Remittance embargo cyber campaign targets to mobilize Ethiopians living in North America, Europe, Australia, Middle East, among others, not “to feed the beast”

borkena, February 7, 2018 — Ethiopian activists living abroad are launching another remittance embargo campaign starting tomorrow. Based on information that the Organizers released on social media, the campaign will kick off on Wednesday 7,2018 around 10:00 a.m EST time or around 15:00 London time.

The cyber campaign will be mainly on two social media platforms; Twitter and Facebook.

#StarveTheTPLFBeast is the hashtag that is prepared for the campaign and will be used along Amharic translation ( #ጉጅሌህወሓትንአንቀልበው), which uses the ancient Ethiopic script, and Oromigna translation (#BulguuHinHoratin), Ethiopia’s second widely spoken language (Oromigna uses Latin alphabets after TPLF took control of power in the country in 1991).

The campaign aims to support the struggle of Ethiopians against the ruling party by way of mobilizing Ethiopians abroad to avoid sending money to Ethiopia through formal money transfer channels. And the goal is to deny government foreign currency. It is not known as to when the campaign is ending.

Widespread demand for fundamental political change caused recurring protest across the country and the regime in power regularly resorts to the excessive use of military forces, usually deploying loyal agazi forces.

A fortnight ago, just to mention the latest string of massacre, the regime deployed its agazi forces in Woldia where they opened fire on residents who were celebrating a religious festival. several were killed and wounded. The killing caused other protests in two nearby towns, Kobo and Mersa but the government but government killed civilians in those towns as well.

The instability in Ethiopia, due to the ongoing political crisis, is having an adverse effect on the economy. The tourism sector which used to be a significant foreign currency source is weakened after major tourist source countries issued travel advisories. The foreign currency reserve for the country is said to be much less than $800 million.

If the campaign to mobilize Ethiopian’s turns out to be a success, it could further cripple the financial standing of the regime in Ethiopia.

According to International Organization for Migration (IOM) report in August 2017, remittance to Ethiopia reached $4 billion in the year 2015/2016 which represents well over 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).However, about 78 % of the remittance reach the country via informal money transfer channels. According to Leon Isaacs, who is cited in the report as an international remittance expert, transferring money through informal channels leads to loss of foreign exchange for the government, among other negative impacts of it.

Eskinder Nega and Andualem Arage. (Image: Amnesty International)

Xinhua

ADDIS ABABA — The Ethiopian government on Thursday gave pardons to 746 suspects including prominent opposition figure Andualem Arage and dissident journalist Eskinder Nega.

The Ethiopia Federal Attorney General said the prisoners will be freed after their pardons are approved by President Mulatu Teshome and they will receive rehabilitation training, reported state media Radio Fana.

Andualem Arage, Deputy Chairman of the opposition Unity, Democracy and Justice (UDJ) and Eskinder Nega, owner of several critical newspapers were jailed on September 2011 on terrorism related charges.

The Ethiopian government has characterized the mass prisoner release programs as part of efforts to create national consensus and widen political space.

Menelik II Statue, which was exposed to vibration during the construction of the Addis Abeba Light Rail Transit (AA-LRT), is to be restored along with Sebastopol Artillery for 5.4 million Br.

The Addis Abeba City Government Culture & Tourism Bureau, established a decade ago, had allocated a budget of 30 million Br for the current fiscal year to conserve two monuments and three historical houses of Ethiopian emperors. Among them, the statue of Emperor Menelik II in Piassa, along the St. Georgis – Kaliti rail route and the monument with a replica of the Sebastopol artillery at Tewodros Square, Addis Abeba are lined up for restoration.

The restoration will be carried out by Dawit Tsadik Heritage Restoration & Beautification, which was selected after a tender that was floated twice for bidders’ failed to meet the minimum requirements, according to Worku Mengesha, communication director at the Bureau.

“The contractor will begin work after signing an agreement with the Bureau,” Worku said, adding that it is expected to finalise within six to nine months.

The bid specifications were prepared by a team of experts from Addis Abeba University (AAU), the Authority for Research & Conservation of Cultural Heritage (ARCCH) and the Bureau. A committee of representatives from the latter two, will likewise supervise the project.

The majority of the restoration will consist of cleaning, filling of grooves and holes, replacing damaged parts of the monuments, and returning them to their original form.

“The project needs a team of skilled personnel with sound experience of heritage conservation and landscaping,” said Hailu Zeleke, cultural heritage conservation director at the Authority and consultant for the restoration project, who added that Menelik II Statue was deemed eligible for restoration once the construction of the rail was completed in 2015.

For the over a century old capital city, there are many cultural, historical and natural tourist attractions, with 15 monuments, 17 museums, four palaces and 440 historical residences.

The Bureau has also planned to renovate three historic houses in the current fiscal year. Bitweded Woldetsadik’s house, the first mayor of Addis Abeba, built in 1900 and located at Nifas Silk Lafto District, and Sheik Hojele Al Hassen’s palace, located at Gullele District in Shegole Meda, are two of the houses set for renovation. The home of Bitweded Haileghiorgis, the second mayor of the capital, which then became the first municipality of the city, located at Piassa, is another.

In 2016, the Bureau had restored Yekatit 12 Martyr’s Monument at Sidist Kilo and Miaziya 27 Victory monument at Arat kilo for four million Birr, aside from having restored the home of Ras Biru Woldegabriel, located around Mesqel Square for 16 million Br last fiscal year.

“Conservation is a delicate job that needs experienced professionals in the field where the monuments would retain their historical legacy,” said Kassaye Begashaw (Prof), who has been a lecturer for decades at AAU’s Department of Archaeology & Heritage Management.

Source: Addis Fortune

Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban

Eritrea continues to prolong the statutory duration of its national service because of the illegal occupation of its territory by neighbouring Ethiopia, its Minister of Information has said.

Yemane Ghebre Meskel added that those that condoned Ethiopia’s continue disregard for international law “have no business whatsoever to question or comment on Eritrea’s defense architecture.”

In tweets sent out on February 7, 2018; the minister also responded to recent reports about how predominantly Eritrean and Sudanese were being threatened with jail and deportation by the Israeli government’s clampdown on illegal migrants.

“Recent media, “pundits” discourse on Eritrean “asylum seekers”, (UNHCR, Al Jazeera Inside Story), are replete with the usual,worn-out, distortions and half-truths,” he said in a tweet.

It is largely reported that the forced national service allied with a struggling economy were responsible for the decision by most young people leaving the country to make the perilous journey towards Europe.

In 2016, Reuters reported that the Asmara government said its conscription was vital for national security stressing that it fears attack by its Ethiopia – from who they gained independence in 1993 but fought a bloody and expensive war that ended in June 2000.

On paper, citizens between the ages of 18 and 40 must complete 18 months of service to the state but diplomats and those who have fled say this can stretch to a decade or more. The government reserves the right to extend length of service in periods of emergency.

Each month as many as 5,000 people flee Eritrea according to U.N. figures, estimates the Eritrean government disputes. The government puts the population at about 3.6 million, while other estimates suggest it could be almost double that.

“The government is doing the utmost that it can do, under the circumstances,” Ghebremeskel told Reuters in 2016, saying salaries would rise but there were no plans to scrap or cut national service.

“Demobilization is predicated on removal of the main threat. You are talking about prolongation of national service in response to … continued belligerence by Ethiopia,” he added.

Asmara has continually called on the United Nations to ask Ethiopia to end their illegal occupation of Eritren territory, the most recent was in September 2017 during the UN General Assembly when Foreign Minister reiterated the call.

Nizar Manek, Bloomberg

An Ethiopian opposition party whose chairman was freed after more than a year in prison plans to step up its activity as the Horn of Africa nation’s government pledges greater openness in the wake of mass protests.

The Oromo Federalist Congress will open an initial 20 offices in the Oromia region and “start to organize our people,” Chairman Merera Gudina said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa. That could make it a competitor to the ruling coalition’s regional sub-party in elections due by 2020 in a central region that’s been roiled by more than two years of often fatal demonstrations.

“We have reached a stage where people have refused to be ruled in the old way, and the ruling party cannot rule in the old way,” Merera said. Arrested in Ethiopia after taking part in a 2016 discussion panel in Brussels, he was freed in January as state-linked media reported the pardoning of a first wave of more than 500 detainees.

Unrest that began in Oromia in late 2015 has damaged Ethiopia’s reputation as an investment destination and posed one of the biggest challenges to the ruling coalition since it came to power in the early 1990s. The government has said the release of some political detainees is intended to “widen the political

By Getachew Reda (ED-ES)

Lately, several articles caught my eye forced me to react on them. Among those, a commentary titled “Managing Ethiopia’s political crisis” Written by Goitom Gebreluel, Biniam Bedas & Nemera Mamo authors of “Managing Ethiopia’s political crisis” posted at Satenaw.com on February 8, 2018

http://www.satenaw.com/managing-ethiopias-political-crisis/

I am surprised how educated elements such as those brothers still after 26 years of observation on the present system, failed to understand the nature of the ruling system in Ethiopia. They obviously and miserably failed to characterize the system by its accurate name “Fascism”! The characterization they used to explain the nature of the present ruling gangs sitting in power in Ethiopia not as such, but as “Ethnic Elite Competition”. Because, they describe the system as such, surprisingly also, their immediate solution is to de-ethnicising etite competition at the Federal level.

Well,,, well,,,well,,,  Is our primary goal to de-ethnicising elite competition or to completely a system change that shuttered them from computing in the national destruction?  Ethnic Elite Competition is not a system by itself to bring the desire radical removal of the system. If we want the system entirely changed, then the system should be completely scratched with all its ugly packages that plunged the nation into ethnic conflict. That includes removing the ethicized elites who are members or leaders of criminal organizations engaged in the crime of genocide.

You suggested; quote-

<< The two most important reform measures that should be embarked upon immediately in this regard are devolving more power to the regional states in accordance with the Constitution and de-ethnicising elite competition at the federal level.

That is not going to happen. The nature of the system won’t go for such reform, because, you are looking at Fascism not at some kind of ordinary dictatorial system. Here is why many Ethiopian elites are failed miserably diagnosing the system. You are focusing at structural reform instead of focusing who controls the organ that regulates the structures.

