As Addis Ababa creaks under the weight of a mushrooming populace, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest housing project is under way. But who benefits?

by Tom Gardner in Addis Ababa.
Photographs by Charlie Rosser

The Guardian

rapped in a white shawl and sporting a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, Haile stares out at his cattle as they graze in a rocky patch of grass. “My family and I have been here since I was a child,” he says, nodding at the small, rickety houses to his right. “But we will have to leave soon.” In the distance loom hulking grey towers, casting long shadows over his pasture. This is Koye Feche, a vast construction site on the edge of Addis Ababa that may soon be sub-Saharan Africa’s largest housing project.

Koye is the latest in a handful of miniature cities that are gobbling up land all around the Ethiopian capital. Since launching the integrated housing and development plan (IHDP) in 2006, the Ethiopian government has built condominium estates like these at a pace unrivalled anywhere in Africa. To date, more more than 250,000 subsidised flats have been transferred to their new owner-occupiers in Addis Ababa and smaller towns. Situated 25km south-east of the city centre and covering over 700 hectares of land, Koye will house more than 200,000 people in row upon row of muscular concrete high-rises.

Modelled on the modernist housing estates found across the postwar west, in particular east Germany, Addis Ababa’s condominiums symbolise the vaulting ambition of the Ethiopian government in its efforts to manage the country’s relentless urban growth. But whether they will ever solve its housing problems is uncertain. The population of the capital alone is expected to double to more than 8 million over the next decade. The number of houses needed to meet supply is estimated to be as many as half a million, but nearly a million people languish on the waiting list for a condominium. Nationwide, the urbanisation rate is estimated to be somewhere from 4-6% per year.

As more and more of Ethiopia’s 100 million inhabitants – 80% of whom still live in the countryside – spill into Addis Ababa, strains on the city’s land have intensified. The consequences may be explosive. “Addis Ababa has run out space,” says Felix Heisel, an urban expert at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. Though the state theoretically owns all land, seizing it from farmers like Haile can cause problems. The “masterplan” – shelved last year – to develop farmland belonging to Oromia, the region that surrounds the capital, was the catalyst for widespread anti-government protests that led to the declaration of a nine-month state of emergency. Expanding the city is for now out of the question.

Financed entirely by public resources and without the support of foreign donors, the condominium programme has, however, won its fair share of plaudits. “It represents a commitment to social housing that is rarely seen in Africa,” says Patrick Lamson-Hall of New York University. “It shows other African nations that Africa can solve its own problems,” agrees Alazar Ejigu, an Ethiopian architect and urban planner based in Sweden.

• Left, the half-finished Koye estate; right, the Tilu Dimtu complex, completed two years ago and now housing 10,000 people

All construction is carried out by local firms, which means employment for young men like Nibrat, who lays cement on the Koye estate. “I won’t be able to live here myself as I won’t be able to afford the rent,” he says. “But I like this job and prefer it to farming.” The IHDP is thought to have created semi-skilled jobs for nearly 200,000 men and women since 2006.

But it also has plenty of critics, including the World Bank, which considers it fiscally unsustainable. Those who can afford the deposit – and manage to win the lottery that allocates apartments – often struggle to pay off the mortgage. More than half, according to Simon Franklin of the London School of Economics, choose to rent the property out and move to places where it is easier to travel to work and find employment, or where social ties are stronger.

The government was “too modern, too radical in its approach”, says Ejigu. “The building design fails to sustain people’s ordinary, traditional way of life.” He and others fear that these European-style constructions breed loneliness and segregation. “In the informal settlements the rich and poor live side by side,” he adds. “But the condominiums are socially and economically segregated. The poorest cannot afford to live in them.”

The spectre of the many failed, empty high-rises littering the peripheries of cities elsewhere in Africa hangs over Ethiopia’s condominiums – although, as Franklin notes, there is little sign of the same happening here. New estates quickly become bustling, lively neighbourhoods even while they are still half-finished building sites. “Winning an apartment is an enormous asset,” Franklin says. “In spite of the common view that no one would want to live in them, their price keeps going up and up.” His research has found that this demand is driven disproportionately by a young, urban professional class.

In Bole Dimtu, a few kilometres east of Koye, thousands of such residents have recently moved in. They include middle-class professionals like Tesfaye, a government employee. He and his family of six used to live in rental housing in the heart of the capital. “I won the lottery,” he beams, cradling his youngest child. “It’s so much better here. I own this house – finally I’m not renting.” But there are problems in Bole Dimtu, too. Water has not been running for months and mountains of rubbish pile up in public areas designed to be parks. Merchants sell water cartons from horse-drawn carts. “I need water, I need water,” shouts one woman as they rattle by.

There is another flipside that worries even the IHDP’s staunchest supporters. Since its inception, the scheme has developed in tandem with a slum clearance programme in Addis Ababa’s inner city. In the past year the pace of demolition has quickened, with 360 hectares and more than 3,000 homes slated to be cleared over the next three years. A revived city centre and business district comprising high-rises of at least nine storeys will replace the old neighbourhoods. It is an “extraordinary high-modernist project” says Franklin.

• Scenes from a slum in the Addis Ababa’s Piassa neighbourhood, where people are preparing for eviction

The centre is slowly being cleansed of its poorer residents, freeing up high-value land for the government to lease to private developers. “The slum clearance and the condominiums are closely linked,” Franklin explains. “There seems to be a concerted effort to use the condominiums to suck people out of the centre.” All evicted tenants are offered a condominium apartment, but many cannot afford it. The alternative for homeowners – financial compensation and a new plot of land – is often paltry, and usually many miles from their original neighbourhoods.

So it is for Tirualem, who has lived with her family of six in a neighbourhood called Piassa for 30 years but was recently told to move so that, she thinks, a nearby hotel can build a swimming pool. She has been promised an apartment in a new condominium estate, 20km away. “We don’t have the money for a condominium. And there’s no work there. We are moving only because we are forced to.”

As Ethiopia’s capital creaks under the weight of its rising population, some are starting to plan for a future outside of Addis Ababa. For the first time, the government’s five-year development plan has a clear urban focus, with efforts being made to promote secondary towns like Hawassa, Bahir Dar and Mekele, in part by linking them to an ambitious network of industrial parks under construction. At the same time it has begun building 1.7m new rural homes across the country.

Other schemes are also taking shape. Tsedeke Woldu, an Ethiopian millionaire and construction developer, has drawn up a plan to build 8,000 new towns across the country in partnership with local governments, hoping to stem the tide of urban migration by bringing infrastructure and jobs to rural areas. “Without efforts like this you can see Addis Ababa eventually being suffocated,” says Zegeye Cherenet, an architect and urban planner. Woldu intends to start work on 13 pilot towns early next year.

Will this be enough? Ethiopia has shown that in the face of seemingly insurmountable urban pressures it is possible for even a very poor country to take radical steps. But it also demonstrates their limits: the government’s top-down, authoritarian approach often threatens to be its own undoing. Ethiopia’s government can steamroller grand plans through like few others. But the question is always the same: at what cost?

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By Tom Cooper Which is better? The Northrop F-5E Tiger II or the Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-21? There have been countless discussions of this question and,

(Photo: Wikimedia commons, 247Sports)

By Tom Cooper

Which is better? The Northrop F-5E Tiger II or the Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-21?

There have been countless discussions of this question and, probably, at least as many answers. Over 15,000 of these two cheap, lightweight, simple-to-maintain and -operate fighters were produced and, over the time, they’ve served in more than 60 different air forces — some of which operated both of them.

The usual story is that they never met in combat and thus the ultimate question about their mutual superiority remains unanswered. But actually, they did clash — and not only once. Indeed, their first battles proved decisive in the outcome of a long-forgotten conflict over the Horn of Africa.

The mid-1970s saw Ethiopia descend into political chaos. A military coup removed Emperor Heile Selassie, a close ally of the United States, in 1974. A bloody power struggle then raged between different cliques through Addis Ababa for the next three years.

Massive discontent and low-scale insurgencies in the Ethiopian federal states of Eritrea, Ogaden and Tigray erupted into all-out wars, and insurgents advanced rapidly. Ethiopia appeared to be in a state of dissolution, its military and security apparatus in disorder and unable to maintain the country’s sovereignty.

This was the moment the government of Somalia — run by Maj. Gen. Siad Barre — saw an opportunity to realize its own long-standing political aim — the liberation of all “illegally-occupied Somali territories.” Predominantly populated by ethnic Somalis, Ogaden became a primary target.

The Somali war plan was relatively simple and based on the assessment — shared by Soviet advisors based in Somalia — that the Ethiopian military would quickly collapse under pressure.

Following extensive preparations and the mobilization of the entire military, Somalia invaded on July 13, 1977, its ground forces supported by a total of around 25 MiG-17s and 29 MiG-21s, all of whose pilots were trained in the former Soviet Union.

Initial successes confirmed pre-war assessments. Within two weeks, mechanized units of the Somali army overran the Ethiopian garrison at Gode, shot down one Ethiopian F-5E with an SA-7 Grail shoulder-fired missile and bombed Harar airfield and destroyed a Douglas DC-3 belonging to Ethiopian Airlines. A pair of MiG-17s shot down a Douglas C-47 transport of the Ethiopian air force.

Amid the chaos — and because Ethiopia and Somalia severed their diplomatic relations in early 1977 — the government in Addis Ababa was slow to understand what was going on in Ogaden.

