ethnic kililism (a 21<sup>st</sup> century version of South Africa’s apartheid-style Bantustanism)?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is Hailemariam’s indignation an S.O.S. to save the ship “T-TPLF Dedebit” as it slowly goes down to the bottomless ocean of fear and loathing the T-TPLF had created over the past one quarter century?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could Hailemariam be sending out an urgent distress signal for emergency assistance to save the sinking T-TPLF flagship, “The Meles Zenawi”? Too many captains fighting to captain “The Meles Zenawi” sending it straight to the bottom?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be that Hailemariam is trying to cleverly use the rhetoric of national unity and Ethiopianity to get an upper hand against internal factions within the T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could Hailemariam be trying to mobilize popular support for his faction of the T-TPLF by pretending to be nationalistic and patriotic?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Was Hailemariam told by his T-TPLF bosses to float a trial balloon about its new found religion of ethnic harmony and religious tolerance and see what the public reaction will be?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Was Hailemariam just talking from the T-TPLF book of talking points? (Everybody knows Hailemariam is the T-TPLF’s PR jockey. He would not dare say such things unless instructed by his T-TPLF paymasters.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam points an accusatory finger in his tirade against the “narrow-minded”?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who are the narrow-minded hate and war mongers Hailemariam is talking about?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam does not name the names of the narrow-minded hate and war mongers toiling to destroy Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But what is the hallmark of narrow-minded person?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is it intolerance? Small-mindedness? Hatefulness? Bigotry? Ignorance? Provincialism? Pedestrianism? Parochialism?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let’s face it: Is there anyone on planet earth that is more narrow-minded than the leaders and members of the T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is there anyone who is more backward, benighted, untutored, reactionary and downright atavistic than T-TPLF leaders and members?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The opposite of narrow-minded is open-minded.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The open-minded person is receptive to new ideas and questions everything including him/herself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The open-minded person is always willing to listen and openly debate opposing and contradictory views.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The open-minded person accepts the fact that s/he can be wrong and will self-correct whenever necessary.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The open-minded person will speak the truth regardless of what anyone thinks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is there a single open-minded leader or member of the T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Diogenes of Sinope (the Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy [whose followers believed the purpose of life was to live in virtue]), used to walk around town in broad daylight with a lamp in hand. When asked why he was doing such a strange thing, he would answer, “I am just looking for an honest man.” Diogenes failed in his search finding only rascals and scoundrels.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">One could travel the highways and byways, climb the highest peaks and the lowest valleys of Ethiopia with a motorized searchlight and never find an open-minded T-TPLF leader or member. Only narrow-minded benighted rascals and scoundrels.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The sad irony is that as Halemariam points an accusatory finger at the unnamed hordes of the narrow-minded, he is pointing three fingers at himself.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam accuses the “arrogant” ones for “causing clashes and warfare”.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who are the “arrogant” hate and warmongers toiling away to spread tribalism, sectarianism, communalism, etc., in Ethiopia?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam does not name names.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But there is pride and there is arrogance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t think Hailemariam and his T-TPLF bosses know the difference.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A person experiences real pride when s/he feels good about him/herself, does something good, is self-confident and tries to live a virtuous life free of deceit, hypocrisy, duplicity and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Arrogance is a perversion of authentic pride. It is a form of hubristic pride driven by egotism and manifests itself in aggression, suspicion and distrust. <strong>The arrogant person is often afflicted by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and lack of self-worth</strong>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let’s face facts once more. Is there anyone on planet earth who is more arrogant than the leaders and members of the T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">To compensate for their feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and lack of self-worth, the T-TPLF leaders and their lackeys have been on a crusade to gain academic respectability.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is a well-established fact that many of the top leaders of the T-TPLF have purchased degrees from <a href="http://addisvoice.com/2015/03/exposed-tedros-adhanom%E2%80%99s-chief-advisor-is-a-fake-professor-from-maryland/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">diploma mills</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It has been reported that T-TPLF appointed professors at the universities sporting <a href="http://www.abugidainfo.com/index.php/23018/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">fake degrees</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The late demigod of the T-TPLF Meles Zenawi arranged to have a graduate degree delivered to him at his palace from some “Open University”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF leaders and elites have kept many a diploma mill in business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The simple point is that the T-TPLF leaders and elites want to prove to the world they are better, smarter and more important than the people they oppress. But everyone knows they ain’t _ _ _ _.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The arrogance of these ignoramuses is aggravating to many; to others it is simply laughable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF and their late leader remind me of that arrogant buffoon Idi Amin whose official title was “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Meles Zenawi, “the Great Leader, the Great Visionary, the Great Hero of Dedebit, the Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the Derg and the Ethiopian Empire and all the ethnic groups, blah, blah, blah…”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam points an accusatory finger at unnamed “teachers and professors”.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who are these unnamed “teachers and professors” allegedly teaching divisionism, sectarianism and mongering hate and war?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam’s accusations against Ethiopian “teachers and professors” are pretty specific and horrific. He says the most enlightened members of Ethiopian society are the source of the country’s political and social problems. He tarred and feathered them as hatemongers, particularly among young people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is it not a fact that the most ignorant and most benighted T-TPLF rulers of Ethiopia are the ones who have been spreading hate, tribalism, sectarianism, communalism, etc. for the past 24 years?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am just wondering: Is the T-TPLF getting ready to do another wholesale, mass purges of the universities of “subversive teachers and professors”?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF has its predictable style.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Before it pounces on its victims, it first starts demonizing them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Then it begins a campaign of vilification and defamation in the media.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Then it scapegoats them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Then it sends out its goons to threaten and intimidate its victims.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Then it pounces on them like a snake on a field mouse by suddenly arresting them and filing trumped up terrorism charges.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Then it will let them languish in prison for years by obtaining endless continuances in its kangaroo/monkey courts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The writing on the wall seems pretty clear.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopian teachers and professors who are not towing the T-TPLF line better get ready because the T-TPLF is coming to your campus to purge you and clean house!</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Get ready for another round of arrests on terrorism charges!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 1993, The T-TPLF did something very similar. It branded professors who did not support it as “arrogant, narrow-minded and divisive” and fired them wholesale. That list included:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Mekonen Bishaw</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Solomon Terfa</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Sibehat M. Hazen</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Taye W. Semayat</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Fisseha Zewde</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof Mesay Kebede</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Ayenew Ijigu</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Alemayehu Haile</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Mekonen Dilgassa</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Tamre Huwanda</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Beyene Petros</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Alemayehu Tefera</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Admassu Wasse</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Asrat Woldeyes</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Dawit Zewde</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Asfaw Desta</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Taye Mekuria</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Ayele Terfe</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Befekadu Degefe</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Hailu Araya</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Alemayehu Haile</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Taye Asefa</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Worku Tefera</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Prof. Negatu Tesfaye</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Solomon Wondwosen</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Hulu-anten Abate</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Shiferaw Agonafir</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Mekuria Assefa</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Feleke Desta</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Aklilu Tadesse</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Berhanu Bankashe</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Lealem Berhanu</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Aynalem Asheber</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Prof. Tsehaye Berhane</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Mindaryalew Zewde</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Ayele Tarekegn</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Zeryihun Teshome</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Lecturer Fekade Shewakena</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Tadesse Beyene</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Tesfaye Shewaye</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Seifu Metaferia</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Graduate assistant Meskerem Abebe</span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who are the professors, teachers and other educators the T-TPLF has slated for firing in 2015?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We are waiting with bated breath!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hailemariam talked about “religious extremists” mongering hate and war hiding behind their faith.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who are the “religious extremists” Hailemariam is talking about?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A couple of weeks ago, a T-TPLF kangaroo (monkey) court <a href="http://almariam.com/2015/08/16/ethiopia-our-need-for-unity-in-divinity-facing-adversity/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">railroaded to prison 18 young Ethiopian Muslims</a> (which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, USCRIF, African Human Rights Commission and so many others have deemed peaceful protest leaders and activists) to serve between 7 and 22 years in prison for “terrorism”, i.e. for promoting sectarianism and communalism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The young Ethiopian Muslims were “convicted” on trumped up charges of “attempted terrorism, conspiracy to establish an Islamic state, and public incitement.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF monkey kourt sentenced Abubakar Ahmed, Ahmedin Jebel, Yasin Nuru and Kemal Shmsu to 22 years each.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Monkey kourt defendants Munir Hussien, Sabir Yirgu , Bedru Hussien, , Mohammed Abate, Abubeker Alemu were given 18 years each.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Prison terms of 15 years were handed down to Ahmed Mustefa, Khalid Ibrahim, Sheik Mekete Muhe, Sheik Seid Ali and Mubarak Adem.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF monkey court handed out 7 years to Yusuf Getachew, Nuru Turki, Murad Shikur and Sheik Bahiru Omar and were jailed for less terms of seven years each.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are there other “religious extremists” still out there hiding under rocks to create destruction?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When Hailemariam denounced “religious extremists”, is he making a subtle announcement that there will soon be another round of “Muslim terrorist” witch hunts?</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">T-TPLF’s Tar Baby: “Ethnic federalism (kililism)”</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The problem for the T-TPLF after 25 years is that its divide and rule strategy based on ethnic hate and religious intolerance or “ethnic federalism” has grown up to bite it in its behind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What is the T-TPLF’s “ethnic federalism” (kililism)”?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethnic federalism” is a warped T-TPLF ideology that asserts at its core</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">there is no such thing as Ethiopia or Ethiopian history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethiopia” is an imaginary concept that exists only in the minds of members of particular ethnic group.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethiopia” is an international juridical fact that came into existence barely a century ago.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethiopia” is a mere collection of disjointed “nations and nationalities”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethiopia” is an aggregation of mutually exclusive populations with mutually exclusive and antagonistic interests who are held together and forced to coexist together ONLY by force of arms.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethiopians” are “governed best” as a bunch of insular ethnic, linguistic and religious camps with antagonistic interests.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopians who think they are “Ethiopians” are ethnonationalists whose hidden agenda is to dominate other groups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">the existence of the very idea of “Ethiopia” means the failure and eventual destruction of the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Ethiopia” must be destroyed in fact, in thought, in history and indeed and buried at all costs for the T-TPLF Empire to thrive and mushroom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">So what’s up with the T-TPLF now?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Well, it seems the T-TPLF is beginning to publicly acknowledge that <strong>the chicken has finally come home to roost! (Maybe?!)</strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Regardless, the seeds of “ethnic federalism” the T-TPLF sowed nearly a quarter of a century are now ready for it to harvest.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF’s harvest of hate</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF set up ethnic federalism to maintain its chokehold on power, to control. Now, ethnic federalism has grown up and strong and is slowly choking the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF sees the writing on the wall, listens to the “teachers and professors” and the young people. It does not like what it sees and hears.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As Pitrim Sorokin said, “Hate begets hate, violence engenders violence, hypocrisy is answered by hypocrisy, war generates war, and love creates love.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Scripture teaches, “A man reaps what he sows.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is it time for the T-TPLF leaders to face the music?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF scapegoats the “teachers and professors” as the propagators of the gospel of ethnic division, tribalism, communalism, sectarianism and the rest of it.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let the truth be told!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If indeed the teachers and professors are the vectors of hate infecting the youth, who appointed them to become teachers and professors?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who fashioned and introduced the so-called “heritage history” in the university curriculum?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Heritage history is based on the notion that the “interpretation and presentation of Ethiopian history to date is shrouded by myths, biases, and imbalances in coverage and stereotypes, which are reconstructed from only written documents. The reconstruction and rewriting of our national history calls for an urgent use of alternative sources…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who created curricula for grade school and high school students to learn only about their own ethnic group and no one else?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who made and implemented a segregation policy in schools so that children grow up thinking that their classmates are their future enemies?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who made and implemented a Tower of Babel policy to make sure Ethiopians of different ethnic stripes are incapable of communicating with each other with a lingua franca (common language)?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who created the following “kilils” (“ethnolinguistic-based-regional states”): Oromiya, Amhara, Tigray, Afar, Somali, Benishangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Gambella and Harar, (Addis Ababa/DireDawa as “federally” administered city-states)?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who wrote “Article 39” of the T-TPLF constitution: “Every nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia shall have the unrestricted right to self-determination up to secession.”? Is Article 39 the ultimate time bomb the T-TPLF has buried in the Ethiopian body politics and timed to go off when the T-TPLF is swept into the dustbin of history?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who totally controls, dominates and monopolizes all political representation, decision-making and public space in the kilils?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who has been principally responsible for creating tensions and animosities and armed conflict between ethnic groups and communal and sectarian strife and warfare in Ethiopia?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who tried time and again to stoke the fires of ethnic and sectarian warfare in Ethiopia?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What has been the record of “ethnic federalism” (or monkey see, monkey do federalism) in practice?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In “ethnic federalism”, who makes all of the important decisions? The T-TPLF’s state within the state? (The T-TPLF O.G.s or more accurately O.T.s , original gangsters/original thugs?)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How does “ethnic federalism” actually work?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Do the T-TPLF “executive committees” decide and pass on their decisions (“democratic centralism”) for implementation to the kilil stooge governments?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Do “executives and members of the regional councils” simply rubberstamp the “federal” decisions?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Who totally controls the purses of the “regional governments”? Who controls the revenue and budgets of the “regional and district governments”?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Why did the T-TPLF pass a “law” and give itself the power to intervene militarily in the regions and suspend regional administrations whenever it feels like doing so?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Do kilil “governments” have the ability or option to deviate from the political, economic or social agenda fixed for them by the T-TPLF bosses?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Does the T-TPLF rig situations to force the various kilils to fight each other for crumbs from the T-TPLF tables?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Has kililism brought about an end to complaints of historical grievances by oppressed ethnic groups and minorities or fueled a resurgence of insular ethnic consciousness and armed struggles towards secession?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF invented “ethnic federalism” to create and maintain permanent divisions among the people of Ethiopia by creating ethnic identities and mutual suspicions, fear and loathing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF invented “ethnic federalism” as the ultimate weapon to bury Ethiopia and on Ethiopia’s gravesite build a monument to itself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The chief architect of the T-TPLF found himself buried in the grave he dug for Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The fact of the matter is that ethnic federalism is a system of divide and rule and a system created to make all other ethnic groups servile to T-TPLF rule.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">After a quarter of a century, ethnic federalism is making Ethiopia less and less governable for the T-TPLF. The T-TPLF has made ethnic relations worse than ever. The T-TPLF established ethnic federalism to mobilize support for itself and against other ethnic groups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The ultimate question is whether Ethiopians of all ethnic and religious stripes feel more free, more empowered and more confident of their future under the T-TPLF than at any other time?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Jig is up T-TPLF!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It has been said that, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF has been fooling all of the people for part of the past 25 years and some of the people for the whole of the 25 years. But no more!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">So, the T-TPLF is now fooling itself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF wants to saddle the “teachers and professors” for the hate the T-TPLF has nurtured and spread for the past quarter century to keep itself in power in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF does not know what to do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is no question in my mind that the T-TPLF is sending out an urgent message, an SOS, to anyone listening to save it from the ethnic fires it has set.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is possible that the T-TPLF sent out Hailemariam to float a trial balloon for its newly found nationalism and patriotosm. I think that trial balloon floated like a lead balloon.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It seems that the T-TPLF bosses are beginning to read the writing on the wall that they will surely buried in the ethnic grave they dug for Ethiopia and are now frantically trying to save themselves by talking about national unity, a common identity, patriotism, etc.?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Am I over-reading and over-analyzing Hailemariam’s tirades? Do T-TPLF leaders have one more trick up their sleeves? If there is positive public reaction to Hailemariam’s expression of faux righteous indignation, perhaps they can run with it?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The writing on the wall</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A demographic tsunami is overwhelming the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF is now seeing clearly the boomerang effect of its ethnic federalism/kilil policy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There are now millions of young people throughout the country who have caught on to the T-TPLF tricks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They do not want to be ruled by a gang of ruthless thugs. They want their own government. They want freedom, democracy and respect for their human rights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They are biding their time. They are writing names down every day. They know their friends and their enemies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For over 25 years, the T-TPLF demonized the “Amhara” as the oppressive evil forces that has spread misery and suffering in Ethiopia. That manipulation worked for a time but it no longer works.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF is the “new Amhara.” They are hated passionately by all. (I was there was a way to sugarcoat this fact but there isn’t.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This is an undeniable fact! I am not saying this because I am against what the T-TPLF <u>does</u>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Our elders used to say “Our children are today’s seeds and tomorrows flowers. (Yezare ferewoch yenege abebawoch)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The seeds the T-TPLF sowed nearly 25 years ago have grown to become a harvest of hate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I do not have a personal axe to grind against the T-TPLF or its leaders or members. I could not care less about any them as individuals.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am against the evil things the T-TPLF leaders have done and are continuing to do in Ethiopia to destroy the fabric of that country by spreading ethnic hate and sectarian discord.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But if they are sincere and genuine about initiating dialogue and debate about a new Ethiopia free of ethnic and sectarian hate, <strong>I am all for it</strong>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As a human rights advocate with absolutely no interest in political power, I am willing to talk to anyone about fighting hate with love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Dr. King spoke of that love as “agape”, the highest form of love which manifests itself as brotherly and sisterly love, love of community, “the love of God for man and of man for God.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hate hate because</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate caused the deaths of 6 million Jews and untold number of Christians and others during the reign of the Nazis in Germany.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed millions of people after India got its independence in 1947.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed millions of people in Bangladesh ((East Pakistan) in 1971.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed over a million people in Biafra.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed tens of thousands of people in Burundi in 1972.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed millions of people in Cambodia between1975-79.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate caused the deaths of a million innocent people in Rwanda in 1994.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed millions of people in the South Sudan between 1985 and 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Hate killed millions in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t want to see hate kill any more of my Ethiopian brothers or sisters, or for than matter any other human being.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopians must learn from history: Kill hate in their hearts and minds before it kills them!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” said Nelson Mandela.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It has been said that “Ignorance is a most powerful weapon in the hands of tyrants.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The best way to fight fire is not with fire, but with water.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The best way to fight hate is not with hate but with love and enlightenment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The best way to fight ignorance is with knowledge and education.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I do not wish the fate of Rwanda, Cambodia, South Sudan or the countries to be the fate of Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If Hailemariam’s declaration is even a faint reflection of the T-TPLF realization and desire that it is better to stop the hate and begin a process of healing and reconciliation, then I am fully for it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know there are many who believe that the T-TPLF is an organization and its leaders are beyond redemption, beyond hope and despair.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There are those who say a spotted hyena cannot change its spots even if it wanted to.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I think it is possible to rise up from the pits of ignorance and hate and accomplish great things.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But we must all learn and unlearn.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The things we can learn and unlearn if we only try</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">So many are the things we can learn and unlearn if we only try.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF leaders could learn so much from Dr. Seuss (yes, the author of “Cat in the Hat”): “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The thinks the T-TPLF is thinking too save itself and keep itself in power forever.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The thinks the T-TPLF can think to forsake its ways of hate and think its way back to love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But the key to our problems as Ethiopians is to “think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks we can think up if only you try!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are the chickens coming home to roost, T-TPLF?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sapere aude! (Dare to think/know/be enlightened!)</span></strong></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino.</span></em></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-38436955430836728292015-08-28T07:38:00.003-07:002015-08-28T07:38:50.535-07:00Ethiopian Bloggers in Kangaroo (Monkey) Kourt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/tplf-court-300x156.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="TPLF kangaroo (monkey) court system." border="0" class="size-medium wp-image-25675" height="156" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/tplf-court-300x156.jpg" style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify; word-spacing: 2.40000009536743px;">TPLF kangaroo (monkey) </span>kourt<span style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify; word-spacing: 2.40000009536743px;"> system.