In the medical field there is what they call DNA, RNA, Promoter, “Gene” and “Protein” (in short DNA makes messenger RNA and RNA makes Protein and Protein is “us”.  Gene as we all know in school is a unit of heredity that is transferred from a parent to offspring and is held to determine some characteristic of the offspring. So, in order the Gene to activate, the DNA must touch each structure acting as a switch turning the “promoter” (that was holding different structures inside it (cells) and the “Gene” to create the protein.

Therefore, what we see here is those structures cant able to operate/activate freely, unless, the DNA turns/touches all of them to produce the desired production (protein) regardless they have properties/cells. Similarly the DNA the promoter also will not survive without the others party’s coordination.  Now, same goes to the political structure of the current “Fascist” system lead by the TPLF organ, what you guys call it “Elite Competition”. The elites are competing, because the Organ is intentionally controlling the structure. And they cannot be able to freely operate or promote their desire regardless their competition. Similarly, the TPLF/Federal power can’t rule as it wants to rule, because, the structures are competing it and denying its power to controlee them (that is what is called negative factor).  Because, the organ and the elites has similar desire to control regardless the aggressive argument we are hearing among each other to stabilize their corrupt system. Generally speaking, either the main organ/Federal or the structure (authorities of the ethnic territory) are all there to destruct the life of the nation for the last 26 years. They are all antigen to the existence of the wellbeing of the nation.

What the ruling party (TPLF) and their similar puppets (territorial authorities) are doing to reverse the up-rise of the people all over the country as their survival mechanism is reprimand members, purging members and replacing similar elements in order the Organ/system/ and the structure to survive. That is not what we want. And that is why you guys are looking for as a solution in different interpretation but same result (may be worst). In order to silence the elites competition, you recommended the “de-ethnicising elite competition  or  devolving more power to the regional states. Developing more power to the regional states under the status quo system can’t produce anything better than the organ itself. By demanding more power without domination by the main Organ/system/, they will be the replica of the organ replacing the national “Fascist elites” with the local Fascist elites.

I say this because; all the ethnic elites who you are asking for them for more power to operate the regional state are ethno fascist politicians who are not better than the federal TPLF fascist elites who are operating the system.

I might add something here you or some of my readers might not like it. Look at the Oromo people for example. (don’t tell me Getachew do not say the Oromo people, say only the Oromo elites, as you all are used and accustomed to describe when it also comes to the Tigray people and their elites as well). Look at their agenda’s and beliefs. Look at their ethnic flags, look at the language they are promoting/embracing “Latin alphabet”. Look how they described their regional states’ territories- look who they call themselves, look who owns as master of the territory- “3/4 large chunk of Ethiopian land illegally and unhistorical with  invented named called “Oromia” designed as Kellil /bantustanized territory”.

All Ethiopian regional state territories are not owned by individual citizens of Ethiopia, but them/by the designated ethnic group”!!  So, promoting more power to the said ethnic territories citizens to be lead by ethno-politicians can only bring “the end of the nation”! or more repression of individual citizen and more deportation.

For example the current Oromo population 90/95 %  (by a mild estimation) pledged elegance to the OLF/Gada/OPDO and other Oromo made flags (consist of the red, white and black colored- with an oak or huge tree on it, directly copied from the Arabs), not to the Ethiopian Flag or to the nation. That is sad, but true.

I have to refute adamantly the respected writers’ position which is totally in the business of promoting more power to the ethno fascistic designed federation as a solution to the present crisis. We have to dig in to the source of the current ethnic politics if we want to diagnosis where this antigen started to penetrate to the blood stream of the nation. The 26 years havoc has its roots. It is what is still continuing to be interpreted by many educated sectors as “PROCESS Of DEMOCRACY” and “FEDERALISM”. I have to take all my readers back to history to show what created the current system in Ethiopia that we seeing with its 26 years of lethal journey near to end the survival of the people of the ancient nation of ours.  If you do not recall history, you will never find out the secret cause root of the havoc.

Be it bitter for some of you or boring to hear to some of you (since it is been told over and over for years/lately) The present political organ and its structures are built to destroy some of the countries assets or particular population/ethnic. Hatred for the Amhara people and its elites is the primary target. Christianity follows (remember, Tefera Waluwa who supposed to represent “Amhara” (though he is not Amhara), said openly to the Ethiopia people <<The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the hiding place of “neftegnoch” or chauvinists >>), the next target was (still is) Ethiopia, its flag and its culture (remember Meles Zenawi calling Ethiopia ‘the land of Amhara engulfed by Amhara culture and religion’, and  its flag “a piece of rag “CherQu”-— remember the notorious Oromo ethnic (OPDO) Hassen Ali, now livening in America in Minnesota, calling our flag “piece of rag “CHERQ”. Please follow me now attentively!!!!!!

Those assets were and still are the target for destruction since 1935 until present time as we speak. Most of those assets are either brutally bruised or decapitated. Those assets will be under attack continuously (as we saw it last week to what happened to the Amharic language in the Oromo territories. Commercial Adds and trader offices or governmental offices buildings read/written in Amharic language is been painted with graffiti).Therefore, either the federal power voluntary or out of pressure loosen its grip for power control or full power shared to the apartheid territories, there  unless the system is complete scratched out, the havoc will not stop. Because, remember what I said on my article

The Border Lords of Oromo and Tigre… – ethiopiansemay.blogspot … https://www.facebook.com/128930193915384/photos/a…/734504693357928/?type=3

I said “A Rotten Apple, Plus a Rotten Apple, Plus a Rotten Apple —You May Continue Adding Up – Will Never Produce a Good Healthy Apple!

Who initiated such attack? When did it started and why?

The current ethnic federation lead by Weyane was initiated by Italians; that is “non-unitary “federation of tribal and regional colonies”. <Is it, therefore,> says my beloved teacher the late Dr.Aleme Eshete <Is it, therefore, exaggeration to say that the CIA-Weyane have made a carbon copy from Fascist Mussolini? Do you see any difference in strategy and objective with CIA-Weyane “federation of tribal states” and the tribal dismemberment and annihilation of Ethiopia of today? Asked Dr. Aleme (rest his soul in peace).

The Grandeur Historian Dr.Aleme Eshete

In the war of liberation the role of the Ethiopian clergy was phenomenal. For that, now they are under attack by TPLF and its associates “the Oromo elites”. The flag is been the symbol of victory. Now, it is under attack (replaced by Italian design ethnic flags). Amhara were at the front war defending the nation (now, for that, they are brutally murdered and displaced by these ethnic thugs  who are well oriented by the Italians and the Marx/Lenin Guru follower, ‘Waleling Mekonne’ (Addis University leading student figure- himself an Amhara by ethnic- who is loved by EPRP/TPLF/EPLF/OLF/ONLF) and Prochazka (Nazi from Hungary).

What you see now in Ethiopia is What Dr. Aleme referred to it as

<<” Mussolini’s “Legge Organica” or “Basic Law” or Charter and Constitution drawn for the conquered Ethiopia in June 1936.”>>

It is an instrument of “divide et Impera” following Prochazka ‘s strategy of “tribal dismemberment”. As you recall, Dr.Aleme’s paper “The dismemberment of Ethiopia”, he compared the similarity of Mussolini’s five tribal governments one by one with the Weyane 9 Fascistic apartheid and bantustanizaed/kellil governments. We will see in several instances that Weyane and OLF/OPDO/OILF and Somali extremist Islamic elements… carried the tribal dismemberment of Ethiopia and the crime of ethnic cleansing, massacres and mass deportation to a much higher stage than was even contemplated by Mussolini. Am I not Right? The actors in this crime for the last 26 years were many, but major player are OLF/OPDO and TPLF (including the destructive Islamic Ogaden Liberation Front and their subsets).

Therefore, the origin of the current tribalization of Ethiopia is originated from Italian Fascists and followed by Ethiopian Marxist students of the old era student movements. Therefore, that is why the popular historian and political scientist Dr.Aleme calls the present system under TPLF “a continuation of Fascism> (with the highlight “From Fascism to Fascism”>>

Therefore these respected writers are proposing uncontested power be given to the regional state elites (Apartheid territory) as primary solution to stabilize the present havoc to normal peace and unity. What a joke!

This is Genocide through the Law. Once these apartheid territory are allowed in full control (do not forget, the designer of this genocide sitting at the ethnic chamber is TPLF) of their apartheid territory, slowly but surely “genocide” and fast secession tendency (which is already at its climax in the Oromo and Tigray and Somali elites leading it) will geared in full speed. Seeing the nature and the way the country is been trapped for 26 years, sadly, intellectual responsibility has gone to the drain as fast as the eye can see. These kinds of intellectual writers and others like them are still promoting “more power to the ethnic fascist politicians” who they still believe self determination up to and including cession.

These writers are embraced fascism (by demanding more power be released to those apartheid territories lead by fascist elements) at the same time condemning the elite ethnic competition for power. No matter full power is given to the apartheid territories in Ethiopia, full self-determination, no matter full democracy is preached, there will never be such freedom to citizens as long as the territories are designed to carry tribal politics.

Look at what these brothers are writing;

<< Regional officials accused the federal government of denying them the right to participate in devising an urban development plan that had economic implications. This dispute sparked the protests, which eventually led to a u-turn on the plan by the government, but only after a great human, political and economic cost had been incurred.>>

This is exactly what sparked the conflict between the “ruling gangs” and the “promoter gangs”. The people got caught in the game of two or more apartheid political gangs (federal versus apartheid territory authorities) confusing the people. “This is ours and that is yours”, “us versus them”. We all remember the motto of the people of Oromo who got into dispute with the ruling gangs was “Oromia Kegna!!”.

They claimed the territory (even though there were other ethnic farmers at around the disputed territory) belongs to the Ormo people. How on earth someone could from Jima or Elibabur or Welega or Harrar Oromo far awy from Addis Ababa could come-out and claim and protest the land around the city of Addis Ababa belong to them?

Can you understand this chemistry? This is because they are oriented as one country, one people, under one flag as Oromo nation! Unfortunately, these Oromo who are living in different regions of the Ormo Apartheid territory (Kellil) did not come-out and claimed “WelKait and Woll Kenga/ours/”. Why? Because, they did separate themselves for from the rest of their Ethiopian brothers and sisters for the last 26 years as a different people. That is why they installed and honored the disgusting and porno type status called “Anolle status“ in Arsi, accusing Amhara/Menlik/ committed  genocide against the Oromo hundred years back. What kind of country is this? Are the Oromo different country allowed to erect such ‘status’ to activate hate and conflict in the mind of Oromo against the Amhara living in one nation as one people of a nation? What is the mission behind this?  Of course, you know it! It was the work started in 1935 by the Italians and embraced by Oromo corrupt elites who themselves were involved in genocide since 1991 even beyond.