The military announced general mobilization but this took weeks to complete. The few army units deployed in Ogaden found themselves isolated and deep behind enemy lines. This was the reason the lonesome C-47 was caught by Somali MiGs.

However, the Ethiopian air force was anything but neutralized. Created with British and Swedish aid in the 1940s and ’50s, this force received plentiful U.S. support starting in the 1960s. It was a small but elite military force, staffed by hand-picked personnel and carefully and intensively trained — at home and abroad.

Bezabih Petros

It didn’t bristle with dozens of shiny aircraft. Its centerpiece was around a dozen each North American F-86 Sabres and Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighters. By 1974, Ethiopian-U.S. relations were good enough for Addis Ababa to request delivery of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom fighters, but Washington offered 16 Northrop F-5E Tiger IIs, instead, armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and supported by two Westinghouse AN/TPS-43D radars.

Due to unrest and human rights violations in the country, only eight Tigers were delivered in 1976. However, contrary to Somali and Soviet expectations, their pilots didn’t sit idle during the months prior to Somali invasion.

Following intelligence reports about the Somali build-up along the border, the air force ran a series of intensive air-combat exercises. One of the TPS-43s was positioned high on the Karamara Pass and F-5Es began flying combat air patrols. Air combat between Ethiopian-flown F-5Es and Somali-flown MiG-21s was thus unavoidable.

The first clash took place during the afternoon of July 24, 1977, when two Tigers intercepted a pair of MiG-21s about to catch another lumbering Ethiopian transport. Expertly guided by the ground control, the number two of the Ethiopian formation, Bezabih Petros, scored a truly historic victory — the first confirmed kill ever for the Ethiopian air force, and the first ever for the F-5E in air combat against a MiG-21.

Only a day later, Lagesse Teferra managed a special feat in the course of what eventually proved the biggest air battle of the Ogaden war. While leading a trio of F-5Es, he intercepted a formation of four MiG-21s that was providing top cover for four MiG-17s.

The appearance of the Ethiopian Tigers caused two Somali MiG-21s — including one flown by the commander of Hargheisa air base, Col. Mussa — to collide. Lagesse then shot down the third with cannon fire. His wingmen Bacha Hunde and Afework Kidanu then finished off the fourth Somali plane. Finally, Lagesse attacked the MiG-17s and shot down two with AIM-9 missiles.

On July 26, Lagesse Tefera and Bezabih Petros intercepted a pair of MiG-21s that was approaching the forward Ethiopian air base at Dire Dawa. This time, Bezabih damaged a MiG with a Sidewinder and Lagesse finished it off with fire from his 20-millimeter cannons.

Three days later, Bacha Hunde scored his first — and only — confirmed victory of the war. This success enabled Ethiopian airmen to smash numerous enemy supply columns and thus significantly contribute to a victory during the battle for Dire Dawa, which ended the Somali advance into Ogaden in mid-August 1977.

In the course of this clash, Afework Kidanu shot down one MiG-21 on Aug. 19. Ashenafi Gebre Tsadik felled another two days later. Ashenafi and Lagesse scored the last two kills during the final dogfight of the Ogaden war on Sept. 1 1977, destroying another pair of MiG-21s.

With this, the Somali air force was all but finished. Although it continued operating over Ogaden, it never recovered from its heavy losses. In turn, having secured aerial superiority, the Ethiopians unleashed their air force to conduct a systematic campaign of attacks on the Somali supply system.

Within less than a month, the Somali army inside Ethiopia was short on nearly everything — ammunition, food, fuel and even tanks and transport vehicles — and unable to advance. Ethiopian F-5Es thus won the decisive victory of the Ogaden war — and bought plenty of time for politicians in Addis Ababa to secure Cuban and then Soviet support, which enabled the Ethiopian military to launch a counteroffensive and drive the Somalis out of Ogaden in early April 1978.

Post-war analysis by all involved parties was clear. Not only that the F-5E proved superior to the MiG-21 — not in speed, but certainly in maneuverability at low and medium altitudes, and in terms of endurance and weaponry.

Also, the training provided to the Ethiopians by their U.S. advisors was of much superior quality and far more realistic than that provided to the Somalis by their Soviet instructors.

Sourc- https://scout.com/

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Climate change is no match for the mysteriously powerful enset.

The post The Ethiopian Banana That Flourishes In Drought and Heat appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By Hailegabriel G. Feyissa

I am writing this short essay in response to Hewan Semon’s rather interesting and thought-provoking opinion piece ‘Decolonizing Ethiopian Studies’. I am jumping on her offer for a conversation on issues pertaining to the decolonization of the field of Ethiopian Studies. Although I am not someone with a background on history, Amharic literature, or some of the most prominent social science fields represented in what we in Ethiopia know as the field of Ethiopian Studies, I believe a conversation on decolonization of Ethiopian Studies concerns a reluctant consumer of the scholarly products of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies like me.

That said, I agree with Hewan that the field of Ethiopian Studies remains overly embedded in Eurocentric cum colonial discourses that reflect the temporality of the emergence of the field, the modern Ethiopian state (with its current geographical and ideological foundation), and the subjection of the later to European imperialism (as well as colonialism). As such, projects of decolonization are apt, not least when the engagement of the field with postcolonial and decolonial discourses that are gaining currency in comparable non-European places such as South Africa and Latin America. But, I am a bit skeptical about Hewan’s prescriptions on how we go about the project and why we must do it.

In this undated picture visitors leave the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, situated inside the Main campus of the Addis Abeba University

To argue that the discourse of Ethiopian Studies (more broadly African studies) is shaped by Euro-specific categories and ideas is one thing. It is a point well established by scholars before (some of whom are cited by Hewan).[1] But, to argue that it can be transcended and/or improved by Ethio-specific categories and ideas is another. This is not a point articulated but assumed by both Hewan and others who took issue with the Eurocentrism of Ethiopian Studies. From the illustrations in the article, one can gather that her call for decolonization of the Ethiopian Studies appears to have only translated into methodological nationalism which is as problematic as Eurocentrism.

In conversations with Ethiopian colleagues who are as concerned about Eurocentrism as the author of ‘decolonizing Ethiopian studies’ is, the romanticism of Ethiopian-made conceptual categories (Amharic concepts to be exact) and more broadly the production of nationalist epistemology are themselves products of Eurocentric scholarship and hence cannot totally be outside of it. Besides, language (scholarly or otherwise) is not a neutral medium of communication and this is no exception to Ethiopian languages. Power (imperialism) is implicated in it. As much as European imperialism was crucial to the emergence of what the author calls ‘the social sciences in the Western world’ and its colonial discourses, Ethiopian imperialism cum nationalism was equally decisive in the formation of Ethiopian Studies under the aegis of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.

The author rightly claims that the Institute of Ethiopian Studies is ‘the most important secular institution of Ethiopian epistemology’. Seen from the point of view of the peripheral subjects of the Ethiopian state (or the marginal objects of the field of Ethiopian Studies), the Ethiopian epistemology institutionalized by the Institute of Ethiopian Studies has historically been exclusionary. Consequently, the institutional practices and preferences of this Institution or the field of study it has sponsored since the middle of the 20th century found wanting on grounds other than Eurocentrism (e.g. on grounds of the dominance of state-centric/Addis Abeba-centric works, the exclusion of local vernaculars or world-views other than that belonging to historic Abyssinia).[2]

Ironically, the study of the social, political, and historical experiences of the peripheral subjects of the modern Ethiopian state was redeemed by what the author might probably consider Eurocentric, and hence, unqualified non-Ethiopian scholars.[3] Contrary to this suggestion, non-Ethiopian scholars of the field approached their study with concepts that are not always drawn from Europe.[4] Hewan’s silence or lack of concern with these sides of the field of Ethiopian Studies probably reflects her position in the wider field of the scholarship that is generally as orientalist as the globally dominant genres that she critiques. In my view, it also suggests the inadequacy of the mere replacement of Eurocentrism with an Ethiopian version of it that is oblivious to its limits.

The opinion is problematic on other grounds as well. First, it depicts a very one-sided picture of western scholarship. It emphasizes its limitations. To a certain extent, this is understandable and plausible. But, the most persuasive arguments about the Eurocentrism of western social science do not often translate into arguments about localizing – a mimetic (hence Eurocentric) one at that – of the production of epistemology. Instead, it is often limited to arguments about (1) ‘provincializing’ the colonial but unavoidable discourse about modernity,[5] (2) ‘delinking’ from the colonial discourse about non-European modernities (not necessarily through the production of knowledge in vernaculars local to non-western societies),[6] (3) spatially and temporally relativizing polities’ experience with modernity,[7] and (4) considered comparativism.[8]

In view of that, I found the remarks (or suggestions) in the article about the impossibility of translated knowledge (including comparison), the superiority of locally produced epistemology, the desirability and importance (as a decolonial strategy) of penetrating the global field of Ethiopian Studies through scholarly works produced in local vernaculars (e.g. Amharic) as less convincing and more akin to methodological nationalism than ‘decolonization’ as articulated by participants (or sympathizers)[9] of the recent South African student movement that was mentioned in the article and its academic preludes in postcolonial theory and beyond.[10] Furthermore, the article, addressed to consumers and producers of the field of Ethiopian Studies, written in English by an Ethiopianist scholar engaged with and informed by globally produced scholarly works, evinces the possibility of translated knowledge including comparison that the author seems to deny westerners studying Ethiopia. It also appears to undermine the claim that local vernaculars are more effective than the globally hegemonic vernaculars (such as English) as mediums of conversation about decolonizing the field of Ethiopian Studies. On a different note, the article’s focus on the global field (to the exclusion of the national field which I submit must be decolonized from its Abyssinia-centrism) exposes the dualistic nature of the author’s methodological nationalism, i.e. fostering the nationally hegemonic discourse on Ethiopian Studies at the global level without being much reflective about its limitations beyond Eurocentrism.

