While Ethiopians were celebrating the reconciliation between the exiled and home synod in AddisAbaba yesterday by coincidence or not churches were burnt down in Somali region of Ethiopia and the news coming from the region at this moment is very disturbing.
Eye witness account of the killing and looting is going on as darkness fall in Jijiga today Sunday August 5, 2018 the capital of the Somali region. Many are sheltered in church and in friends houses. The special force which is armed by UK is roaming the streets with pickup cars .
The Ethiopian defense forces estimated around 500 are in the city but failed to save lives. The Ethiopian government is quite about the incident so far. The voice of America Somali service reported 29 people killed by vigilante groups almost all of the dead are non Somalis. Others put the dead more than sixty.
Priests of the Ethiopian orthodox churches were also burnt down with their churches. Such things never happened during the Ethio Somalia war in the 1970s.
The Warlord of the Somali region AbdiIlley and the TPLF controlled army had close relationship fighting Al Shabab and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in the last few years.
ONLF is now siding with AbdiIlley whom they accused of extrajudicial killing and torture in the past. This is classic Somali politics. They are fighting the Oromo led EPRDF and Ethiopians and the solidarity is natural.
To no one surprise the TPLF that lost power to the OPDO of Abyi is siding with their ally AbdiIlley and the ONLF and are demanding restraint by the Ethiopian army.
This is a big test for Prime Minister Abyi. Ethiopians will not seat idle while their churches and priests are burnt down.
The crisis in Somali region and the sabotage by TPLF old guards in Mekele are inseparable. The army TPLF built and led either should protect the citizens in Jijiga, watching the slaughtering of our citizens is a dereliction of duty and the army must be pulled out and be replaced by patriotic Ethiopian fighters from all over Ethiopia in a short order.
The ball is in Abyi’s court now. The change that he unleashes is now tested in Jijiga and Mekele the former with gun and the latter with its insiders in the Ethiopian army.
A government which can not protect its citizens from Rwanda type of attack is finally will disintegrate. It is time to clean the mess in Somali and Tigray region if needed by dissolving the current OPDO led EPRDF and establishing a military government led by Prime Minister Abyi Ahmed who has wide support in Ethiopia.
From: Eskinder Nega, Journalist, Human Rights and Democracy Activist
Mesfin Mekonen, Ethiopian/Americans Community
Subject: Ethiopia Declaration of Principle
Date: July 27, 20018
Dear Prime Minister Abiy Ahamed,
We are writing to thank you for your commitment for human rights and economic development in Ethiopia.
We would like to bring to your attention, and to the attention of the Ethiopian Parliament, a Declaration of Principles that could provide a path toward democracy and peaceful prosperity for Ethiopia. The Declaration is based on the South African peace and reconciliation model. It has been adapted to the Ethiopian situation. We hope you will embrace it, and use it as an opportunity to bring human rights, dignity, peace and economic development to our people. This is a noble cause that can unite men and women of good will to create a brighter future for Ethiopia.
A copy of the Declaration is attached.
Your attention to this urgent matter is very much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Eskinder Nega
Mesfin Mekonen
Ethiopia Declaration of Principles
It is past time for Ethiopian society to come together, to tighten the natural bonds that unite in peace, discard the chains that divide, to affirm universal principles of peace and reject calls to divide and hate. It is time for remembrance and reconciliation.
We are calling for Ethiopia to move forward with a truth and reconciliation project animated by the spirit that propelled change in South Africa. The goals are clear: peace, justice, respect for human rights, democracy, and prosperity. Achieving these basic goals will require a process of truth telling, particularly about human rights abuses, achieved through testimony from both victims and perpetrators, coupled to a pledge of reconciliation.
To embark on this path, we, the undersigned, respectfully urge and pledge ourselves to:
1. Bringing change to Ethiopia through peaceful means
2. A peaceful transition to democracy, starting by parliament’s call for a national dialogue between all major political parties, including civic groups and EPRDF
3. National dialogue between all political parties and civic groups, conducted with the South African Multiparty Negotiating Forum (MPNF) as a model.
4. Pursue national reconciliation and unity in accordance with the model set by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Addis Abeba, July 06/2018 – Talks that started on Sunday b/n federal & Somali regional state authorities are underway and may lead to an “amicable settlement”, a government source told Addis Standard.The talks involve both regional & federal administrative, military, security & intelligence authorities, according to our source.
See thread since Saturday for more pictures and video:
Addis Standard@addisstandard
#Ethiopia:The fed defense forcea moving into #Jigjiga city, the capital of the Ethiopian #Somali regional state, after attempts to summon the region’s Pres., Abdi Illey, to #AddisAbeba failed & reports that he ordered thousands of Liyu Police to move to the city. @oladmohamed
This followed the weekend’s violence in Jigjiga city, the capital of the Somali regional state in eastern Ethiopia, and other cities and towns in its surrounding that left, according to VOA Somali service, at least 30 people dead. The violence also left a trail of destruction as groups of youth went on a rampage of looting and vandalism and attack against different ethnic communities living in the region. According to deacon Daniel Kibret, at least eight Ethiopian Orthodox Twahedo Churches were also set ablaze and six priests were killed, some gruesomely.
Harun Maruf
@HarunMaruf
BREAKING: Nearly 30 people died as a result of yesterday’s violence in Jigjiga, capital of the Somali region of Ethiopia, regional officials tell @voasomali. Situation in the city is calm today but there has been no reported breakthrough in averting further disturbances.
The incident began unfolding when, on Wednesday night last week, armed members of the Liyu Police, a controversial paramilitary force operating in Somali regional state under the auspices of the region’s president Abdi Mohomud Omar, a.k.a Abdi Illey, tried to disrupt a meeting by some members of the regional state parliament, Somali elders and others, which was taking place in Dire Dawa, a chartered city in eastern Ethiopia. Participants of the meeting were denouncing human rights abuses in the region and have called for the federal government to hold Abdi Illey to account for gross human rights abuses. The attempt by the Liyu Police, along with growing signs of anarchy from organized youth groups, has forced the Dire Dawa city council to establish a military command post involving the city’s and federal police as well as federal defense forces to safeguard the city and its environs.
After talks between federal and Somali regional state authorities to discuss security situation in the region in the wake of the events in Dire Dawa failed to produce results, on Saturday morning, armed members of the federal defenses forces began entering Jigjiga city, placing key regional installations, including main roads, regional Parliament and television buildings under the federal security. Federal forces have also surrounded Abdi Illey’s “presidential palace”, in the afternoon, triggering his supporters, particularly a civilian youth group called “Heego” to go on attacks against civilians of different ethnic background, businesses, churches and residential quarters, among others.
Update: An uneasy calm has returned to the city in terms of military activities; but, looting, displacement, abuses have continued door to door by organized youth group suspected links with the regional administration. Their targets are mostly civilians from other ethnic groups.
Addis Standard@addisstandard
Update: Internet is cut off in most parts of the region, but phone lines in some areas of #Jigjiga are restored. Members of the federal army are patrolling few areas but “not enough to protect civilians. We are urging the government to protect us,” one resident told AS by phone.