TPLF fighters’ monument erected in Mekelle who were told Amhara as enemy of Tigray.                                          

Meles Zenawi and the notorious Pastor Tamrat Layne and Berhanu Negga having a good time while the Amhara were slaughtered behind the door.

Anole Orom Status aimed at triggering to create conflict with the next generation between Amhara and Oromo population erected by the Oromo hate group.

The three OLF leaders who were engaged in the Amhara genocide. Dillma Negewo, Lencho Leta and the notorious Ebsa Guttema& Dawud Ibsa Ayana (currently inand out of Eritrea cooking conspiracy with his supporter the criminal Isayas Afewerki. Sadly, they are still controlling the mind of the useless, mercenaries and kiss-ass Ethiopian elites and their media inside the oppositions.

The photo under these criminals are Amhara infants/children and pregnant women slaughtered by OLF criminal secessionist gangs lead by the above Oromo elites.

Dear brother writers, look, here is the silver bullet for your solution that you are looking <<All educated Ethiopians with the sense of accepted education and humanity, should completely condemned and demand to remove such system from the face of Ethiopia, not to demand more power to such hateful elites who are leading organizations participated in Genocide!!!>>

Since political elite competition is not the primary source causing the current political crisis in Ethiopia, it can’t be managed by removing   Political elite competition. The problem is not the elite competition. What lead them to the destructive and negative competition is the politics they cooked. That is Fascism. Therefore, the silver bullet as a solution to resolve the current havoc is completely rejecting the status quo system. Do not forget the system was designed by outsiders and their internal agents. See the above photo attached at the beginning of my writing. I gave you to look at history, back in 1991. Looking at that photo,  Endrias Eshete and the CIA Paul Henz were leading the conference. Just ask “Who is Paul Henze” to begin with talking about our country?! Ethiopia is not what we know as we knew it before. Like it or not, she is under attacked and colonized by outsiders through their different proxy agents.

Thus the communal wars of self-aggrandizement with each “tribe” or
“sub-tribe” engaged  in the demarcation of new “official borders” in
preparation for the legalized self determination up to independence has
caused   involving massacres of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians has followed to this date must stop. In order to stop it, the ethnic politics either in the form of democratic federalism or the purely naked “Ethnic federalism” system should be completely scratch-out from Ethiopian politics once for all, and start to look another alternative, which in this case should look back to the old “Kiflehager” (regional administration) style with little changes, not to manipulate borders to favor ethnic group in order to equally administer individual citizens not by ethnic affiliation or group domination.

Thanks.

Getachew Reda (ED-ES) getachre@aol.com

Ethiopians have suffered under TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) led brutal regime for more than a quarter of a century. This elite group of Tigray origin which was  conceived  in the womb of hate has  ruled Ethiopians  through its sophisticated oppressive means.

From its inception, it was anti-unity, divisive, hate monger and self oriented opportunistic regime. It  has led anti democratic regime that denied Ethiopians fundamental human rights in their own country.

TPLF is owned by an  elite  ultra Tigrean and pro-Eritrean secession family members. It doesn’t even represent the Tigray people which itself comprises 6% of Ethiopian population. TPLF shields  itself under Tigrean people as if  it’s legitimate representative.

The majority Tigraeans in Tigray live under fear and double oppression. They are not allowed to say anything except supporting TPLF. Those who live outside Tigray  region in Ethiopia and in Diaspora, most benefited from the system.   They defend TPLF’s merciless killings and brutal crackdown against Ethiopians. They make every effort by hook or crook to sustain TPLF’s rule.

TPLF  created a delusional federal system in Ethiopia with puppets figure heads while its operatives rule under iron fist. It continued its divide and rule policy by fermenting  and  waging violence among different ethnicities, nationalities  and religious members. Its inflammatory polices have made Ethiopians displaced, homeless, dispossessed, unemployed and to flee from their country.

In the last 27 years, TPLF controlled the military, the economy, security, communication   and all part of society through force, intimidation and harassment. The famous  “one to five” controlling system paralysed the public for years, but it is no longer .

The Fascist brutal regime has saw seeds of hate, suspicion, disunity, false identity and history. It has established a structure that facilitate its minority regime while majority are left divided, disunited and paranoid of each other. These would create obstacles for smooth transition even after TPLF’s death.

The Ethiopian people have attempted to overthrow this parasitic regime through peaceful means since early.  But TPLF has used its “Divide and Rule” policy  to crash every attempt  including the famous 2005  protest ( 1997 Eth Calendar).

TPLF is currently severely shaken  by the new generation’s youth peaceful struggle  launched in the last two years. The youth, mostly born and  brought up in the last 27 years have rebelled against TPLF’s  ideology, policy and oppressive regime.

TPLF’s propaganda outlets in Ethiopia and Overseas are drumming day and night false rumours, confusion, disinformation, exaggeration, fear and paranoia  with  disorganised thoughts, pressure of speech, grandiose and paranoid delusions. The culprits, mostly paid mercenaries continue the  futile attempt to dampen the struggle of the Ethiopian People against TPLF.

Ethiopians have to be smart, measured, matured  and human on tackling this uneven road. Ethiopians have to learn from all the mistakes we committed in the last few decades. Ethiopians have to  unite and work together in partnership. A popular well organised and united push from Ethiopians of different nationalities, faiths, educational status, ability, income, gender and  age  will bring the demise of TPLF.

Lets be  free from our personal ego, political and ethnic inclination and be human (who are  born in country called Ethiopia on God’s wish; otherwise we would have been born somewhere). Lets   clean our  mind set and listen  the majority of Ethiopians quest. It will show us the light with in the darkness. It will lead us to the end of  the dark tunnel where the freedom’s light is shining. It cleans us from the hate, fear and animosity we are swamped in.

Only unity and working together can save us!

The siege for the last 27 years is to be broken. The cloud of fear, disunity and suspicion among Ethiopians is to clear.  The smell of freedom is on air.

A new nation of freedom and equality  is closer.  Ethiopians of all walk of life have to finish the job.

While we are under such new challenge defining our future, we should remain

committed and united not to let any gap where TPLF, our historical enemies (local or far away) and opportunists to interfere in our country and our fate.

There are numerous pseudo promises emerging  out from the regime as it is suffocated by the people uprising,  to calm down the heat it is feeling. TPLF is known for  lying and breaking promises. The phantom promises are just to buy time, then to lead  its brutal regime and darkness. The only guarantee for the  freedom  is to get rid of TPLF.

The Ethiopian people should continue and intensify the struggle against the TPLF regime. TPLF is on cliff edge. A popular well organised and united push from Ethiopians will bring the demise of TPLF.

The Civil servants: Rise up and take part in  industrial action and strikes  to fracture TPLF’s spine.

The Students:  Demand your right and demonstrate for  equal citizenship and opportunity which TPLF denied you  and  gave it for “The special citizen and its supporters”

The Diplomats: Give up the TPLF missionaries and join the people. Inform the world the crime  and atrocities  TPLF committed against Ethiopians.

The Business people: Demand for change and fairness in the competition against  TPLF companies which owns more than 70% of nation’s wealth which  controlled all the playing field.

The Police: Rise up against TPLF which  used you as a tool for TPLF to criminalise, arrest and even kill innocent brothers and sisters of your own.

The Army: Demand your  role is not to kill your own people but protect Ethiopian territory against invading foreign army. Point your gun against the TPLF generals and senior officers who are “herding” the army for killing against its own people.

The Religious leaders of all faith:  Stand up against the TPLF’s policy of disunity, merciless killing, torture and  imprisonment. Stand up for truth!  Stand up for your “lambs”! Denounce the suffering! Stand up  for your God’s given right for your followers.

The Farmers: Rise up against TPLF. The TPLF owns all land in Ethiopia. TPLF  sells your land  anytime to highest bidder, to foreigners. On your land, you have been treated as  a slave for the “investor”. Your land is all yours where you labour on and harvest under God’s will. Protect your land from TPLF.

The Journalists, writers, bloggers, media experts: Stand up against TPLF which denied your God given rights  to express yourself and the world around.  Stand up  for your people. Stand up for your country which is under  TPLF internal colonization.

Intellectuals: Support your fellow citizens in the struggle against TPLF. Provide them the knowhow, the skill, the knowledge, the wisdom to destroy TPLF and build bright future for Ethiopians.

The Opposition Political parties: Narrow your differences and  unite against TPLF oppression.   Don’t  get easily fragmented  by TPLF wicked drama. Stand up for your people and country! Guide and direct the oppressed people.

Ethiopians of all  ethnicity and nationalities: Rise up  against TPLF as our forefathers done to all invaders!

Mothers are crying, young people are deprived of their future, our country has become land of woes and death.

Rise up against TPLF!

Let’s push TPLF down, it is on cliff edge. Lets not give air for the gasping TPLF.  We should never surrender our promised victory.  We should never let down  the sacrifice of  those killed, tortured  and imprisoned by TPLF.

Let’s build a new nation of hope  for ourselves and children!

Debo Band – Full Performance (Live on KEXP

One of the most memorable concerts in Berkeley last year was the UC Theatre performance by vibraphonist/composer Mulatu Astatke, the patriarch of Ethiojazz. Vocalist and composer Ayaléw Mèsfin, another giant from Ethiopian music’s golden age of the 1970s, arrives in town with Boston’s Debo Band for a show at Cornerstone on Sunday, but unlike the celebrated Mulatu, who gained Western pop cultural currency after Jim Jarmusch laced his entire 2005 film Broken Flowers with his music, Ayaléw is more of an unseen legend than an active presence these days.

Sunday’s concert is one of only three performances including Ayaléw in a brief Debo Band tour that’s taking place in conjunction with the release of Hasabe (My Worries) on Now-Again Records, the first-ever LP compilation from the Ethio-groove pioneer. Fans of the infectious Ethiofunk sound might have encountered his music on the French label Buda Musique’s expansive Éthiopiques CD series, which features four classic tracks by Ayaléw Mèsfin & Black Lion Band.