Finally, access to local language and/or place is not in and of itself sufficient for methodological thoroughness. The object of study and the reasons for inquiry play important roles in determining that. Put in other words, just because one is a local or well versed in a local language does not mean she/he has methodological advantage over non-locals in what she/he considers the goal of knowledge production – ‘full’ understanding of a subject (I do have reservations on whether ‘full’ understanding, whatever that is, should be the goal of knowledge production). The asymmetry of lack of knowledge argument concerns locals too, particularly locals with limited access to, say, a field of scholarship (e.g. the field of Ethiopian Studies) that a non-local with sufficient training may identify as an object of critical study in the same manner as the author did in her article. From the participation of westerners in the critique of colonial discourses and in projects of decolonization in a more rigorous and reflective manner, one may safely assume that methodological rigor is more important than idealized symmetry of discourses about Ethiopia, its history, and modernity, among others, via the participation of its (nationalist) scholars whose approaches to their study are equally prone to limitations including but not limited to Eurocentrism.

ED’s Note: The writer is a PhD Candidate at Melbourne Law School. He is a lawyer by training with an interest in Ethiopian legal history and engages with Ethiopian Studies. He can be reached at hailegabrielfeyissa@gmail.com.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are that of the writer’s and do not necessarily

reflect the editorial of Addis Standard.

Endnote

[1] Mesay Kebede, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization (Vibs, 2004).

[2] See, eg, Alessandro Triulzi, ‘Battling with the Past: New Frameworks for Ethiopian Historiography’, in Wendy James et al. (eds), Remapping Ethiopia: Socialism and After (James Currey, 2002) 276; P.T.W. Baxter, Jan Hultin and Alessandro Triulzi, ‘Introduction’ in P.T.W. Baxter, Jan Hultin and Alessandro Triulzi, Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries (The Red Sea Press, 1996); Ezekiel Gebissa, ‘Introduction: Rendering Audible the Voices of the Powerless'(2002) 9 Northeast African Studies 3, 1 (2002).

[3] See, eg, Donald Donham and Wendy James (eds), The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia: Essays in History and Social Anthropology (Cambridge University Press, 1986); John Cohen and Dov Weintraub, Land and Peasants in Imperial Ethiopia (Van Gorcum & Comp., 1975).

[4] See, eg, Charles McClellan ‘Perspectives on the Neftenya-Gabbar System: the Darasa, Ethiopia’ (1978) 33 Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell’Istituto italiano perl’Africa e l’Orientesee 426; 54J. Mantel-Niećko, ‘The Division of Ethiopia into Regions According to the Native Land Typology in Use at the Turn of the XIXth and XXth Centuries’ in Joseph Tubiana (ed), Modern Ethiopia from the Accession of Menilek II to the Present: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (A.A. Balkema, 1980) 471.

[5] Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference Princeton (Princeton University Press, 2000).

[6] Walter D. Mignolo, Globalization and the Decolonial Option (Routledge, 2013).

[7] Shu-Mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917-1937 (University of California Press, 2001); Donald L. Donham, ‘Thinking Temporally or Modernizing Anthropology’ (2001) 103 American Anthropologist 134.

[8] See, eg, Teemu Ruskola, ‘Legal Orientalism’ (2002) 101 Michigan Law Review 179.

[9] See, eg, Joel Modiri, ‘The Time and Space of Critical Legal Pedagogy’ (2016) 3 Stellenbosch Law Review 507.

[10]For an overview and African inflection of what I consider to be the prelude to the current trend in the decolonizing African studies/curriculum movements, see Pal Ahluwalia, Politics and Post-Colonial Theory: African Inflections (Routledge, 2001).

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A German tourist has been shot dead and a guide injured during a visit to a volcano in north-eastern Ethiopia.

They were part of a group which had travelled to the Erta Ale volcano.

It is not known who carried out the attack, but the Ethiopian government has launched an investigation, the BBC’s Emmanuel Igunza reports.

The Afar region, which straddles the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, is known as an operating ground for several separatist groups.

• What is Ethiopia’s Afar region?
• Africa Live: More on this and other stories

Five years ago, the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Front – the most prominent of the groups – claimed responsibility for the deaths of five tourists and the abduction of four others in the Afar region.

The group seeks the creation of an independent Afar homeland, which would include areas of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

Despite the risks, tourists continue to visit the volcano – found in the heart of the Danakil Depression, which sits at 410ft (125m) below sea level.

By some measures the Danakil Depression is considered to be one of the hottest places on earth, with an average reported temperature of 34.4C, but only 100 to 200mm of rainfall per year.

Added to this heat is the volcano, with its lava lake – one of only six in the world, according to this report from the BBC, making it one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

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Fekadu Fullas, RPh, PhD

Fekadu Bekele (PhD)

Rhamnus prinoides, known by the local Amharic name “gesho” and the English common name buckthorn, is widely used in brewing the local alcoholic beverages tella (beer) and tej (mead; honey-wine). A related species Rhamnus staddo (Amh. name tsedo or ‘tedo) is also used to a lesser extent in brewing these beverages, especially with the rootbark being used for seasoning tej. R. staddo is used in traditional medicine to treat tapeworm infestation. Gesho is often confused with hops, which is the common name for the plant Humulus lupus. Hops is used in modern beer industry to impart flavor and intense aroma to beer. It has a bitter taste, which balances the sweetness of malt in beer. According to ethnobotanist James Duke, hops has been used for centuries to treat anxiety, insomnia and restlessness. Its sedative action is thought to be due to the constituent methyl-butenol. In addition to its flavoring properties, gesho is used in folk medicine to treat various ailments. This article gives an overview of “gesho” culled from available literature sources.

1. prinoides belongs to a large genus Rhamnus, which consists of about 150 species, spread over tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions of the world. The derivation of the botanical name Rhamnus prinoides is rather interesting. “Rhamnus” is derived from the Greek plant name “rhammnos”, or from the Celtic word “ram” which means bush or a tuft of branches. The specific epithet “prinoides” was obtained from an old genus name of a different plant “Prinos” which has leathery leaves, so “prinoides” meant “looking like “Prinos.”
2. prinoides is included in the long list of plants collected in Ethiopia by James Bruce in the 18^th century. Gesho grows in most parts of Ethiopia at altitudes between 1500 and 2500 m above sea level. It is also widely cultivated. It grows to a height of about 6 meters. It is found in the wild, mostly along streams. It flowers and fruits all year round, with the maximum being around the end of the dry season of February and March. The plant also grows in some East and South African countries. Known by the names kosisityet by the Kiksingis, mshimbamba by the Chagga and ol–kokola (ol–konyel) by the Masai tribes, the roots of the plant are used to treat gonorrhea and to alleviate rheumatism in the legs. According to 1977 report, about 40% gesho cultivation in Ethiopia is practiced by small farmers. It is usually found where coffee grows. The fresh and leafy branches are sold in markets. The leaves and branches are used in the preparation of tella and tej.

The brewing of the popular household drinks tella and tej follows an elaborate set of steps. Gesho is an important ingredient in both brews. Preparing both drinks is considered as an art by Ethiopian women, requiring the right timing and incorporation of gesho and allowing the mixes to ferment over several days.

Chemistry

Many chemical compounds have been isolated from gesho, such as geshoidin, chrysophenol, emodin, musizin and rhamnocitrin, while anthracene derivatives have been obtained from the fruits. Geshoidin is the constituent that imparts bitterness to tella.

Medicinal Uses

In Ethiopia, gesho is used as a laxative, purgative, diuretic (to pull water out of the body), to prevent syphilis and to stimulate bile flow. In children, it is used to manage pain symptoms associated with tonsillitis, or for pain after removing the tonsils. In South Africa, the Zulu use the root to “cleanse” the blood, and the leaves to treat simple strains. The Sotho use it to treat pneumonia.

Summary

1. prinoides (gesho) is a useful ingredient for making the Ethiopian local alcoholic beverages tella and tej. It provides a typical flavor and bitterness to these beverages. It is also used in Ethiopia, and elsewhere in Africa for a number of health conditions, but there is no available scientific evidence to support the alleged health benefits.

Suggested Readings

Jansen PCM. Spices, Condiments and Medicinal Plants in Ethiopia, their Taxonomy and Agricultural Significance. Wageningen: PUDOC: 1981.

Abegaz BM, Kebede T. Novel phenolic metabolites from African marketed plants-Rhamnus prinoides. In: Extended Abstracts of the Sixth NAPRECA Symposium in Natural Products. Kampala, Uganda: Sept 10-15, 1995.

Duke JA. The Green Pharmacy, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press: 1997.

Fullas F. Spice Plants in Ethiopia: Their Culinary and Medicinal Applications. Sioux City, 2003.