Despite the presence of both members of the federal and the Liyu police army in the city, however, reports from several accounts, including a resident of Jigjiga city who spoke to Addis Standard, and Ethiopians who have family members living in various areas of the regional state and who spoke to them say not enough was done to protect civilians as door to door attacks continued until today. Somaliland media organizations are also reporting the arrival of several hundred Ethiopian refugees who fled the violence. The internet remained blocked but regular telephone lines, which were cut off along with electricity supplies on Saturday, have been restored in many parts of the regional state, including large parts of the capital.
Other than a statement from the ministry of defense on Saturday evening, in which the ministry said the federal army “will take all necessary measures” within the limits of the constitution to quell the unrest, which it said had spread to others parts of the regional state, the government remained silent. However, a government official who spoke to Addis Standardon conditions of anonymity admitted the federal army “was ill prepared” and had no “clear guidance” on how to protect civilians” in the event that its entry to the city of Jigjiga and its control of key installations would “trigger a backlash from both military and civilian loyalists of the president.” On Saturday to Sunday morning, more Liyu Police paramilitary members began entering the city, adding to fears of confrontations with federal army members.
However, as part of the ongoing talks, which began on Saturday night and continued until today, as of last night and this morning, some members of the Liyu police have left the city of Jigjiga, while many more remained inside; others are patrolling its environs, particularly roads leading to and from Jigjiga. And members of the federal army who surrounded the “presidential palace” on Saturday afternoon were instructed on Saturday evening “not to engage in any hostile activities.” But they remained in the city. The de-escaltion of confrontations on Sunday left room for President Abdi Illey to visit a church in Jigjiga city, which was set ablaze on Saturday, and also to speak to a group of elders and other members of the community. But sporadic attacks against civilians living off the main streets have continued until today in many parts, although less intense than were on Saturday and Sunday.
“The situation remains fluid, and there are no clear roadmap on what to do, or how to deal with the president [Abdi Illey]”, our government source said.
But federal government remained silent and there is neither additional official statement nor reporting by the state owned and/or affiliated media outlets, frustrating some residents of Addis Abeba who, this morning, went to demonstrate in front of the national broadcaster ETV and Fana Brodcasting Corporation headquarters demanding for information and an end to the violence in Jigjiga and justice for civilians trapped in the crisis.
Late this morning, in a pre-recorded video message Legeri Lencho, Communication bureau head of the Oromia regional state, acknowledged the crisis but offered no details others than repeating the usual mantra that the crisis has nothing to do between the brotherly and sisterly communities living in the region, particularly the Oromo and the Somali communities. He also cautioned communities to be alert toward what he said were “agent provocateurs who are inciting violence.” AS
The president of Ethiopia’s turbulent Somali region has resigned, following violence in the regional capital killed at least 29 people.
Abdi Mohamoud Omar stepped down from his post Monday, according to two senior regional officials, including Khadar Abdi Ismail, an ally of Omar.
“Yes, there has been a change [of leadership]. The former president has handed over his responsibilities to Ahmed Abdi Mohamed,” Ismail told VOA’s Somali service. “That change has taken place peacefully, the former president has been working for the interest of the people, and now he handed over in consideration of the interest of the public.”
The new president, Mohamed, previously served as regional finance minister.
Meanwhile, state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporation has reported that the Ethiopian army has been ordered to enter the Somali regional state to “restore order.”
Witnesses in Jigjiga have confirmed that large columns of Ethiopian military vehicles entered the regional capital, Jigjiga, on Monday.
Regional officials said on Sunday 29 people were killed during Saturday’s violence in Jigjiga.
Fighting broke out Friday after an apparent rift between local authorities and the central Ethiopian government.
Ismail blamed the deaths on federal forces and said the violence was sparked by public anger over “the illegal entry of the dangerously armed troops” into the city.
The government recently accused regional officials of carrying out human rights abuses.
Ethiopia’s Somali region was the first area visited by new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after he was selected by the ruling party last April
At the time of the visit, Ahmed was trying to ease tensions between the ethnic Somali and Oromo communities, which have been engaged in deadly tit-for-tat attacks that have claimed the lives of dozens of people.
Prophecies have been fulfilled for many centuries. Today, for example, we are watching the unfolding of biblical prophecy in a way that believers, only 70 years ago, did not have the privilege to see.
In Ezekiel 36, we find Ezekiel speaking “to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys” that it will put forth fruit, man and beast would be multiplied on it, and the waste cities will be rebuilt when His people Israel returns to the land”.
Since the time of Ezekiel, the land was conquered and reconquered many times. It never became a homeland for any other people, nor would the land produce for any other people group.
On his landmark visit to Israel 150 years ago, American literary giant Mark Twain witnessed what he did not then know was the start of the prophetic return of the Jewish people to the land. Unimpressed, he described the Holy Land as “unpicturesque” and “unsightly”, even “desolate”. “The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent.”
Today, in only 70 short years since her rebirth, Israel is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world-leader in agricultural technologies. Prophecy fulfilled.
After 27 years, it seems a prophecy is coming to pass and this time in Ethiopia. In June of 1991, I had a lively discussion about the fall of Derg and the coming to power of Woyane, as we sued to call them then, with a seasoned mentor. I was a fresh graduate working under this mentor. My mentor, Ato Tamirat (not his real name) was from Harar, to be precise a ‘Dire Dawa’ Lij.
Ato Tamirat was unhappy about the way the country was being managed by the Woyane rebel group, that assumed political power two weeks prior. During those early days, the young fighters, without a military uniform, were all over Addis. It was on May 28, 1991, during cease-fire talks, that Woyane tanks entered Addis Ababa virtually unopposed. They suddenly appeared in Addis scene.
In 17 years’ time, the country was going through two transfers of power and both not legally. I was wondering what all this mean and posed the question to Ato Tamirat. Well, Ato Tamirat, said, let me tell you a prophecy I had heard from my father in law. According to the prophecy, he said, the woyane’s, will disappear suddenly in the same manner they surfaced in the city. They suddenly appeared on May 28, 1991. And one day, he continued, when we woke up, woyane would simply be gone. Did I even entertain the prophecy as remotely true? No but I have always wondered what if it were true.
Looking back at what has happened in the past few months, there is no denial of the fact that Woyane’s long standing influence in Ethiopian politics simply has vanished.
With the ascent of OPDO’s chairman to the Premiership, Woyane suddenly disappeared.
Is this a prophecy fulfilled? As for me, aha, I think so, and there virtually is zero chance for Woyane to assert itself again.
Should we be full of hope now that Woyane has vanished? No, not even a bit. It is even scary as so much confusion is in the horizon.
The Ethiopian Prime minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed is the first person to change the perspective and the spectrum of the Ethiopian Politics. And as a result, a nation that was on the brink of division is coming together by The way he showed to his people. We ask the Nobel prize organization to award Dr. Abiy Ahmed for the work he has done in unity and peace throughout Ethiopia.