</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<h1 class="entry_title" style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Arial Black', sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">August 28, 2015</span></h1>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Alemayehu G. Mariam</span></em></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Kangaroo/monkey kourt (in)justice T-TPLF style</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><a href="http://www.ethiomedia.com/1000parts/7019.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Last week</a>, young Ethiopian bloggers collectively known as “Zone 9 Bloggers” (named after a cell block holding political prisoners at the infamous <strong>Meles Zenawi Kality Prison,</strong> a few kilometers outside of the capital) returned to the kangaroo/monkey kourt system of the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) for <strong><a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/08/17/ethiopias-zone9-bloggers-head-back-to-court-after-15-months-behind-bars/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">the 33<sup>rd</sup> time</a></strong> since April 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(Ethiopia is the ONLY country in the world where the police arrest and detain a criminal suspect and then go out looking for evidence of wrongdoing for months and even years!)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Justice delayed is justice denied.” Justice delayed 33 times is justice denied 33 times.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Justice delayed 33 times while the young bloggers are held in prolonged pretrial detention, denied bail, effective assistance of counsel, speedy trials and an impartial fact finder is a travesty of justice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In anticipation of Barack Obama’s visit in July, the T-TPLF <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/ethiopia-releases-detained-bloggers-journalists-150708185656939.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">released</a> two bloggers and 3 journalists.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Since 2006, I have been writing about the T-TPLF kangaroo (monkey) kourt system.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wrote my first commentary in December 2006 entitled, “<a href="http://almariamforthedefense.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2006-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2007-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=16" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Keystone Cops, Prosecutors and Judges in a Police State</a>.” That commentary examined the “trials” of the “Kality defendants” (opposition leaders) jailed by the late Meles Zenawi following the 2005 election.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In December 2007, I wrote “<a href="http://almariamforthedefense.blogspot.com/2007/12/monkey-trial-in-kangaroo-kourtdaniel.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Monkey Trial in Kangaroo Kourt</a>” examining the “trial” of Daniel Bekele (manager of ActionAid International in Ethiopia at the time), presently Executive Director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, and Netsanet Demessie who founded and directed the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia. I compared their “trial” to the grim and chilling fictional story of Joseph K., in Franz Kafka’s “<a href="http://www.kafka-online.info/the-trial.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Trial</a>“.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have written numerous commentaries on the <a href="http://ecadforum.com/2015/06/29/ethiopia-the-tplf-banana-republic/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">T-TPLF’s Banana Republic</a>and its monkey kourts for years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In June 2014, I wrote a commentary entitled, “<a href="http://ecadforum.com/2014/06/08/who-is-afraid-of-the-ethiopian-bloggers/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Who is afraid of the Ethiopian bloggers?</a>, on the legal plight of the Zone 9 bloggers.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I use the metaphor of “kangaroo” and “monkey” kourt to describe the T-TPLF’s (in)justice system, not out of malice, but out of necessity for descriptive precision.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The phrase “kangaroo court” has nothing to do with the marsupial kangaroos of Australia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The phrase is said to have originated in the American West in the 19<sup>th</sup>century to describe bogus, sham and phony judicial proceedings run by self-proclaimed judges.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The phrase has often been defined as 1) “a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted”, 2) “a court which blatantly and intentionally disregards recognized standards of law or justice”, 3) a “court held by a legitimate judicial authority who intentionally disregards the court’s legal or ethical obligations”, and 4) a court projecting the “appearance of a fair and just trial, even though the verdict has in reality already been decided before the trial has begun.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF judicial system fits all of the foregoing definitions to a T.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The phrase has found its way into one of the most important landmark criminal constitutional cases in the U.S. legal history. In <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/387/1/case.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">In Re Gault</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court condemned a judicial process “where police take matters in their own hands, seize victims, beat and pound them until they confess. It is the right of the accused to be tried by a legally constituted court, not by a kangaroo court”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That is the essence of the T-TPLF’s kangaroo courts. T-TPLF police thugs arrest suspects in political crimes on instruction of the T-TPLF political bosses, place them in detention, beat the hell out of them and extract confessions, delay filing charges, deny them counsel and shuttle them to and fro before judicial hacks appointed by the T-TPLF, deny them speedy trials and force them to languish in vermin-ridden jails for months or years as hack judges grant endless continuances to “prosecutors” to gather (fabricate) evidence on the suspects.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Kangaroo courts on Planet T-TPLF become monkey kourts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I use the apt phrase monkey kourt (with a “k”) system (yezinjero chilot) interchangeably with kangaroo court to describe the T-TPLF (in)justice system as a metaphorical equivalent for my Ethiopian readers. I also aim to underscore the dominance hierarchy of the T-TPLF monkey kourt legal system, accentuated by extreme agonistic behavior of T-TPLF leaders and members against their perceived opponents.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The “trial” of the Zone 9 bloggers is such a travesty of justice that all of the major international human rights organizations have condemned it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Of course, being politically correct, none of them would dare call it kangaroo or monkey kourt system.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But a kangaroo/monkey court by any other name is still kangaroo/monkey kourt. In other words, a pig with lipstick and makeup is still a pig at the end of the day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described the T-TPLF kangaroo/monkey kourt system as a “<a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/19/ethiopia-terrorism-verdict-quashes-free-speech" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">political witch-hunt</a>.” HRW protested to the T-TPLF: “Journalism is not a crime.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the prosecutions (persecutions) for “conflating terrorism with journalism.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Freedom House said the case against the bloggers is based on “spurious charges” and urged donors to “press the government to stop pursuing politically motivated charges against pro-democracy activists as the country prepares for elections in May.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In January 2015, the U.S. State Department expressed its “concern” over the T-TPLF’s “decision to proceed with the trial of six bloggers and three independent journalists on charges under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Department <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/01/236963.htm" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">declared</a>, “<strong>The decision undermines a free and open media environment—critical elements for credible and democratic elections, which Ethiopia will hold in May 2015.”</strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In June 2015, the T-TPLF <a href="http://almariam.com/2015/06/07/ethiopian-thugmocracy/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">declared</a> it had won the May election by 100 percent of the vote.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In July Barack Obama showed up in Ethiopia and <a href="http://almariam.com/2015/08/02/barack-obama-tell-the-truth-about-ethiopia/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">chimed in</a>, “The government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.” (Was Obama trippin’ when he said that?)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The crime of blogging on Planet T-TPLF</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The blogger defendants in the T-TPLF kangaroo/monkey kourt facing trumped up charges include: Befekadu Hailu Techanie, Natneal Feleke Abera, Mahlet Fantahun Tefera, Atnaf Brehanie Ayalew, Zelalem Kibret Beza, Abel Wabella Sugebo, Asmamaw Hailegiorgis Gizaw, Edom Kassaye Gelan, Tesfalem Weldeyes Arage and (charged in absentia) Soliyana Shimeles Gebremariam.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The defendants are alternatively “<a href="https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=6DE48DEF413156C2&resid=6DE48DEF413156C2%21468&authkey=AI5dCkQwMglBey0&em=2&wdStartOn=1" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">charged</a>” in two counts under the Ethiopian “<a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/49216b572.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Criminal Code</a>” [“Code”] and “<a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/4ba799d32.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Proclamation No. 652/2009</a>” [“Proclamation”] (“Anti-terrorism law”).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In count one, they are accused of being a “Principal Criminal” or attempted “Principal Criminal” in violation of Article 32 (1 & 2) of the Code.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In count two, the defendants are charged with violation of Article 27 (1 & 2) (attempt to commit a crime), 38 (1) (criminal conspiracy) and 238 (1) (“Crimes Against the Constitution or the State”).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The charge alleges that all of the defendants have “signed” multipage “confessions statement (sic) which can be used as evidence”: Befekadu Hailu Techanie (31 pages); Natneal Feleke Abera (27 pages); Mahlet Fantahun Tefera (12 pages); Atnaf Brehanie Ayalew (16 pages); Zelalem Kibret Beza (16 pages); Abel Wabella Sugebo (12 pages); Asmamaw Hailegiorgis Gizaw (13 pages); Edom Kassaye Gelan (10 pages) and Tesfalem Weldeyes Arage (13 pages). (Charged in absentia is Soliyana Shimeles Gebremariam.)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The defendants were denied counsel when they allegedly “confessed”.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Befeqadu Hailu Techanie</strong> is accused of “establishing a domestic secret terror enterprise” by “sketching and allocating duties & responsibilities for the members.” To avoid “government” detection Befeqadu “ assisted, organized and took part in a training communication encryption tools called ‘Security in Box’” and “embraced the strategies and sought support of the terrorist organization called Ginbot7.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The documentary evidence against Befeqadu include: 31 pages of “confessions” and information collected from his laptop and house including: “an article written for change seekers and patriots”, and documents entitled, “how legitimate is TPLF to Tigray”, “We will fight until we become 80 million”, “What would happen to dictators if we are united,” “Stop censorship online campaign,” “Had Wael Ghonim been an Ethiopian (an imaginary interview with Egyptian internet activist)- 18 pages”), “Training manual for defenders of civil liberties,” “Do we have government or whose is government and what kind – 10 pages”, “Is there a judge who is not a member of EPRDF?”, “Telecom fraud law as a tool to stifle freedom of expression – 12 pages,” “Poll collected and online campaign plan – 3 pages” and “A hand written list of interviewees for a documentary film on state of freedom of expression in Ethiopia”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Natnael Feleke Abera, </strong>alleged to be the mastermind of the terror group, “established a domestic secret terror enterprise” and “coordinated all activities of the terror group.” Natnael in coordination with “Ginbot 7 organized, took part and facilitated various trainings to initiate the public to incite violence.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The documentary evidence against Natnael include: 27 pages of confessions, “documents collected from his laptop and E-mail (downloaded)”; other documents entitled, “Had Weal Ghonim been an Ethiopian an imaginary interview written by Befekadu Hailu,” “Bread and freedom article written for stop censorship campaign”, “The price of censorship (article – 8 pages); “Ginbot 7 news letter criticizing the late Meles Zenawi – 4 pages;” “Receipt of money transfer from Construction & Business Bank”, “Email message exchange about internet security with Soliyana Shimeles with his passport – 26 pages”, “A poem written by Natnael about Ethiopia collected from his house – hand written 1 page”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Mahlet Fantahun Tefera</strong> allegedly “became an operative in various covert networks” for “Ginbot 7 in order to accomplish the objectives of the terrorist group.” She “lent a hand in organizing and participating in various trainings of violence and terror.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The documentary evidence against Mahlet include: 12 pages of “confessions” and other “documents collected from her computer” including “articles found to be denigrating, incite violence (sic) and deny the economic development – 2 page” and “Political program of OLF printed from CD – 22 pages.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">CHARGES DROPPED AND RELEASED ON JULY 9, 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong> Atnaf Birahane Ayalew</strong> is accused of “intentionally and knowingly participated in the covert terror group.” He “participated in the training which focuses on how to provoke government security people and create tribal divisionism amongst them to incite violence and <strong>defend oneself using apparatuses such us face covering, helmets, explosives, stones</strong>.” (Emphasis added.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The documentary evidence against Atnaf include: 16 pages of “confessions” and other “documents collected” entitled, “Freedom in Ethiopia – 34 pages,” “Training manual about internet security”, “Hand written security procedures of covering a rally – 61 pages,” “Manual of security procedures located in flash drive,” “Proposal for producing short films about freedom in rural Ethiopia – 7 pages,” “Domain name (korogo.com) intended to be purchased for the upcoming election -8 pages,” “The role of social media in the 2015th Ethiopia election – 9 pages, “Training manual organized by civil rights defenders on how to circumvent censorship, “Encryption tools and changing passwords – 129 pages,” “Invitation letters send to him to attend digital security training,” “Travel itinerary and tickets – 18 pages”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Zelalem Kibret Beza</strong> is alleged to be “a founding member of the secret terror enterprise” and intentionally and knowingly created a link with of the terrorist organization called Ginbot 7.” He “organized, took part and facilitated various trainings both inside and outside of Ethiopia to initiate the public to incite violence.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The documentary evidence against Zelalem include 16 pages of “confessions” and other “documents collected” from his “external hard disk” including documents entitled, “Repression and human development article,” “Had Weal Ghonim been an Ethiopian an imaginary interview written by Befekadu Hailu,” “The price of censorship,” “From hijacking our vote to let our voice be heard,” “Proposal for producing short films about freedom in rural Ethiopia with his passport,” “Vision and legacy of Meles Zenawi – 4 pages,” “The dead parliament – 22 pages.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">CHARGES DROPPED AND RELEASED ON JULY 9, 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Abel Wabela Sugebo</strong> is alleged to have been “a founding member of a domestic secret terror enterprise.” He “organized, took part and facilitated various trainings both inside and outside the country to initiate the public to incite violence” in coordination with Ginbot 7.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The evidence against Abel include 12 pages of “confessions” and other “documents collected” from him including, “Digital security manual for human rights defenders – 18 pages,” “Roles and responsibilities of the group located in his house – 26 pages,” “Domain name (korogo.com) intended to be purchased for the upcoming election – 8 pages”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Asmamaw Hailegiorigis Gizaw</strong> is alleged to have been “a founding member of the secret terror enterprise.” He “intentionally and knowingly created a link with of the terrorist organization called Ginbot7.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The documentary evidence against Asmamaw include 13 pages of “confessions” and other “documents collected” from him including, documents entitled “Justice and peace before food,” “Muslims should start participating in Ethiopian politics – 6 pages,” “Surveillance results of movements of all accused as recorded by Ethiopia’s Information Security Service – 31 pages,” “Letter written by Ethiopia’s Federal Information Security Service – 56 pages,” “Digital security for journalists”, “Ways of hijacking freedom of expression by Ethiopia’s government,” “Letter written by Dashen Bank – 31 pages,” “Passport copies of the accused are brought to support the allegation – 6 pages”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">CHARGES DROPPED AND RELEASED ON JULY 9, 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Edom Kassaye Gelan</strong> is accused of “intentionally and knowingly participated in the terror group which has embraced the strategies of Ginbot 7.” She “ took part and facilitated various trainings both inside and outside of Ethiopia to initiate the public to incite violence.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The evidence against Edom: <strong>None listed!</strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">CHARGES DROPPED AND RELEASED ON JULY 9, 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>Tesfalem Weldeyes</strong> “intentionally and knowingly participated in the terror group which has embraced the strategies of Ginbot 7.” He “took part and facilitated various trainings both inside and outside of Ethiopia to initiate the public to incite violence.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The evidence against Tesfalem: <strong>None listed!</strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">CHARGES DROPPED AND RELEASED ON JULY 9, 2015.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Physical evidence of terrorism</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Physical evidence of the alleged terrorist crimes include: 2 Toshiba laptop, 3 Samsung mobile phone with two SIM cards, 1 Asus laptop, 1 Techno mobile with two SIM cards, 1 Samsung mobile phone, 2 Flash drives, 1 Touch screen mobile phone, 2 Security in a box books, 3 Nokia mobile phone, 1 Dell laptop, 1 Apple laptop, 1 HUAWE mobile phone with three SIM card, 12 video CDs.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is a “confession” obtained by force and duress without the presence of counsel sufficient evidence of terrorism”?</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is possession of any or all of the following sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute a suspect for committing “terrorism” or a terrorist act:</span></strong></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“an article written for change seekers and patriots”;</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article questioning] how legitimate is TPLF to Tigray”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] We will fight until we become 80 million”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] What would happen to dictators if we are united,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Stop censorship online campaign,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Had Wael Ghonim been an Ethiopian (an imaginary interview with Egyptian internet activist)- 18 pages”),</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“A Training manual for defenders of civil liberties,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Do we have government or whose is government and what kind – 10 pages”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Is there a judge who is not a member of EPRDF?”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Telecom fraud law as a tool to stifle freedom of expression – 12 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“a poll collected and online campaign plan – 3 pages”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“A hand written list of interviewees for a documentary film on state of freedom of expression in Ethiopia”,</span></span></div>
<strong><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"> </strong><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">“[an article entitled] Bread and freedom article written for stop censorship campaign”</span></span></div>
</strong><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“The price of censorship (article – 8 pages);</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“A Ginbot 7 news letter criticizing the late Meles Zenawi – 4 pages;”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Receipt of money transfer from Construction & Business Bank”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Email message exchange about internet security with Soliyana Shimeles with his passport – 26 pages,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“A poem written by Natnael about Ethiopia collected from his house – hand written 1 page”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Articles found to be denigrating, incite violence and deny the economic development – 2 page”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[The] Political program of OLF printed from CD – 22 pages.”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Freedom in Ethiopia – 34 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Training manual about internet security”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] hand written security procedures of covering a rally – 61 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Manual of security procedures located in flash drive,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Proposal for producing short films about freedom in rural Ethiopia – 7 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Domain name (korogo.com) intended to be purchased for the upcoming election -8 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] The role of social media in the 2015th Ethiopia election – 9 pages,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Training manual organized by civil rights defenders on how to circumvent censorship,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Encryption tools and changing passwords – 129 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Invitation letters send to him to attend digital security training,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Travel itinerary and tickets – 18 pages”,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Repression and human development,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Had Weal Ghonim been an Ethiopian an imaginary interview written by Befekadu Hailu,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] The price of censorship,” “From hijacking our vote to let our voice be heard,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Proposal for producing short films about freedom in rural Ethiopia with his passport,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Vision and legacy of Meles Zenawi – 4 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] The dead parliament – 22 pages.”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Digital security manual for human rights defenders – 18 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Roles and responsibilities of the group located in his house – 26 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Domain name (korogo.com) intended to be purchased for the upcoming election – 8 pages”.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Justice and peace before food,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Muslims should start participating in Ethiopian politics – 6 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Surveillance results of movements of all accused as recorded by Ethiopia’s Information Security Service – 31 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[an article entitled] Letter written by Ethiopia’s Federal Information Security Service – 56 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Digital security for journalists”, “Ways of hijacking freedom of expression by Ethiopia’s government,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“[A] Letter written by Dashen Bank – 31 pages,”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">“Passport copies of the accused are brought to support the allegation – 6 pages”.</span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are the following items the preferred weapons of mass destruction in the arsenal of terrorists?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">2 Toshiba laptop, 3 Samsung mobile phone with two SIM cards, 1 Asus laptop, 1 Techno mobile with two SIM cards, 1 Samsung mobile phone, 2 Flash drives, 1 Touch screen mobile phone, 2 Security in a box books, 3 Nokia mobile phone, 1 Dell laptop, 1 Apple laptop, 1 HUAWE mobile phone with three SIM card, 12 video CDs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are laptops the equivalent of AK-47s?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are cell phones the equivalent of hand grenades?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are flash drives the equivalent of flash grenades?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are security-in-a-box books the equivalent of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are video CDs the equivalent of RPGs?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Are SIM cards the equivalent of ammunition?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The entire case against the Zone 9 Bloggers is manifestly based on the T-TPLF’s warped imagination that the bloggers are members and operatives of Ginbot 7, an opposition movement the T-TPLF has declared a “terrorist organization”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is not an iota of evidence the bloggers are members of any organization, let alone Ginbot 7. The T-TPLF wants to “convict” the bloggers on the basis of imaginary guilt by association.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Zone 9 bloggers have committed no crime. Their crime is exercising their right free speech!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Zone 9 bloggers are themselves victims of crime and T-TPLF terrorism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If Planet T-TPLF were the legendary Planet of the Apes, the Zone 9 bloggers would have had an excellent chance of escape.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The defense shall never rest.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I rest my case in kangaroo/monkey kourt on Planet T-TPLF!</span></strong></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino.</span></em></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-3524180521132475722015-08-28T07:26:00.002-07:002015-08-28T07:26:39.578-07:00“America Needs to be Respected Again” on the Red Carpet?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Obama-Reception.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Obama-Reception" border="0" class="alignleft wp-image-25693" height="263" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Obama-Reception.jpg" style="border: none !important; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin-top: 4px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="350" /></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">August 28, 2015</span></h1>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Alemayehu G. Mariam</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Donald Trump’s shtick is: “America needs to be respected again because the rest of the world has lost respect for America.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I <a href="http://almariam.com/2015/08/09/republunatics-at-the-debate-gate/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">don’t care much</a> for The Donald.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But his shtick gnaws away at my mind as I think over the disgraceful “red carpet” treatment President Barack Obama received last month when he visited Ethiopia, the first ever for a sitting American President.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know the whole red carpet drama is frivolity and vanity and not a big deal in the grand scheme of things; but to the extent that it represents a symbolic gesture of respect for a head of state and his/her nation, it is a big deal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As I have said before, I am not much for pomp and circumstances and elaborate formal ceremonies. But I have been known to show up at my university’s commencement exercises clad in resplendent professorial regalia and occasionally carrying the university mace as faculty marshal. Graduation ceremonies mean a lot to my students and their families.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I appreciate the symbolic significance of formal ceremonies; but they must be done with class and pizzazz.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I believe the “red carpet” treatment given to President Barack Obama in late July by Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) in Ethiopia was a low down dirty shame and an insult to the office of the U.S. President and the people of the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">To the world, Barack Obama is the public face of the United States of America and the single most important representative of the people of the United States. As such, he deserves the highest respect during state visits.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The T-TPLF gave President Obama a red carpet treatment that was not even fit for Bozo the Clown!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is totally mind-boggling why the T-TPLF dissed Obama.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama has been the T-TPLF’s principal bankroller.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama doled out billions of dollars to the T-TPLF every year financing their corrupt and criminal enterprises.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama continues to turn a blind eye, deaf ears and muted lips the T-TPLF’s crimes against humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama lied through his teeth to give credibility and legitimacy to the T-TPLF. Obama had the gall to say the 100 percent “election victory” claimed by the T-TPLF this past May is “democratic”. His National Security Adviser Susan Rice emphatically declared to the press that the “President believes it is absolutely 100 democratic.” Then <a href="http://almariam.com/2015/07/31/laughing-at-ethiopias-2015-elektion/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Rice busted out laughing</a> uncontrollably!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What did Obama get in return for all the favors he has done to T-TPLF? DISRESPECT!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What did America get in return? DISRESPECT!