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University lecturer given UK asylum ‘who had copy of Terrorism For Dummies and US Navy Seal sniper manual flew out to Ethiopian terror training camp’

By Anthony Joseph for MailOnline

PUBLISHED:, 5 December 2017

• Tadesse Kersmo, 51, was arrested by counter terrorism officers at London Heathrow Airport in September last year on an inbound flight from Eritrea 
• Court heard Ethiopian collected military-themed documents about guerrilla warfare tactics, including one called ‘Put ’em down Take ’em Out Knife Fighting’ 
• Alleged offences relate to activity for an overseas Ethiopian political movement 
• Kersmo denies all charges against him at trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court 

Tadesse Kersmo, 51, was arrested by counter terrorism officers at London Heathrow Airport in September last year on an inbound flight from Eritrea, via Cairo
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5147941/Lecturer-flew-Ethiopian-terrorist-training-camp.html#ixzz50SbVL07L
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A university lecturer who was granted asylum in the UK allegedly flew out to an Ethiopian terrorist training camp and was caught with a ‘Terrorism for Dummies’ manual.

Tadesse Kersmo, 51, was arrested by counter terrorism officers at London Heathrow Airport in September last year on an inbound flight from Eritrea, via Cairo.

Snaresbrook Crown Court today heard the Ethiopian national collected  military-themed documents about guerrilla warfare tactics, including one called ‘Put ’em down Take ’em Out Knife Fighting’.

Within a file marked ‘military’ on his hard drive he had a manual on US Navy Seal sniper training, jurors were told.

Downloaded on May 11th, 2016, it contained information on hitting moving targets, shooting at night, weapons and training schedules.

Asked why he would download such a manual, Kersmo told police: ‘Well simply interested and I found them because they’re there, I don’t know actually, actually I cannot explain.

‘I simply get documents, I downloaded them.’

He denied downloading it to train himself or others to be snipers, and said he had no skills with weapons.

He is alleged to have been a prominent critic of his country’s government before he fled to the United Kingdom and was granted asylum in 2009.

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THROUGHOUT 2016 AND 2017, individuals in Canada, United States, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom, and numerous other countries began to receive suspicious emails. It wasn’t just common spam. These people were chosen.

The emails were specifically designed to entice each individual to click a malicious link. Had the targets done so, their internet connections would have been hijacked and surreptitiously directed to servers laden with malware designed by a surveillance company in Israel. The spies who contracted the Israeli company’s services would have been able to monitor everything those targets did on their devices, including remotely activating the camera and microphone.

Who was behind this global cyber espionage campaign? Was it the National Security Agency? Or one of its “five eyes” partners, like the GCHQ or Canada’s CSE? Given that it was done using Israeli-made technology, perhaps it was Israel’s elite signals intelligence agency, Unit 8200?

In fact, it was none of them. Behind this sophisticated international spying operation was one of the poorest countries in the world; a country where less than 5 percentof the population has access to the internet; a country run by an autocratic government routinely flagged for human rights abuses and corruption. Behind this operation was… Ethiopia.

The details of this remarkable clandestine activity are outlined in a new Citizen Lab report published today entitled “Champing at the Cyberbit.” In our report my co-authors and I detail how we monitored the command and control servers used in the campaign and in doing so discovered a public log file that the operators mistakenly left open. That log file provided us with a window, for roughly a year, into the attackers’ activities, infrastructure, and operations. Strong circumstantial evidence points to one or more government agencies in Ethiopia as the responsible party.

We were also able to identify the IP addresses of those who were targeted and successfully infected: a group that includes journalists, a lawyer, activists, and academics. Our access also allowed us enumerate the countries in which the targets were located. Many of the countries in which the targets live—the United States, Canada, and Germany, among others—have strict wiretapping laws that make it illegal to eavesdrop without a warrant. It seems individuals in Ethiopia broke those laws.

If a government wants to collect evidence on a person in another country, it is customary for it to make a formal legal request to other governments through a process like the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties. Ethiopia appears to have sidestepped all of that. International norms would suggest a formal démarche to Ethiopia from the governments whose citizens it monitored without permission, but that may happen quietly if at all.

Our team reverse-engineered the malware used in this instance, and over time this allowed us to positively identify the company whose spyware was being employed by Ethiopia: Cyberbit Solutions, a subsidiary of the Israel-based homeland security company Elbit Systems. Notably, Cyberbit is the fourth company we have identified, alongside Hacking Team, Finfisher, and NSO Group, whose products and services have been abused by autocratic regimes to target dissidents, journalists, and others. Along with NSO Group, it’s the second Israel-based company whose technology has been used in this way.

Israel does regulate the export of commercial spyware abroad, although apparently not very well from a human-rights perspective. Cyberbit was able to sell its services to Ethiopia—a country with not only a well-documented history of governance and human rights problems, but also a track record of abusing spyware. When considered alongside the extensive reporting we have done about UAE and Mexican government misuse of NSO Group’s services, it’s safe to conclude Israel has a commercial spyware control problem.

How big of a problem? Remarkably, by analyzing the command and control servers of the cyber espionage campaign, we were also able to monitor Cyberbit employees as they traveled the world with infected laptops that checked in to those servers, apparently demonstrating Cyberbit’s products to prospective clients. Those clients include the Royal Thai Army, Uzbekistan’s National Security Service, Zambia’s Financial Intelligence Centre, and the Philippine president’s Malacañang Palace. Outlining the human rights abuses associated with those government entities would fill volumes.

Cyberbit, for its part, has responded to Citizen Lab’s findings: “Cyberbit Solutions offers its products only to sovereign governmental authorities and law enforcement agencies,” the company wrote me on November 29. “Such governmental authorities and law enforcement agencies are responsible to ensure that they are legally authorized to use the products in their jurisdictions.“ The company declined to confirm or deny that the government of Ethiopia is a client, but did note that “Cyberbit Solutions can confirm that any transaction made by it was approved by the competent authorities.”

Governments like Ethiopia no longer depend on their own in-country advanced computer science, engineering, and mathematical capacity in order to build a globe-spanning cyber espionage operation. They can simply buy it off the shelf from a company like Cyberbit. Thanks to companies like these, an autocrat whose country has poor national infrastructure but whose regime has billions of dollars can order up their own NSA. To wit: Elbit Systems, the parent company of Cyberbit, says it has a backlog of orders valuing $7 billion. An investment firm recently sought to acquire a partial stake in NSO Group for a reported $400 million before eventually withdrawing its offer.

Of course, these companies insist that spyware they sell to governments is used exclusively to fight terrorists and investigate crime. Sounds reasonable, and no doubt many do just that. But the problem is when journalists, academics, or NGOs seek to expose corrupt dictators or hold them accountable, those truth tellers may then be labelled criminals or terrorists. And our research has shown that makes those individuals and groups vulnerable to this type of state surveillance, even if they live abroad.

Indeed, we discovered the second-largest concentration of successful infections of this Ethiopian operation are located in Canada. Among the targets whose identities we were able to verify and name in the report, what unites them all is their peaceful political opposition to the Ethiopian government. Except one. Astoundingly, Citizen Lab researcher Bill Marczak, who led our technical investigation, was himself targeted at one point by the espionage operators.

Countries sliding into authoritarianism and corruption. A booming and largely unregulated market for sophisticated surveillance. Civilians not equipped to defend themselves. Add these ingredients together, and you have a serious crisis of democracy brewing. Companies like Cyberbit market themselves as part of a solution to cyber security. But it is evident that commercial spyware is actually contributing to a very deep insecurity instead.

Remedying this problem will not be easy. It will require legal and policy efforts across multiple jurisdictions and involving governments, civil society, and the private sector. A companion piece to the report outlines some measures that could hopefully begin that process, including application of relevant criminal laws. If the international community does not act swiftly, journalists, activists, lawyers, and human rights defenders will be increasingly infiltrated and neutralized. It’s time to address the commercial spyware industry for what it has become: one of the most dangerous cyber security problems of our day.

WIRED Opinion publishes pieces written by outside contributors and represents a wide range of viewpoints. Read more opinions here.

s://www.wired.com

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been organizing an International Humanitarian Law (IHL) competition amongst law students in English speaking African countries for more than a decade. Since 2016 the ICRC delegation in Ethiopia has organized National Moot court competitions in which the winning team qualifies for the All Africa moot court competition along with the third best oralist of the competition.

In 2016 Addis Ababa University won the national moot court held in Mekelle and alongside a student from Jimma University went on to the semi-finals of the All Africa IHL competition.

This year, in the National IHL moot court competition which was held in Addis Ababa University, the then 4^th years now 5th-year students from Addis Ababa University Amen Taye and Lea Mehari won from 8 universities in the Country.

Alongside Amen Taye and Lea Mehari was Noah Yesuf a 5th-year law student from Wollo University. These three law students went on to Arusha, Tanzania to compete in the All Africa IHL competition.

The competition comprised of students from 10 different countries namely Ethiopia, South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Malaysia as a guest team from Southeast Asia.

The All Africa IHL competition is a weeklong competition that consists of intensive IHL courses in the morning and role play competitions in the afternoon pertaining to the morning courses. The competitors are expected to take the role of ICRC personnel, legal advisors to the president or the military and even the rebel groups to mention a few.

These role plays went on for five days and at the end, four universities out of the 10 went on to the semi-finals, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. For the semi-finals Ethiopia faced Uganda and after an intensive semi-final round, Ethiopia made it to the finals with Zimbabwe.