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When I wrote Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed an open letter on June 3, 2018 on behalf of Diaspora Ethiopians in the U.S. asking him to “please, please be our guest”, I promised:
If you come to the U.S., I have no doubts you would victoriously declare, “I came; I saw; and I conquered the hearts and minds of Ethiopians and Ethiopian Americans in America.
I also promised he would be “treated like a rock star by the younger generation of Ethiopians.”
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Pioneer Press reported “10,000 give Ethiopian prime minister a rock-star greeting at Target Center”.
PM Abiy did not disappoint.
He came, he saw, and he conquered the hearts and minds of Diaspora Ethiopians with a powerful and irresistible message of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
The whole event felt like a revival meeting, a basketball game and a campaign rally rolled into one.
July! Oh, July and me!
July, what a strange month it is, for me!
To paraphrase the opening Lines of Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities”, it is the best and the worst of months, the season of Light and Darkness, the spring of hope and it was the summer of despair…”
On July 27, 2015 at 1:47 p.m., former U.S. President Barack Obama stood at the National Place in Ethiopia and said words that broke my heart, plunged me into deep despair and insulted the intelligence of 100 million people. It was my summer of despair.
I never forgave Barack Obama for his hurtful words, and never missed an opportunity to unleash the relentless fury of my pen on him from that day until July 27, 2018.
There is an old saying, “Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”
What Barack Obama did in Addis Ababa on July 27, 2015 was stab me in the heart.
But I am alright now. Abiy Ahmed came to America on July 27, 2018 and mended my broken heart and transported me to the peak of the mountain of hope. It is now the spring of hope for me.
I have forgiven Barack Obama. The bitterness is gone. I have buried the hatchet. Peace be upon you, Barack Obama!
Abiy Ahmed in the City of Angeles!
For many of us in Los Angeles and Southern California and beyond, how sweet it was to have an angel of love in the City of Angles!
On July 29, 2018 at 9:30 a.m., Team Abiy Ahmed- Ethiopia literally descended (in their jetliner) on the City of Angels on a special mission to deliver their message of love, forgiveness, peace, reconciliation, unity and Ethiopiawinet to the tens of thousands of Ethiopians living in Southern California and the Western United States.
As the Ethiopian Airlines jetliner rolled to the VIP gate at LAX, I had the strangest feeling.
Standing along the red-carpet reception line, I did not feel I was there to receive a head of state with his delegation.
I felt I was there to receive members of my own family, my children, my brothers and sisters or cousins.
As PM Abiy and his delegation walked down the red carpet, I choked up. I could not speak, not even get the words “Welcome to LA” out.
It was just like parents would choke up meeting their children or siblings meeting each other after a long separation.
The strangest thing is that 6 months ago, I had no idea about PM Abiy or any one in his delegation. I may have seen 2 or 3 short videos clips of PM Abiy’s speeches, but I did not pay much attention.
For the last 13 years, I was too busy prosecuting the pre-PM Abiy regime every single week and convicting them in the court of world public opinion to notice anything else, least of all the rise of transformative young leaders.
As I saw Abiy, Lemma and the rest of the delegation coming down the red carpet greeting us, for the first time I felt like I was back in Ethiopia after 48 years, round it off to 50. That is one-half century.
It was an indescribable feeling of family re-union.
It’s like they knew I would never go back to Ethiopia, so they decided to bring Ethiopia to me in Los Angeles.
So, how is it possible for me to feel such deep family attachment to people I had never met in my life?
I just don’t know!
The other strange thing was that I could not explain the leadership styles of Abiy Ahmed and Lemma Megerssa, the Oromia state president. They seem so unreal as political leaders.
They don’t quack like politicians. They don’t walk like politicians. They don’t lead like politicians. These young men say what they mean and mean what they say. They so deeply believe in their conviction, they have a whole nation singing their song of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
But that’s not how it is done in politics! Anywhere in the world!
I have humored my students defining politics as “poly” meaning “many” and “ticks” meaning “bloodsucking insects.”
The hallmark of all politicians is their forked-tongue. Like snakes, politicians flick their tongues seeking the odor of money, votes or favors.
“Could it be that Abiy and Lemma are not politicians?”, I have asked myself from time to time.
If they are not, they must be statesmen? But to be statesmen, tradition requires a very long and honored career in public service.
So, if they are neither, what are they?
Well, my best answer is that they are the stuff dreams are made of. Mine and millions of others Ethiopian.
For the last 27 years, Ethiopians lived in an endless nightmare and dreamed of an end to their nightmare.
For the last 13 years, I had only two humble dreams to end their nightmare: Ethiopia at peace and Ethiopia led by her young people.
Every week, I kept marching on to the tune of the inspired words, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,… [and] see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” It is written that “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Six months ago, I saw a vision of Armageddon in Ethiopia. I was convinced Ethiopia was in the first stage of implosion.
In December 2017, I announced to the world Ethiopia sat on the “horns of a creeping civil war dilemma.”
Deus ex machina!
At the eleventh hour, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, two young visionaries named Lemma Megerssa and Abiy Ahmed came out of nowhere and pulled Ethiopia back from the precipice.
Not long ago, Herman Cohen, former U.S. Ambassador and United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs recently twitted:
For the first time in my professional life, I am nominating someone for the Nobel Peace Prize: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. If he brings multiparty democracy to #Ethiopia, the entire Horn of Africa will be transformed for the better.
What is mind blowing is the fact that Abiy Ahmed, age 42, has not been on the job even 6 months! He took office April 2. He is now touted as a Nobel Peace laureate by world leaders!?
Sweden is campaigning to get PM Abiy “most prominent speaker’s” status at the 2018 Convention of the United Nations General Assembly.
Ethiopia is truly blessed to have visionary leaders like Abiy Ahmed and Lemma Megerssa. What is not evident to the public eye is that they have been building an invisible generational bridge for quite some time.
Behold their handiwork now!
We, the older generation of Ethiopians, are blessed to see our dreams come true.
We have passed the torch to Abiy, Lemma and their generation. The changing of the guards of the generations is now underway.
“I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope,” said Aeschylus, the playwright of ancient Greece.
I have been feeding on dreams of hope of the day when Ethiopia’s Cheetahs [younger generation] (Abo Shemanes) and Ethiopia’s Hippos (older generation) stand together and write the last chapter of the history of ethnic oppression, sectarianism and one-man, one-party rule in Ethiopia.
For the last 13 years, in pursuit of my dreams of hope, I have found myself in the valley of despair and occasionally at the peak of the mountain of hope.
Truth be told, I dreamed dreams but deep down I believed my dreams were daydreams, pipe dreams.
But seeing Ethiopia’s best and brightest at the helm guiding Ethiopia between Scylla and Charybdis — the six headed monster of ethnic hatred, abuse of power, civil strife, corruption, human rights violation and flagrant disregard for the rule of law — is a dream come true for me.
I am blessed to be able to keep the flames of hope flickering for the young people of Ethiopia over the past 13 years.