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">High rollers in Las Vegas have received better red carpet treatment than President Obama in Addis Ababa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The “red carpet treatment” means “something” as a symbolic gesture of respect. That is why important state visits and other official affairs are often opened in red carpet receptions and honor guard inspections. Glamorous celebrities the world over present themselves to their adoring public by sauntering on the red carpet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The red carpet tradition goes back a long way, though much of its meaning is shrouded in the in the fog of history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In Aeschylus’ play <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CzW1aJxg0OQC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=am+a+mortal,+a+man;+I+cannot+trample+upon+these+tinted+splendors+without+fear+thrown+in+my+path&source=bl&ots=fObEomoUEs&sig=3bbaHm31wm4MZLf9iAPJ-IlGTKo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDMQ6AEwA2oVChMI9pPUwO-9xwIVyEGICh3wpQoQ#v=onepage&q=am%20a%20mortal%2C%20a%20man%3B%20I%20cannot%20trample%20upon%20these%20tinted%20splendors%20without%20fear%20thrown%20in%20my%20path&f=false" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Agamemnon</a> (458 BC), Agamemnon is greeted by his spiteful and unfaithful wife Clytemnestra upon his homecoming from the Trojan War.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Clytemnestra, after delivering the guileful monologue of the forlorn wife before the elders of Argolis, directs her handmaidens to spread a red carpet between the chariot and the door for her husband as a gesture of her utmost respect.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Agamemnon hesitates to walk on the crimson carpet knowing that such treatment was reserved only for the gods.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Our modern gods — presidents, prime ministers, heads of state, celebrities of all types — have long made it a habit of walking on the red carpet just to remind us that they are gods and we are mere mortals; and that it is our duty to pay them homage, if not worship them outright.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t’ know if the most powerful man on earth could be classified as a god, at least on the level of the mythological Greek gods, but I believe he is entitled to a real red carpet treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I was so appalled by the T-TPLF red carpet spectacle that I thought for a moment the T-TPLF was having Obama do “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o%27_Roses#/media/File:BrookeRingO%27Roses.jpg" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Ring Around the Rosie</a>”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They made Obama walk the four squares of tacked-on “runner rugs”, with an imitation Persian rug as the centerpiece, to inspect the honor guards.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama walked 8 steps to the left from where he was standing, then made a hard right and took another 12 steps, another hard right and 15 steps, another hard right 11 steps and another hard right 7 steps to his original standing position.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The whole red carpet honor guarad ceremony took 59 seconds! Watch video<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAvMV6chNJM&feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The only thing missing was for the statuesque crowd to sing out loud: “Ring-a-ring-a-roses,/ A pocket full of posies;/Ashes! Ashes!/ We all fall down/.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(How true, they all fall down!)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I believe the T-TPLF showed utter disrespect to President Obama and the tax payers of the United States of America by giving him a Mickey Mouse red carpet treatment on his state visit. He deserved better.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t know why the T-TPLF gave President Obama a crappy 59-second red carpet reception on his state visit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be that there is no honor and respect among thugs, thieves and thankless beggars?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be that Hailemariam and his T-TPLF bosses are so clueless that they really believed their Mickey Mouse red carpet and honor guard ceremony is what the President of the United States deserved?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is no doubt Hailemariam and his puppet masters have been given enough red carpet ceremonies over the years to know what a real red carpet treatment is like.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is it possible that Hailemariam and his paymasters are such clod-hopping country bumpkins and yokels that they do not even learn from others by watching?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t mean fancy learning. I mean simple learning as in “monkey see, monkey do”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Isn’t there someone around to teach them:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Listen up! This is what a red carpet looks like. Notice! it is red. It is not variegated. That means multicolored. Pay attention! A red carpet is not an imitation Made in China olefin Persian carpet. Check this out! This is how you roll out a fifty-yard red carpet. Look here! The lesson is almost over. You do not patch or tack together 8-feet “runner rugs” [long strips of cheap Chinese olefin rugs] to receive the President of the United States. Pay attention!! You ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, do not buy a 99-cent welcome rug from the Dollar Store to receive the President of the United States!!!!!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For crying out loud, if these guys are so clueless rolling out a red carpet, how can they be expected to roll out an economic plan for 100 million people!?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Even worse, the way they overlapped the imitation Persian rug over the runner rugs was so dangerous that Obama could have tripped and fallen flat on his face. (Aren’t the Secret Service folks supposed to watch out for the President’s safety from falling on slipping and snagging carpets? Many lay people saw the danger.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The only rational explanation is that the T-TPLF bosses wanted to dis Barack Obama. Straight up! I am convinced that they wanted to tell Barack Obama he aint _ _ _ _ !</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That really pisses me off, even though I am no longer a cheerleader for Barack Obama and have lost respect for him for lying to protect the T-TPLF.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Despite my personal feelings, I still believe Obama deserved the highest respect as the President of the United States of America on his state visit to Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">All I can say is that you can take the thug out of the bush but you can’t take the bush out of the thug!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is true, “Money can’t buy you class!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Shame on the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean’s People’s Liberation Front for giving President Obama a Mickey Mouse reception on his state visit!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Roll out the red carpet for Hailemariam Deslaegn (Rwanda visit, August 21, 2015)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Desalegn-Red-carpet.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Roll out the red carpet for Hailemariam Deslaegn" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-25694" height="419" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Desalegn-Red-carpet-628x419.jpg" style="border: none !important; clear: both; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px auto 7px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="628" /></a><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ob-2Pix.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Ob-2Pix" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-25692" height="329" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ob-2Pix-628x329.jpg" style="border: none !important; clear: both; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px auto 7px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="628" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Roll out the “runner rugs”, cheap imitation Chinese Persian rugs and welcome mat from Huangpu, China for Obama!</span></div>
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<a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Obama-in-Addis-Ababa.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><img alt="Obama-in-Addis-Ababa" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-25695" height="604" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Obama-in-Addis-Ababa-628x604.jpg" style="border: none !important; clear: both; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px auto 7px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="628" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This can’t be true!?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A polypropylene welcome door mat for the President of the United States?!?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(Thank goodness the President did not fall on his face tripped by the welcome mat overlaid on the rug. Of course, the rear tire of “The Beast” (presidential limo) pressed firmly on the edge of the “welcome mat” holding it in place so it does not slip when the President stepped on it. Did the Secret Service arrange that?!)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But it is TRUE!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The exact “charming welcome mat” is available for direct bulk order from Huangpu, China at this link:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">http://www.customized-door-mats.com/sale-329177-red-blue-outside-entrance-polypropylene-door-mats-with-charming-welcome-printing.html</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Donald Trump said, “America needs to be respected again because the rest of the world has lost respect for America.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What would a “President” Donald Trump have done if he had visited Ethiopia and been given the Mickey Mouse red carpet treatment?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I doubt Trump would have taken such in-your-face disrespect without giving his hosts a piece of his mind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I think <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN7KHWdyrbI" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">he would have told</a> the T-TPLF, with a slight variation, what he told China : “Listen you m—–f——, we’re going to tax you 25 percent!”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Listen you T-TPLF! We are going to cut your welfare aid check by 25 percent.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Now, get a load of that to get R-E-S-P-E-C-T</span><span style="background-color: white;">!</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-2920593628562788102015-08-18T08:40:00.002-07:002015-08-18T08:40:32.500-07:00Ethiopia: Our Need for Unity in Divinity Facing Adversity!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ethiopianmuslims6.jpg" style="border: 0px; clear: left; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="The current Ethiopian regime also has a rational fear of Islamist terrorism." class="alignright size-medium wp-image-19672" height="175" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ethiopianmuslims6-300x175.jpg" style="border: none !important; display: block; float: right; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 4px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">August 18, 2015</span></h1>
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<em style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">by Alemayehu G. Mariam</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">The Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) has been pursuing a systematic program of religious persecution and fomenting religious antagonisms in Ethiopia for quite some time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">After the T-TPLF seized power in 1991, it sought to ingratiate itself with the Ethiopian Muslim community by making symbolic gestures of equality and tolerance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The patronizing outreach to Muslim communities proved to be a Trojan horse.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF’s hidden agenda was to co-opt and politicize Muslim leaders and institutions for its own sinister political purposes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">America’s global “war on terror” (which Meles Zenawi said was “a god sent”) changed things.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles’ proxy war in Somalia became the ideological foundation for the demonization of Ethiopian Muslims.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Magnifying the outrageous and inflammatory rhetoric of a few self-appointed and self-important Muslim leaders, the T-TPLF began a systematic campaign of demonization and vilification of Ethiopian Muslims.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In December 2011, the T-TPLF launched its first broadside attack by broadcasting a trash documentary (docutrash) called “Alekdama”, which I condemned and denounced as scandalous and vicious fear mongering in my commentary entitled, “<a href="http://ecadforum.com/2011/12/19/ethiopia-land-of-blood-or-land-of-corruption/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ethiopia: Land of Blood or Land of Corruption?</a>”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In that docutrash , the T-TPLF sought to graft the crimes against humanity committed by international terrorists in the name of Islam on Ethiopian Muslims. The T-TPLF’s aim was to create rabid public hysteria against Muslims in Ethiopia and justify violent crackdowns against them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In June 2012, I fought back against the late Meles Zenawi’s attempts to foment religious strife between Christians and Muslims under the bogus pretext of “homegrown Muslim terrorists” in Ethiopia in my commentary entitled, “<a href="http://www.ethiomedia.com/2012_report/3906.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Ethiopia: Unity in Divinity!</a>” I praised Muslim and Christian religious leaders for reaching out to build bridges of unity in the struggle against EVIL.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">With a subtlety of a Black Mamba snake, Meles tried to paint all Ethiopian Muslims as “Salafist” and “Wahhabist” extremists and Al Qaeda sympathizers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles, in his signature diabolical way, sought to portray the young Muslim religious activists as stooges of international radical Islamists and jihadists with terrorists designs on Ethiopia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles told his kangaroo parliament:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">One cannot say all Salafis are Al Qaeda. That’s a mistake, a crime. But all Al Qaeda are Salafis. For the first time, <strong>an Al Qaeda cell has been found in Ethiopia</strong>. Most of them in Bale and Arsi. All of the members of this cell are Salafis. <strong>This is not to say all Salafis in Ethiopia are Al Qaeda members. Most of them are not.</strong> But these Salafis have been observed distorting the real teachings [of Islam]. <strong>They [Salafis] say most people in Ethiopia are Muslims. They say the official statistical reports are false.</strong> <strong>They say since most Ethiopians are Muslims, there must be an Islamic government</strong>. Such agitation is currently underway on a mass scale by these fundamentalist agitators…</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It was intended to be fresh “red meat”. With his alarmist rhetoric, Meles hoped to inspire fear, anxiety, suspicion, dread and panic among Christians.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In 1949, United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal said, “The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. They’re right around. I’ve seen Russian soldiers.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles’ speech to his kangaroo parliament in was not much different. “The Ethiopian Muslim jihadists and terrorists are coming. They are right around the corner or under the next rock. I have seen them in Bale and Arsi.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Of course, since Meles made those syllogistically conflated statements, there has been no Al Qaeda insurgency or Salafi resurgence in Ethiopia, except in the warped minds and benighted imaginations of T-TPLF leaders.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">There has not been a single independently verified act of violence committed by Muslim protesters! Neither has there been any independently corroborated evidence of any “radical Muslim scholars/preachers” actually causing their members to engage in violence.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">On August 15, 2012, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/15/ethiopia-prominent-muslims-detained-crackdown" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Human Rights Watch</a> demanded the “Ethiopian government should immediately release 17 prominent Muslim leaders arrested as part of a brutal crackdown on peaceful Muslim protesters in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian government should address the grievances of its Muslim community through dialogue, not violence.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In 2013, <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/ethiopian-repression-of-muslim-protests-must-stop" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Amnesty International</a> condemned the T-TPLF’s persecution of the protesting Ethiopian Muslims:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The government continues to respond to the grievances of the Muslim community with violence, arbitrary arrests and the use of the overly-broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to prosecute the movements’ leaders and other individuals. <strong>This is a violation of people’s right to peacefully protest, as protected in Ethiopia’s constitution. The Ethiopian government must end its use of repressive tactics against demonstrators.”</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In March 2015, the African Union’s human rights watchdog, the <a href="http://www.zehabesha.com/the-african-union-intervenes-on-behalf-of-imprisoned-ethiopian-muslim-protest-leaders/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"> African Commission on Human and People’s Rights </a>, sent a letter to the marionette prime minster of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn asking him to</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">to investigate allegations of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishments in relation to the 29 [Muslim] defendants, guarantee attorney-client confidentiality privilege by allowing the defendants unhindered and unmonitored communication with their attorneys and guarantee victims right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty and prevent his government, its officials, and state media from making statements that slander and defame the victims.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">On August 6, 2015, the <a href="http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/uscirf-condemns-trial-outcome-ethiopian-muslim-leaders" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom</a>(USCIRF) “strongly condemned the convictions and sentencing of 18 Muslim leaders in Ethiopia.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">USCRIF Chairman Dr. Robert P. George said, “<strong>These individuals were peaceful advocates for religious freedom. </strong>This trial was a continuation of the Ethiopian government’s use of the anti-terror law to stifle human rights advocacy and dissent.”</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Demonization of Ethiopian Muslims by the T-TPLF and Meles Zenawi</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In February 2013, I defended Ethiopian Muslims against another T-TPLF demonization and vilification propaganda campaign in a docutrash called “Jihadawi Harakat” (“Holy War Movement”) in my commentary entitled, “<a href="http://www.ethiomedia.com/addis/5648.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Politics of Fear and Smear</a>”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">That docutrash was another malicious propaganda effort by Meles and his T-TPLF gang to portray Ethiopian Muslims peacefully demanding respect for their human rights as the handmaidens of such jihadist terrorist movements as Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya), Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami al-Filastini and the Abu Sayyaf (terror group in the southern Philippines) group’s Al Harakat al-Islamiyya.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">That docutrash had little propaganda traction.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF itself has been sponsoring domestic terrorism by its security forces.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">According to U.S. <a href="http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/09/16/wikileaks-ethiopia-files-ethiopia-bombs-itself-blames-eritrea/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Ambassador Vicki Huddleston</a>, a bombing that occurred in Addis Ababa on September 16, 2006 and blamed on terrorists “may have in fact been the work of the GoE [“government of Ethiopia”] security forces.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF made another claim of an attempted bombing of the African Union in 2011 and convicted certain individuals in one of its monkey courts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Over the past several years,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and the T-TPLF gang have toiled to anathematize, neutralize, demoralize, stigmatize, apostatize, delegitimize, brutalize, criminalize, criticize, diabolize, disorganize, fragmentize and illegalize Ethiopian Muslims.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF gang have tried every trick in the book to stoke sectarian strife in Ethiopia by inciting church and mosque burnings.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF gang have sent their agent provocateurs to incite violence between Christians and Muslims.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF gang have tried to inflame passions by spreading false rumors about the desecration of the Holy Qur’an.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and the T-TPLF gang have issued bogus census statistics on the number of followers of the Muslim and Christian faiths in the hope of inciting passions among adherents of both faiths.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF gang have done their damnedest to divide and (mis)rule Muslim communities by dividing them as “Salafists”, “Wahhabists”, Al Qaeda sympathizers, terrorist and so on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF gang have tried to combine ethnicity and religion to magnify differences among Ethiopians and intensify sectarian conflict.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meles and his T-TPLF gang have pulled all the tricks out of their bags to cause religious and ethnic strife. Thank God, none of it has turned out the way they designed it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">When Meles and his T-TPLF gang failed miserably in their propaganda efforts, they did what they know to do best: Sweep up human rights advocates, religious protesters, opposition leaders and members and hand them long prison sentences.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Why am I discussing commentaries I wrote years ago on the T-TPLF persecution of Ethiopian Muslims?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">First, I want to explain why I was motivated to defend Ethiopian Muslim against persecution by the T-TPLF.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The greatest weapon in the hands of the T-TPLF to perpetuate itself in power is to divide the people of Ethiopia by religion and ethnicity.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF’s bogus “ethnic federalism” has sought to separate the people of Ethiopia by ethnicity, religion and region.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By pitting Christian against Muslims, the T-TPLF seeks to remain the master of all Ethiopians for all time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF has achieved a modicum of “success” in its implementation of a 21<sup>st</sup> century apartheid-style “kilil” or “Bantustan” system in Ethiopia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">(I find it mind-boggling how a bunch of boorish thugs fresh out of the bush were able to orchestrate such a massive political fraud and institute a cancerous criminal enterprise by exploiting historic grievances between the ethnic and religious groups. Of course, the same question could be asked of Boer descendants who set up the Apartheid regime in South Africa as well. Touche!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">All of my commentaries in defense of Ethiopian Muslims have been motivated by one or more of the following factors:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">1) Challenge the late Meles personally on his propaganda efforts aimed at the demonization and vilification of Ethiopian Muslims as Al Qaeda sympathizers and terrorists and demand to see proof of his allegations;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">2) Defend the principle that “Religion is a private choice, country is a collective responsibility” and underscore the need for religious equality in Ethiopia;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">3) Reaffirm and uphold the centuries long peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians in Ethiopia on the principle of religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">4) Underscore and promote the need for Christian and Muslim religious leaders to play a central role in preventing sectarian conflict and in building bridges of understanding, mutual respect and collaborative working relations within the two faith communities;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">5) Speak out against any religious discrimination against Muslims by the T-TPLF or anyone else;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">6) Encourage ordinary Muslims and Christians to build and organize “interfaith councils” to strengthen their brotherhood and sisterhood and keep religion out of politics; and</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">6) Commend Christian and Muslim leaders and followers who have stood together and locked arms to defend religious freedom and each other’s rights to freely exercise their consciences.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Second, and most importantly, I want to protest in the court of international public opinion that the long prison sentences handed out to 18 young Ethiopian Muslims in a T-TPLF monkey court is a crime against humanity and a low down dirty shame. </span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Last week, a T-TPLF <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201508032408.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">kangaroo (monkey) court</a> railroaded 18 young Ethiopian Muslims (which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, USCRIF, African Human Rights Commission and so many others have deemed peaceful protest leaders and activists) to serve between 7 and 22 years in prison.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The young Ethiopians were “convicted” of trumped up charges of “attempted terrorism, conspiracy to establish an Islamic state, and public incitement.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF monkey court sentenced Abubakar Ahmed, Ahmedin Jebel, Yasin Nuru and Kemal Shmsu to 22 years each.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Defendants Munir Hussien, Sabir Yirgu , Bedru Hussien, , Mohammed Abate, Abubeker Alemu were given 18 years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Prison terms of 15 years were handed down to Ahmed Mustefa, Khalid Ibrahim, Sheik Mekete Muhe, Sheik Seid Ali and Mubarak Adem.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF monkey court handed out 7 years to Yusuf Getachew, Nuru Turki, Murad Shikur and Sheik Bahiru Omar and were jailed for less terms of seven years each.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">What crimes did the young Muslim activists REALLY commit?</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The earthshaking crime committed by the young Muslim activists is their simple demand for separation of mosque and state. </span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">As <a href="http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/uscirf-condemns-trial-outcome-ethiopian-muslim-leaders" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">USCRIF described it</a>, “The Muslim leaders were arrested in July 2012, along with hundreds of other Muslims who were <strong>peacefully protesting against government interference in the Islamic community’s religious affairs</strong>.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is as simple as that!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The young activists demanded cessation of regime interference in the administration of Awoliya College and Secondary School and return of school administrators dismissed by the T-TPLF in December 2011.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">They demanded the right to elect their own Islamic Supreme Council (Mejlis) governing body.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">They demanded a stop to regime infiltration and subversion of their religious institutions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">They demanded the T-TPLF stop appointing its stooges as their leaders.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">They demanded the T-TPLF stop its official sponsorship and propagation of the religious ideas of Al-Habesh.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">They demanded separation of religion and state!</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF game of divide and misrule</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The practice of the strategy of divide and (mis)rule has at least four basic elements: 1) create and encourage divisions in a population to prevent unity or coalitions that will challenge those in power; 2) reach out and buy off those in the opposition who are willing to cooperate and sell out to those in power; 3) foster distrust and enmity between and among the population on economic, social, political issues and 4) create general confusion and a climate of hate, fear and loathing throughout society through the systematic use of propaganda.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">A tiny number of European colonists were able to effectively control hundreds of millions of Africans on the continent using the principle of divide and (mis)rule.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The British and French exploited ethnic, linguistic, religious and regional differences to keep African peoples in perpetual conflict and to facilitate and consolidate their control.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Frederick Lugar’s “indirect rule” theory in his enormously influential work, “<a href="https://ia600402.us.archive.org/34/items/cu31924028741175/cu31924028741175.pdf" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa</a>” (Chaps. 10 & 11) is based precisely on the principle of divide and rule.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">German and Belgian divide and (mis)rule in Rwanda is the most significant historical factor in the occurrence of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">As I thought about the T-TPLF’s divide and (mis)rule strategy in Ethiopia for the past nearly one-quarter century, the words of Martin Niemöller occurred to me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Niemöller was a Protestant pastor who became a strident critic of Adolf Hitler and Nazi rule. He spent many years in concentration camps and later became widely known for his statement about the failure of Germans to speak out against Nazi rule:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—/ Because I was not a Socialist.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— / Because I was not a Trade Unionist.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— / Because I was not a Jew.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">As I see it, the vast majority of Ethiopians enveloped in fear, loathing and despair have chosen to remain silent in the face of T-TPLF crimes against humanity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I point an accusatory finger at the “silent majority” of Ethiopians (and more particularly at the Ethiopian intelligentsia in the Diaspora), for failing to speak out strongly and often against the divide and (mis)rule policies and practices of the T-TPLF.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">For their failure I say:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">First the T-TPLF came for the opposition leaders and YOU did not speak out and chose to remain silent because you were not in the opposition or because you convinced yourself you were in the “silent opposition”;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then the T-TPLF came for the people of Gambella, and YOU did not speak out, because you were not Anuak or Nuer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then the T-TPLF came for the people of the Ogaden, and YOU did not speak out, because you were not Ogadeni.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then the T-TPLF came for the Christians and destroyed their monasteries and appointed their stooge patriarchs and YOU did not speak out because you were not Christian.