The final round in which Amen Taye, Leah Mehari and Noah Yesuf went as a defense against Team Zimbabwe defending war crimes committed. This round was held at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunal (MICT) which was actually the setting for the tribunal of the Rwanda Genocide. Team Ethiopia was runner-up in the finals and made history in being in the finals of an international moot court competition after the 1970’s.

The team representing Ethiopia also won the prestigious “Henry Dunant” prize which is a prize voted for by the competitors as well as the organizers of the competition. The criteria for this award is the team that most personifies the founder of the Red Cross movement Henry Dunant. These include compassion, humanity, knowledge in IHL and participation in the courses.

The competition was finalized on the 25^th of November 2017.

Source- Addis Standard

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This petition will be delivered to:

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The Libyan Slave Trade Has Shocked the World. Here’s What You Should Know

Illegal migrants from Africa, attempting to reach Europe, walk towards a detention center off the coastal town of Guarabouli, 60 kilometres (36 miles) east of the capital, on July 8, 2017.
Thirty-five migrants, including seven children, were feared drowned after their inflatable craft sank off the Libyan coast, the coastguard said. Eighty-five migrants, including 18 women, were rescued with the help of fishermen who alerted the coastguard. / AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD TURKIA (Photo credit should read MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images)

A video of men appearing to be sold at auction in Libya for $400 has shocked the world and focused international attention on the exploitation of migrants and refugees the north African country.

The footage and subsequent investigation conducted by CNN last month has rallied European and African leaders to take action to stop the abuses. On Wednesday, the leaders of Libya, France, Germany, Chad and Niger and four other countries agreed on a plan to evacuate thousands of migrants stuck in Libyan detention camps.

The grainy undercover video appears to show smugglers selling off a dozen men outside of the capital city Tripoli.

“Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he’ll dig,” said an auctioneer, according to CNN. “What am I bid, what am I bid?”

The report has drawn attention to an issue that aid and migrant groups say has gone on for years.

Why is there a slave trade in Libya?

Libya is the main transit point for refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe by sea. In each of the last three years, 150,000 people have made the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya. For four years in a row, 3,000 refugees have died while attempting the journey, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the U.N.’s migration agency.

The Libyan Coast Guard — supported with funds and resources from the E.U. and more specifically, Italy — has cracked down on boats smuggling refugees and migrants to Europe. With estimates of 400,000 to almost one million people now bottled up Libya, detention centers are overrun and there are mounting reports of robbery, rape, and murder among migrants, according to a September report by the U.N. human rights agency. Conditions in the centers have been described as “horrific,” and among other abuses, migrants are vulnerable to being sold off as laborers in slave auctions.

“It’s a total extortion machine,” Lenard Doyle, Director of Media and Communications for the IOM in Geneva tells TIME. “Fueled by the absolute rush of migrants through Libya thinking they can get out of poverty, following a dream that doesn’t exist.”

The IOM said in April that it had documented reports of “slave markets” along the migrant routes in North Africa “tormenting hundreds of young African men bound for Libya.”

“There they become commodities to be bought, sold and discarded when they have no more value,” Doyle said in the April statement.

Illegal immigrants are seen at a detention centre in Zawiyah, 45 kilometres west of the Libyan capital Tripoli, on June 17, 2017.

Taha Jawashi—AFP/Getty Images

How is Libya handling the crisis?

According to CNN, the U.N.-backed Libyan government has launched a formal investigation into the allegations. But Libya is largely considered a failed state. Since Muammar Gaddafi, who ran the country for four decades, was ousted in 2011, the country has descended into civil war. A transitional government failed to implementrule of law in the country, which has splintered into several factions of militias, tribes, and gangs. In lawless Libya, many see the slave trade and smuggling as a lucrative industry. Tackling the country’s humanitarian crisis will require international assistance.

 On Wednesday, Libya reached a deal with E.U. and African leaders to allow the emergency repatriation of refugees and migrants facing abuse in its detention centers. The government also agreed to open a transit center for vulnerable refugees after months of negotiations, according to Reuters. The center is intended to safely house people before they are resettled or sent to a third country.

How is the international community responding?

Following the publication of the video, there was outcry from all corners of the globe, with some nations recalling their ambassadors from Libya. Protesters rallied outside Libyan embassies across Africa and in Europe.

On Wednesday, African and European leaders met at a summit in the Ivory Coast and agreed on an urgent evacuation plan that would see about 15,000 people flown out of Libya. Most of the migrants will be sent back to their home countries. Speaking at the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron, called the abuse “a crime against humanity” and vowed the summit members would “launch concrete military and policing action on the ground to dismantle those networks,” according to the Guardian. The deal also included initiatives to target traffickers, including setting up a task force to dismantle trafficking networks, the BBC reports.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari expressed shock at how his compatriots were being treated “like goats.” On Wednesday, 242 Nigerian migrants were flown out of Libya back to Nigeria.

The day before, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting and said it would be “stepping up its work” to stop the abuses. However, the U.N refugee agency said it faces “dramatic” funding gaps, especially for its operations in sub-Saharan Africa. “Slavery and other such egregious abuses of human rights have no place in the 21st century,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.

Since 2015, the IOM has repatriated 13,000 people from Libya under a voluntary program. But Doyle, the IOM spokesperson, says more needs to be done to stop migration at its core, particularly from tech companies who own online platforms where traffickers can falsely lure people into paying smugglers.

“They’re being completely misled into thinking that’s a happy future for them and being misled thorough social media,” he tells TIME.

Earlier this week, the foreign ministry of Rwanda said it would extend asylum to 30,000 mainly sub-Saharan Africans stuck in Libya. “Given our own history … we cannot remain silent when human beings are being mistreated and auctioned off like cattle,” the foreign ministry said.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley condemned the abuses, saying: “To see the pictures of these men being treated like cattle, and to hear the auctioneer describe them as, quote, ‘big strong boys for farm work,’ should shock the conscience of us all.”

// ]]>

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ESAT Daily News Amsterdam December 06,2017

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The International Twitter Campaign will focus on calling upon the United States Government to support the Ethiopian people on four key Ethiopian national Issues to avert the ongoing political crisis from degenerating into civil war and region-wide violence which will lead to serious instability and conflict in the Eastern African Sub Region.

1. To call  upon the United States to condemn the joint and well-coordinated TPLF and Samali Janjaweed Militia (locally known as Somali Liyu Police) Ethnic Cleansing war against the Oromo people in the East and South Eastern part of the Oromia Regional State, and get the international humanitarian support including from the government of the United States for close to one million Oromo civilians evicted and displaced by this ethnic cleansing war.
   
2. To call upon the United States to put maximum pressure on the TPLF/EPRDF government to unconditionally release all political prisoners and religious leaders including Leaders of the Oromo Federalist Congress(OFC) and Dimtachin Yisema leaders.
   
3. To demand the United States government to end its Security Sector assistance to the Ethiopian Military, the Ethiopian National Intelligence, and the Ethiopian Federal police that the  TPLF/EPRDF government is using to commit ethnic cleansing against the Oromo people and nationwide attack on Ethiopian  people until the Ethiopian regime depoliticize these institutions and stops attacking the Ethiopian people, and removes them from among civilians and return them to military barracks and hold accountable those criminals who have been attacking the Ethiopian people.
   
4. To call upon the United States to support the struggle of the Ethiopian people to establishing the government of the people by the people for the people by ending the current exclusionary and discriminatory practices of the TPLF/EPRDF regime. It is important to note that for the last two years, the TPLF/EPRDF regime refused to heed and address the demands of the ongoing Oromo protests and Amhara resistance for justice, equality, fairness, and equitable distribution of political power and economic resources.  

We will make a detailed announcement tomorrow. Please tell your friends and prepare to join us. U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa

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Press Release

Dr. Aberra Molla:

Dr. Aberra Molla, a scientist and an inventor is also known as the father of Ethiopic. Inspired by the creator of the Amharic typewriter, Ethiopian engineer Ayana Birru of Horo Gudru, Wellega, Dr. Aberra computerized Ethiopic/Geez more than 29 years ago. However, replacing the Latin characters with Ethiopic character parts of the Amharic typewriter was not a viable option for Dr. Aberra because there were more Ethiopic characters than the Latin alphabet keys.

Therefore, he invented a method for computerizing Ethiopic, its layout and character entry. That for the first time enabled Ethiopians to use their alphabet and languages on computers. He was unable to protect his technology in Ethiopia as patenting was alien there at the time, though his primary interest was to share the royalty with Ethiopians while encouraging respect for intellectual property.

More recently, he invented a method of rendering the more than 564 Ethiopic Unicode glyphs on computers utilizing at most two keystrokes each and he has pending United States and Ethiopian patents. He made his novel technology freely available on the Internet so that Ethiopic users search and type in Amharic for free.  Dr. Aberra also holds several patents in his professional field of Agriculture and in computerizing Geez/Ethiopic.

Dr. Aberra Molla was the 2017 honoree at the 7^th Annual Festival of the Ethiopian Heritage Society in North America (EHSNA). The festival took place at One Veteran Place, Silver Springs, MD 20910 on November 19, 2017.