I just could not bear the thought of the younger generation wallowing in the morass of ethnic hatred, fratricide, sectarianism and lack of vision my generation had created.
PM Abiy has ended the secret life of exiled Ethiopians (the “diasporan”)
PM Abiy’s visit to America has ended our secret lives in exile. He came to America to lead us back home.
The exodus back has begun in the most astounding way!
The most die-hard opponents of the former regime in Ethiopia are heading back and joining up PM Abiy’s team.
Human rights and political activists that have been a source of unending headache for previous Ethiopian regimes are standing tall with PM Abiy and singing his “medemer” song.
I, of all people, have become the foremost defender of the Ethiopian government under PM Abiy Ahmed’s leadership.
Wonders never cease!
The excitement among Ethiopians of all walks of life going back and helping their people is simply electrifying.
If anyone had suggested we would see what we are seeing today, no doubt that person would have been involuntarily committed for prolonged psychiatric observation.
PM Abiy’s visit was described as an outreach to Diasporan Ethiopians in the U.S.
I went along with the use of the word “diasporans” but felt a certain sadness in calling those of us in forced exile “diasporans”.
The Greek word “diaspora” denotes dispersion, being scattered.
For decades, millions of Ethiopians have been scattered in the wind to the four corners of the earth.
How did we get scattered like wheat and chaff in the wind? Who is responsible for scattering us?
That does not matter now because the scattering has now been replaced by a gathering. A gathering of the young people and a gathering of the elders in exile.
Most of us diasporans lived in exile the life of the proverbial man who spoke of a cow he has in the sky whose milk he never sees.
We spoke of a country we had but never get to see. But we survived to see a new day in our homeland.
We survived in exile living a secret life. It was a life of protest against the beasts with feet of clay, The Fates and everything in between.
For many, it was a protest conducted in silent desperation.
For others, it was a life of defiant, resolute and relentless protest against injustice.
But it must be recorded for history and the generations to come. Life in exile is not merely physical existence. It is also a painful psychological and spiritual state of mind.
Mahmoud Darwish’s memorial poem bidding farewell to the great exile Palestinian American public intellectual Edward Said best expresses the true meaning of life in exile for me and perhaps others like me:
… On wind he walks, and in wind
he knows himself. There is no ceiling for the wind,
no home for the wind. Wind is the compass
of the stranger’s North.
He says: I am from there, I am from here,
but I am neither there nor here.
I have two names which meet and part…
I have two languages, but I have long forgotten
which is the language of my dreams…
But after 48 years, I heard another poet calling me and all “diaspora” Ethiopians out of exile.
Abiy Ahmed reminded us all, “You can take the Ethiopian out of Ethiopia, but you can never take Ethiopia out of his heart.”
In other words, PM Abiy proclaimed our days in the wilderness are finally over. We are free to come home and be with our people.
After nearly one-half century, for the first time, I no longer feel I am an exile. I am no longer “diasporan”.
I, Alemayehu Gebre Mariam, am proud Ethiopian. I thank Abiy Ahmed for this gift of returning my homeland back to me.
Ovid, the ancient Roman poet, added, “Our native soil draws all of us, by I know not what sweetness, and never allows us to forget.”
I also do not know how my native soil draws me, but I have been told by one Lemma Megerssa that I have an intergenerational addiction in my blood called “Ethiopiawinet”, for which there is no cure.
I gave my answer to Lemma Megerssa back in November 2017.
I told him if there’s a cure for this Ethiopiawinet addiction, I don’t want it. If there’s a remedy, I’ll run from it. I think about it all the time. Never let it out of my mind. No, I don’t want no cure, no cure…”
For the first time in nearly one-half century, I tasted the sweetness of my native soil when I hugged and embraced Abiy Ahmed, Lemma Megerssa and Team Abiy Ahmed-Ethiopia on July 29, 2018.
Today, I stand in awe as I witness the darkness that had enveloped Ethiopia for decades lifting, vanishing in the sunlight.
Today, “With malice toward none and with charity for all”, we Ethiopians are closer than ever “to achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
What was achieved in a 3-day visit in America? It is absurd to even contemplate the question, “What did Team Abiy Ahmed achieve in America three days?”
But it is a valid question to ask of someone who has single-handedly moved mountains in less than 90 days with the power of love.
Where shall I begin?
1. PM Abiy’s visit brought a sea-change in Diaspora Ethiopian-Ethiopian Government relations.
PM Abiy has repeatedly declared Diaspora Ethiopians are vital to the future of Ethiopia because of their resources, skills and financial power. He urged full reconciliation with them in his inaugural speech. He took a variety of steps to integrate Diaspora Ethiopian into the political, social and economic processes of their country, including a general amnesty declaration. His trip to the U.S. was the icing on the cake.
I am probably the best witness to the sea-change that has taken place in the last few months.
For 13 years, I prosecuted the pre-PM Abiy regime in the court of world public opinion and convicted them every single time. I baited them to engage me in a public debate, but they never took the bait. The one time they did, I took the opportunity to build my Ethiopiawinet Movement on it. I coined more than a dozen English words to describe them in a relentless public relations campaign. I never recognized that regime as a “government”. If I did it was a slip of the pen.
When they said Abiy Ahmed is coming to town, I volunteered my legal services and other assistance unconditionally to the Consulate General in Los Angeles.
But it is not just me. Dozens of activists, grassroots advocates, opposition group members and leaders and others who have been at loggerheads with Ethiopian government officials and with each other, worked side by side to make the visit of the PM Abiy to LA a success.
PM Abiy’s visit marked a new era in the relationship between Diaspora Ethiopians and the Ethiopian Government. There will be a B.A. (before Abiy Ahmed) and an A.A. (after Abiy Ahmed).
Diaspora Ethiopians in America have no reason not to work together for the betterment of their people. None. If we can set aside our differences and toil to put together a successful event for PM Abiy, we should be able to do the same, only thousands of times more, for the people of Ethiopia.
2. PM Abiy’s visit created high level of civic engagement in the Ethiopian Diaspora in the U.S. It is incredible how PM Abiy set our souls on fire with his powerful message of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace. People I have known for decades who had given up on change in Ethiopia and look upwards taking comfort in God’s will (“Only God can solve Ethiopia’s problems”) today feel so empowered, they are singing PM Abiy’s “Medemer” song. They are willing to do whatever they can to be involved and make a difference. PM Abiy has moved people out of the comfort of despair and indifference into making a difference.
3. PM Abiy’s visit taught us a) our differences are skin deep, b) we’re not enemies but friends and c) the sources of our differences are our “leaders”. It is amazing how easy it is to insult and humiliate each other from a distance. But close, working together, the respect, civility and courtesy was simply incredible.
In my speech during the LA dinner, I told PM Abiy that our differences were skin deep. When push came to shove, and we had to deliver a successful event, we got it done, though at times it felt it was herding cats in organized chaos. It was clear to me that the sources of or differences are our leaders. When we got a leader who says the only way to go forward is by creating solidarity and commonality of purposes (“medemer’), we had no difficulty putting our shoulders to the wheel and our noses to the grindstone and pushing together.