Led by saxophonist Danny Mekonnen, who was born in Sudan to Ethiopian parents (and raised in the US), Debo Band has earned international attention with its repertoire of golden age Ethiofunk tunes and originals inspired by the melding of traditional Ethiopian rhythms and pentatonic scales with jazz and R&B. His best known piece, 1974’s fuzzy-funk anthem “Hasabe,” is clearly inspired by his love of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.

“These performances are an opportunity to pay tribute to Ayaléw and celebrate his legacy,” says Mekonnen, who notes that the first name is the family name in most Ethiopian cultures. “We’re coming at this as a band that’s been playing his music and his contemporaries music from the beginning. Ayaléw is someone we return to over the years for inspiration, though a lot of what we do is interpretive work. Like in jazz, you play the standards and find a way to make it your own.”

Joining Debo Band for a song or two at the beginning of each concert, Ayaléw is more of a special guest that a performer on the tour, and he was reluctant to take even that step because of the unrest in his home region. While he’s lived quietly in Denver in recent years, Ayaléw is deeply connected to his homeland, where he continued to make music underground during the long, brutal reign of the Derg, the Marxist junta that ruled country from 1974 to 1991. The present government overthrew the Derg, but Africa’s second most populace nation continues to be plagued by a central government that seems determined to quash protests by the country’s marginalized ethnicities.

“We’re in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, the ongoing political oppression of minority voices,” says Mekonnen, whose parents fled the Derg government in 1980. “It’s a big messy situation. Ethiopia is a very large and ethnically diverse country, and a several weeks ago there was an uprising in the city where Ayaléw was born. In Ethiopia, you do not perform joyous, secular funk music when people are in mourning. Even though he was deeply involved in this album—the tracks are all taken from his personal tapes, which he managed to hang on to—he didn’t feel okay about doing a whole concert.”

While Debo Band is making its Berkeley debut, the group’s connection to the Bay Area runs through Cal via Japanese-born accordionist Marié Abe. A decade ago she was a PhD student studying ethnomusicology and a regular presence in adventurous Bay Area ensembles like The Japonize Elephants, clarinetist Aaron Novik’s Exploding World, Tango No. 9, and as the third wheel in the duo Ramon and Jessica. She collaborated with Berkeley journalist Julie Caine on the award-winning radio documentary Squeezebox Stories about the accordion’s wily infiltration of musical traditions around the globe.

Now an assistant professor of music in Boston University’s Department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Abe hadn’t been in Boston long when she heard that Debo Band needed an accordion player. Though she’d played many styles of music “in the beginning it was anything but intuitive,” she says.

“The accordion was an established part of the Ethiopian music in the 1970s, so there was a lot of listening to understand these quirky idiomatic things around Ethiopian aesthetics around scales. It’s considered untasteful to go outside a pentatonic scale, and the grooves have a very particular feel. And then there are all these different ethnic genres and regions, just a ton of information to digest. This music emerged around the same time as Afrobeat in Nigeria, but it’s not such a driven style. The phrasings are really quirky. The rhythm section but be in three, but melody is phrased in four. There are lots of extra bars, things that make it fun to play.”

Oakland jazz singer Lisa B celebrates the release of her new album I Get a Kick Out of You: Cole Porter Reimagined (Jazzed Media) Saturday at The Back Room with a superb band featuring pianist Frank Martin, bassist Fred Randolph, and drummer Kelly Fasman. Her previous albums have mostly focused on her original songs, though in performance she’s always explored American Songbook standards. Long fascinated by Porter’s life and music, B brings her poet’s incisive ear to uncovering the roiling emotions beneath Porter’s glittering confections.

“Cole Porter was just very alluring,” says B, who performs with the same excellent band March 3 at Saratoga’s Café Pink House. “Part of it is that he’s very unusual as both a lyricist and composer. He was very wealthy, this high society guy who seemed to feel very alone in the crowd. And he was gay in this long-term platonic marriage, which is another layer of isolation. But mostly he was just an amazing creator of songs. The poet in me was drawn to him. There’s this Dorothy Parker/ Emily Dickenson effortless scanning of his lines, and often this sense of longing and heartbreak. I wanted to think through how could we express these tunes to open a new window into Porter.”

By Yohannes Y. Gedamu

Is Ethiopia opening — ever so slightly — to democracy?

Some observers were cautiously optimistic after Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s surprising Jan. 3 announcement that the government would release some political prisoners, including opposition leader Merera Gudina. Starting in mid-January, Gudina and hundreds of Ethiopians detained during a 2016 wave of anti-government protests were released from a federal prison.

That release, however, was partial. The government is still holding thousands of other opposition figures and protesters, along with journalists who have reported critically on the regime.

On Thursday the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corp. reported that 417 people serving sentences for terrorism, inciting violence and similar offenses to be freed.

Here’s what you need to know:

The ruling party installed and promotes ethnic federalism — which has stoked interethnic competition and violence

In 1991, the previous communist dictatorship fell after years of civil war. Since then, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an ethno-nationalist militia movement, has dominated Ethiopian politics, despite the fact that the Tigrayan ethnic group makes up less than 7 percent of the country’s population. Four parties make up the ruling political coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), but its elites essentially function as members of one political party. As the strongest of the four, the TPLF has controlled party agendas and dominated coalition’s policy, along with the security apparatus of the state.

Under TPLF/ERPDF rule, Ethiopia adopted a constitution that established ethnic federalism, in which regions’ boundaries were drawn according to ethnic and linguistic classifications. Implemented in 1995, the new constitution was ostensibly designed to promote groups’ rights. But the ethnic federal model hasn’t ended ethnic inequality. Rather, it has created winners and losers.

In my research, I find that the regime uses ethnic federalism to maintain power — putting it into place selectively, as suits its needs. While many regions are governed by majority ethnic groups, some are administered by minority ethnic groups — assigned by the ruling party. The central government allows regional states to limit minority groups’ rights, since ethnic groups controlling administration affairs are considered sole owners of the regions. The ruling TPLF-led government has used this approach to attack individual rights. Ethiopians from various backgrounds become second-class citizens when they migrate to another area in the country; they are labeled settlers when living in regions where their ethnic group is a minority, for they are considered exogenous groups.

Divisive ethnic violence and protests are endemic

Movements from the two largest ethnic groups, Amharas and Oromos, have regularly protested the regime’s divisive rule. For instance, in 2016 ethnic Amharas based in the Wolkait district opposed a federal plan that reorganized their land and placed it within the boundaries of the Tigray Regional State. The Wolkait Amharas wanted to reunite with Amhara regional state, across the border.

In the same year, Oromos opposed the regime’s attempt to expand Addis Ababa’s city limits, which is encircled by Oromia region. Addis Ababa has been labeled a multiethnic federally administered city. Oromos consider the expansion a plan to uproot Oromo farmers, whom the TPLF targeted with forced evictions and mistreatment. Faced with mass protests and violence in Wolkait and Oromia, with regime security forces killing hundreds and imprisoning thousands, the government canceled its effort to redraw these boundaries, and left the demands of Wolkait Amhara unresolved.

Since then, in late 2017, Ethiopian-Somali administration, which has strong ties to the Tigrayan elites, carried out yet another massive eviction of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Oromos from Ethiopian-Somali regional territories, killing hundreds of civilians.

More recently, on Jan. 12, as the city of Woldia’s residents were celebrating the annual Ethiopian Orthodox holiday of Epiphany, the regime’s security forces opened fire and killed roughly a dozen individuals, including children. The regime accused protesting youths of provocations such as chanting anti-government slogans and carrying the old Ethiopian flag, which the government considers unconstitutional.

The turmoil escalated when residents, who are ethnic Amharas, attacked some ethnic Tigrayans, accusing them of helping the security forces, since the vast majority of Tigrayans support the regime. Similar ethnic violence previously erupted in the city of Gondar, dominated by Amharas, and the city of Nekemte in Oromia region, dominated by Oromos.

These episodes targeted ethnic Tigrayans. But between 2016 and 2017, in the Ethiopian-Somali region, the dominant ethnic Somalis targeted ethnic Oromos; in the Benshangul Gumuz region, the dominant Gumuz and Berta groups targeted ethnic Amharas. In both cases, these attacks came after regional governments run by the locally dominant ethnic group carried out forced evictions and arbitrary killings against the minority.

So what comes next?

Observers of Ethiopian politics agree that the ruling party and its policies are responsible for the country’s ethnic violence. The regime’s recent pacifying statements and its prisoner releases are promising. Such efforts could be designed to cool down protests and ease pressure on the ruling coalition.

But these actions only treat the symptoms of the strife, not the cause: ethnic federalism. But some within the ruling coalition may be starting to acknowledge that deeper issue. On Feb. 6, OPDO (Oromo People’s Democratic Organization), the Oromo wing within EPRDF, issued a statement saying that the old regimes practiced class oppression rather than ethnic inequality. That’s a bolder statement than it may seem outside Ethiopia. If oppression by the wealthy was the deeper problem in the past, then ethnic politics would be irrelevant to bringing about political equality in Ethiopia — and ethnic federalism no solution.

The decision to pardon more political prisoners and journalists is an encouraging sign. To signal a move toward more democracy, the regime could announce a national dialogue in which all stakeholders were free to speak, in order to end instability in the country. Such a public reconsideration of the state’s organization could help build Ethiopian national unity and improve the growing economy.

Yohannes Gedamu is a lecturer in political science at Georgia Gwinnett College. He is working on a book titled “Ethnic Federalism and Authoritarian Survival in Ethiopia.” Follow him on Twitter at @yohanethio.

By Seleshi Tessema

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

Nebyu Sele Enat and his friend Halwet Sele Enat are barely one-and-a-half-years-old, bright-eyed smiling kids competing for the warmth of their caregiver, Meraf Eyasu.

Eyasu, 29, has nurtured many children under the roofs of Sele Enat, a walled old building filled with stories both disheartening and encouraging. It is located in the southern part of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

A year or so ago, when light appeared over the skies of the capital, Nebyu and Halwet woke up crying to their fates near a church and a garbage site, on different days. They were taken to nearby police stations by early morning churchgoers and people on their daily routines.

The duty officers who registered the abandoned kids named them Nebyu and Halwet.