The Award of Recognition reads as follows: “ETHIOPIAN HERITAGE SOCIETY IN NORTH AMERICA “EHSNA” Hereby Recognizes & Presents This Prestigious Award of Excellence to DR. ABERRA MOLLA in recognition for inventing the Ethiopian Geez script of one set screen and printer. This innovation, the first Ethiopian word processor of its kind, has enabled Ethiopians to effectively communicate in Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, on computers and other similar devices. Furthermore, we proudly recognize your overall contribution as a scientist, a researcher and an entrepreneur. 

THEREFORE, on behalf of the Board of Directors of EHSNA, and all Ethiopians we hereby express our boundless gratitude, love and admiration.

For and on behalf of the Board of Directors, Yeshitla Araya, President”

November 19, 2017.

Dr. Aberra and his wife Senait Ketema are residents of Colorado since 1975. They own a software company, Ethiopian Computers & Software.

Dr. Aberra Molla can be reached at geezedit@aol.com

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The Economist

Why Ethiopians are nostalgic for a murderous Marxist regime

IN AMBO, a town in central Ethiopia, a teenage boy pulls a tatty photo from his wallet. “I love him,” he says of the soldier glaring menacingly at the camera. “And I love socialism,” he adds. In the picture is a young Mengistu Haile Mariam, the dictator whose Marxist regime, the Derg, oversaw the “Red Terror” of the 1970s and the famine-inducing collapse of Ethiopia’s economy in the 1980s. Mr Mengistu was toppled by rebels in 1991 before fleeing to Zimbabwe, where he still lives. He was later sentenced to death, in absentia, for genocide.

But the octogenarian war criminal seems to be growing in popularity back home, especially in towns and among those too young to remember the misery of his rule. When Meles Zenawi, then prime minister, died in 2012, a social-media campaign called for Mr Mengistu to return. In the protests that have swept through towns like Ambo since 2014, chants of “Come, come Mengistu!” have been heard among the demonstrators.

Asked by Afrobarometer, a pollster, how democratic their country is, Ethiopians give it 7.4 out of 10. They give the Derg regime a 1. Yet even some of those old enough to remember life under Marxism are giving in to nostalgia, admits a middle-aged professor at Addis Ababa University. The coalition that ousted the Derg, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), introduced a system of ethnically based federalism in 1995 that critics say favours the Tigrayan minority. After bouts of ethnic violence, most alarmingly this year, many now look back fondly on Mr Mengistu’s pan-Ethiopian nationalism.

“The general perception is that whatever the Derg did was out of love for the country,” explains Befekadu Hailu, a human-rights activist, who is himself no fan. Mr Mengistu fought a victorious war against Somalia in the 1970s, and waged a homicidal campaign against secessionists in Eritrea, then a region of Ethiopia, for more than a decade. The EPRDF, in contrast, oversaw the loss of Eritrea and with it access to the sea when it allowed an independence referendum in 1993.

The Derg’s policies were ruinous: nationalising almost every firm; forcing peasants at gunpoint onto collective farms, where they starved. Mr Mengistu was also more brutal than any Ethiopian ruler before or after. But the EPRDF is struggling to win the hearts of ordinary Ethiopians. Its heavy-handed propaganda—which includes ideological “training” for students and civil servants, and an annual celebration of its victory over the Derg—are widely met with contempt.

“When you have no hope for the future you go back and try to find some light in the past,” says Hassen Hussein, an activist who now lives abroad. The country’s most popular musician is Teddy Afro, a 41-year-old whose songs celebrate Ethiopia’s former emperors and its feudal past. The ruling party has yet to come up with such a catchy tune.

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By Teshome Bedada, Email: teshome2071@gmail.com
November 2017 Toronto Canada

In his famous play called hahu weyim pepu, Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin metaphorically captured Ethiopia as a mother that consecutively miscarried pregnancies of democracy. In a period shy of half-century, we’ve witnessed two such ‘miscarriages’. Yet again, Ethiopia is in a third ‘labor’; the TPLF regime has being facing mounting pressures over the last two years, and change is in the air. Third time’s a charm, or is it? What will transpire depends on a number of factors, not least of which is whether the Ethiopian intelligentsia plays an active, concerted role in not only seeing off the tyrant ruling clique but also ensuring a successful transition to a democratic system. Ethiopia is in a desperate need of ‘midwives’ to successfully ‘deliver’ democracy, and no one group is better positioned than the intelligentsia to discharge such a responsibility.  Ethiopian intellectuals have a great responsibility, perhaps now more so than ever. Articles by, for example, Prof. Alemayehu G Mariam and Prof. Messay Kebede have called for fellow intellectuals to shoulder their fair share of responsibilities. Prof. Birhanu Nega publicly lamented the limited role of Ethiopian intellectuals on the critical issues of Ethiopia and made a plea for a more active engagement. Whereas it is important to plead with the intellectuals and remind them of their moral responsibility, a more fruitful approach can be devised by understanding the underlying reasons for their limited active role.

Theories in behavioural science suggest that individuals fail to act either because they do not want to (an incentive problem) or they do not know how to (a bounded-rationality problem). These two factors can help explain the limited, if any, involvement of most Ethiopian intellectuals. The first problem is that of incentives. Clearly, individuals respond to incentives. What kind of incentives are appropriate here? Well, these incentives can take a form of positive or negative reinforcements. Whereas positive reinforcements constitute both financial and non-financial returns, the non-financial returns are more relevant here as we are considering intellectuals’ moral responsibility for which financial incentives are hardly required. So, what non-financial incentives can attract more intellectuals to come to the fore? One such incentive may take a form of identifying role models and celebrating those intellectuals who have contributed immensely to Ethiopia. By honoring such intellectuals of the past and the present, we can inspire a generation of intellectuals who would want to emulate their achievements. Here it’s important to face head-on a major problem we Ethiopians have related to honoring our heroes and heroines; instead of emphasizing the excellent achievements of many, we spend too much time and energy in finding faults and criticizing. Most of us harbor a scarcity mentality and a zero-sum game thinking in that someone else’s gain, we think, is our loss. The Amharic adage, weta weta yalech mashila andim le wefe andim le wenchif, captures this sentiment. According to Platteau, such social norms discourage individual effort. Therefore, if we really want to encourage intellectuals to take active roles, then we have to do away with such norms and start honoring those who have given a lot to Ethiopia.

There is no shortage of such intellectuals in Ethiopia. For example, Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold (1912 – 1974) is one of such intellectuals who have made considerable contributions to Ethiopia. His role in improving the diplomatic relationship of Ethiopia with the USA was impressive. His contribution to the formation of the Organization of African Union (OAU) and advancing Ethiopia’s stature in the process was remarkable. He was also a major player in the establishment of the Ethiopian Airlines, which has been a pride of Ethiopia for years. His diplomacy skills and unrelenting effort had also been instrumental in bringing Eritrea into federation with Ethiopia. These are but some of his hefty achievements. Another intellectual with an impressive record is Kibour Yilma Deressa (1907 – 1979), who assumed several government positions including a stint as a Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A son of Blatta Deressa Amante (an influential thinker himself) and a contemporary of Aklilu, Yilma had substantially contributed to the development of such financial institutions as the Ministry of Finance and the National Bank. As well, he was the driving force behind the introduction of the Ethiopian currency, birr. He had also played a considerable role in the formation of OAU. These Ethiopians made huge contributions to their country during their time. The current ruling party has been instigating conflicts among the many ethnic groups who lived harmoniously for centuries in its attempt to weaken the unity of the country.  Prof Berhanu Nega and Dr. Merera Gudina have worked tirelessly to expose TPLF’S conspiracy in promoting hate, human rights violation and corruption. Their persistent, courageous fight for freedom which lasted decades is exemplary to the current generation. These are but examples and one can identify a host of other intellectuals with substantial contributions to Ethiopia. I do not think that we’ve accorded these intellectuals the due respect and honor they deserve. By failing to do so, we would not only take their achievements for granted but also deprive future generations of intellectual’s role models to look up to. As well, we need to move away from considering intellectuals in aggregate and consider (and honor) the remarkable achievements of many.

Another challenge limiting the involvement of intellectuals in national matters is lack of awareness and/or requisite skill sets to scale up activities. A discussion I had with a friend on the issue surfaced one of the assumptions underlying political involvement of intellectuals. There is a tendency to relegate politics to an issue of concern only to those in political science and related areas. ‘I am an engineer and thus have nothing to do with politics’, argued my friend. Well, I think my friend is by no means alone in this. Many from both social science and natural science disciplines hold such a believe. The argument is reasonable in that it advances the notion that individual’s involvement should be merit based; that is, an intellectual in political science has a more relevant training in the area of politics and thus need to be politically more active. In fact, this is the kind of merit-based system we miss in the TPLF regime and this is what we aspire to have. However, the argument is based on a narrow, misguided understanding of politics. Politics is not something we consignee to a select group of individuals. Rather, it is about power (possession, division, and distribution) which can be used to get things done, formulate and implement policies, and efficiently allocate the limited resource available to the country under consideration. Such power can take a form of legitimate power, expert power, and charismatic power. Intellectuals do have the expert power. They can use such power to undermine the (il)legitimate power of a tyrant. Intellectuals can ask the right questions, critically examine the (false) claims of such tyrants as TPLF and debunk their propaganda. Intellectuals can play a major diplomatic role by exposing the lies of the TPLF regime and showing the practical merits for foreign governments of doing away with the regime. Intellectuals can also play roles in weakening the fundamental economic, military, information, and political pillars of TPLF. For example, an engineer specializing in communication technologies is in a better position to understand, neutralize, and counter TPLF’s mischiefs and attacks related to network and communication. Whatever action that can tip the power balance in favour of Ethiopians is considered a political action. Just because one does not belong to the fields from which politicians has traditionally emerged, it doesn’t mean that s/he has no role to play in influencing the balance of power. Intellectuals need to realize that the expert power they have at their disposal can make a difference.