4. PM Abiy’s visit taught us united we stand, divided we fall. In my speech during the LA dinner, I reminded PM Abiy that his idea of “medemer” was very similar to the metaphor of the fist used during the American civil rights movement. The pre-PM Abiy regime understood that when Ethiopians stand separated as the five separate fingers on a hand, they are powerless and could be easily manipulated. But when they come together like fingers in a fist, they pack devastating knockout punch. So, we learned that if we add (medemer) one finger to the others, we can knockout any adversary.
PM Abiy made possible the healing of the schism in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church after 27 years. In June 2012, I wrote a commentary, “Unity in Our Divinity”, about the role of religion in personal and social life among Ethiopians.
In May 2018, I wrote a commentary supporting PM Abiy’s call for the healing of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (ETOC) and exhortation of the Church fathers to reconcile. During his U.S. visit, the Church fathers had resolved their differences and went home with PM Abiy for a triumphant welcome. PM Abiy taught us that a church, a mosque divided cannot stand.
5) PM Abiy taught us to keep our eyes on the prize. The prize is multiparty democracy, human rights and dignity, free and fair elections, the rule of law, accountability, transparency and good governance. The politics of identity, ethnicity, sectarianism, hate and all the other destructive practices take our eyes from the big prizes. If we focused on each other’s ethnicity, we will surely lose the big prize of our unity in our humanity. He taught us not to sweat the small stuff. His simple message was, “Keep up the good fight and keep your eyes on the prizes.”
6) PM Abiy preached an extraordinary message of hope for all of Africa. PM Abiy had a powerful message that hearkens back to Mandela’s vision for Africa. “Change Ethiopia and you will change Africa.” PM Abiy has a vision of a new African identity rooted in Ubuntu (African humanity). He has hope and pride that Ethiopia will one day be the personification of Ubuntu for the rest of Africa.
7) PM Abiy made us proud in Los Angeles. I cannot express how proud I felt when Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson presented PM Abiy an “Ethiopia Day” declaration and said he was not only happy to officially welcome PM Abiy to the City of Los Angeles but also took great pride in his presence on behalf of American Americans. We now have a basis to launch a new tradition for years to come: “Ethiopia Day, July 29.”
8) PM Abiy taught us that a person must change him/herself before changing the world. PM Abiy’s principal message was that we must be the change we want to see. During the LA dinner, I told PM Abiy that what he was asking us to do was to upgrade our operating software. For decades, we have been operating on a software of hate, distrust, revenge, recrimination. Now, he wants to replace that with software that runs on code of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
I suspect there may be hardware incompatibility for some. There are too many neurons hardwired the wrong way. But we must change with the times. Change, like Father Time and the tide waits for no one. Those who resist change should heed the old saying, “You had better be ready to change your mind when needed, or your mind will change you.”
9) PM Abiy demonstrated to us the value of unity. All things are possible if we unite and work together in good will and good faith with a shared vision and common mission. Unity is not an idea. It is not political practice. It is a way of life. The United States of America is the envy of the world because it is united. The American Founders proclaimed their Constitution in 1787 with the words, “We, the people of the United States…” Their motto is, “E pluribus unum” (out of many one). Out of the original thirteen colonies, they formed a new single nation.
If the Americans can do it, so can the Ethiopians!
10) Love conquers all. The greatest lesson in PM Abiy’s visit to the U.S. is this: When the power of love overcomes the love of power, there will be love, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
Ethiopia’s best days are yet to come. The easiest way to build a bridge is by shaking hands, by counting up, adding up, or simply “medemer in love”.
A note of appreciation
In putting together the event for PM Abiy’s visit to Los Angeles, many individuals and organizations participated.
I first want to thank the general manager and staff of the Galen Center at the University of Southern California. It generally takes planning and coordination of 6 months to a year to organize an event of the type we had for PM Abiy. But the leadership and staff of the Galen Center did a phenomenal job in facilitating our efforts despite some concerns and differences in viewpoints. USC campus police also did an excellent job in maintaining a peaceful campus atmosphere.
The Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Fire Department and emergency services, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation did an excellent job in ensuring a safe event environment and an orderly process for crowd access to the event venue. We are indebted to them.
I also thank the U.S. Secret Service for ensuring a secure environment for PM Abiy and his delegation. We appreciate their professionalism and meticulous attention to detail.
Most of all, I wish to thank the many individuals, organizations and groups who volunteered their services and resources and worked with the Ethiopian Consulate in Los Angeles to make the event a resounding success. They simply did an amazing job in making the event successful. It was amazing to see people with different political agendas and orientations coming together in common cause. Many thanks for their good will, good faith and good work.
But there were challenges. Getting together people who have seen each other as mortal adversaries for 27 years is not easy. The ghosts of distrust, suspicion, doubt and skepticism of yesteryears will always hover by invisibly. But that is to be reasonably expected.
I choose to focus on the good and the positive. I believe in the past month, the foundation has been laid for a future of vigorous and supportive relationship between the Ethiopian community at large and Ethiopian government officials in the U.S.
It is amazing to me that I, and many others like me, who relentlessly opposed the Ethiopian government for decades were able to work together with officials of the Ethiopian government by setting our differences aside to honor and celebrate the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. I congratulate Consul General Berhane and his staff for their efforts in making the event success.
In putting a public event of the type organized for PM Abiy’s event, there are many moving parts. What most people do not see are the many things that are done at the official level with university administrators, facility managers, campus police, city police, fire and transportation departments, permitting agencies, securing event insurance and making arrangements with City Hall.
During the dinner for PM Abiy, I made a special recognition of W/o Nigest Legesse who played a pivotal role in dealing with a variety of issues in city government and with officials at the University of Southern California.
I had never met or spoken to W/o Nigest until I had the opportunity to work with her on the PM Abiy event.
I was aware she is a businesswoman and City of Los Angeles Commissioner for Community and Family Services. I was also aware she was honored as “Woman of the Year” in the California State Senate in March of this year.
In my capacity as volunteer legal counsel for the Consulate in dealing with contractual and other issues, I worked closely with W/o Nigist. She played several critical roles in dealing with regulatory requirements and in meeting contractual obligations. She contacted and made the initial arrangements with the Galen Center, the most affordable of all the event locations under consideration. She was instrumental in making sure the Consulate was in contractual compliance by speedily securing multiple permits for street closures and utilization of public parks, obtaining certificates of event insurance, serving as liaison with the Mayor’s Office and the Office of the City Council President and in the issuance of the “Ethiopia Day” declaration by the LA City Council. She delivered event tickets to the Consulate with a high degree of accountability. I personally thank W/o Nigist for her professionalism, competence, civility and no-nonsense assertive approach in dealing with campus and city officials.
The unsung heroine in our midst!
I want to make a special recognition of First Lady Zinash Tayachew. We saw FL Zinash on stage, but we did not hear from her.