Their second name, Sele Enat, is not the name of a biological father. It is a name given to an institution, an orphanage, which has been taking care of children who have lost one or both of their biological parents to AIDS or other diseases, or been abandoned by their parents due to various reasons.

Eyasu is one of the nurses at Sele Enat, an indigenous orphanage which currently hosts some 70 orphans. Some of them are healthy, others are HIV positive, and few of them are disabled.

Vulnerable population

According to UNICEF, Ethiopia, the second-most populous nation in Africa with about 102 million people, has one of the largest orphan populations in the world. Nearly 13 percent of the children live without one or both parents.

“There are an estimated 4.5 million orphans … of which approximately 800,000 have lost their parents to AIDS,’’ according to UNICEF, estimating that the number of AIDS orphans is some 2.5 million.

Official figures put the number of HIV-positive children under age 15 to be some 160,000.

Achamyelehe Alebachew, a senior expert with Ethiopia’s Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (FHAPCO), told Anadolu Agency that Ethiopia is one the nations hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has wiped out families and forced communities to devote most of their productive time to taking care of patients and orphaned children.

“Over the past two decades or so, we have built freely accessible HIV/AIDS treatment centers in all hospitals and clinics throughout the country,” he said.

“The centers provide voluntary counseling and testing, anti-retroviral drugs, and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission service.”

Some 718,000 people in Ethiopia live with HIV/AIDS, and every year some 20,000 people die of AIDS, leaving an estimated 100,000 children orphaned, he said.

“We need to increase the current 60 percent coverage of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission. We’re also working on ways to increase the number of children taking antiretroviral drugs,’’ he explained.

Alebachew said that children orphaned by AIDS had been assisted primarily by families, NGOs, and religious institutions.

“However, the demand exceeds the available resource,’’ he said, adding that recently employees of different government agencies had begun helping the orphans by contributing from their monthly salaries.

“This is a good experience, and we’re planning to make it a national mode of support.’’

‘Disheartening and encouraging’

On a sunny morning, Sele Enat was filled by the smiles and voices of children playing on the grounds and rooms of the orphanage. In one of the rooms were prospective adoptive couples from Europe and North America. They were acquainting themselves with Nebyu and others by carrying them and playing with them.

But two children were getting no attention from the prospective foreign adopters. Both were bed-ridden and disabled.

“These two kids have been with us for some two years,’’ said Zelalem Eteffa, acting manager of the orphanage. “Their biological parents had refused them or were unable to raise them, and they left them here. We are providing all the necessary care.’’

According to Etefa, Sele Enat was established a decade ago by a philanthropic woman who realized the problems of children orphaned by AIDS.

“Ever since then, we’ve been taking care of children abandoned, or orphaned by AIDS and other diseases,’’ he said, adding that they work to find local or foreign adoptive families for the children.

It is here that the hand of destiny may be felt.

“We have to make sure that kids are free of HIV, and when some of them were found to be HIV positive, we are deeply saddened,’’ Eyasu said, in a subdued tone.

She continued: “When physicians instruct us to put them on an antiretroviral regime, the kids ask why all kids don’t have to take the drugs. There are no easy answers, and we shed warm tears.’’

Professional counsellors will tell the kids the reasons why they have to take the drug throughout their lives.

“Some will be shattered to pieces, others will take it as their fate. But as they grow up, all proved to be normal and many managed to become good college students.

“This is one of the encouraging stories of the kids,’’ she added.

Etefa said that AIDS orphans often suffer from discrimination and stigma. “Those who find it unbearable abandon their communities and end up on the streets, and could become child domestic worker or child prostitutes,” he related.

“There is another disheartening fate of AIDS orphans,” he said. “No one is interested in adopting them.’’

Dreams dashed

On Jan. 10, a piece of unexpected news shattered the dreams of the likes of Nebyou and Hewlet and three European couples working to adopt kids from Sele Enat.

The news said that the Ethiopian Parliament had adjourned after passing a measure to ban all international adoptions. The decision states that “orphans and vulnerable children will be cared for by local adopters and traditional mechanisms.”

For the last two decades, Ethiopia has been one of the main sources of international adoption for European and American families, including film stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who adopted their daughter, Zahara, here.

But rights groups and the Ethiopian government had decried the adoption process as a deeply flawed lucrative “baby-buying business” which could end in child trafficking and abuse.

“The decision effectively quashed the hopes of the likes of Nebyu and many prospective foreign adopters who were a click away from legally taking some of our kids,’’ Etfa said.

According to him, the ban could shut the door on abuses associated with some aspects of international adoption, but there is long way to go before persuading and motivating local adopters to fill the gap created by the ban.

Ayalew and Hawlet, whose HIV status is not yet known, are not aware of the ban and will continue to play and grow into an unknown future.

Belayneh Abate

The heinous rulers of Ethiopia released a letter in January, 20118 that states Teshome Mulatu goes to China for medical care with eleven assistances[1]. During the same period, Bekele Gerba was denied even minimal health care in his country , and he was subjected to further prison terms.[2] These two men hailed from the same region, where the Tigre People Libration Front’s soldiers killed many and ordered one of the victim’s mother to sit on her child’s corpus.[3] Teshome was awarded state-of-the art medical care  abroad because he is a loyal servant of the mass killers, but Bekele was denied even the minimal care at home because he speaks for the killed.

This type of scenario is rampant in every region of the country , and it  is a test for the origin of conscience and morality.   For centuries, thinkers argued whether conscience and morality are innate or acquired traits of the mind . If morality and conscience were acquired,  people with similar background should have practiced deeds with similar degrees of conscience and morality. However, deeds have never been uniformly practiced with similar degrees of conscience and morality even by siblings and twins. Some siblings, in fact, sit at the opposite ends of the spectrum of morality. Hence, the question, once more, is: are consciences and morality innate or acquired faculties of the mind?   Aren’t the likes of Teshome and Bekele tests for the origin of morality and conscience?

End notes:

1. The letter. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1627115410706911&set=a.458578960893901.1073741826.100002254023027&type=3&theater (Last accessed on 2/10/2018)
2. Urgent Action: Amnesty International USA. https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/uaa02718.pdf (Last accessed on 2/10/2018)
3. Killings and Arrests ….

https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/06/15/such-brutal-crackdown/killings-and-arrests-response-ethiopias-oromo-protests (Last accessed on 2/10/2018)

The writer can be reached at abatebelai@yahoo.com

By Betre Y. Getahun

Journalists, bloggers and politicians are locked in solitary confinement and subjected to torture, and various abuses  and ill-treatments at the hands of prisons’ officials in Ethiopia, A new investigation has learned.

A detailed report of the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE) has delivered a scathing assessment of Ethiopia’s treatment of prisoners, particularly political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. The report records harrowing accounts of intimidation, verbal and physical harassment and torture: “In prison, detainees are subjected to a range of ill-treatment which includes torture; harassment on grounds of ethnicity and political views; prolonged legal process; and denial of medical access which sometimes led to death.”

The Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE) is a non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of human rights. Yesterday’s report released by this group is the first to detail the horrific torture practices of the Ethiopian regime. The investigation was conducted at the Qilinto, Maekelawi, Shewa Robit, and Zeway prisons.

The report states that the tortures are mainly practiced to extract confessions during interrogations in order to implicate detainees in an alleged crime: “It is also sometimes used as a form of punishment. Many have reported that security officers tortured them by hanging them on a ceiling, putting them in a solitary confinement for hours; beating them with sticks, electric cables, and other hard objects; or tying water bottles to men’s testicles.”

The Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE) interviewed several detainees and included these accounts in their report.

“The stories demonstrate the multi-faceted forms and attributes of the ill-treatment. Prisoners are maltreated and abused based on their ethnic identity; on alleged involvement with terrorist groups; based on their religious grounds; based on gender identity and more. This signals the seriousness and pervasiveness of the problem.” The report stated.

A 42-year old, Abebe Kasse, told to AHRE that the torture sessions began with security officers the first day I was arrested. “I was arrested on January 20, 2014, and was taken to Maekelawi. I remained at Maekelawi for more than five months and endured excruciating torture. The interrogators demanded that I tell them everything about my involvement with PG7. They injected something into my body and I passed out. When I finally woke up, some of my finger nails were gone. They later pulled out the rest of my finger- and toe nails while I was conscious. They also tied my hands and legs, tied me upside down in a freezing room located below the interrogation room, and left me there for some time. Then they came one by one and swung my body to the left and right.”

“At different times, men and women tied my feet and hands to a chair. Once a group of women came naked into the room, undressed me, and sat me naked on the chair. They chained my hands up and tied a water bottle to my testicles. Then they kept swinging the bottle to the left and right. They also did something unmentionable to me while they were taking drugs. I am now castrated, and unable to be a father.”

Abebe continues: “I was very sick for many days. They refused to provide medical treatment, alleging that as an ethnic Tigrean, I should have never been a member of a terrorist organization; therefore, denying me medical treatment was my punishment.”

Bisrat Abera is another prisoner who gave his testimony to AHRE. He is a 32 years old man who is in prison and a victims of the regime: “I was taken to Shewa Robit prison after a Qilinto fire incident…They started beating me as soon as I entered the car; they were alleging that I had killed somebody during the fire outbreak. Once we reached Shewa Robit, they took me to a room and tied my two thumbs together; then they chained my hands and put them behind my legs. Then they put a long stick between my hands and knees, and hung the stick I was hanging on, between two pillars. Then they began rotating my body against the stick; they tortured me so badly. They also electrocuted me with a cable… Later, they handcuffed me and hung me from a ceiling. They tied one of my feet against the wall and left my other foot hanging in the air, leaving a painful pressure on my foot, and then they beat me. The beating continued for three days. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and admitted to killing the person they alleged I had  killed, a crime I didn’t commit.”

This report stress that the torture of detainees in various prisons in Ethiopia have soared following the wide-scale protests in the last few years, particularly in Amhara and Oromia regions.

Under international law, torture is a serious crime under  universal jurisdiction. The United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) requires nations to take effective measures to prevent torture in any territory under their jurisdiction.

The prohibition against torture in international law is, like that against slavery or genocide, absolute. Torture is impermissible under any circumstances, including war, public emergency or terrorist threat. Although the prohibition is so strong and universally accepted that it is now a fundamental principle of international law, this practice is common in Ethiopia and the lives of too many journalists, bloggers and politicians are being destroyed

Africa News

An attack on internally displaced persons (IDP) in Ethiopia’s Oromia region has claimed the lives of six people with others sustained varied degrees of injuries.