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then the T-TPLF came for the journalists and bloggers and YOU did not speak out because we were not journalists or bloggers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then the T-TPLF came for the Muslims and YOU did not speak out because you were not Muslim.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then the T-TPLF came after YOU, your house, your business, your profession, your job, your dignity, your nationality, your humanity and your Ethiopianity.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Then YOUR conscience came after YOU at night, in the morning, noontime and night. YOU were dumbstruck, speechless, wordless, silent and guilty!</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Fight T-TPLF divide and misrule with “unite to defend your right”</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In a recent <a href="http://www.ethiomedia.com/102shows/6311.html" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">commentary</a> on the “unfair trial of Muslim leaders and why it undermines counter-terrorism in Ethiopia”, Abadir M. Ibrahim argued, “The government’s response to the [protest] movement was inhumane and disproportionate to say the least. It rounded up the most prominent protest leaders, tortured them, attempted to shame and defame them on national television, and now convicted them of terrorism.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Abadir reported extraordinary facts which most people may not know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Abadir said he had an encounter with</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">an Ethiopian human rights activist and was surprised to find out that a terrorism conviction was celebrated in the activist community. The day of his conviction the activist received hundreds of phone calls and emails congratulating him. When asked how he could take such a serious matter so lightly, his response was epic: ‘I should celebrate my convictions for now I have something in common with Gandhi, Mandela, and King … Call it a depressing rite of passage if you like, but being accused of terrorism is in the resume of every successful Ethiopian activist, politician or journalist.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Abadir noted:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><strong>It was not too surprising then that the Muslim civil society leaders were jovial when they were convicted. Every time the judge announced a guilty verdict, the defendants embraced and congratulated each other and made speeches in response to which attendees cheered.</strong> (Emphasis added.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I believe the Muslim nonviolent protests will go down as the most important nonviolent struggle for freedom in Ethiopian history.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">These young human rights activists were actually practicing Gandhi’s philosophy of “satyagraha” or nonviolent resistance to evil.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Gandhi employed his principle of “satyagraha” in the Indian struggle against British imperialism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Gandhi’s “satyagraha” has been translated as “insistence on truth” (satya “truth”; agraha “insistence”) or holding onto truth or truth force.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Gandhi used his philosophy of satyagraha in his struggles in South Africa for Indian rights and later in the Indian independence movement. (For an absolutely fascinating account of how Gandhi first used satyagraha as a bold experiment in truth on a mass scale to challenge the British colonial administration, see Rajendraprasad’s “<a href="http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/satyagraha-in-champaran.pdf" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Satyagraga in Champaran</a>”.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used Gandhi’s “satyagraha” to struggle for civil rights in America.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Nelson Mandela rescued South Africa from the pestilence of apartheid using the same basic principles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By “celebrating their unjust convictions”, the young Muslim activists are telling the world they are not afraid of the T-TPLF and its filthy vermin-ridden prisons.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By “celebrating their unjust convictions”, the young Muslim activists are telling the world they will use truth-force to fight the force of EVIL.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By “celebrating their unjust convictions”, the young Muslim activists are telling the world, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” (Gandhi)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By “celebrating their unjust convictions”, the young Muslim activists are telling the world, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By “celebrating their unjust convictions”, the young Muslim activists are telling the world, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” (Nelson Mandela)</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I want the world to know I have the highest regard for the young Muslim activists for employing satyagraha in the struggle for freedom in Ethiopia. They have proven that peaceful struggle for freedom actually works.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I pay them the highest respect I could possibly pay to any human beings. I appreciate their sacrifices beyond my ability to express in words.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">All I can say to them is thank you for teaching all Ethiopians that it is possible to defeat EVIL by being civil and peaceful.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">On a “selfish” point, the 18 young Ethiopians have validated and vindicated my own personal struggle for human rights in Ethiopia and for showing me how to speak truth not only to power but also to the apotheosis of EVIL. </span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I do not doubt that the T-TPLF is do-se-do-ing in the false belief that they have crushed those seeking religious liberty.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I have no doubts they are high-fiving each other for breaking the backbone of those struggling for religious liberty in Ethiopia.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">What the T-TPLF has done is plant the seeds of its own destruction by jailing these young activists.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Those seeds will grow like weeds and will soon consume the T-TPLF empire of corruption.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">If I thought the benighted leaders of the T-TPLF had even an elementary understanding of history, I would have reminded them of the truth of President John F. Kennedy’s maxim: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I won’t even try.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The Bodhidharma taught, “The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The T-TPLF is a vicious organization and its leaders are deeply afflicted by hate, greed, anger and delusion. They are the poison in the Ethiopian body politics.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">When the history of the struggle for religious freedom is written, the names of the 18 young, peaceful and nonviolent human rights activists will occupy the top row of the honor rolls.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I wholeheartedly and without reservation condemn the T-TPLF’s efforts to demonize, scandalize, anathematize and vilify the young Muslim human rights activists.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">But the highest tribute anyone can pay these young human rights activists is to make sure their peaceful nonviolent protest continues.</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Time for Ethiopian Muslims and Christians to face hard facts</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is time for Ethiopians to face the hard facts! I hate to be the bearer of bad news. The fact is:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Barack Obama is against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">China is against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Britain is against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The European Union is against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The World Bank and the IMF are against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The African Union is against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Everybody is against us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The world is against us!</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">But it does NOT matter if the whole universe is against us!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">There is a force more powerful than the mighty United States of America and all the earthly powers combined.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">That force is the truth-force that binds us together in an unbreakable eternal bond.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">That unbreakable truth-force is not our nationality.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is certainly not our ethnicity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is not even our humanity.</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Our unbreakable bond of truth-force is our divinity.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is our divinity — the truth-force — that made the young Muslim human rights activists sacrifice their young lives and celebrate their long sentences before a T-TPLF monkey court.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is our divinity — expressed in our mutual respect, love, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, tolerance and commitment to justice — that eternally binds us together.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It is tolerance, self-authenticity, courage, creativity, honesty, integrity and tenacity that will ensure our ultimate victory against EVIL.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In <strong>Romans 8:31</strong> is written, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In the <strong>Qu’uran, Surat ‘Āli `Imrān 3:103</strong> is written: “And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favor of Allah upon you – when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">So, I say to my Ethiopian Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters, we must hold on tight on the “rope of Allah and not become divided” in the face of a vicious enemy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">We must become kindred souls and together bend the arc of justice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">After all, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”</span></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In tribute to the enormous sacrifices of the 18 young Ethiopian human rights activists, we must all come together as the sons and daughters of one Mother Ethiopia and fight for our liberty in our divinity.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The peaceful nonviolent struggle in Ethiopia must continue!</span></span></div>
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<em style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">A luta continua!</span></em></div>
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">“Religion is a private choice, country is a collective responsibility.”</span></strong></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-39494039464273847662015-08-17T03:47:00.001-07:002015-08-17T03:48:03.431-07:00Ethiopia: Andargachew Tsige’s Painting Sold $35,000<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; word-spacing: 0.2em;">August 17, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This amazing painting of Andargachew Tsige by Alexis Franklin was auctioned today for $35,000 (US Dollars) in Dallas, TX. Serial bidder Abebe Negatu took it home with a big smile. Thank you Dallas for your enthusiastic support to just cause for freedom. <em>(Abebe Gellaw)</em></span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-82744771217117043232015-08-14T09:04:00.003-07:002015-08-14T09:05:18.996-07:00Ethiopia: The Unfair Trial of Muslim Leaders<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Ethiopian-Muslims-Protest3-337x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Ethiopian Muslims rocked Addis Ababa" border="0" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-17285" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Ethiopian-Muslims-Protest3-337x200.jpg" height="178" style="border: none !important; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin-top: 4px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">August 14, 2015</span></h1>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Why It Undermines Counter-terrorism in Ethiopia</span></h2>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Abadir M. Ibrahim | Addis Standard (Addis Ababa)</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">Something was awry at a hearing of the High Court of Ethiopia on July 6, 2015. As the </span>much anticipated<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"> conviction of Muslim civil society leaders (Abubaker Ahmed and 17 others) was underway, it was clear that this was no ordinary trial.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Security was beefed up, the public gallery was crowded and the atmosphere was tense. A significant amount of time was spent with the court presenting a detailed defense of the government’s policies on counterterrorism and Muslim-state relations. The court also defended the state’s imposition of the Ahbash sect and, in an odd twist, compared the Ahbash sect to Zoroastrianism in Iran. Given how much time was spent on defending the government’s positions, the morning session made it feel as if the Ethiopian state was on trial and not the other way around.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The defendants, who spanned the ideological-denominational spectrum within Islam, were six members of the Ethiopian Muslims Arbitration Committee, 8 prominent Muslim scholars, two journalists, an artist and a student who were exemplary members of society.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In December of 2011, this group started as a pressure group, and later a protest movement, to convince the government to terminate its “Ahbashization” project in which the government tried to force the Ahbash sect of Lebanon as the official religion of Ethiopian Muslims. In the weeks and months that followed talks between the Arbitration Committee and the government broke down and the latter took control over Islamic schools and Mosques and started appointing its agents as Imams and teachers. As a reaction, the defendants started the Dimtsachin Yisema (“Let our Voice be Heard”) movement, a religiously based pro-secularism movement which skillfully and effectively deployed methods of nonviolent action.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The government’s response to the movement, however, was inhumane and disproportionate to say the least. It rounded up the most prominent protest leaders, tortured them, attempted to shame and defame them on national television, and now convicted them of terrorism</span><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-15793359997105117902015-08-10T07:47:00.005-07:002015-08-10T07:47:53.905-07:00US, EU, UK demand Ethiopia release Andy Tsege<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<strong style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Lawmakers from US, EU and UK demand release of death-row Brit in Ethiopia</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">(</span><em style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">Reprieve</em><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">) – A group of legislators from the US, UK and Europe have demanded the release of a British activist who has been held in a secret Ethiopian prison for over a year.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Andargachew ‘Andy’ Tsege, a prominent figure in the Ethiopian opposition, was abducted at a Yemeni airport in June 2014 and forcibly taken to Ethiopia. He has been held since in a secret location, and has been denied access to a lawyer, his family, proper consular visits and independent medical treatment. Andy was sentenced to death in absentia in 2009 on charges relating to his political activities. Torture of political prisoners in Ethiopia is common, and the UN and human rights organization Reprieve – which is assisting Mr Tsege’s family – have raised concerns that he is being mistreated.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In a letter to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn, the group – which includes US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, British MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, Baron Dholakia of the UK House of Lords, and MEPs Ana Gomes and Richard Howitt – called Ethiopia’s behaviour “unconscionable and illegal.” Their letter says: “Your government’s treatment of [Mr Tsege] is a stain on its reputation, and threatens to isolate Ethiopia internationally. Andargachew Tsege’s ordeal has gone on long enough; we call on you to release him without delay and facilitate his return home to his family.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The call follows recent criticism by President Obama of Ethiopia’s silencing of its critics, during his first trip to the country. Speaking at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Mr Obama said: “When journalists are put behind bars for doing their jobs, when activists are threatened – you may have democracy in name but not in substance.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Mr Tsege, whose partner and young children are American citizens, has previously travelled to Washington DC to speak about human rights concerns in Ethiopia. He told Congress in 2006 that “the scale of repression [by the current government] has exceeded Ethiopia’s darkest hours during the military dictatorship.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “From the White House to Congress and the European and British Parliaments, calls are growing for Ethiopia to change course and stop its persecution of dissidents like Andy. These lawmakers are right to say that Ethiopia is risking its international reputation with its shocking treatment of Andy, which has included rendition, secret detention, torture and a nakedly political and unlawful death sentence. Prime Minister Desalegn must listen, and return Andy to his family in Britain without delay.”</span></span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-14524758395549067772015-08-06T07:25:00.004-07:002015-08-06T07:25:30.417-07:00Obama’s True Legacy: Propping Up Dictators<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Obama-with-Ethiopian-officials-300x207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Obama with Hailemariam Desalegn" border="0" class="size-medium wp-image-25577" height="207" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Obama-with-Ethiopian-officials-300x207.jpg" style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify; word-spacing: 2.40000009536743px;">U.S. President Barack Obama <br />converses with Ethiopian Prime<br /> Minister Hailemariam Desalegn while <br />walking to board Air Force One <br />for his departure from Ethiopia <br />late last month. <br />(ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/Getty Images)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">August06, 2015</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">(Forbes) – By praising Ethiopia’s repressive regime for being “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/world/africa/obama-calls-ethiopian-government-democratically-elected.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">democratically elected</a>” last week, President Obama was driving home once again something that should be abundantly clear by now: His administration marks a radical departure from previous ones when it comes to democracy promotion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">On the contrary, the Obama legacy will be one of propping up dictatorial regimes around the world. His praise for the government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn merely took to Africa what Obama and his foreign policy team have already done on a grander scale in Iran, Cuba and Burma.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">To be sure, President Obama was standing next to Desalegn at a joint press conference in Addis Ababa when he spoke. Maybe he didn’t want to be a bad guest. And the President did add that the Ethiopian government has “more work to do.” After a slew of criticism at home, he later also questioned why </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: white;">African leaders clung on to office rather than leave after their terms were completed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">But Mr. Obama didn’t have to go out of his way to call Desalegn “democratically elected,” let alone do it twice. Nor did he have to make excuses for his government’s horrendous human rights record by recalling the country’s past hardship and the relative infancy of its constitution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Before leaving for Africa, human rights activists and think tanks had called on Mr. Obama to use his trip to promote economic and political freedom—something the president did only in the mildest of ways.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The Ethiopian government, for the record, has been roundly criticized by all major human rights organizations for holding sham elections in May in which Desalegn’s Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) claimed to have won 100 percent of the vote. Immediately upon Mr. Obama’s comments, the President of Freedom House Mark P. Lagon released this reaction:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">President Obama unfortunately was fundamentally wrong in his comments about the parliamentary elections Ethiopia held in May, in which the ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won every seat. Calling Ethiopia’s government democratically elected lowers the standards for democracy and undermines the courageous work of so many Ethiopians who fight to realize a just and democratic society.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">And that’s just it. President Obama seems to have very little time for dissidents who fight brutal regimes in troubled lands. The reasons for that are many. My Heritage Foundation colleague Joshua Meservey, an Africa expert, brings up two when he tells me:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">President Obama seems uncomfortable with democracy promotion for two reasons. First, he wants to distance himself from President George W. Bush’s agenda, a significant plank of which was democracy promotion. Second, I think he is a product of a certain liberal worldview that believes the U.S.’s and West’s past sins, such as slavery and the Crusades, disqualify them from pushing their values abroad, as doing so implies that the U.S.-led West’s model is superior.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Meservey is right, except what liberals don’t seem to get is that they are turning on its head one of the huge achievements of classical liberalism: the Enlightenment promotion of the idea that some rights are natural, and thus universal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The 18th century Enlightenment was all about the universal applicability of such natural rights as life, liberty and the pursuit of property. Except that to modern liberals, the Enlightenment was all about dead white men, so promoting their ideas is culturally insensitive. Ironically, they resemble in this sense the conservatives of the 18th century, who shared Edmund Burke’s belief in each nation’s particularism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Only up to a point, of course. Liberals still want to push their pet causes on others. Unfortunately these don’t include democracy or traditional human rights.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">David Kramer, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights under President Bush, sees the hand of National Security Adviser Susan Rice in the Ethiopia faux pas, saying Rice has “had a long-standing interest in Ethiopia and… was a huge fan of the late President Meles Zenawi, who was no democrat, to say the least.” Ms. Rice’s sympathy for African despots is well known.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">For the most part, though, Kramer’s analysis is the same as Meservey’s: Obama’s problems with democracy are larger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">“For the first year I put it down to ABB, Anything But Bush—Bush did it, so it was bad,” Kramer told me. “But seven years on that doesn’t explain it anymore. He’s the president who’s shown the least interest in democracy and human rights since Richard Nixon. It’s sad. For someone who constantly extols his past as a community organizer, this is pretty unexplainable.”</span></span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-89866775276317701362015-08-05T08:27:00.004-07:002015-08-05T08:27:50.164-07:00If you want to lead, do better than Dr. Berhanu Nega and his compatriots<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white;">A genuine leaders is not a searcher of consensus but a molder of consensus –Martine Luther King</span></span></h2>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Teshome Debalke</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In May 21, 2011 when I wrote: <a href="http://ecadforum.com/2011/05/21/why-i-admire-dr-berhanu-nega/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">‘Why I admire Dr. Berhanu Nega?’</a> it wasn’t because I know the man personally. Nor it is his personality; tough you can’t help but appreciate his confidence as a true child of Ethiopia. I did care less about his background or what his profession means either. It defiantly wasn’t because he is against Woyane just for the sake of it. Nor, do I believe in personality cult that misled many from taking responsibility of their own on the important issues of our people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What Beirhanu portrayed to me was a leader with character –a commitment to a cause and a moral clarity to achieve what his organization stood for.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The way he eloquently communicates his organization’s objective in liberating the people of Ethiopia from second rated tyranny was a fresh air you cannot help but breathe and feel good about all day; especially in a toxic political environment in the Era of Woyane .</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He reminded me of our forefathers’ character of decisiveness that inspired millions to defeat every conceivable enemy our people faced for 1000s of years. If you think about it, it is what is needed in contemporary Ethiopia –the Kinijit sprit to say our people come first.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Regardless of what we think one-way-or-another, what sets Berhanu Nega and his compatriots apart is their confidence in the people of Ethiopia — willing to submit for their wishes that matters the most from opportunism we saw in the last four decades.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Therefore, no matter what; Dr. Berhanu Nega and his compatriots changed how we see leadership in contemporary Ethiopia forever. To me, that is the most important contribution than anything else.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Quite honestly, noting came close to Patriotic –Ginbot 7 since Kinjit swept Woyane and made it look like a lawless village gangs terrorizing our people ever since.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Therefore, four years ago when I express my feelings, I knew little what the newly found organization known as Ginbot 7 under Dr. Berhanu planned to do. But, I knew enough; leadership in an organization with well-defined mission is what matters the most and I was confident enough it will send Woyane in perpetual spin to its core soon. When I noticed how Woyane was so frightened before G7 even started its operation to call the Chairman and his compatriots terrorists and G7 a terrorist organization; it was clear Woyane is so shallow with no legs to stand on; it is no match for G7.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Personally, I knew Woyane is a corrupt criminal group — doing what it is hired to do and doing a wonderful job of its enablers. And, there is plenty of evidence to that end. The apologists are not far behind — laboring to save the criminal group than their people and country sanctity and safety –blinded by a little perk that trickle down their way. Quite frankly, it is hard to swallow –there are Ethiopians out there to be used to sell their people for anything rubbish as long they get what they perceived to be theirs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But, what surprised many including me are the so called oppositions that claim to be standing for Ethiopians but tripping over each other to attack G7 and its leaders — instead of supporting them. There is nothing wrong to publicly express their concern and provide alternatives which would help the democratic building project. But, to throw fireball on a vibrant organization is what Woyanes do not real Ethiopians.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Therefore, I wrote;</span></div>
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<strong><em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“First and foremost Dr. Berhanu Nega is an elected leader of Ethiopia like his Kinjit partners that wiped the Woyane regime in the May 2005 Election. Love them or hate them he and the elected Kinjit’s leaders are the only people who can speak on behalf of the people of Ethiopia ever. No matter how much Woyane and its stooges scream their lungs out or what any other excuses we can come up with nothing come close to the Real-Thing.</span></em></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But, for me; as it should be for everybody else– there is nothing as important as establishing the democratic rights of my people to choice their leaders. Therefore, knowing what Woyane is all about, I knew we needed someone with character, the moral clarity and love of people to dismantle the treacherous mercenary tyranny and felt Ginbot 7 under Dr. Berhanu leadership is the right movement to do the job.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Therefore I wrote;</span></div>