During the few hours I spent with PM Abiy and FL Zinash, I came to appreciate the wisdom of the old saying, “Behind every great man is a great woman.”
In their interactions, I could see how FL Zinash is the wind beneath PM Abiy’s wings.
Sometimes it is difficult to be noticed standing in the shadow of a great man.
But for a few hours, I saw PM Abiy and FL Zinash in bright light without shadows.
PM Abiy is blessed to have FL Zinash at his side. As the Good Book says, a man who has a “wife of noble character”
is respected at the city gate,/ where he takes his seat among the elders of the land…
A wife of noble character who can find?/ She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her/ and lacks nothing of value./ She brings him good, not harm,/ all the days of her life./… She is clothed with strength and dignity;/ she can laugh at the days to come./ Honor her for all that her hands have done,/ and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
I speak for all Ethiopians of good will and good faith when I say to FL Zinash, “We honor you for being the wind beneath Abiy’s wings, so he can soar higher than the eagles over the city gate!”
Prof. Alemayehu “Al” G. Mariam,
About Al Mariam
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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.
Prof. Mariam played a central advocacy role in the passage of H.R. 2003 (Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007) in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007. Prof. Mariam also practices in the areas of criminal defense and civil litigation. In 1998, he argued a major case in the California Supreme Court involving the right against self-incrimination in People v. Peevy, 17 Cal. 4th 1184, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1042 (1998) which helped clarify longstanding Miranda rights issues in California criminal procedure. For several years, Prof. Mariam had a weekly public channel public affairs television show in Southern California called “In the Public Interest”. Prof. Mariam received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1984, and his J.D. from the University of Maryland in 1988.
Analysis: New leader wields great power, commands massive support and has achieved a huge amount in a short space of time. But evidence suggests that biggest challenges lie ahead
William Davison
Ethiopia’s new prime minister Abiy Ahmed has been embracing change, quite literally. Last month, in what has become almost a trademark move, the beaming young leader of Africa’s second-largest nation hugged Isaias Afwerki, the autocratic president of erstwhile enemy Eritrea. Mr Ahmed has been similarly intimate with Ethiopian opposition figures released from prison or invited home.
Those gestures symbolise his inclusive approach since becoming the leader in April, on the back of three years of rolling unrest that looked destined to degenerate into intensifying conflict. Although a treacherous road lies ahead, the wildly popular Mr Ahmed has already transformed the political landscape, giving hope to millions of a more harmonious future.
His election by the ruling coalition in late March, after the previous premier resigned, was seen as a victory for reformist elements, but few foresaw the radicalism of Mr Ahmed’s first months, as he used the prime ministerial bully pulpit to engineer rapid change. This involved normalising relations with Mr Afwerki after a cold war lasting 18 years, and opening up domestic politics to banned groups. While Ethiopia has endured violent transitions in the past, this looks like a liberal democratic coup, and brings into question the future role of a formerly omnipotent ruling coalition.
The four-party Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which 42-year-old Mr Ahmed leads, has ruled the Horn of Africa powerhouse as a multinational federation since 1991, after it and Eritrean rebels overthrew a military regime. Eritrea then seceded, but the countries began a vicious two-year war in 1998 after falling out over trading arrangements.
Over the last decade, the EPRDF government was known for impressive infrastructure and anti-poverty programmes, but also for authoritarianism. It prioritised control, rather than pluralism, which meant a restrictive space for journalists, opposition groups and civil society activists. The result was EPRDF monopolisation of all legislative seats in a country of 100 million people, an ineffectual media, and few civil society challengers to the government’s agenda.
The Marxist-Leninist structured party drew its mandate from delivering growth, also arguing the system was democratic as it involved mass participation in development programmes, particularly in rural areas. Meanwhile, the federation granted autonomy and protected the linguistic and cultural identities of Ethiopia’s multifarious ethnic communities, theoretically enhancing its customised democracy.
The destabilising protests by the Oromo, Ethiopia’s most populous ethnicity with around 35 million people, have battered that narrative. And now Mr Ahmed appears intent on upending the EPRDF system from within, in pursuit of conventional democratisation.
The demonstrations in Oromia, which surrounds the capital, Addis Ababa, were driven by the smothering of dissent, historic complaints of marginalisation and more prosaic concerns over unjust evictions as the EPRDF’s growth model bulldozed Oromo farmers’ rights
Protests started in earnest a few months after a 2015 election when the sole opposition parliamentarian lost his seat. Although the Oromo are represented by Mr Ahmed’s party in the EPRDF, where decision-making is evenly split, opponents said the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) retained control. That party formed the EPRDF, spearheaded the rebellion that brought it to power, and its chairperson, Meles Zenawi, led Ethiopia from 1991 until his death in 2012. TPLF fighters established a new military and dominated the upper echelons of intelligence agencies.
As protests spread in 2016, security forces tried to quell the unrest with lethal force, which only served to energise a youthful movement. Foreign-based activists such as Jawar Mohammed disseminated evidence of the latest outrage. When a botched security operation led to a deadly stampede at an Oromo cultural festival, Mr Mohammed catalysed “five days of rage”. Nationwide, over the three years, more than 1,000 protesters were killed, while farms, factories and government offices were destroyed.
Under former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, the EPRDF struggled to cope. That was partly a result of its travails after Mr Zenawi’s death. Some economic momentum remained, but dams and railways were delayed, and the government struggled to manage the stresses of growth. The coalition was increasingly fractious, and concerns over maladministration and corruption festered. Late last year, the EPRDF politburo bemoaned its own leadership failures after a marathon meeting and announced plans to reboot democratisation. That led to some initial prisoner releases.
With the wind at their backs, the Oromo protests surged once more, cutting off Addis Ababa with a strike and road blockages. Mr Desalegn resigned in February and a second state of emergency was enacted to try to regain control. It was then that Mr Ahmed moved.
He had risen to lieutenant colonel in the military and served as deputy administrator of the Information Network Security Agency before becoming a parliamentarian and government minister. But his route to the top was as a leading light in a revitalised Oromo wing of the EPRDF, which capitalised on the protests to press the demands for greater power and autonomy. In March, his party elected him chairperson, partly because of his eligibility for prime minister as a national MP – and within weeks he was sworn-in at parliament.
Ethiopian man finds his family in Eritrea after 18 years
Mr Ahmed comes from a mixed religious background and speaks three of Ethiopia’s main languages. That diversity is reflected in his governing outlook. Accelerating the EPRDF plan, he released all political prisoners and coaxed rebels from the bush, while activists such as Mr Mohammed have also triumphantly returned. Common themes of Mr Ahmed’s speeches have been love and integration, and the intention appears to be for a hotchpotch of political actors to participate peacefully in elections in 2020.
That requires legislative changes to refine a catchall anti-terrorism law and encourage independent journalism and political activism. And in a delicate balancing act, it also means reestablishing government control of security after the unrest and seismic changes to the EPRDF system created something of a power vacuum.