According to the Addis Gazette portal, the incident happened when federal forces opened fire on the Hamaressa IDP camp located in the East Hararghe Zone of the Oromia region. The portal adds that this is the second such attack on the camp.

It is not immediately known officially what led to the firing of live bullets by the federal forces. But a pro – government blogger Daniel Berhane said it was as a result of an attack by rampaging youth in the camp and village on a convoy with food supply destined for the camp.

He adds that an overwhelmed Oromia police then called for military reinforcement which intervention led to three deaths by his account. Photos shared on social media showed a number of casualties with wounds at a medical facility.

According recent figures from the United Nations body, OCHA, Hamaressa IDP camp was home to over 4,000 people internally displaced by the Oromo-Somali inter-communal disputes that started in 2017.

Figures from the U.N. and other relief agencies indicate that over a million people were displaced by the crisis. The figure is way above the government’s projections. Addis Ababa has said it was working to resettle the displaced population as quickly as practicable.

Last year at the height of the clashes between the Oromia and Ethiopia-Somali region which share a long common border, the government announced that federal forces had been banned from patrolling the common border as a key security measure.

By Al Mariam

Holding the Feet (Hooves) of the Wounded Beast to the Fire

Author’s Note: This is the fourth installment of what I initially planned to be a three-part series on prospects for truth and reconciliation in Ethiopia.

I have explained the purposes of the series in the Author’s Note of Part I and Part IIalong with other issues.

In Part III, I began sketching out the general outlines for a national reconciliation process in Ethiopia, which I hope will eventually evolve into a road map for genuine truth and reconciliation.

In Part IV here, I propose an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process. I believe only such a process is likely to heal the wounds that have been inflicted on Ethiopians by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front for over a quarter of a century, promote long-term national harmony and avert certain civil war.

This series on truth and reconciliation in Ethiopia will continue indefinitely.[1]

I hope other academics like myself and members of the Ethiopian political and activist communities will rise to the occasion and share their views on the viability and practicality of truth and reconciliation lead by the ordinary people of Ethiopia, instead of the self-anointed elites. I should like to believe that the ideas I have presented in the series are sufficiently provocative to spark not only dialogue but also informed debate. I hope my commentaries will serve as lightning rods for discussions of truth and reconciliation.

I hereby challenge my fellow Ethiopian academics and intellectuals to come out of the shadows and take a stand on truth and reconciliation in the Ethiopian sunlight. This is the time to stand up with the Ethiopian people and provide dynamic intellectual leadership. As Edward Said aptly put it:

The intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public, in public. And this role has an edge to it, and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d’etre is to represent all those people and issues who are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.

It is time for Ethiopia’s intellectuals to yank the wool rug the T-TPLF has pulled over the eyes of the Ethiopian people for 27 years.

I have no doubts all Ethiopians will eventually reconcile because they are wrapped up in a single garment of destiny called ETHIOPIAWINET. Ethiopiawinet is simply defined as love of the Beloved Ethiopian Community.

The Ethiopian people have weathered far too many storms over the past quarter of a century. But their Ethiopia house is built on solid  bedrock. There is little risk of collapse or disintegration. But to make the Ethiopia house a welcoming and comfortable home for all Ethiopians, truth and reconciliation is necessary. In the end, truth shall not hang forever on the scaffold nor wrong remain forever on the throne in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia’s youth (Cheetahs) united can never be defeated!

Ethiopiawinet TODAY, Ethiopiawinet TOMORROW, Ethiopiawinet FOREVER!

“A luta continua… … A vitória é certa.” (“The struggle continues… …victory is certain”.)

================ ==================  ==================

Why a phased-in reconciliation process is necessary 

In Part III of this series, I argued that any reconciliation process in Ethiopia must be managed in phases. I outlined the elements of a pre-reconciliation planning and preparation process at the end of my commentary in Part III.

I have specific reasons for proposing a phased-in truth and reconciliation process.

First, I am wary the T-TPLF will steal any reconciliation process unless there is a strong grassroots structure that ensures accountability and transparency. A reconciliation process that lacks transparency and accountability is far more harmful that having no reconciliation.

The T-TPLF bosses are grandmasters in stealing processes. They have stolen election processes in broad daylight claiming 99.6 and 100 percent victories. They have stolen negotiation processes with opposition elements time and again. They even steal the legislative process in their own rubber stamp parliament. Unless the T-TPLF is placed on a short leash and hawk-eyed, they will not bat an eye in hijacking any truth and reconciliation process to cling to power.

There is an old Ethiopian saying, “Chaos creates opportunities for thieves.” In the current worsening crises, the TPLF thieves would love to hijack a “reconciliation process” and convert it into one of their dog and pony circus shows, drag it out for as long as they can and in the end trash it all, laughing all along as they consolidate their power.

A recent case demonstrates my point. Over the past year, the T-TPLF bosses tried to hoodwink the donors and loaners by putting on a make-believe show about negotiating with opposition right smack in the middle of their “state of emergency”.

It was all vintage T-TPLF. They began “negotiations” with a handful of “opposition leaders” they handpicked, rounded up a few more wanna be opposition leaders and invited has-been and discredited opposition leaders. But the T-TPLF had egg on its face when the so-called opposition leaders demanded release of all political prisoners. The T-TPLF told them the political prisoners which never existed and then existed in January 2018 no longer existed. It was a case of now you see political prisoners, now you don’t.

There is every reason to believe that the T-TPLF will orchestrate a make-believe, fake, pseudo-reconciliation process to pull the wool over the loaners and donors eyes and play its old zero-sum game. Interestingly, in the face of the February 28, 2018 showdown set by Congress, the T-TPLF is working harder than a one-legged man in a ass kicking contest to prevent a floor vote on H.Res.128.

Second, the only way a genuine reconciliation can occur is with mass participation. Reconciliation cannot be orchestrated between elites in power and those out of power.  Reconciliation is a process that should ultimately lead to healing wounds inflicted by crimes against humanity, injustice, corruption and inequality. I suspect there are many who scheme in the shadows to make reconciliation an elite game of window dressing.

I want to make myself crystal clear so that I am not misunderstood. I do not trust elites in charge of the reconciliation process. In studying many truth and reconciliation processes in various countries, I have learned how silver-tongued elites have put on dog and pony reconciliation shows to hoodwink the people into believing they have achieved true reconciliation without giving them much of a meaningful voice in the process. There must be safeguards in place before any reconciliation process is launched to ensure the elites will not hijack the process.

I am mindful that my statement will raise eyebrows and even shock and dismay some of my friends and colleagues in the “elite-dom” who believe they are naturally suited to the office of reconciliation and the unwashed-masses should be seen and not heard in the reconciliation process. Suffice it to say that I have great confidence in the judgment and wisdom of the masses. I am an equal opportunity truth-teller. I speak truth to those in and out of power equally and without reservations.

Third, I believe a pre-reconciliation planning effort undertaken in a grassroots environment will filter out a great many of the riff-raff opportunists, hangers-on, charlatans, 11^th hour heroes, rip-off artists, con men and others who lurk stealthily to snatch power in the political chaos.

Fourth, the people have a variety of expectations about a truth and reconciliation process and it is easy for the elites to thwart those expectations through power play games and backroom deals. It is important for all members of society to be well-informed informed on the rules and principles of the reconciliation process to ensure informed, active and vigilant participation.

Fifth, there are no truth and reconciliation quick fixes or short cuts. Truth and reconciliation is a laborious and taxing process. It is a process full of controversies and wrangling. Tough decisions must be made. Only those selected by the people have the fortitude and courage to see it through to the end. Elites prefer a short and sweet reconciliation process, but that cannot uproot the root of bitterness that has spread in Ethiopian society over the past 27 years.

Sixth, last week it became clear to everyone that the T-TPLF is not interested in reconciliation. As I demonstrated in my rejoinder to T-TPLF Underboss Seyoum Mesfin, the T-TPLF is offering a separate peace to the people of Tigray and a separate war and pacification to the rest of Ethiopians.

So, the ultimate question is whether it would be an exercise in futility to even talk about truth and reconciliation when the T-TPLF is preparing to wage war and pacification on the people of Ethiopia! 

An Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process

I reject the idea that for a truth and reconciliation process to occur, governments and leaders must necessarily be involved.

I realize this is a radical position to take and departs completely from country practices of truth and reconciliation over the past two decades. To date, all truth and reconciliation processes attempted and implemented have been the “brain children” of domestic and foreign government officials, elites, and international organizations. I am not aware of a single wholly people-centered and grassroots-based truth and reconciliation process in the world.

In the spirit of Edward Said, I like to “confront the orthodoxy and dogma” of government/elite managed reconciliation process.

I shall argue that the bedrock foundation of any truth and reconciliation process in Ethiopia must be the PEOPLE, the ordinary people who have suffered and continue to suffer the slings, arrows and bullets of outrageous TPLF abuse. The idea and need for truth and reconciliation must first emanate from the wishes, desire and demands of the people. Reconciliation must not be imposed on the people or presented to them as a fait accompli in which they were merely sideline spectators. It is the people who must take a direct and primary role in devising a process to achieve their reconciliation objectives, and not be forced to accept a fabricated process which is alien to them.

I am not suggesting that political leaders and parties, academic, economic and other social elites and institutions do not have a role in a truth and reconciliation process. They do. But I insist their role must be a secondary supporting role to the leading actors, the people, in the truth and reconciliation process.

I believe ultimate sovereignty resides in the consent of the people. The exercise of truth and reconciliation is a sovereign act of the people, not the preferences of self-serving, self-appointed elites who claim to speak on behalf of the people. That is why I believe the only kind of reconciliation effort that has any chance of success in Ethiopia must be rooted in and led by the people.

What we call truth and reconciliation in modern parlance is something Ethiopians, and for that matter African peoples, have been doing for millennia. There are traditions and institutions of truth and reconciliation in Ethiopia that date back for millennia. There are well-established customs and traditions for healing the wounds of conflict among individuals, families or large groups making possible “win-win” outcomes.

