Senate should not confirm Gayle Smith – Alemayehu G. Mariam

May 12, 2015

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

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

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

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

May 10, 2015

by Alemayehu G. Mariam

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

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

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

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

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

May 12, 2015

by Vukasin Petrovic | Director of Africa Programs

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

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

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

May 13, 2015

by Ephrem Madebo

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

Wendy Sherman and the Ethiopian “Election” That Isn’t

May 3, 2015

by Alemayehu G. Mariam

The folly of willful ignorance

I did not vote for Ronald Reagan to become U.S. president. But I appreciated some of his witticisms before he became president. In 1964, two years after he dumped the Democrats and joined the Republicans, Reagan astutely noted, “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

That is exactly the trouble with Wendy Sherman, President Barack Obama’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs and the fourth high ranking official in the U.S. Department of State. Wendy Sherman is not that she is ignorant; it is just that she knows so much that isn’t so about Ethiopian politics.

Ethiopian Israelis block roads in Tel Aviv protest

May 3, 2015

Hundreds of protesters rally against police violence and racism, vowing to continue until their demand for equality sinks in.

Protesters block the Ayalon Freeway, May 3, 2015.

(HAARETZ) At least 500 people gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Sunday afternoon to protest police brutality toward Israeli Jews of Ethiopian descent.

Some protesters are blocking major arteries and junctions, including the Ayalon South freeway and Hashalom Interchange, as well as surrounding streets. Protesters also marched along Derech Begin towards the train station but were blocked by police.