In sum, realizing a free and democratic Ethiopia requires more than merely chiding intellectuals. In fact, we need to look into the root causes of the status quo (i.e., the very limited involvement of intellectuals in the political affairs of Ethiopia). By identifying two potential sources of this problem and forwarding potential recommendations, this article moves a step toward resolving the issue. If Ethiopia is to avoid a third ‘miscarriage’, then its intellectuals need to do more.

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Salem Solomon/ VOASince 2016, the Ethiopian government has targeted dissidents and journalists in nearly two dozen countries with spyware provided by an Israeli software company, according to a new report from Citizen Lab, a research and development group at the University of Toronto.

Citizen Lab, is a research and development group at the University of Toronto. Shown in an Oct. 30, 2017 photo, is the group’s logo.

Once their computers are infected, victims of the attack can be monitored covertly whenever they browse the web, the report says.

Based on an in-depth analysis of the methods used to trick victims into installing the software, Citizen Lab concluded that “agencies of the Ethiopian government” deployed the spyware to target individuals critical of their policies.

More than 40 devices in 20 countries were infected, according to Citizen Lab’s research. It’s unknown how many individuals might have been targeted.

​Full access

Citizen Lab’s report found that attackers used email to target dissidents, outspoken critics and perceived enemies by impersonating legitimate websites and software companies. In some cases, they sent messages about events related to Ethiopian politics, with links purporting to show related videos.

Those links led to web pages that prompted victims to update their Flash Players or download “Adobe PdfWriter,” fictitious software that, in fact, led to CutePDF Writer, a tool to create PDF files.

The attackers embedded the spyware in bona fide programs by exploiting security vulnerabilities, creating the impression that recipients were installing legitimate software and coaxing them to provide the administrator-level permissions needed to activate the surveillance. Once installed, the spyware spread to additional files tied to web browsers, making the software difficult to remove and nearly always active.

Any activity on an infected computer can be monitored, and information from web searches, emails and Skype contact lists can be extracted. A remote operator can take screenshots and record audio and video from a connected webcam.

Based on information provided by WiFi networks, attackers can also track the physical location of the infected device.

“Once the government has that information, they can do things like hijacking your email account,” said Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab and lead author of the new report.

“So, they’ll sign into your email account and then use your account to target your friends and basically expand the number of targets they have,” Marczak told VOA.

Eritrean, Ethiopian dissidents among those targeted

In October 2016, the Ethiopian government declared a nearly year-long state of emergency following months of protests that spread across the country.

Those protests — and a subsequent government crackdown that resulted in more than 800 deaths, according to a 2016 report by Amnesty International — were monitored by diaspora media groups, including the Oromia Media Network.

OMN’s executive director, Jawar Mohammed, was a confirmed target of the recently uncovered spyware attack.

“The pattern seems to be that they were very interested in what these Oromo activists and journalists were saying, how they were working, and perhaps even whom they were talking to back in Ethiopia,” Marczak said.

The Citizen Lab report also found seven infections in Ethiopia’s neighbor and longtime rival, Eritrea, most of whom were targets with ties to Eritrean government agencies and businesses.

According to Human Rights Watch, this is at least the third spyware vendor since 2013 that Ethiopia has used to target dissidents, journalists and activists.

Ethiopia previously used Remote Control System spyware from HackingTeam, an Italian company, to target journalists based in the United States, Citizen Lab said. It said Ethiopia also targeted dissidents using FinSpy spyware by FinFisher, a company based in Munich, Germany.

Citizen Lab’s analysis produced an unusual level of detail about the program due to the discovery of a publicly available log file with in-depth data about both the attackers and targets. After analyzing that file, Citizen Lab concluded “that the spyware’s operators are inside Ethiopia, and that victims also include various Eritrean companies and government agencies.”

Since the Israel-based spyware manufacturer was only authorized to sell their software to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Citizen Lab concluded that the Ethiopian government was behind the attacks.

Israeli security firm

The group behind the spyware, Cyberbit, is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, a $3 billion company that trades on the NASDAQ. Cyberbit describes itself as “a team of cybersecurity experts, who know firsthand what it means to protect high-risk organizations and manage complex incidents.”

The spyware used in the attacks uncovered by Citizen Lab is called PC Surveillance System (PSS). Cyberbit no longer lists PSS on its website, but marketing materials from 2015 describe the software as “a comprehensive solution for monitoring and extracting information from remote PCs.”

Key features touted by Cyberbit include covert operation, the ability to bypass encryption and the ability to target devices anywhere in the world. Cyberbit marketed the product to intelligence organizations and law enforcement agencies.

Citizen Lab also determined that Cyberbit representatives contacted Zambia’s Financial Intelligence Center and potential clients in Rwanda and Nigeria.

Spying with impunity

Citizen Lab and Human Rights Watch both have raised concerns about the ease with which governments can acquire sophisticated surveillance tools to target dissidents with impunity.

According to Marczak, it’s legal to produce and sell spyware to governments and law enforcement organizations, but Cyberbit would have required approval from the Israeli government to export the software to Ethiopia.

Missing in the process, Marczak said, is careful consideration of the impact on human rights.

In their report, researchers with Citizen Lab concluded that, “The fact that PSS wound up in the hands of Ethiopian government agencies, which for many years have demonstrably misused spyware to target civil society, raises urgent questions around Cyberbit’s corporate social responsibility and due diligence efforts, and the effectiveness of Israel’s export controls in preventing human rights abuses.”

The use of spyware by governments to monitor people around the world also occupies a murky legal space.

In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuitfiled by an American citizen born in Ethiopia. The plaintiff claimed the Ethiopian government used spyware to monitor his activities for months, but the court dismissed the case because the law allegedly broken did not apply to foreign states.

• Salem Solomon

  Salem Solomon is a digital journalist at the Voice of America’s Africa Division and covers the latest news from across the continent. Salem reports and edits in English, Amharic and Tigrigna. She produced the multimedia and data-driven projects How Long Have Africa’s Presidents Been in Office?, Zimbabwe in Transition and Hunger Across Africa. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poynter.org, Reuters and The Tampa Bay Times. Salem researches trends in analytics and digital journalism. For tips and inquiries, email: salemsolomon@voanews.com.

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addisstandard 2017-12-08

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Today, Africa is a Continent of COMPETING BEGGAR NATIONS. We vie with one another for favours from our former colonial masters; and we deliberately fall over one another to invite neocolonialists to come to our different territories to preside over our economic fortunes…

… We may continue and indeed we will be right to continue to use the power and influence which sovereignty confers, as well as the tactics and manoeuvres which international diplomacy legitimatises, to extract more and more alms from our benefactors. But the inherent evil remains—and it remains with us and with no one else: unless a beggar shakes off and irrevocably turns his back on, his begging habit, he will forever remain a beggar. For, the more he begs the more he develops the beggar characteristics of lack of initiative, courage, drive and self-reliance. — Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian nationalist, author and statesman in in 1967, at the 4th Summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity.

The best way America can help Africa is by letting Africa help itself, and by making sure the culture of panhandling on the continent is permanently ended.  The Trump administration should provide aid to African regimes only if they meet stringent conditions of accountability and transparency. Alemayehu G. Mariam, The Hill, March 9, 2017

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Author’s Note: For over a decade, I have advocated against the culture of panhandling and international aid hustling by so-called African leaders. For the past quarter of a century, the Mafia-style bosses of the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (T-TPLF) in Ethiopia have been polishing off their begging bowls and making a beeline to the U.S. and Western countries to do their annual panhandling rounds while fantasizing about “double-digit growth over the past decade” and twiddling their thumbs about an imaginary “middle-income country” by 2025.

Western aid has reduced Ethiopia to what I called the “Baksheesh (Beggar) State”.  The T-TPLF “baksheesh state” is a predictable mutation of the garden variety African kleptocracy where political power is a means for public officials and elite members of the ruling class to accumulate personal wealth by privatizing and plundering the public treasury and resources at the expense of the broader population.

Recently, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, for the first time in all of Africa’s post-independence history, told the West to take their aid and shove it. More precisely, he told visiting French President Emmanuel Marcon, “We (Africans) have to get away from this mindset of dependence, and this mindset about what can France can do for us. France will do whatever it wants to do for its own sake.”

I have always been “envious” of Ghana. In fact, I was so envious, in July 2009, I wrote a comparative commentary, “What is it the Ghanaians got, We Ain’t got?”

Ghana is the African poster country for the triumph of multiparty democracy, stability and economic growth in Africa. Ethiopia is the African poster country for famine, beggary and police state repression. Ghanaians enjoy the rule of law; Ethiopians suffer under the rule of bush thugs.

In Ghana, the media, including foreign media, operate freely and internet access is uncensored. Citizens express their opinions without fear of government retaliation. In 2008, Ghana (population 23 million) ranked 31/173 countries worldwide on World Press Freedom Index and 26/170 in 2017. Ethiopia ranked 142/180 in 2008 and in 150/170 in 2017.

Ghana has an independent judiciary. In Ethiopia, the T-TPLF has the judiciary in its back pockets.