Indeed, truth-telling is the basis for reconciliation in Ethiopian and other African traditions. Various scholars have documented the elaborate conflict resolution and reconciliation mechanism used in traditional African settings. Unlike the truth told in the modern settings of commissions and investigative bodies, those held to account in traditional African forums admit their wrongdoings and crimes in public, often tearfully, accept responsibility and accountability, undertake acts of repentance and atonement and beg the mercy and forgiveness of their victims and the community. Wrongdoers may even be required to undergo cleansing rituals.

There are also traditions that enable victims to come to terms with the crimes and losses they suffered at the hands of wrongdoers. These  traditions enable victims to forgive wrongdoers and heal themselves.

Playing a central role in the healing and reconciliation process are community elders, faith leaders, relatives and friends. Community-based institutions and leaders promote dialogue, mediate, offer counsel, oversee the reconciliation process and even impose restorative justice where appropriate.

In light of the tested and tried traditional conflict resolution mechanisms for community healing and reconciliation, there is no reason why the ordinary people of Ethiopia cannot establish truth and reconciliation processes within their communities using their traditional forums. They do not need anybody’s permission to do so. They certainly do not need to be dragged around by the nose ring to be shown how to tell the truth and reconcile with each other. They are free to organize informal and formal truth and reconciliation sessions within the framework of their local traditions and practices.

No one knows more about the truth of the crimes against humanity committed against the people than the people themselves. Speaking truth against crimes against humanity requires no commission. The people can establish their own truth and reconciliation process for no other purpose but to bring healing and closure in their communities.

That is why I am arguing for an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots truth and reconciliation process.

TOWARDS A CIVIL DECLARATION OF GOOD FAITH COMMITMENT TO TRUTH AND RECONCILATION IN ETHIOPIAWINET

Let the people lead the truth and reconciliation process

I believe it is vitally important for an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots truth and reconciliation process to begin with a formal or informal adoption of a declaration of intent and pledge of good faith to pursue national reconciliation through a local community-based truth-finding process.

Declaration are useful tools in a variety of situations. Declaration could be unilateral, bilateral or multilateral and made in a formal or informal statement. But they all share one thing in common. Truth. In the law, a “declaration” is a sworn statement of the truth under penalty of perjury. Declarations may be used to clarify the truth about an existing agreement. Declarations may be used to state facts, proclaim aspirations, make pledges of future actions and set the ground rules for future course of action.

Declarations have been used for historic purposes.

The 1776 American Declaration of Independence inspired the creation of the United States of America. That Declaration boldly proclaiming the principle: “All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Declaration is a bedrock foundation for the U.S. Constitution.

Declarations have been used to inspire a revolution.

The 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen inspired the French revolution boldly proclaiming “the natural and imprescriptible rights of man” defined as “liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression”. The 17 articles of the Declaration served as the backbone of the French Constitution of 1791.

Declarations have been used to proclaim the irrevocable heritage of liberty for all human beings.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights  was the first step in the process of formulating the International Bill of Human Rights, and later became the “mother” of all modern human rights conventions and treaties. Article 13 (2) of the T-TPLF Constitution provides, “The fundamental modern rights and freedoms specified in this Chapter shall be interpreted in a manner conforming to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…”

Declarations have been used to stop elections from being stolen in Africa.

The African Union Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, AHG/Decl.1 (XXXVIII), 2002, proclaims “regular elections constitute a key element of the democratization process and therefore, are essential ingredients for good governance, the rule of law, the maintenance and promotion of peace, security, stability and development” and establishes five principles for conducting democratic elections. Guidelines for African Union Electoral Observations and Monitoring Missions were drafted for implementation.

During the May 2010 election in Ethiopia, the T-TPLF claimed to have won 99.6 percentof the parliamentary seats during that election. A 60-person African Union (AU) election observer team led by former Botswana president Ketumile Masire concludedthe   “elections were free and fair and found no evidence of intimidation and misuse of state resources for ruling party campaigns.”

Declarations have been used to end sectarian conflict.

The 1993 Downing Street Declaration affirmed the sovereignty of the people of Ireland and established the principle that the people of the island of Ireland have the right to solve their differences without external intervention. That declaration was a key instrument in reaching the Good Friday Agreement putting an end the 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

Declarations have been used to facilitate reconciliation negotiations.

Before the formal resolution of the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, in 2005, the parties to the conflict committed to a Declaration of Principles for the Resolution of the Sudanese Conflict in Darfur affirmed the parties’ commitment to negotiate in good faith and respect previous agreements, humanitarian law and human rights and set the defining principles and issues that shall guide the future negotiations resulting in he the Darfur Agreement.

A 1974 declaration planted the seeds of South Africa’s path to nonviolent change and truth and reconciliation.

The 1974 Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith was the first step in the long process which resulted in a national accord that led to South Africa’s truth and reconciliation. That Mahlabatini Declaration was the first agreement reached by established white and black leaders affirming and charting nonviolent political change in South Africa and emphasizing principles of racial harmony in a multi-racial society, equal opportunity for all, a federal structure and a Bill of Rights.

The 1991 South African National Peace Accord, itself a declaration, helped to create the political space for parties to engage in negotiations to decide the political future of South Africa. It was  signed by representatives of more than 40 political organizations and national and homeland governments, and prepared the way for the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) which resulted in an agreement for the establishment of an interim government to manage the transition  to majority rule and established clear guidelines on the responsibilities of the interim government. The CODESA agreement reflected the principles articulated in the Mahlabatini Declaration.

Towards a civil declaration of good faith commitment to truth and reconciliation on an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots truth and reconciliation process

I am calling for the drafting of a civil declaration of good faith commitment to truth and reconciliation in an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots truth and reconciliation process. I am especially directing my call to community elders, faith leaders, civil society organizations, human rights activists, advocates and organizers to mobilize people at the grassroots levels and engage them in discussions about the need and approaches to a truth and reconciliation process.

The purpose of the declaration drafting process is to empower ordinary people to take control of their destiny and ensure their children will be in the best position to control their own destiny.

My personal views on the guiding principles for the drafting of a Declaration of good faith on an Ethiopiawinet-centered, people-based grassroots truth and reconciliation process commitment are simple and straightforward:

An Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation represents the desires, wishes, aspirations and mandates of the people of Ethiopia to heal the wounds inflicted upon them for decades. It is not a special closed door backroom deal to be cut between leaders and elites of all stripes whose principal aim is either to cling to power or to grab power from those clinging to power.

In an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process, truth-finding will be made by the people, not the elites. Therefore, reconciliation can occur only after truth-finding by the people.

A legitimate reconciliation process could only evolve organically from an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots engagement and participatory process.

An Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots truth and reconciliation discussions must first occur at the local level allowing the people a direct role in articulating and framing the issues for truth and reconciliation. It will be popular true “democratic centralism”. The decisions made by the people will be bining on their leaders.

In an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots process, reconciliation can occur among and between the people of Ethiopia, NOT between and among elites competing for power.

Freedom of speech, of press and of assembly are the lifeline of an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots process. The people must be able to freely engage in reconciliation discussion and debates in the public square, schools, universities, local market places, churches and mosques, in the military, the civil service and other public and private forums. Journalists must be free to report and communicate on the grassroots efforts and provide forums for discussion and debate. People should be free to peacefully gather, organize and exchange ideas and views.

Because civil society institutions are vital to an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots truth and reconciliation process, they must be allowed to function freely.

In an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process, the role of political, academic, economic and other elites is to provide technical support to the people and grassroots organizations engaged in reconciliation dialogue and negotiations.

In an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process, transparency and accountability structures must be put in place to ensure the grassroots process will not be hijacked by those clinging to power or others trying to grab power from those clinging to power.

A non-negotiable demand of an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation is the release of all political prisoners.

Is it impossible to have the people of Ethiopia in the driver’s seat in the truth and reconciliation process?

I firmly believe in Miguel de Cervantes’ dictum, “In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”

I do not doubt that there are many out there who think my idea of Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process is simply crazy and should be summarily dismissed. There will be others who will laugh at them. Still others will be shocked by my unflagging and unwavering faith in the genius and wisdom of the ordinary people of Ethiopia. Let them laugh!

Arthur Schopenhauer said, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

I invite all to ridicule my idea about an Ethiopiawinet-centered grassroots reconciliation process and oppose and criticize it. I know in the end they will accept it as self-evident!

Power of truth and reconciliation to the Ethiopian people!

To be continued….  

ETHIOPIAWINET TODAY, ETHIOPIAWINET TOMORROW, ETHIOPIAWINET FOREVER!

====================

[1] My truth and reconciliation “series” shall continue indefinitely because I believe I am in a unique position to provide civic education on the subject to my readers and the people of Ethiopia. I have spent considerable time studying the experiences of various countries which have experimented with truth and reconciliation in an attempt to heal the deep wounds in their societies, ensure such wounds will not be inflicted again and move forward in building communities structured on the rule of law.

There is much to be learned from the experiences of other countries and I hope to share the important lessons from those experiments with my readers and all Ethiopians. I believe only truth and reconciliation based on Ethiopiawinet (love) can save Ethiopia from a destructive civil war. My message of truth and reconciliation is aimed at the younger generation of Ethiopians who are standing up to T-TPLF gunfire clothed only in an Ethiopiawinet T-shirt. I hope they will find some useful and constructive lessons in my commentaries which will steel their resolve in their struggle for freedom and against an ethnic apartheid system.

Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino. His teaching areas include American constitutional law, civil rights law, judicial process, American and California state governments, and African politics. He has published two volumes on American constitutional law, including American Constitutional Law: Structures and Process (1994) and American Constitutional Law: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights (1998). He is the Senior Editor of the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies, a leading scholarly journal on Ethiopia. For the last several years, Prof. Mariam has written weekly web commentaries on Ethiopian human rights and African issues that are widely read online. He blogged on the Huffington post at  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and later on open.salon until that blogsite shut down in March 2015.

ByAvery L. Whitephotos byAvery L. White/Vice

Feb 11 2018, 9:00pm

In the 60s and 70s, Hailu Mergia was a famous musician in Africa. But famine in the 80s forced him to move to the US. Now he’s poised for a comeback.

As a young man living in Addis Ababa during the swinging 60s, Hailu Mergia was a superstar. The Ethiopian capital city was a bustling cosmopolis where art and culture flourished amid the country’s uneasy quest for independence.