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<strong><em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“But, there is more to Dr. Berhanu Nega; his moral clarity towards tyranny in any form is unwavering. And, his willingness to get his hand dirty to make it history is real. This is a rare commodity we have lost in the last two generation.”</span></em></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As I expected, the mercenary group determined to destroy every Ethiopian leader (past and present) has been at it ever since it came to power and are at Dr. Berhanu and his partners in G7 case. Others with serious character flaws continue to cry wolf to undermine Dr. Berhanu and his compatriots as we are witnessing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obviously, Dr. Berhanu and his partner in Patriotic-Ginbot 7 Movement don’t need my defense or praise. I also don’t want to hide behind them from not doing my responsibility as an Ethiopian. I, like many have my opinions and anxiety how we can best dismantle tyranny from the face of earth but, I believe talking about it without doing it would reduce me to the level of the do-noting talkers that infested our society –I have been writing about over the years. My motto is; do the right thing or stay aside and let others do it. If anyone violated that rule or insult any of my people that try I have no mercy on them to express my feeling.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The objective of this article is not to praise Dr. Berhanu and his partners in the movement. I said enough before and don’t want to make it a habit of living off of others’ efforts to cover up my own inadequacies as many do. But, this is another opportunity to tell the stooges of Woyane how carrying a mercenary regime on their shoulder reduces them as liars and thieves with no character or moral ground worthy of Ethiopians to criticize ANY Ethiopian organization. When they chose to go to bed with a mercenary Apartheid regime that rotted their mind and body they sealed their fate. But, going beyond to attack any Ethiopian that attempt to clean up the rot they help create have consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">At the meantime, I want to communicate to others– talk never build anything but, waist time and tear apart what was built. And, to build something worthy of our people requires visionary leaders that are willing to summit for the people will first to see clear to do the right thing not parasitic leaders that live off the blood and sweat of our people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The problem with “Power sharing groups”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have to admit, theses group are not kosher. They believe our people’s democratic right is up for grab to their liking. In other words; democratic rights can be auctioned off to their liking without the people consent for their convenient. They have many excuses why it is necessary and almost always use scare tactics if they don’t get their way. They have no problem with Woyane as long as it shares power with them that doesn’t belong to it. Our people democratic rights are secondary to their desire acquiring power without the consent of the people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Quite frankly, theses groups more than any are what prolonged the life of tyranny for extended period throughout our history and the cause of tyrannical behavior to strive in our society.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The problem with ‘United struggle group’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">These groups are no different than the power sharing group except they don’t have base to claim self-appoint themselves. Therefore, united struggle will give them platform to share power indirectly. Like the former, the democratic rights of our people are secondary but, use it to remain relevant. Like the former, they have many excuses and almost always put scare tactics if they don’t get their way.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Quite frankly, these groups more than any are what prolonged the division of democratic advocates for so long thus, the life of tyranny.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The question remained; can anyone claim to represent any group or individuals without their consent?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Advocacy Verses self-appointed Representation; the Africans dilemma and what the youth can learn.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Personally, I feel we Africans in general are poor and shackled by tyranny because of the elites that claim to represent our people without their consent. Ethiopians are no exceptions. The problem started with the elites not willing to accept (often deliberate) there is a difference between advocating for our peoples’ democratic rights and claiming to represent them. This naturally comes from underestimating our people’s ability to know what is right for them. In other words; it is looking down our people as children — as if they can’t speak for themselves and don’t know their rights and responsibilities to their people and country in need of self-appointed representative[s] to speak for them. In short, it is an insult to the intelligence of our people that are proven to be far more civilized than the elites that claim to represent them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Therefore, what went wrong obviously will be the follow up question to address it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Political parties and Advocacy group</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If we take the way contemporary political elites are organized it is either as political party or advocacy group.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Political parties; whether national or regional primary goal is seeking political power. In order to achieve that there are two options, by the consent of the governed (election) or by the barrel of the gun (forced submission). The latter is proven deadly and made things worse than better. The former is proven difficult because tyranny wouldn’t leave power by election. Therefore, the only reason political parties should come together for common cause is to force the ruling tyranny to submit for the people will. But, our experience is they wouldn’t do it because they have other agenda they wouldn’t revile to in public—reflected in their public statement of democracy but, undemocratic deed in private.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Democracy Advocates</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The future of any society and a nation rest on democracy advocates. Unfortunately, in Africa they are few and far in between. There are many human right advocates. Though their role is as important as any, unlike democratic advocates they are reactive to crimes of tyranny and are not equipped to dismantle tyranny.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But, Democracy Advocates are proactive to bring down tyranny on its knees and, the ruling tyranny is one small obstacle among many to achieve their goals. If truth must be told, tyranny fears democracy advocates more than any and has no legs to stand on as we are witnessing Woyane wobbling like a mad dog biting anyone on its way when democracy advocate show up. Look further how frightened it is on one independent Media like ESAT to spent millions of dollars to stop people from seeing its true color. Woyane is not alone to fear democracy advocates. Look around you and find out why democracy advocates are feared.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">In that context is how I see Patriotic –Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy with a Mission of;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The primary mission of GINBOT 7 Movement is the realization of a national political system in which government power and political authority is assumed through peaceful and democratic process based on the free will and choice of citizens of the country.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Now look carefully how it is portrayed in the not so kosher Medias. Some portrait it as opposition political party and others as Amhara party and some even go to claim it is Shabia party. Depending who said it you can find they have done absolutely nothing …nada to advance the cause of our people’s democratic rights. I will take that back, they call for conferences to nowhere, write letters of protest and put out Press Releases to nowhere. If that was all we Ethiopians need to be free we would have been free long ago but, that is not the case.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Don’t take my word. Look them up and see for yourself what they do. I guarantee you will find out they have other missions than our peoples’ freedom and democratic rights. But, for sure you will see them piggybacking on those who labor to bring about democracy to our people and splitting hair to undermine them at the same time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Transparency Project is the key to sort out the real from fabricated organizations that involve in public affair to distract us as we witnessed for decades.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Patriotic –Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy is a movement to be emulated not undermined.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let it be known to one and all. If you run an organization and fail the transparency test you might as well close shop and retire. The job of liberating our people from tyranny is not entertainment. If you have better alternative; put it out and let the people judge. Transparency matters; it shows what said and done reconciles. Leadership matters; it shows the willingness to take responsibility. Submission for the people will matter; it shows democracy is the goal not slogan. Most importantly, our people’s lives and wellbeing matters; it shows the struggle is about them not for lust for power and prestige.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Patriotic –Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy is in the right track on all counts. Show me a better alternative I will stand corrected. But, the era of botching what is good for our people is over. We have Woyane for that and, aiding and abiding Woyane doesn’t make you an alternative, it makes you a replica.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">———————–</span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This article is dedicated for my people advocating for religion freedom that were sentenced for extended period by Woyane kangaroo court. Your sacrifice is for Ethiopawinet Woyane is after disguised as on your faith. Your people are with you in prison, out of prison, anywhere and everywhere until freedom rings soon.</span></em></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-18207316858170583022015-08-03T11:10:00.002-07:002015-08-03T11:10:35.462-07:00Barack Obama! Tell the Truth About Ethiopia!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/obama-ethiopia-ecadforum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Barack Obama! Tell the Truth About Ethiopia!" border="0" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25549" height="167" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/obama-ethiopia-ecadforum.jpg" style="border: none !important; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">August 3, 2015</span></h1>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Alemayehu G. Mariam</span></em></div>
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<strong><em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Warning! </span></em></strong></div>
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<strong><em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Stop!</span></em></strong></div>
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<strong><em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Do not read further if you can’t handle the truth about Barack Obama. “Truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth.”</span></em></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong><span style="color: white;">“I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue.”</span></strong></span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Bite your tongue, Barack Obama!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When President Barack Obama visited Ethiopia last week, he shocked a lot of people by making the following <a class="ext-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=167&v=sP7kBC6KWSs" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">statement</a>:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>I don’t bite my tongue too much</strong> when it comes to these issues. We are opposed to any group that is promoting the violent overthrow of a government, including <strong>the government of Ethiopia, that has been</strong> <strong>democratically elected</strong>. We are very mindful of </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopia’s history – the hardships that this country has gone through. It has been relatively recently in which the constitution that was formed <strong>and the elections put forward a</strong><strong>democratically elected government</strong>.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The government of Ethiopia has been democratically elected!?!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Say what?!!!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On May 24, 2015, the “government of Ethiopia” held elektions and <a class="ext-link" href="http://almariam.com/2015/06/07/ethiopian-thugmocracy/" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">declared it had won it by 100 percent</a>. Yes, by one hundred percent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Even Kim Jong-un’ of North Korea did not have the gall to claim a 100 percent electoral victory in the March 2014 parliamentary election.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">At least on paper, Kim Jong-un’s “Worker’s Party of Korea” won only by 88.3 percent (607 of the 687 seats).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The “Korean Socialist Democratic Party” won 50 seats. The “Chondoist Chongu Party” won 22 seats. The “General Association of Korean Residents in Japan” won 5 seats. The “Religious Associations” won 3 seats.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In Ethiopia, there are <a class="ext-link" href="http://www.electionethiopia.org/en/political-parties/active-political-parties.html" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">79 registered</a> political parties who “actively participated in the election”.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In May 2015, the “People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front” (EPDRF) party (the front organization for the Tigrean Peoples’ Liberation Front [TPLF]) won 547 of the 547 seats in “parliament”.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No candidate from the other 78 political parties even came close to winning a single seat!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On July 26, 2015, Barack Obama stood up in Addis Ababa and declared, “The government of Ethiopia is democratically elected.”</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama in the Land of Living Lies or Land of 13-Months of Sunshine?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Barack Obama’s visit to the Land of 13-Months of Sunshine Ethiopia reminded me of the magical visit of a little cartoon animation girl called Sandy to the Land of Living Lies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In the Land of Living Lies, Puff the Magic Dragon, introduces Sandy to such famous fibbers as Pinocchio and the boy who cried wolf.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sandy: Puff, look!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Puff: That is the famous purple cow that no one has ever seen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sandy: And the pink elephant.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Puff: That some see too often. Don’t you think it’s odd that I, a dragon, should eat homework for lunch? Of course it’s odd, for it never happened. It was a falsehood, a canard, a prevarication. Oh, why beat about the bush. It was a simple lie told by a little girl named Sandy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sandy: Oh, those are silly lies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Puff: No, those are fanciful lies. And harmless fantasy OK. And it’s fun, too.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If there ever has been an election won by one party by 100 percent that is democratic, then there is indeed the famous purple cow that nobody has ever seen or the pink elephant that some see often.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But a single political party winning an election by 100 percent is a falsehood, a canard, a prevarication.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Oh, why beat about the bush. It is a simple lie told by the mighty President of the United States called Barack Obama.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Silly lies, fanciful lies, harmless lies told by Barack Obama after he met with Hailemariam Desalegn (Pinocchio) and Tedros Adhanom (the boy who cried wolf).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Stop! Not harmless lies, by any stretch of the imagination.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Barack Obama told dangerous lies that could plunge a nation of 100 million into civil strife and destruction!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Barack Obama is an extraordinarily intelligent guy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But in the Land of Thirteen Months of Sunshine transformed into the Land of Living Lies, something happened to Barack Obama.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Barack Obama got on TV and lied right through his teeth. But that was not all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">To cover up his lie and distract attention from the real issue, which is why 78 out of 79 political parties did not win a single “parliamentary” seat, Barack Obama kept blathering about “the violent overthrow of a government that has been democratically elected.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ain’t nobody talking about no violent overthrow of anything.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But to justify his statement that the election of the ruling TPLF thug party by 100 percent, Obama kept on talking about a violent overthrow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Of course, Obama was merely echoing and legitimizing the narrative of the bush thugs who claim they are under siege by terrorists and insurrectionists intent on overthrowing them by force of arms.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama’s aim was obviously to elicit international sympathy and support for the TPLF and subtly demonize all who oppose the TPLF as inherently violent and terroristic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama’s implicit message was that any opposition to the TPLF is violent and certain to be terroristic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Thus, the ruling regime is justified in crushing all opposition, with the full support and blessings of America.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have one simple question for Barack Obama.</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Assuming for the sake of argument that the regime which claimed 100 percent election victory is not elected democratically, is it ok to overthrow it by “violence”.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Before you answer that question, think of Iraq, Barack!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is Obama’s statement, “The government of Ethiopia is democratically elected.” some sort of cruel practical joke played on the people of Ethiopia?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Had Obama lost his marbles when he made that absurd statement?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Did Obama say what he said in a jetlag daze?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The fact is on July 26, 2015, Barack Obama stood in Addis Ababa and declared to the world with a straight face, “The government of Ethiopia is democratically elected.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Readers! I am in a real dilemma. Help me out!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I want to disagree respectfully with President Obama.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">And I don’t want to insult President Obama’s intelligence by saying that he actually believes his words, “The government of Ethiopia that has been democratically elected.”</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But what choice do I have!?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Anyone who believes the “government of Ethiopia” that claimed to have “won” the May 2015 election by 100 percent is “democratically elected” has no business being President of the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For that matter, he has no business being the president of the town volunteer stray dog-catchers society.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>In 2009, </strong><a class="ext-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnF4rQQktfs" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title=""><strong>Joe Wilson</strong></a><strong>, the South Carolina Congressman shouted at Obama, “You Lie!” during the state of the union address.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I thought that was disrespectful of President Obama. I had a few choice words for Wilson.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Six years later, I understand. (Sorry, Joe!)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If I had a chance to meet Obama, I would wag my index finger in his face and tell him, “Barack Obama! You lie like a rug!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is Barack Obama a pathological liar?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could it be that Barack Obama is a compulsive liar? That is, he lies out of habit; and through repetition he is hardwired to lie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Could Obama be afflicted with the Pinocchio’s Syndrome?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is no way on earth (or in hell) Obama did not know his statement, “The government of Ethiopia that has been democratically elected.” is a lie, a doggone lie!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But he said it without flinching, blinking or cringing. The marks of the practiced liar.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Everyone knows Obama is a lawyer trained at one of the best law schools in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No one doubts he knows the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For crying out loud, he is the President of the United States! He has to know the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie!!!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama’s categorical statement, “The government of Ethiopia that has been democratically elected.” is as false as the man who claimed he is ten feet tall.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There has never been a human being in recorded history that was 10 feet tall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There has never been a genuinely democratic election in the recorded history of humanity that was won by a single party by 100 percent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When Obama stands up, looks into the unblinking eye of the camera and lies through his teeth, what is left for me to do but stand paralyzed in shock and shame?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As Obama’s tongue wagged and weaved a tangled web of lies, his body language was telling a different story.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The video, in contrast to the audio, of the joint press conference told a different story.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In the video, Obama’s body language spoke louder than his words; and told the truth that he was lying about what he said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Immediately after he stated, “The government of Ethiopia that has been democratically elected.” Obama’s body language changed in the video.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">His eyes gazed to the ground.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He tilted his head up and looked vacantly into the gallery.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He slouched on the lectern to show he is at ease as he lies through his teeth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He tried to conceal the internal tension between his lying tongue and his virtuous conscience (the microscopic residue of that keen conscience we all voted for).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As Obama embellishes his lies with lawyerly gobbledygook, he struggles to conceal all verbal and physiological clues that he is lying.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He shows no emotional reaction of guilt as he weaves his tale of deceit about a thug-state elektion. He tries to suppress any disturbance in his speech content or pattern. But his vacant eyes don’t lie. They kept looking at the floor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama flails in “hand shrugs” to cover up the fact that his tongue is saying one thing and his body saying, “That ain’t true. It’s a lie”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama’s body stiffens. For a few seconds, he looked completely wooden, soulless. He was not talking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He was just reciting talking points written for him by you know who, “Queen Grimhilde”, his National Security Adviser.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As Obama continued to lie, he spoke haltingly. He hesitated. He searched for the right words to embellish his lies, pretending to be cautious in his choice of words.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama made a tactical digression and droned on (no pun intended) about using a single standard to judge big and small nations on human rights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But there was no one talking about China’s human rights record but Obama.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama kept on pattering during the press conference like a used car salesman trying to unload a hunk of junk on an unsuspecting customer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The really funny thing was that when Susan Rice was asked if the election that the ruling regime in Ethiopia “won” by 100 percent was “democratic”, she busted out in the <a class="ext-link" href="http://almariam.com/2015/07/31/laughing-at-ethiopias-2015-elektion/" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">biggest belly laugh </a> by an American official anyone had seen in decades. She simply could not control her laughter!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They say Emperor Nero laughed as Rome burned. I wonder if Susan Rice thought elections in Ethiopia are laughing matters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Barack Obama with a straight face stated, “The government of Ethiopia has been democratically elected.” Twice!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I want to be fair to Obama!</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is he really talking on the basis of informed policy analysis or regurgitating the script written for him by Susan “Svengali” Rice, his National Security Adviser.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In April, a month before the May 24 Ethiopian elektion, Rice sent Undersecretary Wendy Sherman to Addis Ababa with the <u>exact same talking points</u>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sherman showed up in Addis Ababa on April 16, 2015 and set the terms of engagement when Obama showed up in July 2015. She <a class="ext-link" href="http://almariam.com/2015/05/03/wendy-sherman-and-the-ethiopian-election-that-isnt/" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">declared</a>, “Ethiopia is a democracy that is moving forward in an election that we expect to be free, fair, credible open and inclusive in ways Ethiopia has moved forward in strengthening its democracy every time there is an election. <strong>It gets better and better</strong>. The United States believes no group, including Ginbot 7 should attempt to overthrow or speak of overthrowing a democratically elected government.”</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When Barack Obama showed up in Addis Ababa on July 26, 2015,<u>he said exactly what Sherman said on April 16, WORD FOR WORD!!!</u></span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How is that possible? They must think we are all dumbbells.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Sherman’s statement sparked a firestorm. I took her to task for telling lies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Washington Post slammed Sherman and <a class="ext-link" href="https://coursepages.knet.hks.harvard.edu/sites/9978/Pages/Default.aspx" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">told her</a> point blank to “swallow” her dumb words and “change her approach”. Sherman announced her resignation not long after that editorial.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I have to hand it to Sherman. <strong>She was right in her prediction about the elektion.</strong></span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It did get better. In May 2010, the ruling regime won by 99.6 percent; in May 2015, it won by 100 percent. It could not get any better than that!</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Aah! Susan Rice, the invisible hand that rocks the cradle!</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On what theory of democracy does Obama certify the democratic election of the “government of Ethiopia”?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In June 2009, in Cairo, Barack Obama gave the world his <a class="ext-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">definition of democracy</a>:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. <strong>Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy</strong>. (Emphasis added.)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When Obama says, “The government of Ethiopia is democratically elected.”, he is obviously saying “elections alone, without the other ingredients, make true democracy.”</span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">By Obama’s own definition, did the ruling regime in Ethiopia “win” the election with 100 percent with Chef Obama’s “ingredients” of democracy?</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><strong>On July 28, 2015 Barack Obama stood before the African Union and </strong><a class="ext-link" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/28/remarks-president-obama-people-africa" rel="nofollow external" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title=""><strong>said</strong></a>:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I believe Africa’s progress will also depend on democracy, because Africans, like people everywhere, deserve the dignity of being in control of their own lives. We all know what the ingredients of real democracy are. They include free and fair elections, but also freedom of speech and the press, freedom of assembly… Yet at this very moment, these same freedoms are denied to many Africans. <strong>And I have to proclaim, democracy is not just formal elections.</strong> <strong>When journalists are put behind bars for doing their jobs, or activists are threatened as governments crack down on civil society — then you may have democracy in name, but not in substance.</strong></span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-91194625710114520682015-08-02T11:47:00.000-07:002015-08-02T11:47:13.665-07:00Why Obama doesn’t understand the lust for power of our African leaders by Patience Akumu<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Even before the dust could settle on President Barack Obama’s <a class=" u-underline" data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body link" href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/28/barack-obama-africas-presidents-for-life-are-a-risk-to-its-democratic-progress" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;" title="">candid criticism of African presidents</a> who manipulate their constitutions so that they can stay longer in power, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni – once the west’s model of a truly democratic leader – was on his way again to contest the presidential seat he has held for 30 years. From Rwanda to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi to Zimbabwe, Africa’s big men replied to Obama: this oppression – the shackles, the poverty and indignity – are what the African people have chosen. Tedros Adhanom, the foreign minister of Ethiopia, home of the African Union, defended African leaders who cling to power, saying: “Because they made the law, they can change the law.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Museveni was echoing the actions of Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Robert Mugabe of <a class=" u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/zimbabwe" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Zimbabwe</a> and indeed all African leaders who have sought to manipulate the law for a chance at eternal presidency. Adhanom proposed that the extension of term limits was acceptable if it had popular support. It is this type of apologist politics that has kept Africa in its current state – a </span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: white;">continent of people who accept lacklustre leaders in the belief that there is a miraculous star shining somewhere at the end of the tunnel of bad leadership. It is this desperate need to cling to power, for no apparent reason and to no end, that Obama does not understand.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">This lack of understanding of how things work in Africa, Africa’s big men are quick to point out, is a result of their son, Obama, being overly indoctrinated in the ways of the west. To the advocates of Africa’s new and emerging autocrats such as Andrew Mwenda, a former opposition-leaning journalist turned informal PR for the governments of Uganda and Rwanda, Obama is a puppet whose African ancestry is being used by the US to further its agenda of exploitation. And, Mwenda argues in an opinion article for Al Jazeera, <a class=" u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/africa" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">Africa</a> should not listen to anything Obama says.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In fact, if African leaders could place Obama across their thighs and spank him until he forgot his western ways and got some good African sense into his head, they would. For one thing, this errant African son does not know what it is like to fight for the loot that is your country. Museveni, who took power after waging a five-year guerrilla war, has compared the demands that he leave office to a hunter killing his animal and then being asked to leave before he can eat the meat.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">To African leaders, Obama’s solutions for Africa are untenable. They view him as detached from the challenges and realities of an African leader. For starters, this African son has one wife and no known concubines. No wonder he comes up with wayward ideas such as educating more African women. Does he know how hard it would be to convince a scientist, engineer or entrepreneur to become a second wife? Does he know how many legal cases African countries would have to deal with if most of the masses – whose human-rights violations nosy organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International do not tire of reporting – were educated and employed rather than hungry and destitute?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The reality is that these African leaders do not realise that their argument that human rights, dignity and democracy are a western concept force-fed to the African continent no longer holds water. Its demise happened around the time when Bakayoko, the protagonist in Senegalese writer Ousmane Sembène’s <em>God’s Bits of Wood,</em> declared that dignity, good food, water and housing, are not for white people – they are for people. The notion that human rights and democracy – the kind that Obama speaks about – are not African was stripped of all legitimacy when African leaders, evoking the universal declaration of human rights and drawing inspiration from the French and American revolutions, demanded self governance and equality. They made these demands in English, French, Portuguese and other languages that their tyrants would understand. With their sweat and blood, they adopted human rights, made them African and used these ideals to liberate the continent from colonialism. It is baffling that these same people now dare to reject such ideals as being foreign. With worrying nostalgia, some Africans of an older generation will tell you that colonialism was so much better than the governments they live under. If African leaders cared, it is this kind of talk that would keep them up at night and push them to do whatever it takes to perform better.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">But, as Chatham House Africa researcher Ahmed Soliman observes, even after Obama’s speech, successful and peaceful transfers of power in Africa will remain the exception rather than the rule. You can be sure that when the African Union meets in January next year, in the same hall where Obama made his historic admonishment, Africa’s power-clingers will still pat themselves on the back for the incredible job that they have done turning the continent into one on the move. They will have a selective memory of Obama’s speech, remembering only the parts where Africa was hailed as young, prosperous and vibrant. They will forget Obama’s warning of the fragile foundations on which the continent stands.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">And yet, like it or not, Obama’s presence in the hall will be haunting and taunting the delegates. His message will not be exorcised. And even as they publicly act nonchalant about it, they will go home and think of the potent words of the first African-American US president. At the next AU meeting, there will be some countries that are still the marvel of the continent and a sting on the consciences of the power–clingers. Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Senegal, Botswana, Ghana and others that strive to respect that basic facet of democracy called “term limits” will be a reminder that perhaps the continent is not doomed after all.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By the time the children who were born during Obama’s Africa visit will be crawling, the reality of a continent that is rising but not rising will have set in. With it will also come the realisation that a good guest is not one who brings food so that you can feast together for days and grow fatter. A good guest is one who brings you a hoe so that you can dig and have food for the rest of your life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Obama may be blamed for not making grandiose announcements about increased aid during his visit, but his powerful words are the kind of inspirational tool we Africans – both young and old – need to lift our downtrodden and intimidated souls and reminds us that even our grandfathers can and should be challenged when they err.</span></span></div>
Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-91451367647069610382015-07-31T07:46:00.003-07:002015-07-31T07:46:30.292-07:00The evolution and devolution of Barack Obama<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Obama-300x168.jpg?257829" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="President Barack Obama speaks at the La Moneda Cultural Center in Santiago, Chile, Monday, March 21, 2011. (AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais)" border="0" class="size-medium wp-image-6711" height="168" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Obama-300x168.jpg?257829" style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify; word-spacing: 2.40000009536743px;">President Barack Obama speaks <br />at the La Moneda Cultural Center<br /> in Santiago, Chile, Monday, <br />March 21, 2011. (AP / Pablo<br /> Martinez Monsivais)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px; word-spacing: 0.2em;">July 31, 2015</span></h1>
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<em style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">by Yilma Bekele</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">President Obama is not new to oppression. He started his political life as a community worker. As a grassroots organizer, he helped the disadvantaged stand up for their Constitutional Rights so they could enjoy life and liberty as free citizens. His constituents elected him three times to the Illinois Senate, and once to the US Senate, and finally to the Presidency.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">His election in 2008 is considered a historical moment in the Republic’s history. His campaign to win the nomination, and his tussle with Senator Clinton was bare fisted, and his demolition of Senator McCain was viewed as just phenomenal.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">He has done a lot of good to help the disadvantaged in the USA. His signature health care bill (Obama Care) is a great achievement by any standards. He has filled many judicial seats with progressives and minorities; the dividends will ripple for generations to come.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Mr. Obama has been said to have evolved on a variety of issues. It could be seen as going with the flow and accepting the inevitable or seen as rethinking one’s core values and beliefs to come to a new and different conclusion. History will judge if the President was acting as a consummate politician and blowing with the wind or if he is genuine in his belief in change.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The war in Syria and the group referred to as ISIS is a good example of Mr. Obama’s evolution. He did not think much of President Assad and thought less of the opposition. In an interview with the NY Times he said, ‘This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">That was August of 2014. Senators Mc Cain, Rubio, Cruz were screaming for war and and ISIS took center stage and in September of 2014 Mr. Obama evolved. He authorized airstrikes in Syria and pledged to train and equip the opposition to Assad.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In a 1996 campaign questionnaire when he ran for Illinois State Senate, Mr. Obama supported same sex marriage. In 2008 when he ran for the Presidency, Mr. Obama declared ‘I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman,’ he continued, ‘Now, for me as a Christian—for me—for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">By October of 2012, Mr. Obama evolved on the same sex marriage issue by saying, ‘Ultimately, I think the Equal Protection Clause does guarantee same-sex marriage in all 50 states.’ His opponent Governor Romney, who used to boast of his ‘better than Kennedy’ stand on matter of gay rights devolved into a staunch conservative while Mr. Obama saw the writing on the wall and moved further to the left.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">How do we see Mr. Obama’s current love affair with dictators and Human Rights abusers in Africa? Did he evolve or devolve is the questions Africans are asking. Mr. Obama in 2008 came with the message of ‘Hope’ and the whole world was electrified with his victory. Africans were particularly elated by the news. One of our own has become boss of the whole planet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The young President rode the wave like the professional he is. His speech in Cairo was watched by all third world people that look to the US to take the lead in matters of Global Peace and Prosperity. He did everything to make us believe good days were ahead. The following four excerpts are taken from his speech in June of 2009 in Cairo, and the one on July of 2009 in Accra, Ghana.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere. Cairo speech June 4th 2009</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy. Cairo speech June 4th 2009.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In the 21st century, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success – strong parliaments and honest police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private sector and civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in peoples’ lives. Accra, Ghana speech July 11, 2009</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">As we provide this support, I have directed my Administration to give greater attention to corruption in our Human Rights report. People everywhere should have the right to start a business or get an education without paying a bribe. We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don’t, and that is exactly what America will do. Accra Ghana Accra, Ghana speech July 11, 2009</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">President Obama was back in Africa just last week. He visited Kenya, the home of his father and made a stop in Ethiopia to speak at the Headquarters of the African Union in Addis Abeba. I am afraid the old and tired Obama has devolved on us. That youthful exuberance is replaced by cynicism and indifference. He came to lecture Africans. He wanted us to march on his parade. It was all about him. He reversed that famous Kennedy quote right side down. He asked African leaders, ‘What can you do for me not what can I do for your people?’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Africans expected that their powerful, rich son coming home with his own private plane and escorted by Fighter jets, helicopters and drones would level the playing field so we all can play and compete to win. That is what Roosevelt did for Europe after the devastating war. He loaned them money, he made sure that Democracy and Human Rights were respected and he laid the foundation for what Europe is today. We expected the same treatment for our abused continent.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">I am afraid that Mr. Obama was a disappointment to his East African cousins. He referred to the Ethiopian fascist regime as a democratically elected equal. That is not fair to the many Ethiopians who were killed by the Government goons in every part of the country, who were jailed for speaking out, who have lost their job and family belongings because they dared to stand up and challenge the TPLF regime currently masquerading as EPDRF. It is not that Mr. Obama is not aware that the TPLF regime sabotaged and banned Andenet, manufactured chaos inside AEUP, deleted Semayawi Party candidates and used its monopoly of the media to scorn and demean the opposition.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">President Obama is aware of all that and more. He is just like his predecessors that used to change regimes in Latin America on a whim. The President is flirting with today’s dictators that have learnt the lesson of appearing Democratic and acting like a thug. Latin America today is growing out of the pains inflicted by the CIA and is wary of its giant neighbor to the north. The policy of propping Generals and dictators did not bring peace or prosperity. It only resulted in mistrust. It would take a while to start a new era of equal relationship.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Susan Rice Obama’s National Security Advisor could not hide her feelings about TPLF winning 100% election joke the regime played on Ethiopians. I am sure she told Mr. Obama. His Department of State yearly report on Ethiopia reads like a horror story and that is the sanitized version. The real story the Embassy reports through secure channels that was released by Wiki leaks is testimony to man’s inhumanity to man. Just because the fascist regime is willing to send its soldiers to further a proven not to succeed policy President Obama turned his face around and pretended not to see. On behalf of all those that were murdered by TPLF, on behalf of thousands in prison such as Eskinder, Andualem, Temesgen, Wubshet, Andargachew, Bekele, Abubeker and others we peace loving Ethiopians with our friends all over the world are not happy with your policy of appeasing dictators. In your own words ‘you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The bottom line is that no one knows our condition better than ourselves. Right now it is fair to say that most Ethiopians have concluded that there is something majorly wrong in our country when all the power is concentrated in one little clique. The Ethiopian people are attempting in many ways to regain their authority over their country. There are many ways to fight injustice. Mr. Obama’s America was founded by the colony’s refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of the British Monarch on the land they had built by their own blood and toil. They went to war to protect their right to ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ That is what the Ethiopian people are compelled to do. It is natural and no amount of force would stop man’s quest to be free.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Professor Cornel West in one of his interviews referred to Mr. Obama the ‘Black face of the American Empire.’ The current visit to Africa seems to have confirmed his thesis. Anyone that goes to Africa and raises Gay Right issues as Mr. Obama did during his press conference with the Kenyan PM makes you wonder about the kind of data he gets from his expert and impartial Advisors. I was forced to think was he playing to the US audience or did he really think that most Africans have evolved with him on this issue and go to bed hungry thinking about same sex marriage. I do not mean to belittle the Human Right aspect of the question but in today’s Africa finding food and shelter ranks very high.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Mr. Obama has another year and half to go. Anything is possible, and the chances of further evolvement and show of empathy for those under dictatorship is always possible. We won’t hold our collective breath for such eventuality because we have decided to do the job ourselves. When Mr. Obama understands our predicament we are certain he would do what our freedom fighters are doing currently in Northern Ethiopia and soon to spread all over Ethiopia.</span></span></div>
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<li style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16.7999992370605px; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/ethiopianvideo/2015/07/27/susan-rice-laughed-at-ethiopias-regime-election-win/" style="background-color: black; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white;">http://ecadforum.com/ethiopianvideo/2015/07/27/susan-rice-laughed-at-ethiopias-regime-election-win/</span></a></li>
<li style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16.7999992370605px; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="ext-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/opinion/president-obama-thomas-l-friedman-iraq-and-world-affairs.html" rel="nofollow external" style="background-color: black; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title=""><span style="color: white;">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/opinion/president-obama-thomas-l-friedman-iraq-and-world-affairs.html</span></a></li>
<li style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16.7999992370605px; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="ext-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/09/world/middleeast/obama-isis-strategy.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow external" style="background-color: black; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title=""><span style="color: white;">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/09/world/middleeast/obama-isis-strategy.html?_r=0</span></a></li>
<li style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 16.7999992370605px; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="ext-link" href="http://time.com/3704760/barack-obama-gay-marriage-david-axelrod/" rel="nofollow external" style="background-color: black; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title=""><span style="color: white;">http://time.com/3704760/barack-obama-gay-marriage-david-axelrod/</span></a></li>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-5197395834661726162015-07-30T09:00:00.002-07:002015-07-30T09:00:17.200-07:00Ethiopia’s top opposition figure turns down invitation to Obama State Dinner<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Yilkal_Getnet.jpg?549399" style="border: 0px; clear: left; color: #cd1713; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px auto 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Mr. Yilkal Getnet, chairperson of the rising Ethiopian opposition Semayawi Party" class=" wp-image-21265" height="242" src="http://ecadforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Yilkal_Getnet-300x227.jpg?549399" style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 5px 5px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #555555; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 2.40000009536743px;">Yilikal </span>Getnet<span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #555555; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; word-spacing: 2.40000009536743px;">, chairman <br />of the Blue Party</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(Reuters) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A leading Ethiopian opposition figure on Monday turned down an invitation to a state dinner in honor of US President Barack Obama, Reuters reported.Yilikal Getnet, chairman of the Blue Party, turned down an invitation to attend the state dinner with Obama, saying it would amount to taking part in a “luxurious dinner while millions suffer in Ethiopia.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Yilikal told the local paper Negere Ethiopia that he also made the decision “after watching President Obama saying that the ruling party in Ethiopia is elected democratically.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The country’s ruling coalition won a sweeping victory in parliamentary elections in May that Western nations criticized as unfair.</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-83381658230523990422015-07-28T11:28:00.004-07:002015-07-28T11:28:49.562-07:00Human rights in Ethiopia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">July 28, 2015</span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Elisa Massimino | The Washington Post</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In “ Obama’s Ethiopia stop irks human rights leaders ” [news, July 23], Girma Birru, Ethiopia’s ambassador to the United States, claimed that journalists imprisoned under the country’s notorious “anti-terrorism law ” support groups that “instigate violence.” He did not say that any activist who refuses to join the ruling party can be jailed and tortured.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">One of us, Merga Nebiyu Gelgelo, was a biomedical engineering student who founded an organization to support economic development in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Though he did not belong to a political party, he was detained under the anti-terrorism law and brutally tortured. Prison guards tied him to a cross, lit a fire under the cross and slid his body close to the fire. Mr. Gelgelo thought he would burn to death.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopia can work with the United States to combat terrorism in East Africa without torturing Mr. Gelgelo and hundreds more like him just because they do not support the dictatorship.</span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Andrea Barron and Merga Nebiyu Gelgelo, Washington</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The writers are, respectively, advocacy consultant and member of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Human rights advocates are not simple idealists who think human rights concerns trump economic and security interests in a zero-sum game. But juxtaposing human rights advocates with “experts” who think the administration “must weigh human rights against other important factors” creates an impression that activists “view foreign policy through the single lens of human rights.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Instead, they largely agree with Samuel Berger, national security adviser under President Clinton, who said it was a mistake to “think of human rights and security as an either-or proposition.” Indeed, I doubt that any of the former government officials quoted in the article would argue that lasting security can be achieved in Ethiopia, Kenya or any other country without enduring respect for human rights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The real question isn’t whether or not to engage with these countries; it’s whether the U.S. government will use its considerable leverage, including state visits, to press for progress on the prerequisite for security and prosperity: human rights.</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-3857622101892953362015-07-27T10:23:00.000-07:002015-07-27T10:23:06.881-07:00Obama juggles security and rights concerns in Ethiopia visit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Addis Ababa (AFP) – US President Barack Obama heads to Ethiopia Sunday, the first American president to visit Africa’s second most populous nation and a key but much maligned ally in the fight against terrorism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama, who arrived in neighbouring Kenya on Friday, is expected to leave for Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa late Sunday for a two-day visit, where he will also be the first US leader address the African Union, the 54-member continental bloc.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“This is the first time a sitting (US) president is visiting Ethiopia,” Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Tewolde Mulugeta said. “This will bring the relationship between our two countries to a new high.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Through the tinted windows of his bomb-proof presidential limousine, nicknamed “The Beast”, Obama will be able to see Addis Ababa’s construction boom of tower blocks, as well as sub-Saharan Africa’s first modern tramway.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopia has come far from the global headlines during the 1984 famine, experiencing near-double-digit economic growth and huge infrastructure investment — making the country one of Africa’s top-performing economies and a magnet for foreign investment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Horn of Africa nation also remains a favourite of international donors — despite concerns over human rights — as a bastion of stability in an otherwise troubled region.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama is slated to address leaders at the AU’s gleaming Chinese-built headquarters as he wraps up his Africa trip on Tuesday, with remarks that may touch on Africa’s democratic deficit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">AU Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said it would be an “historic visit” and be a “concrete step to broaden and deepen the relationship between the AU and the US.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama is also expected to meet top mediators pushing peace efforts in neighbouring South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, which is gripped by a 19-month civil war marked by horrific atrocities.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">While Kenya launched one of the biggest security operations ever seen in the capital Nairobi to host Obama, Ethiopia’s powerful security forces meant there was little obvious extra fanfare ahead of his arrival.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">‘Repressive policies’</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopia, like Kenya, has been on the frontline of the fight against the Somali-led and Al-Qaeda affiliated Shebab — both nations have troops in Somalia as part of an AU and US-backed force, and are key security partners to Washington.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But the visit also comes two months after elections that saw the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn take every one of the 546 seats in parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The opposition, which lost its only seat, alleged the government had used authoritarian tactics to guarantee victory.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The US State Department notes Ethiopia’s “restrictions on freedom of expression,” as well as “politically motivated trials” and the “harassment and intimidation of opposition members and journalists.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ahead of the visit, the White House stressed it frequently addresses issues of democracy and political rights with countries in the region.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Rights groups have warned Obama’s visit could add credibility to a government they accuse of suppressing democratic rights, including the jailing of journalists and critics, with anti-terrorism legislation said to be used to stifle peaceful dissent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In an appeal to Obama ahead of his visit, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said they were “extremely concerned about the fate of those who remain behind bars”, arguing that “Ethiopia’s fight against terrorism should not come at the price of freedom of information and of the press.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Amnesty International said Obama should raise with Ethiopia the “profoundly repressive policies” of the government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“We don’t want this visit to be used to sanitise an administration who has been known to violate human rights,” said Amnesty’s Abdullahi Halakhe, adding he feared Ethiopia would “spin” the visit to its benefit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“The majority of ongoing conflicts on the continent are linked to issues of political governance,” said Desire Assogbavi, representative of the aid agency Oxfam to the AU.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama has travelled to Africa more than any other sitting US president, and talked about the “deep” ties between Africa and the United States before setting off on the trip.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Assogbavi said that the visit, coming as Obama winds down his time in power, weakens the potential impact he could have.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Obama is a son of the continent,” Assogbavi said. “We had hoped that this visit might have occurred within the first years of his term, rather than the last minute, to allow time to implement the decisions,” he added.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama’s visit raises Ethiopia’s stature amid rights concerns</span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Like the visit to Kenya, President Barack Obama’s trip Sunday to Ethiopia represents the first time a sitting U.S. president has been to this East African country and according to its government, it is a sign of the nation’s growing stature.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Grave concerns remain, however, over political freedoms in this nation of more than 90 million — Africa’s second largest — and opposition figures fear that the visit, coming on the heels of an improbable 100 percent ruling party win in elections, will give international legitimacy to a repressive government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">With its history of pan-African activism, Ethiopia is also the home of the African Union and on Tuesday Obama will be addressing the whole continent from the organization’s new headquarters in Addis Ababa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">After centuries of ties — the first bilateral trade agreement was signed in 1903 — only now is a U.S. president visiting, noted Communication Minister Redwan Hussein.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“The choice by a sitting U.S. President to visit us was made because we have become more visible and important enough to be visited,” he told The Associated Press. “Being visited by the first sitting American president will enhance the confidence and aspirations of Ethiopians.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Obama is set to holds talks with his counterpart Mulatu Teshome as well as Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and is expected to discuss the conflict in southern Sudan, confronting the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab in Somalia and economic development.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Administration officials have also promised frank discussions over the lack of press freedom and political openness in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In May, the ruling party took all the seats in legislative elections described by the U.S. and the European Union as unfair.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Woretaw Wassie, a leader of the opposition Blue Party said members of his party were arrested ahead of Obama’s visit on suspicion they would make a fuss.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Visiting a country which is totally contrary to the values of the West is very controversial,” he said. “But in any case, the U.S. believes that engaging can make a difference so maybe it will be a good opportunity to put some pressure.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Another touchy subject would be gay rights which Obama championed on Saturday in Kenya, calling for equal treatment for all under the law.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“All religions in Ethiopia should oppose the president if he raises the gay issue here,” said Memihir Dereje Negash, of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church-linked Weyiniye Teklehaimanot Association.</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-1615050882924191072015-07-26T04:36:00.002-07:002015-07-26T04:36:54.158-07:00Ethiopian Opposition Group Threatens Armed Resistance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">(VOA News) Ethiopia’s opposition Ginbot 7 Movement for Unity and Democracy has decided to use armed resistance in addition to peaceful resistance against the government in Addis Ababa. This follows the move of the group’s leader from the United States to Eritrea.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Berhanu Nega travelled to Ethiopia’s northern neighbor following the merger of his Ginbot 7 with the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front. “It’s true he travelled to Eritrea, he went on July 17, 2015,” said the spokesman for the group, Dr. Tadesse Biru.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“He is the leader of an organization that strives to bring about democratic order in Ethiopia, and he went to fulfil his leadership role,” he explained in reference to Dr. Berhanu, who was sentenced to death in absentia while living in the US.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopia’s government classes Ginbot 7 as a terrorist group. It comprises former members of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, an opposition grouping that made unprecedented gains against the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front in 2005 elections.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Tadesse confirmed the merger of Ginbot 7 with the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front this year. On armed resistance, he said: “We do have a kind of blended strategy to challenge the government in Addis Ababa. We have been trying to stage civic disobedience; we tried peaceful resistance starting in 2005.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But, a non-violent solution, he said, has been closed by the government in Ethiopia, and the group has been forced to consider all possible avenues including civic disobedience and armed resistance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Tadesse emphasized, however, that the group is still open to a non-violent settlement. “We are always open to possibilities of a peaceful resolution. The group emerged from a peaceful movement but now we are forced to consider armed resistance. It’s not our choice but there is no other feasible option to challenge the government in Addis Ababa.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">He said civil disobedience will continue, but will be complemented by ‘non-peaceful resistance, like it was done in South Africa’.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Some observers say the move of the group to Eritrea could renew tensions between the Horn of Africa nations, which fought a two-year war that ended in 2000.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The spokesperson dispelled such fears, saying nothing will happen since the two countries had no friendly relationship anyway. “Eritrea has provided us an opportunity to organize our movement there, that’s all. I don’t think it will in any way affect the relationship – it has not been good.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As to the strength of the group’s armed force, Tadesse said: “yes, there is a small group that has been training in Eritrea, and there is a movement developing.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Officials in Addis Ababa have dismissed the group’s move. A special adviser to the Prime Minister was reported saying Ginbot 7 is militarily weak and Berhanu’s move to Eritrea is a “publicity stunt.</span><span style="background-color: white;">”</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-92086710353311312172015-07-25T02:31:00.005-07:002015-07-25T02:35:25.810-07:00Obama’s Emerging African Legacy: Will African Strongmen or the African People Benefit?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">SMNE PRESS RELEASE</span></em></div>