In the last few months, amid the euphoria, ethnic violence has endured or broken out in various locations; anti-government activity has continued in Oromia, a grenade was thrown at a massive Addis Ababa rally attended by Mr Ahmed, and there has been an uptick in vigilante killings – and possibly two high-profile assassinations.
Opinions vary starkly on the causes. After they lost control of the security apparatus, many blame TPLF-linked agitators, which has contributed to lethal attacks on Tigrayans, creating fear among that community. But it is evident that many disputes are driven by local dynamics, rather than purely resulting from external provocation.
For example, the six million strong Sidama people are pressing a long held claim for their own region. In western Oromia, popular support for the Oromo Liberation Front bred fighting between regional forces and a holdout faction of the insurgency, while territorial clashes continued between the Oromo and neighbouring groups in the east and southeast. The federal government took a forceful step yesterday by sending in the military to assert control of Somali region and its unruly president.
Assuming the security situation soon finally stabilises, non-violent politics will hopefully take centre stage. In recent years, much opposition activity has been focused on campaigning against the TPLF. But with its officials mostly now removed from top federal government positions, other fault lines will emerge. The overarching one is the federation comprising ethnic administrative units, which some opposition groups argue foments sectarianism. Defenders argue it can thrive in a democratised environment, but others counter that it has been the reach and grip of the EPRDF that has held the constitutional arrangement together thus far.
A further major challenge is economic. A vital aspect of the EPRDF operation was channelling financial resources into much-needed infrastructure to build the backbone of a modern market economy. That model is now in question with Abiy Ahmed’s government ramping up a privatisation programme as the state’s capacity for public investment dwindles. It is questionable that this more liberal approach can deliver the growth or the structural transformation that a still poor and agrarian economy desperately needs.
Mr Ahmed wields great power, commands massive support and has achieved a huge amount in a short space of time. But the evidence suggests that the biggest challenges to completing his transformative agenda lie ahead.
There is a discussion underway among members to change the name of the Oromo People Democratic Organization (OPDO) in the spirit of “Medemer” or inclusiveness spearheaded by Lemma Megersa the head of the Oromo region of Ethiopia.
As we all know there are Oromos in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, etc. Such ethnic cross-border settlement is historical in some cases leading to war.
Somalis in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti are living in different countries, but the vision of Greater Somalia is still on paper.
One language “unites” Somalis and whether we create A Somali Democratic Party(SDP) or Somali People Democratic Party(SPDM) nothing changes.
Similarly changing the Oromo People Democratic Organization(OPDO) to Oromo Democratic Party (ODP) does not change what Oromo stands for. It is for people who identify themselves as Oromo.
The problem is not Oromo or Afan Oromo the Oromo language it is the 25-year-old map of Oromo region.
This map which is imposed on our people has to go with other eight regional maps of Ethiopia. The ethnic conflict this year alone that drove two million people in Ethiopia is a war to expand and cleanse regions.
Major cities like Addis Ababa, Harar, and Diredawa, are claimed by the Oromo parties regardless of their names. The Oromo region is expanding as we speak on paper.
Diredawa weekend death of 15 people is Oromos against Somalis both were rewarded the 40 percent share of the citiy and the rest of the Ethiopians 20 percent.A recipe for disaster. No wonder Djibouti asked fellow Somalis to stay away from Diredawa.
Addis Ababa so-called Federal city is the capital of the Oromo region if we hear the songs blasted from Millennium hall recently. This is a call for Qeero to march to Addis Ababa. Need to be stopped. It is a costly adventure.
Addis Ababa is not Finfine. It is not the Oromo capital. It is the capital city of Ethiopia.
Let me suggest for members and supporters of OPDO my input in a name change. You are in Ethiopia. The Oromos in Kenya, Uganda Tanzania, and Rwanda or other countries are not legal members of your party and why do not call your party our party Ethiopian Oromo Democratic Party (EODP). Good Luck !!!!
On August 4, 2018, the Ethiopian government has deployed the Federal forces in the Somali Regional State. Following this Federal intervention, we are witnessing a massive outcry for and against the intervention on different social media platforms. Prominent facebook accounts and twitter handles, especially those who were alleged beneficiaries of the TPLF lead government strongly condemned the intervention and labelled the act as that of unconstitutional Federal overreach, and an attack on the Federal order.
I am lured to write this piece in response to the invective outcry for the respect of the constitution. Thus, I will try to discuss the legality of the intervention in light of the Ethiopian Constitution and Proclamation No. 359/2003; and limits of the Federal government’s power during and after such Federal intervention.
Why Federal Intervention?
Article 51 of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia states the powers and functions of the Federal government. Among the power given to the Federal government pursuant to the Constitution is “to protect and defend the constitution”. Article 51 does not command the means and methods to be used when protecting and defending the Constitution. This is where Proclamation No. 359/2003 (The Proclamation) comes into play. This proclamation was promulgated for such intervention purposes as the title indicates. It was titled “System for the Intervention of the Federal Government in the Regions”. This law from the gate go indicates that federal intervention was foreseeable and not unconstitutional per se.
Intervention when?
The Proclamation requires the Federal Government to intervene in the Region when the Constitutional order is endangered. The constitutional order would be threatened when all or one of the followings occurs:
An activity or act carried out by the participation or consent of a Regional Government in violation of the Constitution or the constitutional order and in particular:
armed uprising;
resolving conflicts between another Region or Nations, Nationality or People of another Region through non-peaceful means;
disturbance of peace and security of the Federal Government; or
violations of the directive given by the pursuant to this proclamation.
The situation in Somali Region has at least met one of the above conditions. Abdi Iley, the President of the Region has allegedly sent his special forces to Dire Dawa, which is not in his jurisdiction. The deployment of the Region’s special forces into the Federal jurisdiction, without the permission or consent of the government by itself is a crime if not an act of belligerence. Furthermore, it was reported that non-Somali residents of Jigjiga and other towns in the Region have been attacked and deprived of their properties by unobtrusive militias of Abdi Illey. It was also reported at least one Church was maliciously set on fire and a number of banks were looted and vandalized. Amid all of this tumult, there is Abidi Illey, who in past has effectively undermined the Federal order, and coveted to transform his supremacy to another realm.
The Federal Government, being mandated by the Constitution to protect and defend the Constitution and the Federal order, would be held accountable if it has not intervened. In fact, the Federal Government will still be held accountable for its unfathomable delay to intervene.
What measures shall be taken during the intervention?
The proclamation gives a broad power to the Federal Government when intervention is warranted in the Regions. Thus, the Federal Government can take any measure that is reasonable under the circumstances and appropriate to cease the lawless act that justified such intervention. If the incident or incidents that warranted the Federal intervention exhibits violations of human rights the proclamation gives power to the Prime Minister to set up an interim administration and run the regular activities of the Region if the measure taken incapacitates the Executive organ of the Regional Government.