Ghana has competitive political parties. In Ethiopia, the T-TPLF has decimated political parties and jailed opposition leaders.

Tribal and ethnic parties are illegal in Ghana under Article 55 (4) of their constitution. The T-TPLF has created the quintessential tribal state in Africa (which it calls “nations, nationalities and peoples”) segregated in tribal homelands  called “kilils” or “kililistans, much like apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans or black homelands.

Ghana has an independent electoral commission. The T-TPLF’s electoral commission certified the 100 percent electoral victory of the T-TPLF in 2015.

Civil society institutions in Ghana are vital social forces and play a critical role in legal and political reforms and grassroots advocacy.

Ghana has a relatively high degree of transparency and accountability.  In 2012, The World Bank issued a 417-page comprehensive review of corruption in Ethiopia in a volume entitled, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia.”

In October 2015, I could no longer contain my envy. So, I wrote a confessional commentary, “Why Can’t Ethiopia Become Like Ghana?”.

For over a decade, I have been arguing that Western aid to Ethiopia and rest of Africa creates a moral hazard. Many African regimes today simply avoid the demands of good governance, ignore the rule of law and commit gross violations of human rights in the belief that Western aid, particularly American taxpayer handouts, will always bail them out of their chronic budget deficits and replenish their empty grain silos. Stated simply, Western taxpayer dollars provide the fail-safe insurance policy for the survival and persistence of failed regimes in Africa.In my March 2017 commentary, I argued, “Trump’s suspicion of foreign aid to Africa is right on the money.” I insisted the best way America can help Africa is by letting Africa help itself, and by making sure the culture of panhandling on the continent is permanently ended.

In July 2017, in my commentary in The Hill, “Trump’s Africa policy should end US aid to dictators, rights abusers”, I argued continuing with aid business as usual in Africa will not enhance American security; it only creates an untenable moral hazard.

In March 2017, in my commentary in The Hill, “Trump’s suspicion of foreign aid to Africa is right on the money”, I urged an end to USAID’s philosophy of ending “extreme poverty” in Africa by  maintaining a large welfare program of food assistance, balance of payment and general budget support and rural income support programs and providing other “development” aid for African countries.

Indeed, that is precisely what President Akufo-Addo is arguing.

After I heard President Nana Akufo-Addo, who took office in January 2017, lecture President Marcon about what to do with Western aid, my envy has been replaced by renewed hope that Africa the hopeless now has hope. It is unheard of for any African leader to bite the hand that feeds. But that is exactly Nana’s point. Africans are not dogs who live by the charity of their masters. Africans have vast resources. How is it possible for them to be the richest beggars in the world? Nana declared, “We have huge wealth on this continent, and in our own country of Ghana we need to have a mindset that says, ‘We can do it. Others have done it. We can also do it.’ And once we have that mindset, we’ll see there is a liberating factor for ourselves.”

Finally, I can say I have found an African leader who sees Africa Cheetahs [young people] (to borrow a word from Ghanaian economist George Ayittey) as dynamos of the continent, publicly rejects the stereotype of Africa as the beggar continent and is willing to stand up and say to his benefactor, “Take your aid and shove it!” We now have an African leader with the supreme self-confidence to say, “If the South Koreans, the Malaysians and Singaporeans can do it, so can we Africans, Ghanaians, Ethiopians…”

Chief Awolowo would have been so proud of Nana Akufo-Addo!

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Remarks (video) of Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo at a joint press conference in Accra with the visiting French president Emmanuel Macron.

……

I think there’s a fundamental misstatement of the issue and the question. We can no longer continue to make policy for ourselves and for our country and our region and our continent on the basis of whatever support the Western world or France or the European Union can give us.  It will not work. It has not worked, and it will not work.

Our responsibility is to charter a path which is about how we can develop our nation’s ourselves. It is not right for a country like Ghana 60 years after independence to still have its health and education budgets being financed on the basis of the generosity and charity of European taxpayers. By now, we should be able to finance our basic needs ourselves.

And if we’re going to look at the next 60 years as a period of transition, a period whereby we can stand on our own feet, our perspective is not to be what the French taxpayer decides to do with whatever surpluses that they have in France. They are welcome.  They are appreciated whatever intervention the French taxpayer through their government make to us are appreciated. We are not going to kick a gift horse in the mouth.

But this continent, with all that has happened, is still today the repository of at least 30% of the most important minerals of the world. It is a continent of vast arable and fertile lands. It has the youngest population of any of the continents in the world. So, it has the energy and the dynamism. We have seen it. These young men who are showing so much resilience and ingenuity in crossing the Sahara are finding ways to get around in rickety boats across the Mediterranean. Those energies, we want to have those energies working inside our countries. And we’re going to have those energies working in our countries if we begin to build systems that tell the young people of our country that their hopes their opportunity are  right here with us.

Migration in the movement of people is being presented in a manner which suggest somehow it’s a new phenomenon. There’s nothing new about it. It is as old as man. And the movement of people has always been linked to the same thing: the failure of where you are to provide you with an opportunity.

So you move somewhere else. Those of you who are familiar with 19th century European history would know that the biggest wave of immigration in nineteenth-century Europe, the latter part of it, came from Ireland and from Italy, waves upon waves, generations of Italians and Irish people left their countries to seek the American Paradise largely because the island was not working. Italy was not working. Today you don’t hear it. Italian young people are in Italy. Irish young people are in Ireland.

We want young Africans to stay in Africa (applause). And it means that we have to get away from this mindset of dependence, and this mindset about what can France can do for us. France will do whatever it wants to do for its own sake.

But our main responsibility as leaders, as citizens is what we need to do to grow our own countries. Without institutions that work, that will allow us to have good governance, to have accountable governance, to make sure the monies that are placed at the disposal of leaders are used for the interest of the state and not  those of the leaders. To have systems that allow for accountability that allow for diversity that allow for people to be able to express themselves and contribute to fashioning the public will and the public interest our concern should be with what do we need to do in this 21st century.

To move Africa away from being cap-in-hand and begging for aid, for charity, for handouts. The African continent when you look at its resources should be giving monies to other places. We have huge wealth on this continent, and in our own country of Ghana we need to have a mindset that says, “We can do it. Others have done it. We can also do it.” And once we have that mindset, we’ll see there is a liberating factor for ourselves. We keep talking about how it was that [South] Koreans, Malaysians, Singaporeans who got independence at the same time as us we were told that at the time of Ghanaian independence per capita gun in income was higher than [South] Korea. Today [South] Korea is part of the first world. So is Malaysia. So is Singapore.

Why have they made that transition and 60 years after independence we are where we are. Those are the matters that should concern all of us as Africans, as Ghanaians. And, not when I say so with the greatest respect for the French president, the corporation of France is something that I am as you know strong friend of France. I am Francophile.  So, I don’t have any difficulty with that. But what I’m talking about is our own propulsion, what we need to do to get our countries to work, to create the conditions to allow our young people to forego this hazardous effort to get to Europe. They’re all going there not because they want to. They’re going there because they don’t believe they have any opportunities and our countries. So, that should be our focus.

And I believe that if we change that mindset, that mindset of dependence that mindset which is contingent on aid and charity, we will see in the decades ahead of us the full flowering of the African peoples will take place. And that new  African personality that was talked about at the time of independence will become real and imminent.

That’s what I’m saying, and I hope I’m not upsetting the questioner or even some of my friends who are here. But these are my strongly held beliefs. And it is the reason why have adopted as a slogan of my presidency, my period in the supreme office of Ghana, that we want to build a Ghana beyond aid. A Ghana which is independent, which is self-sufficient that is capable of standing on its own feet and building its own life. We can do it if we have the correct mindset to do so. Mr. President [Marcon], those are my contributions (applause).

//

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COMMEMORATION OF THE 81^st ANNIVERSARY OF THE FASCIST ITALIAN MASSACRE IN ADDIS ABABA

Date and Places of Commemorations: February 19-21, 2018 in cities throughout the world;

Participants: All people who believe in justice and respect for human rights;

Main Reasons: On February 19-21, 1937, 30,000 Ethiopians were massacred by Mussolini’s Fascist Italian criminal invading forces in Addis Ababa. During 1935-41, the Italian Fascists have massacred one million Ethiopians as well as destroying 2,ooo churches, 525,000 homes and 14 million animals. Although an Italian court has sentenced the mayor of Affile and two councilors to imprisonments and financial penalties, the case of the removal of the mausoleum inaugurated for the Fascist criminal, Rodolfo Graziani, in Auguest 2012 in the presence of a Vatican representative has not been fully resolved. The Vatican was also complicit as its bishops and clergy blessed the criminal invasion as if it were a holy mission. This international protest will take place in memory of our patriots who were victims of the Fascist Italian war crimes and in order to achieve the following objectives of justice for the Ethiopian people:

JUSTICE REQUIRED FOR THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE:

1. The payment of adequate reparations by the Italian Government to Ethiopia;
2. A Vatican apology to the Ethiopian people for its complicity with Fascist Italy;
3. Restitution of looted Ethiopian properties by the Italian and Vatican Governments;
4. Inclusion in the United Nations records of the Fascist war crimes in Ethiopia;
5. Dismantlement of the Graziani mausoleum inaugurated at Affile by Italy in the presence of a Vatican representative;

JUSTICE FOR ETHIOPIA!

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