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<em><em style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">July 24, 2015. Washington, DC</span></em></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">This week US President Barack Obama will visit his father’s home country of Kenya, followed by Ethiopia, where he will address the African Union and meet with Ethiopian government leaders. The trip is garnering much attention among Africans, especially Ethiopians, who see his plans to meet with members of the current authoritarian government, in office for over 24 years, as a disturbing alignment with Ethiopia’s strongmen, contrary to his strong statements of the past on behalf of the people of Africa.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In his famous speech to Ghana’s parliament in July 2009, Obama won the enthusiastic response of Africans when he said, “Make no mistake; history is on the side of these brave Africans, and not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">How will Obama live up to these statements in meetings with autocratic Ethiopian leaders who manipulate elections, the law and the Constitution to suit their needs or when he addresses the strongmen in the African Union? In the years 2015-2016, some thirty national elections will be held in Africa. Out of these, Nigeria may be one of few success stories where there was a peaceful transition between a sitting president and a newly elected leader. African strongmen continue to dominant the continent, starting with Ethiopia, and continuing with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea and many others. He ended his speech in Ghana with assurances of US responsibility “to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don’t, and [promising] that is exactly what America will do.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A local daily newspaper vendor lays out newspapers with headlines “Welcome Obama” on July 24, 2015 in Nairobi. US President Obama arrives in his ancestral homeland Kenya later today, with a massive security operation under way to protect him from Al-Qaeda-linked Somali militants. AFP PHOTO / SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The enthusiasm Africans once felt for President Obama is waning as they see such incongruous actions follow the lofty rhetoric. This is Obama’s fourth trip to the continent, but Africans wonder what has been accomplished for the people. They had placed great hope in President Obama, believing he would speak up for them as a true son of Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In his speech in Cairo in June 2009 he urged leaders in the region to “place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party.” Yet, in Ethiopia nothing is allowed to interfere with the interests of the ruling party and its top elite.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) recently won its fifth election since taking power by force in 1991. After closing down all political space, decimating civil society, criminalizing dissent, politicizing the judicial system, and brutally cracking down on opposition leaders, journalists, human rights activists, religious leaders and virtually any critics; they claimed a 100% victory in the May 2015 national elections. They “won” all 547 seats in parliament and made a sweeping victory of the same proportions in local and regional elections.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The EPRDF is a coalition party in name only. It is tightly controlled by one ethnic-based political group from one of nine regions, the Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF), which is dominated by the TPLF Central Committee made up of members from the same ethnic group, representing only 6% of the population and only one of ninety or more ethnic groups. Every sector of society is now controlled by this apartheid government that doles out jobs, opportunities and perks based on ethnicity and party loyalty.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Two new laws have undermined freedoms guaranteed in the Ethiopian Constitution—an Anti-terrorism law used to silence any opposition and a Charities and Societies Proclamation law that led to the closure of over 2,600 independent civic organizations. It outlaws the advancement of human and democratic rights and the promotion of rights for children and the disabled among other critically important work of civil society, if the organization receives over 10% of its budget from foreign sources.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethnicity, religion, and ancient grievances have been exploited to divide the people as never before, but the law prohibits conflict resolution and the promotion of equality of nations, nationalities, peoples, gender and religion under the same guidelines.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In Ghana, Obama declared that defining oneself in opposition to someone else’s tribal, ethnic, or religious identities “has no place in the 21st century.” I agree; it is time for Africans to put humanity before ethnicity or any other differences, for we all are created in God’s image with inherent worth. The old African adage of “one tribe take all” will not work for no one will be free until all are free. Our neighbor’s freedom will sustain our own.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As Obama meets with leaders in Ethiopia, he should exercise caution towards a regime that is grounded on blatant ethnic favoritism, corruption, and the repression of the majority. Many fear the growing rumblings of discontent, just below the surface, will erupt into violence. A perception of support may send the wrong message with unknown repercussions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The verdict of the jury of Africans is still not settled in regards to Obama’s legacy in Africa. Who will be the real beneficiaries of his legacy? Will it be African strongmen or the African people? Africans are watching. It will take much more than words this time. Mr. President, it is time to come through on your promises!</span></span></div>
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<em><em style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For more information, contact Mr. Obang Metho, Executive Director of the SMNE. Email: Obang@solidaritymovement.org</span></em></em></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-55673324943383662362015-07-23T08:11:00.005-07:002015-07-23T08:11:47.967-07:00Obama’s Ethiopia visit legitimizes authoritarian government, critical expatriates say<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Andrew Nachemson | The Washington Times</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;">President Obama is poised to become the first sitting president to visit Ethiopia when he travels to Africa later this week, but the milestone is not a source of pride for Aklog Birara.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Like many Ethiopian-Americans, the economist and former adviser to the World Bank is expressing very mixed emotions about the trip and the symbolism it will have for Ethiopia’s authoritarian government. Mr. Birara fled his native country amid increased repression and is now an American citizen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Under normal circumstances I would not only admire but support a visit from a U.S. sitting president to Africa,” Mr. Birara said, but he added that the Ethiopian government is “one of the two worst jailers of journalists in Africa,” and the justice system is “practically nonexistent.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">His misgivings are shared by Lemlem Tsegaw, an Ethiopian-American poet and human rights activist.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“The government will twist the visit to serve their own purposes,” she claimed, fearing that the government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will attempt to use Mr. Obama’s visit as a tacit endorsement of the regime. Long criticized for human rights abuses and attacks on press freedom, Mr. Desalegn and his ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition has been in power for more than two decades and captured every seat in May’s parliamentary elections.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Washington area is home to perhaps the largest community of Ethiopian-Americans in the country, and the visit has become a focal point for protests. On July 3 a large group of Ethiopian-Americans gathered outside of the White House to vehemently protest the upcoming visit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Waving both American and Ethiopian flags, the protesters also carried signs that read, “President Obama don’t bankroll dictatorship and injustice” and “No to wining and dining with a tyrant.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Mr. Obama is expected to meet with Ethiopian leaders on his stop there, and will also address the African Union at its Addis Ababa headquarters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Terence Lyons, associate professor of conflict resolution at George Mason University, said Mr. Obama faces a tricky balancing act in both Ethiopia and his other stop on the trip, Kenya, where his father was born.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“That will be President Obama’s challenge, to say simultaneously we’re very happy with some of the development advances but we have deep, deep concerns about the almost complete elimination of political space — the arrests of journalists, the harassment of opposition parties and the restrictions on civil society,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Witney Schneidman, a nonresident fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Africa Growth Initiative, said Mr. Obama was to be commended for breaking a pattern where U.S. presidents would only visit a handful of “safe” African countries and allies on their trips to the continent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“In short, there are definitely going to be critics who will criticize his visit to these two countries, but I think it’s frankly way overdue and a sign of a new opening of sorts to the continent,” he said.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Mixed feelings</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Mr. Birara confessed to having mixed feelings himself about President Obama’s visit, admitting there were some positive aspects to the trip.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">While some have praised Ethiopia for the role it has played in helping combat Islamist terrorism in the region, both Mr. Birara and Ms. Tsegaw said the regime had much to answer for. Mr. Birara claimed that stringent antiterrorism laws are being abused to jail opponents of the government, and Ms. Tsegaw questioned how the Ethiopian government could be combating terrorism when it is “a terrorist to its own people.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There are also growing fears that Mr. Obama will largely sidestep any talk of human rights and democratic reforms during his visit, a silence that activists fear will be taken as a sign of support for the current government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ms. Tsegaw acknowledged that there are both “positive and negative aspects” to the visit, but asserted that the trip would be a waste if President Obama does not “seriously address the human rights violations” in her native country.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Added Mr. Birara, “My plea to the president is to take time from his hectic schedule and really address human rights issues and talk to opposition members who are silenced by the government.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In a letter to the president, the Ethiopian American Council also appealed to Mr. Obama to make a political statement during his visit. The organization requested that the president stop at the Kalite Prison, where, it said, over 1,000 political prisoners are being kept in “abhorrent conditions.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Make your visit truly historical by using the venue at Kalite to call upon the regime in Ethiopia to make real political reforms,” the Council urged.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Bilal Ethiopian Muslim Community added their voice to the growing chorus of groups demanding Mr. Obama address these issues.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Identifying themselves as “proud Americans with Ethiopian heritage,” the group issued a list of human rights violations Muslims in Ethiopia have suffered under the current regime. The letter also included a plea for “America to pressure the government of Ethiopia to exercise their rule of law as they have written in their constitution.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Some prominent human rights groups say the Addis Ababa visit could prove fruitful, but only if Mr. Obama makes a concerted effort to address issues with the Ethiopian government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Over 50 human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center, issued an open letter calling on the president to meet with democracy activists in Kenya and Ethiopia during his visits.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“We believe it imperative that you take the opportunity of your visits to meet publicly with pro-democracy and human rights activists,” reads the letter, “thereby sending a strong message that your administration remains committed to integrating human rights and good governance concerns into its official bilateral relations with all nations.”</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-67256460505944229042015-07-22T07:02:00.000-07:002015-07-22T07:02:03.244-07:00Ethiopian Arrests for Internet Security Training Undermine Right to Privacy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">by Sarah Myers West | ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The simple act of taking steps to protect oneself online is enough to send a journalist to jail, according to charges issued by Ethiopian prosecutors in several cases to be heard this week. An Ethiopian court will soon hand down verdicts in a number of cases where criminal charges could be assessed for attending or applying to attend Internet security training.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Five of the Zone 9 bloggers (four of whom are in prison and one who is being tried in absentia) will face a long-awaited verdict in the case on July 29 after the court adjourned a planned hearing on July 20. Seven of the bloggers were arrested under criminal and anti-terrorism charges for acts that include participating in online security training sessions where they learned how to use encryption technologies such as Tactical Tech and Front Line Defenders’ </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Security in a Box guide. As evidence for their alleged crimes, prosecutors submitted widely available documents including Security in a Box: Tools & Tactics in Digital Security as well as guides on secure passphrases and message encryption to make their case against the bloggers much like EFF’s own Surveillance Self-Defense.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If convicted, the mandatory sentence in Ethiopia for terrorism and incitement offenses is a minimum of eight years—however hope remains that the court will exonerate the bloggers in the absence of substantive evidence to support the charges, according to Zone 9 founding member Endalk Chala. Already five of the bloggers were released last week, which some have attributed to anticipation of a visit by President Barack Obama at the end of the month.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In another group of cases, Yonatan Wolde, Abraham Solomon, Bahiru Degu, and Zelalem Workagenhu are facing charges for applying to attend an Internet security and social media training session abroad. All four were detained on July 8, 2014, along with six other locally-based opposition politicians, social media activists, and youths, on suspicion that they have links to the diaspora-based opposition group Ginbot 7. Zelalem, who was the co-organizer of the training session, is also charged with using social media to oust the government and sending reports that appeared on independent Ethiopian satellite service ESAT tv. They will appear in court on July 22 to hear a verdict.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The regularity of these arrests suggests a concerning trend, in which journalists are being arrested for the suspicion of what they might say or do and detained without any substantive evidence to support their crimes. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression David Kaye said in a recent report that not only do such charges “fail to meet the standards for permissible restrictions,” states like Ethiopia “…undermine the rights to privacy and freedom of expression when they penalize those who produce and distribute tools to facilitate online access for activists.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">“Encryption and anonymity, and the security concepts behind them, provide the privacy and security necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age. Such security may be essential for the exercise of other rights, including economic rights, privacy, due process, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and the right to life and bodily integrity,” Kaye said in the report.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Encryption is indeed a powerful tool that not only enables users to communicate securely online, but fosters the kind of conditions that make freedom of expression possible. Its use should never be cause for the deprivation of freedom</span><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6936420560066267725.post-53721978705657171412015-07-21T11:50:00.005-07:002015-07-21T11:50:48.387-07:00My Private Letter to President Obama (Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">President Barack Obama</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Dear President Obama:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Greetings! Mr. President.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">I was ecstatic when I heard you will be travelling to Ethiopia in late July “for bilateral meetings with both the country’s government and the leadership of the African Union.” Such a meeting is long overdue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have no doubts the people of Ethiopia will welcome you with open arms and affectionate hearts. I may be biased but I believe Ethiopians are the most hospitable people in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The last time I was just as ecstatic was exactly 6 years ago in July 2009 when you spoke in Accra to members of Ghana’s Parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Your words in Accra were stirring and uplifting not only to me but also to tens of millions of Africans yearning to breathe free on the continent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You told it like it is and should be:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Make no mistake: History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That’s the change that can unlock Africa’s potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Now, time and again, Ghanaians have chosen constitutional rule over autocracy, and shown a democratic spirit that allows the energy of your people to break through. We see that in leaders who accept defeat graciously.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it’s no longer needed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have directed my administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human rights reports.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am aware that in the past couple of weeks numerous highly respected human rights and media organizations have expressed vigorous opposition to your Ethiopia visit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights expressed deep concerns. “The decision by President Obama to travel to Ethiopia, which has seen three opposition party members murdered this week alone, is very troubling.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Washington Post was mystified by your trip and proposed an alternate venue arguing that Ethiopia “stands out in Africa for its increasingly harsh repression and its escalating chokehold on independent media and political dissent. It’s almost unfathomable that he would make time for an entrenched human rights abuser such as Ethiopia while cold-shouldering the nation that just witnessed a historic, peaceful, democratic change of power: Nigeria.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Foreign Policy Magazine was openly critical of your visit. “Washington wants a stable partner in the Horn of Africa. But cozying up to the repressive regime in Addis Ababa isn’t the way to go about finding one.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Commenting on the May 24 election in Ethiopia, Foreign Policy observed that by “winning all 547 parliamentary seats, [the ruling regime in Ethiopia] places it[self] among the ranks of North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq in terms of the sheer efficiency of its electoral sweep.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Guardian, in its summary of diverse reactions to your trip, observed, “Barack Obama’s decision to visit Ethiopia has shocked human rights activists, who say the visit sends the wrong message to a repressive government widely accused of clamping down on dissent.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Many Ethiopian civil society groups, organizations and community leaders have openly and vigorously disapproved your visit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On July 3, a large group of Ethiopian and Ethio-American protesters stood outside of the White House to register their disapproval of your trip.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I share in the reservations expressed by the diverse human rights and civil society groups, media organizations and policy analysts regarding your trip to Ethiopia. I trust you will give due consideration to their concerns and deliberate the issues they raised.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Arguably, as the foremost Ethiopian Diaspora advocate of human rights in Ethiopia, with a record of uninterrupted weekly commentaries and vigorous advocacy in the cause of human rights in Ethiopia and Africa for the past nine years, I believe your trip to Ethiopia, on balance, is likely to produce favorable and positive outcomes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I should like to believe we are already witnessing a glimmer of that positive impact just days before your arrival in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On July 8, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported the regime in Ethiopia released “two bloggers affiliated with the independent Ethiopian collective Zone 9 and three other journalists. All charges have been dropped against them. ”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">These young bloggers and journalists have been under illegal detention since April 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There are numerous other journalists and bloggers like them who eagerly await your arrival so they too may also be free.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">On July 9, the Committee to Protect Journalists jubilantly reported, “We are elated that Reeyot Alemu has been released, but she should never have been jailed in the first place. She served more than four years while in poor health and under often restrictive conditions.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Reeyot did not have to serve a single day in prison. She was told the key to the prison gate is in her hand. All she has to do is sign a request for pardon admitting guilt and walk right out.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But Reeyot chose to stay in prison for 4 years and 17 days because she valued the truth more than her personal freedom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Just before her captors let her go, Reeyot warned them: “If you are letting me go to bring me back when I tell the public that I was released without asking for a pardon, I would rather stay. If you lie about my release, I will tell the truth.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That is why they call Reeyot Alemu “Ethiopia’s Truth-Teller.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I know Reeyot. She is a she-ro for millions of Ethiopians.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Reeyot is Ethiopia’s Rosa Parks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I ask you to meet with her in private for no reason other than for you to see the face of grace under fire in flesh and blood.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The release of the journalist and bloggers in anticipation of your arrival is an auspicious development.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If the news of your arrival could crack open the gates of Akaki Prison just enough to let out five bloggers and journalists, I am hopeful and pray that your arrival will bust open all of the prison gates in Ethiopia and let out the thousands of long-suffering political prisoners.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I also hope and pray you will not face what CNN reporter Erin Burnett faced when she arrived at Bole Airport in Addis Ababa in July 2012. Burnett described her experiences as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">We saw what an African police state looked like when I was in Ethiopia last month… At the airport, it took an hour to clear customs – not because of lines, but because of checks and questioning. Officials tried multiple times to take us to government cars so they’d know where we went. They only relented after forcing us to leave hundreds of thousands of dollars of TV gear in the airport…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I believe it is in your book “Dreams of My Father” that you wrote the following moving words:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder — alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware — is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am not sure the regime in Ethiopia will let you see what you saw in Jakarta and Nairobi when you visit Addis.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In anticipation of your visit, they will sweep up and truck away the tens of thousands of street beggars and the homeless to the countryside so that they will not cast a tattered shadow of themselves on the shiny glass buildings along your motorcade. But if you look hard enough, you might see a few of them huddled alongside the walls and fences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">If you were to speak to the average young Ethiopian in the street, they would first tell you they are very happy to see you. Then they will whisper to you how their lives have been twisted and mangled by a ruthless and corrupt regime. They will tell you about their daily lives of humiliation and the simmering fury that courses in their blood. They will tell you about their dashed hope and crushed dreams.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wonder if they will put to you Langston Hughes’ timeless question:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What happens to a dream deferred?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Does it dry up</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">like a raisin in the sun?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Or fester like a sore–</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">And then run?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Does it stink like rotten meat?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Or crust and sugar over–</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">like a syrupy sweet?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Maybe it just sags</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">like a heavy load.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Or does it explode?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I commend you for your bold and uncompromising statement on World Press Freedom Day on May 1, 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">After underscoring the “vital role that a free press plays in democracy,” you declared:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Journalists give all of us as citizens the chance to know the truth about our countries, ourselves, our governments. That makes us better, it makes us stronger, it gives voice to the voiceless, it exposes injustice, and holds leaders like me accountable… Unfortunately, in too many places around the world, a free press is under attack by governments that want to avoid the truth… Journalists are harassed, sometimes even killed, independent outlets are shut down, dissent is silence, and freedom of expression is stifled.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I also recall your 201o Statement on World Press Freedom Day. “While people gained greater access than ever before to information through the Internet, cell phones and other forms of connective technologies, governments like China, Ethiopia, Iran, and Venezuela curtailed freedom of expression by limiting full access to and use of these technologies.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Ethiopia you will be visiting in July 2015 is ranked “fourth worst violator of press freedoms” in the world and second worst in Africa by the Committee to Protect Journalists.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In Ethiopia, journalism is synonymous with terrorism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Journalism is a crime against the state.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Journalists are presumed and deemed to be terrorists and enemies of the state.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You will find that <u>all</u> imprisoned journalists and bloggers in Ethiopia are convicted of or are held for years without trial on terrorism charges.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This past week, it was revealed that the ruling Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front had spent millions of dollars purchasing surveillance software technology from a company called the “Hack Team”. This news reminded me of your 2010 Statement on World Press Freedom Day and your observation about governments “limiting full access to and use of these [internet] technologies.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You may also be interested to know that the regime in Ethiopia used the Hack Team’s nefarious surveillance technology to track down and arrest the “Zone 9 bloggers”, some of whom were released a few days ago in anticipation of your arrival.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I realize and appreciate that your arrival in Ethiopia at this time may present some manifest contradictions for you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In July 2009, you told the Ghanaians and through them all Africans that no person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery even if that tyranny is burnished with an occasional “sprinkle of elections.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In September 2014, you met Hailemariam Desalegn, the titular head of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front, and his delegation at the White House and said, “The Prime Minister and the government is going to be organizing elections in Ethiopia this year. I know something about that… And so we’ll have an opportunity to talk about civil society and governance and how we can make sure that Ethiopia’s progress and example can extend to civil society as well…”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Well, “Prime Minister Hailemariam and his government” had the election you spoke about on May 24, 2015. They “won” it by 100 percent. Yes, by one hundred percent!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Learned commentators observed such an election outcome in the 21<sup>st</sup>century could occur only in North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2008 campaigning for the presidency, you said, “You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change.’ It’s still gonna stink after eight years.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2015, I say the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front can wrap its dictatorship in a piece of ballot paper called “election” and call it democracy. But after a chokehold on power for 23 years, it’s still gonna stink.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Every 5 years, the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front “sprinkles” elektions to give a human face to its inhumanity, brutality and venality.