His jazz and funk band, The Walias, performed for the domestic and international elite at the then-prestigious Hilton Hotel’s music club, which granted residencies to Ethiopia’s hottest bands. Crowds of dignitaries and foreign diplomats, Hollywood movie stars, famous musicians like Duke Ellington and Alice Coltrane, and important African figures like Manu Dibango would flock to the hotel to dance and jam until sunrise.

“When we played in the Hilton Hotel, the audience was full of people from around the world, so everybody had requests for different kinds of music. Sometimes we’d play Indian melodies, sometimes we’d play Arabic music. We’d pick up American soul, blues and jazz melodies and then improvise on them in our own music,” Mergia remembers.

Born in the Ethiopian countryside in 1946, Mergia spent much of his childhood working as a shepherd, but began learning to play music as a boy scout at age 14. When his band rose to prominence in the 60s and 70s, they weren’t just kings of Addis Ababa nightlife, they were a beacon to Ethiopia’s revolutionaries. Under the Derg regime, constant warfare, famine, and brutal political oppression plagued Ethiopia.

The Walias’s seminal album Tche Belew features the single “Musicawi Silt,” one of the most famous songs of all-time in Ethiopia. It conveys messages of heroism through well-known references to Ethiopian battle songs. “Ethiopian music is like most art: in every piece there’s a message. Everyone is trying to explain what they know through music. Tche Belew is a hero’s song. It means ‘go for it,’” says Mergia.

Left photo: First photo ever taken of The Walias band, Zoo Park in Addis Ababa, 1963. Center photo: Mergia and The Walias with Manu Dibango, The Hilton Hotel Ballroom, early 1960s.

The album’s call for bravery proved apt. During the “Red Terror” over a half million Ethiopians were killed and countless more displaced. The constant state of crisis led to the nation’s first major diaspora into the western world, with the United States experiencing a surge in refugees.

In 1981, as his country entered one of the worst famines it had ever endured, Mergia made the painful decision to leave Ethiopia, abandoning his fame to move to the United States. He eventually settled in Washington, DC, where he’s been driving a cab for the last 20 years. “To give up fame and music was hard, but I always had a feeling that one day I’d make my way back to it again,” Mergia says.

Though Mergia is far from his home country, he keeps music close to him as he navigates the streets of DC. “I have a keyboard in the trunk of my taxicab,” he says. In between fares, Mergia pulls it from his trunk to practice in the backseat. “My keyboard works with batteries, so I always have music.”

Mergia playing a battery-powered keyboard in the back of his taxicab.

In 2013, music scholar and archivist Brian Shimkovitz was in Ethiopia digging through cassettes in the back of a record shop when he found one of Mergia’s old tapes. “I was super excited about it and I listened to it over and over,” Shimkovitz says. “So I tracked [Mergia] down on the internet.”

Shimkovitz runs Awesome Tapes from Africa, a blog and record label he started in his Brooklyn apartment in 2006. “The label grew out of the blog’s attempt to show what African music really sounds like in various regions, not a packaged world music version of it,” Shimkovitz explains. “The label tries to put out music other labels wouldn’t release, while doing 50/50 deals and advocating for the artists. Sending them money and opportunities as much as possible is the central mission. [Our] fans are people all over the world who are adventurous or curious listeners or music collectors or African expats.”

Like many of his fans, Shimkovitz was surprised to hear that Mergia was driving a cab. “I used to live in DC, so I was aware of the large Ethiopian community and their role in making that city work. So I guess I was surprised that a famous musician was doing a day job. But I can’t say I was shocked, as the live music scene is difficult as hell for any musician in the US, especially someone playing instrumental music,” says Shimkovitz.

“I want people to know that I’m back after so many years. I’m in business again,” Mergia says.

Shortly after they met, Shimkovitz signed Mergia with Awesome Tapes’ label and began booking him shows around the world. “We never have any big disagreements and the work has been successful so I guess that helps make things really fun. He’s my dad’s age. Not the age of someone I typically hang with and get along with so effortlessly. We have had beautiful times just goofing around while driving through the desert in Texas, or hanging on a boat backstage at a show in Germany, or watching him play Radio City Music Hall opening for Beirut,” Shimkovitz says.

This February, Mergia will release his first album in more than 15 years. “Lala Belu has been a long time coming,” Shimkovitz notes.

“All of it feels like a big comeback,” says Mergia. “A different kind of audience, playing with a different kind of band and working with a different kind of record company. The album is very different from all the albums I did after I left Ethiopia.”

When asked why he decided to release a new album, Mergia replies, “Art is a lifetime commitment. The more you play the more you know.”

After so many years out of the spotlight, Mergia’s drive to keep playing music—even if it meant practicing in the backseat of his taxi—perhaps reminded him of the message he sang in 1977: that one must “go for it.”

Mergia in his home in Fort Washington, Maryland, standing beside a portrait of his wife of 17 years, Ayuberhan Abegaz.

Album promotion posters from the 1970s in Ethiopia. Bottom right: Photo of the Zula Band playing at an Ethiopian restaurant in Washington DC Center Right: Photo of Walias Band on the Hilton Hotel balcony in the early 1960s.

Portrait of Mergia in Greece, taken in the early 90s.

Among many instruments, Mergia plays the accordion, synthesizer, piano, organ, melodica and drum machine.

Mergia playing the melodica in his living room.

Mergia holding a photo of the Walias Band from the 1970s. “There was an American radio station we listened to everyday in Addis Ababa that played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Tyrone Davis, Aretha Franklin, and many more. So we’d pick up American soul, blues, and jazz melodies and then improvise on them in our own music,” he remembers.

By Harun Maruf

WASHINGTON — The first round of three-day talks between Ethiopian officials and representatives from the Ethiopian rebel group of ethnic Somalis, Ogden National Liberation Front (ONLF), began Sunday at a secret location in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

Delegates from the two sides arrived Saturday for the talks that are being facilitated by Kenyan officials.

Abdulkadir Hassan Hirmoge, a spokesman for the ONLF, confirmed to VOA Somali that the talks have begun.

Hirmoge said each side has sent a delegation of four members. The ONLF delegation is led by Foreign Secretary Abdirahman Mahdi. It is unclear who is leading the Ethiopian delegation, but photos released by the Kenyan facilitators show the president of the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia, Abdi Mohamud Omar, sitting on the opposite side of the table, along with other officials.

A source close to the talks told VOA Somali that “Day One of the talks covered considerable ground and ended on a high note.”

Hirmoge cautioned that it was too soon to say how the talks might end because “there are big issues at stake.”

“We can’t talk prematurely, but these talks are about principles, on compensation, on self-determination, on freedom, referendum, on the economy and centuries-old aggression,” he said.

ONLF and the Ethiopian government fell out in 1994 after a dispute over self-determination. The dispute drove ONLF to war and turned the ethnic Somali state, rich with gas and oil, into a deadly battleground that claimed many lives.

In April 2007, ONLF rebels attacked an oil field in an Obolleh village near the regional capital of Jigjiga, killing 67 Ethiopian soldiers and nine Chinese oil workers. In response, Ethiopia heavily militarized the region and carried out a brutal operation, according to human rights organizations.

Previous failures

Talks were held in 2012 and 2013 in Kenya without concessions from either side.

Rashid Abdi, Horn of Africa project director for the International Crisis Group, said there were a number of issues that made the previous talks difficult.

“They (talks) have been characterized by a lot of mutual suspicion and a lack of confidence. But I think there was also the death of (former Ethiopian prime minister) Meles Zenawi, and the transition had an impact on how the talks should proceed,” he said.

“I think clearly all parties seemed to lack a bit of focus. On the part of the ONLF, I think they came to the table without having a clear vision on how they wanted to proceed, while the Ethiopians were basically seeking very minimal tactical advantages.”

Even with the talks having resumed, Abdi said it won’t be easy for the two sides to reach an agreement without significant compromises. The main sticking points are the Ethiopian constitution and referendum.

“Ethiopians want ONLF to concede on the issue of the constitution,” Abdi said. “ONLF previously said they were not going to recognize the federal constitution, and that was one of the sticking points. So, I suspect this issue will not be quickly resolved.

“Then there is the issue of what exactly ONLF wants? Does it want greater autonomy in the Somali region? Does it simply want power sharing, so that it can be part of the federal system? Does it want to monopolize power in the region? Does it want full independence? Those are the key issues.”

History of unrest

Ethiopia has seen political upheavals since 2016 following waves of protests in the Oromo region. There was also deadly ethnic violence in 2017 between Ethiopian Somalis in Oromo, which claimed dozens of lives and displaced tens of thousands of people.

ONLF’s Hirmoge said conditions on the ground in Ethiopia have something to do with the resumption of these talks.

“Now, we believe there have been big changes in Ethiopia. The conditions are changing. People cannot be silenced now. The talks coincide at a time when things are changing in Ethiopia on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. These have their own ripple effects,” Hirmoge says.

“I believe the conditions around the talks are better,” he added. “The prediction is different compared to previous ones (talks), but I don’t want to prejudge the result.” .

Abdi agrees that the timing of the talks is interesting and could work in favor of the stressed Ethiopian government.

“It comes at a time when Ethiopia feels under pressure from many multiple forms,” he said. “It has serious unrest, so they desperately need a good story. So, the resumption of the peace talks plays well internationally. Ethiopia can say ‘We are engaging the opposition.’ It’s good publicity, but one has to also consider whether there is really a strategic shift and interest to find a peaceful settlement, or are we simply back to the old games of simply playing tactical games?”

VOA Somali could not reach Ethiopian officials for comment.

ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) — A car accident in Ethiopia’s central Oromia regional state has killed four people, a regional official said on Sunday.

Aschalew Alemu, Public Relations Chief at East Shoa zone police department, Oromia, said the accident happened when a passenger minibus traveling on the road Saturday evening had its tires burst causing the vehicle to slam into an electric pole, reported state owned Ethiopian News Agency.

He added seven people who sustained light and heavy injuries have been taken to nearby health stations for treatment.

Alemu cautioned drivers to avoid speeding and follow traffic rules when their vehicles are on the road.

Despite having one of the lowest per capita car ownership in the world, deadly traffic accidents in Ethiopia are common with blames put on bad roads, flawed driving license issuance system and lax enforcement of road safety.

Traffic accidents during the Ethiopian Fiscal Year 2016/17 that ended on July 8 have led to the deaths of 4,500 people, according to Ethiopia Federal Transport Authority.