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2005, the late Meles Zenawi held elections. When he lost that election, he personally ordered the massacre and shooting of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is ironic that but for the Meles’ Massacres, it is unlikely that I would be writing this letter to you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is because of the Meles Massacres that I resolved to become an indefatigable and relentless human rights advocate in Ethiopia and in Africa and wherever else human rights are violated. Dr. Martin Luther King’s admonition stirred my soul: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The lives lost in the Meles Massacres matter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front, the Meles Massacres are simple issues of mind over matter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front does not mind and the hundreds of victims of the Meles Massacres don’t matter! Neither do the thousands of political prisoners languishing in official and secret prisons today.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But the victims of the Meles Massacre matter to me. Beyond what I am able to express in words.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They matter to me as a human being.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They matter to me as a man uncompromisingly committed to the rule of law.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They matter to me as a native Ethiopian son who left decades ago vowing never to return, but one whom Ethiopia has refused to leave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">They matter to me as a proud Ethiopian American who has been fortunate enough to “secure the blessings of liberty” promised to “posterity” in the Founding document of the Republic. Yes, that flawed and imperfect document which turned a blind eye to slavery and deaf ears to the wails, cries and lamentations of African slaves.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2009 in Accra you said:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">This is about more than just holding elections. It’s also about what happens between elections. Repression can take many forms, and too many nations, even those that have elections, are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves… No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You are correct in your observations.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Economist in its May 2012 issue observed:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Investing in Ethiopia is not for the faint-hearted, however. With a projected national income of $38.5 billion this year, its population of 85m still ranks among the world’s poorest. The government’s big spending carries risks, including high inflation (32.5% in March was near a nine-month low) and heavy state borrowing that has shrunk the credit available to private firms. Much more borrowing and spending is planned, and needed. The heart of the Ethiopian capital may be traversed by new concrete arteries and bridges, built by Italian and Chinese contractors with Chinese loans. But the rest of Addis Ababa is a patchwork of dirt paths lined by corrugated-tin dwellings that are the capital’s shantytowns and slums.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2009, you told the Ghanaians that you “have directed [your] administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human rights reports.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You need not worry about a corruption investigation in Ethiopia. The World Bank has done that job for you meticulously.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2012, the Word Bank issued a one of a kind 417-page report entitled, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">That report documented the deadly cancer of corruption and its vector in the Ethiopian body politics. That’s why the World Bank was compelled to undertake a clinical “diagnosis”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The expert prognosis is that corruption will in the foreseeable future destroy Ethiopian society and economy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2014, Ethiopia ranked 136/175 on the Corruption Index.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In all candor, I have been contemplating two questions for a long time. As your travel date to Ethiopia draws near, these questions gnaw my mind to sleeplessness:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is Africa better off today than when you became president?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is Ethiopia better off today than when you became president?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I ask these questions in the form of accountability and for two basic reasons.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">First, billions of American taxpayers have flowed into Ethiopia in the name of development, security and democracy over the past 6 years. The evidence shows that American tax dollars have served to fortify a brutal regime and not much more.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In September 2014, you stated to the delegation of leaders of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front that Ethiopia is one of the “bright spots and progress that we’re seeing in Africa, I think there’s no better example than what has been happening in Ethiopia — one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The “fastest growing economy” may be a nice phrase for media hype but it is unsupported by evidence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is part of USAID’s typical litany to claim that U.S. aid has contributed to the “substantial growth in agriculture, industry and services” in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am not so sure about the “fastest growing economy” or USAID’s claims of “substantial growth.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2010, the State Department Inspector General reported “the audit was unable to determine whether the results reported in USAID/Ethiopia’s Performance Plan and Report were valid because mission staff could neither explain how the results were derived nor provide support for those reported results.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Is it possible the growth figures are being “cooked”?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The evidence shows no one really knows if the billions of American dollars are doing much to help the people of Ethiopia. It is clear they are doing a lot for the leaders, members and supporters of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2011, Global Financial Integrity reported:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ethiopia, which has a per-capita GDP of just US$365, lost US$11.7 billion to illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2009. In 2009, illicit money leaving the economy totaled US$3.26 billion, which is double the amount in each of the two previous years…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2008, Ethiopia received US$829 million in official development assistance, but this was swamped by the massive illicit outflows. The scope of Ethiopia’s capital flight is so severe that our conservative US$3.26 billion estimate greatly exceeds the US$2 billion value of Ethiopia’s total exports in 2009.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">GFI concluded, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The question is which Ethiopians have the financial ability to illicitly move out of the country billions of dollars.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Economist Magazine in its March 2013 issue had the skinny on “one of the fastest-growing economies in the world”:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Even [regime] supporters do not have much faith in official numbers. Annual productivity gains in agriculture are probably not 5-6%, as the official statistics suggest, but more like 2-3%, though that is still impressive. An insider says: ‘Officials are given targets and then report back what superiors want to hear.’ International experts are suspicious of the GDP growth figures of 11% flaunted by the government. They say the actual growth rate is only half that, around 5-7%—which is still respectable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Other independent research organizations have reported even more jarring and distressing facts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2014, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHDI) Multidimensional Poverty Index (formerly annual U.N.D.P. Human Poverty Index) reported for the fourth successive year that Ethiopia is ranked as the second poorest country on the planet. Yes, the second poorest in the world!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In 2010, OPHDI reported that the percentage of the Ethiopian population in “severe poverty” (living on less than USD$1 a day) was 72.3%.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The OPHDI 2014 poverty statistics are even more shocking. In rural Ethiopia, 82 % of the population struggles “in severe poverty” compared to 18% in the urban areas. The highest incidences of “severe poverty” in Ethiopia in 2014 were found in the following regions: Somali (93% ), Oromiya (91.2%), Afar (90.9%), Amhara (90.1%) and Tigray (85.4%).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">By OPHDI measures, poverty is not simply lack of money.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Poverty is quintessentially about bad health, bad education, bad nutrition, high child mortality, bad water and electricity supply, bad housing and bad sanitation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The root cause of poverty in Ethiopia is bad governance!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Despite the hype about “double-digit economic growth over the past ten years”, Ethiopia is in very bad shape; and that is how she got to be ranked the second poorest country on the planet!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Second, I wonder what American taxpayers have received from Ethiopia in exchange for the billions they have given out over the years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I do not doubt that the U.S. leans on Ethiopia to do the heavy lifting on security issues in the Horn and East Africa. I don’t believe there is anything new in that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In the post-WW II period, the U.S. has been the major supplier of military equipment and training to Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The U.S. maintained Kagnew Station, a “Cold War listening station”, in northern Ethiopia between 1943 to 1977.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">U.S.-Ethiopia relations deteriorated after the military socialist junta took over in 1974.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The strategic security cooperation and partnership to wipe out terrorism in the Horn between the U.S. and Ethiopia will continue regardless of the regime in power. There is little doubt that Ethiopians support the U.S. effort to fight terrorism in the Horn and elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A few months ago, terrorists in Libya beheaded 30 innocent Ethiopians because of their nationality and faith. The resolve of all Ethiopians to root out terrorism wherever it rears its ugly head can never be doubted. Ethiopians are confident that the long arm of justice will catch the criminals against humanity who beheaded their compatriots no matter how long it takes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Tigrean People’s Liberation Front has no monopoly on counter-terrorism. It is rather ironic, however, that the U.S. has built a counter-terrorism partnership with the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front, an organization actively listed in the Global Terrorism Data Base.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”; even former terrorists can walk in our midst like wolves in sheep clothing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You once said, “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is well known that the U.S. Air Force has flown armed drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of the U.S. effort to destroy terrorist enclaves in Yemen and Somalia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have no issues with “taking out terrorists who threaten us” or threaten any peace-loving nation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As a civil libertarian and constitutional lawyer, I am troubled by a policy premised on the doctrine of presumption of guilt, shoot first and ask questions later.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I will reserve that issue for another time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">My issue is that the very counter-terrorism security partnership the U.S. has employed to hunt down terrorists in the Horn is also used to hunt down journalists, bloggers, dissidents, opposition leaders and others in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014 has documented the terrorism that is perpetrated against the civilian population in Ethiopia by the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The most significant human rights problems included restrictions on freedom of expression, including continued restrictions on print media and on the internet, and restrictions on freedom of association, including through arrests; politically motivated trials; and harassment and intimidation of opposition members and journalists. The government continued restrictions on activities of civil society and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) imposed by the Charities and Societies Proclamation (the CSO law). Other human rights problems included alleged arbitrary killings; alleged torture, beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees by security forces; reports of harsh and at times life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; detention without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; a weak, overburdened judiciary subject to political influence; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights, including illegal searches; alleged abuses in the implementation of the government’s “villagization” program; restrictions on academic freedom; restrictions on freedom of assembly, association, and movement; alleged interference in religious affairs; limits on citizens’ ability to change their government; police, administrative, and judicial corruption; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I should like to applaud your efforts in Africa over the past couple of years, and particularly for your initiatives.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You launched “Power Africa”, a public-private partnership designed to make electricity available across the continent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I must say that I am wary of the words “power” and “Africa” appearing in the same sentence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Power is a real problem in Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The questions are always the same: Who has power? Who is powerless? How are the powerful to be restrained from abusing the powerless?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For ordinary Africans, “Power for Africa” could be mistaken for “Power for African Dictators”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I wish the initiative had been called “Empower Africans”. I am all for empowering Africans, especially the young ones.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I also like your Young African Leaders Initiative with the Mandela Washington Fellowship at its core. It is said that initiative “embodies” your “commitment to invest in the future of Africa.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is commendable to bring 500 of the best and brightest of Africa’s youth and open up opportunities for them in business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership and public management.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I must confess that your “Young African Leaders Initiative” reminded me of W.E.B. Du Bois’ “theory” of the “the talented tenth”, which he used to describe the likelihood of one in 10 black men becoming leaders of their race in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Du Bois wrote in his “Talented Tenth” essay, “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Perhaps your “Young African Leaders Initiative” will produce Africa’s “Talented Tenth”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Perhaps the young African leaders will save Africa from contamination, genocide and crimes against humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I wondered what initiatives you had in the works for the hundreds of millions of African youths who lack access to basic education, health care and employment opportunities. The U.N. says nearly 70 percent of the African population is under 35 years old. These youths could use your leadership to help get them out of dictatorship. They can handle the rest.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">When you held the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit at the White House in August 2014, I was heartbroken.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Your immortal words, “Africa does not need strongmen, Africa needs strong institutions.” overwhelmed me when I saw you standing and smiling next to the who’s who of world dictators.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There you were standing shoulder to shoulder with Paul Biya, Blaise Compaoré, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe, Paul Kagame, Joseph Kabila Kabange, Idris Deby, King Mswati III, Yoweri Museveni, Denis Sassou-Nguesso and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There you stood with Uhuru Kenyatta, a man at the time on trial at the International Criminal Court.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">The Bard of Avon wrote, “Foul deeds will rise,/ Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I applaud your “Feed the Future Initiative” designed to reduce, hunger, malnutrition and poverty in Africa and elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Kofi Annan said, “Programs like ‘Feed the Future’ make an important contribution by supporting innovation, providing technical knowledge, and developing markets for smallholder farmers to sell their products.” Kofi is right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I am sure you will agree with me that “Man and woman do not live by bread alone.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In June 2009, you said:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas. They are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Africa’s young men and women, Africa’s future, also desperately need freedom—the freedom to speak, to worship, to assemble and to petition for grievances.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A young African mind and body is a terrible thing to waste.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let me say a few personal words that are unrelated to the big issues of the day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Perhaps these words will give you insights why I am passionate about my human rights advocacy in Ethiopia and Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am among the second wave (cohort) of young Africans who came to the U.S. for higher education in the late 1960s and early 1970.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Your father was in the first wave of promising young Africans who travelled to the West after the initial round of decolonization of African societies and returned to Africa in the mid-to late 1960s.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I chose to study political science and law. I was particularly interested in the “theory” and practice of American constitutional law and government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Your father studied economics and returned to Kenya.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I received my terminal degrees and chose to remain in America.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I knew early on that I could not live in a country where the people live in total fear of their government instead of a country where the government fears the people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I guess that would make a Jeffersonian-type democrat with my resolute opposition to corruption, insistence on virtue, equal rights for all citizens and so on. I tend to be self-righteous in that way.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In May 2009, you said:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have studied the Constitution as a student; I have taught it as a teacher; I have been bound by it as a lawyer and legislator. I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never – ever – turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake. I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset – in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval. Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I too have studied the Constitution and teach and practice it. I have vowed never to turn my back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For me upholding the Constitution is a simple matter of idealism. Deep down, I am an incorrigible utopian Ethiopian American.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">So every week, without missing a single week for the past nine years, I have preached and sermonized on the most cherished of American values, those values succinctly enshrined in the Bill of Rights.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In your Nobel speech in 2009 you said, “We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope as you meet the leaders of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front in Addis Ababa, you will not compromise on American ideals and turn a blind eye to the plight of the thousands of political prisoners held in official and secret prisons in Ethiopia. I hope you will insist on the release of journalists Eskinder Nega, Woubshet Taye, Temesgen Desalegn, Abraha Desta, the detained members of Zone 9 bloggers, and the thousands of other political prisoners.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">A couple of days ago it was reported that six members of the Ethiopian Muslims Arbitration Committee, eight scholars, two journalists, an artist and a student were “convicted” of terrorism, conspiracy and incitement charges.” They had been held in detention since 2012.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope you will insist on the release of these young Ethiopian Muslims who have been imprisoned for no reason other than asserting their constitutional right to keep government out of God’s business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Let me also say that I have been your number 1 fan and supporter since you announced your candidacy for the presidency in February 2007.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Over the years, I have written countless commentaries promoting your candidacy and mobilizing financial and electoral support for you in the Ethiopian American community throughout the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have defended your policies and robustly countered your critics in the media.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In the past year, perplexed in the extreme by your policies in Ethiopia, I wrote a commentary entitled, “Why I am Ashamed to be Proud of President Obama”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">There is nothing more I want than to be proud of you again in the last two years of your presidency.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I remember reading somewhere that you have a practice of reading “10 pieces of unvetted correspondence addressed to you” as part of your important daily reading material.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope my letter will be one of the 10 pieces.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope you will get to read this letter because it resonates the deepest feelings of millions of Ethiopians who are voiceless and whose voices have been silenced.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I imagine my letter will likely not reach you because those who screen the thousands of letters addressed to you every day may find mine to be the rantings of an overwrought, self-important, self-righteous, self-absorbed and self-appointed and misguided professor-cum-constitutional-lawyer-cum-Ethiopian-human rights advocate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Perhaps the content of what I have written to you does not make much sense because it is written by one “being wrought and perplexed in the extreme”, to borrow a phrase from the Bard of Avon, ruminates away his days over the tragedy that has befallen his native land and his people.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Perhaps my letter is too long and may sound overly accusatory in tone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But I write to you out of conviction that “the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict”, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For the past nine years, I have not remained neutral in the great moral conflict facing Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have stood proud and tall on the right side of history every single Monday since 2006.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I believe it was in your book “The Audacity of Hope” that you observed, “If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">My friends Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemu, Woubshet Taye, Temesgen Desalegn, the Zone 9 bloggers, the young Muslims and so many other political prisoners are paying the highest price for their principles.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In September 2014, you told a delegation of the regime in Ethiopia:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">And so we’ll have an opportunity to talk about civil society and governance and how we can make sure that Ethiopia’s progress and example can extend to civil society as well, and making sure that throughout the continent of Africa we continue to widen and broaden our efforts at democracy, all of which isn’t just good for politics but ends up being good for economics as well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope in July 2015, you will get a chance to talk to the leaders of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front about letting civil society institutions function freely in Ethiopia and hammer out a practical program to broaden democracy in Ethiopia.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In July 2009, you said, “History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In your first inaugural address, you said, “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In July 2015, as you visit Ethiopia, you will find out that the ruling Tigrean People’s Liberation Front is that dreaded gang of “African strongmen” you warned us about in 2009. They are the ones you warned us about clinging to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">For six years, you have unclenched your fist in dealing with the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front. Perhaps it is time to speak softly and clench your fist.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">It is confusing and painful for me and many others to see you standing with the strongmen of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front in Addis Ababa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am not sure if I will wince or grimace when I see those pictures of you standing with the “strongmen” in Addis. It may be best for me to turn a blind eye.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I should like to remind you that as you stand shoulder to shoulder with the strongmen of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front in Addis Ababa, you are standing in the long shadow of history.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Someone once said, “Shadows cannot see themselves in the mirror of the sun.” Or the mirror of history?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Historians will one day write about your policies and efforts in Africa. They will write about your legacy and what you did and did not do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I don’t think any of that matters at all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">What matters is how you will answer that question of history you raised in Accra in 2009 as you stand in the dock before the bar of your own conscience:</span></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Were you President Barack Obama on the right side of history in your policies in Africa and specifically in Ethiopia?</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Bishop Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I dare say that Ethiopians will not appreciate your neutrality if you visit them, take a few photos with their oppressors but remain silent about the heavy boot that is crushing their necks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">In October 2011, Senator Ted Cruz whom the National Review proclaimed “the great conservative hope” said, “The most enduring legacy of President Barack Obama is going to be a new generation of leaders standing up for liberty.” I think Senator Cruz has a point.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I hope your singular legacy in Africa will “be a new generation of leaders standing up for liberty.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As you think of the young and new generation of African leaders, I hope you will not forget the older generation of African leaders.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">As you know, great Ethiopian leaders preserved Ethiopia’s independence for over three thousand years and repelled repeated incursions by Europeans over the past couple of centuries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">At the Battle of Adwa in 1896, two years after the Berlin Conference in which European powers carved up Africa, Emperor Menelik II routed Italy’s modern war machine with bows and arrows and spears.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Emperor Menelik is the first African leader in history to decisively crush a vastly superior European colonial army. No European power managed to colonize Ethiopia because of its historic leaders.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Ever since Menelik II victory over the invading Italian colonial army, Ethiopia has been a beacon of hope and symbol of dignity and pride for all Africans and Africans in the Diaspora.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">May I ask you to lay a wreath before the statute of Emperor Menelik II during your visit?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I am certain you will find Ethiopia to be the “Land of 13 Months of Sunshine”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">You will find Ethiopians to be a people who are hospitable, respectful and affectionate to a fault.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Have a great trip to Ethiopia, Mr. President.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I bid you Godspeed and a pleasant trip to the cradle of mankind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">I have been told that when I get up to sing, all the birds tweet each other and swiftly fly out of town.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">But that won’t stop me from crooning to myself my version of the old Negro Spiritual, “Go Down Moses”, as I wish you <em>bon voyage</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Go down Moses way down in Ethiopia land</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Oppressed so hard they could not stand</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">So the God sayeth, Go down, Moses way down in Ethiopia land</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">So Moses went to Ethiopia land</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">He made all Pharaohs understand</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Yes The Lord said, Go down, Moses way down in Ethiopia land</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Let My people go</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">President Obama, tell the Pharaohs of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front to let my people go.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">_________________________________________</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Alemayehu “Al” G. Mariam, Ph.D., J.D.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Professor</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">California State University, San Bernardino</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">c.c. History</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">Justice</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The Living Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The Living Memory of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The Living Memory of Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0em; word-spacing: 0.2em;"><span style="color: white;">The Living Memory of Abraham Lincoln</span></span></div>
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Dawit Wasihunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17619494120401634170noreply@blogger.com0