The provisional administration that may be assigned by the Prime Minister shall have the following mandates:
a. lead and coordinate the executive organ; b. assign heads provisional administration; c. ensure enforcement of law and order; d. facilitate conditions for conducting the election; e. approve a plan and budget for the Region; f. carry out other duties to be entrusted it by the Federal Government.
The unfolding events in the Somali Region have shown time and again that Abdi Illey long gambolled out of the constitutional order. The unprecedented fatalities of Oromos and the mass displacement that followed was orchestrated by Abdi Illey done in concert with his special force.
In conclusion, Federal intervention in the Regions is constitutionally authorized when the Constitutional order is deemed threatened. The Proclamation not only allows Federal intervention but also gives power to the Federal Government to establish a provisional government, in the region where such intervention was justified. If demanded, the provisional government shall stay in the region for two years, with a possible extension of another six months. Therefore, Dr. Abiy’s deployment of Federal Forces in Somali Region is constitutional, and if justified the Prime Minister can make the executive organ of the region incapable and establish a provisional government.
Mengistu D. Assefa for East African Policy Research Institute
07 August 2018
Oromo Liberation Front, a resistance armed organization held a successful negotiation with the delegates of the government of Ethiopia today in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital. The delegates of the Ethiopian government was led by Workneh Gebeyehu, the country’s foreign minister and Lemma Megersa, a charismatic politician in Ethiopia who came to public spotlight after his election to preside over the restive region of Oromia in late 2016. The Front’s leader Dawud Ibsa, and spokesperson Tolera Adaba lead the OLF side, which includes other dignitaries like Ibsa Negewo, Atomsa Kumsa and Gemechu Ayana.
Yemane Gebremeskel, Eritrean Information minister in his tweet said that “Agreement of Reconciliation” was signed between Oromia Regional State Government President Lemma Megersa and Oromo Liberation Front Chairperson Dawud Ibsa.
Workneh Gebeyehu, Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Dawud Ibsa, OLF Chairperson & Lemma Megersa, President of Oromia Regional State, August 7, 2018, Asmara, Eritrea/Source Workneh Gebeyehu`s Facebook Page
The Agreement details the ending of hostilities between the two parts, OLF agreement to conduct peaceful political struggle in Ethiopia and establishment of a joint committee to implement the Agreement.
OLF believes that Oromos have been under successive repressions and oppressions of Abyssinian powers under different names. According to its mission statement on its website “The fundamental objective of the Oromo liberation movement is to exercise the Oromo peoples’ inalienable right to national self-determination to terminate a century of oppression and exploitation, and to form, where possible, a political union with other nations on the basis of equality, respect for mutual interests and the principle of voluntary associations”.
Established by Oromo nationalists in the 1973, OLF was among the rebel groups who fought to topple the dictator Mengistu Hailemariam. After defeating Mengistu together with Eritrea People`s Liberation Front (EPLF) and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), OLF was part of the Transitional government until it was pushed out in 1992 by the TPLF who controls the Coalition of four ethnic parties. Oromo People’s Democratic Party (OPDO), Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) and South Ethiopia Peoples’ Democratic Movement SEPDM) are the other three rubber stamp members of the coalition, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
OLF has been based in Asmara, a long-term Ethiopia’s enemy with which Ethiopia had a bloody two years border war. The stalemate had continued as a “no war no peace” status till the it finally ended in July 2018 by the Ethio-Eritrea peace deal. Ethiopia has entertaining a wide range of reforms by its new leader Abiy Ahmed, who took power in April after four years of ungovernable nationwide protests. Abiy called upon political groups to engage in a peaceful struggle to which his government decided to remove OLF and other three indigenous parties from the terrorist list.
In pursuant to this, OLF declared a temporary unilateral ceasefire on July 13, 2018. Today’s agreement between the two parts marks one of the hallmarks of new political arena in the east African economic powerhouse with over 100 million people.
Dear Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed, could you please spare me a couple of minutes to take a close look at some points I am making here? … Your honor remembers that a number of evil, immoral and illegal acts have been carried out in this country of ours. People were kidnapped, incarcerated, tortured and summarily murdered. Mothers have long been crying bitterly over the atrocities perpetrated against their respective family members.
Now, I want you to give due attention to one major issue. Could you please make sure that there will not occur genocide, impartiality and apartheid in the education sector? I don’t have the slightest information whether or not this issue was raised during your recent discussion with university academics. As we are about to start the new Ethiopian academic year, we parents are at the ready to send our children to higher learning institutions. While doing this, we feel a wind of fear. I said this as experiences have taught us a lot in the sector for the past 27 years. We doubt if our young progenies are allowed to get their due placements in colleges and universities as per their academic results on the national school leaving examinations. I feel uncertainty in this regard. What has happened over the last 27 years in higher learning institutions strengthens my doubt.
A detailed study conducted on the issues indicates that students were admitted by favoritism in to higher learning institutions like Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (AASTU). This university, located in Addis Ababa, was founded in 2011 and is a public higher education institution officially accredited by the Ministry of Education. My point is that though students desire to join this university through entrance examinations, only favored ones from one ethno-linguistic community (Tigray) were selected to the contrary of the rules and regulations of any higher learning institutions including AASTU. According to information obtained from an instructor of AATSU, many students from Tigray region have been selected exclusively and given the opportunity to join AATSU. “. . . the overrepresentation of Tigreans both as staff members as well as students is visible. It is a matter of fact. It is not a matter of opinion. I have no clues how either the student groups or the staff end up here with us. In any case Tigreans presence is highly felt both in academia and decision-making organs. Too many things are subtle and unpredictable. No transparence! No openness.” (Ethiopia: Intellectual Genocide in the making?)
Many such incidents are witnessed in another higher learning institutions. A research document (Ethiopia: Intellectual Genocide in the making?) quoted Assefa Negash’s study, ‘The pillage of Ethiopia by Eritreans and their Tigrean surrogates’ as stating that “…out of 60 medical doctors who recently applied for specialization at the department of Gynecology/obstetrics, 15 candidates were admitted. Of the 15, 11 were Tigreans. The department of Pediatrics of the Addis Ababa Medical School was equally ethnically cleansed recently and a Tigrean named as its head.”
Non-Tigrean educated citizens have deliberately been pushed back from making use of their rights to get overseas scholarship and research fellowship opportunities. Students who belong to Tigre tribe have been selected exclusively to enjoy the opportunities of free scholarships. This has happened in our Ethiopia. It is an absolute apartheid! “Out of 52 scholarship grants that the government of the Netherlands gave to Ethiopia at a specific year, about 50 went to the Tigrean region”.
The same document, cited above, states that out of 55 scholarship students who were sent to the Wageningen University (Netherlands) by the regime, 50 are ethnic Tigreans. Most of them were recruited from Mekele University in collaboration with Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). The surprising thing is that the criterion for the selection of the students to follow MSc. courses is neither excellence nor academic GPAs. I am ashamed and hurt to know and announce that “ethnic background is the major factor for the selection”.
A lot of evidences show that partiality, unfairness, favoritism, partisanship and deception are clearly seen in the selection of students for free scholarship and fellowship grants. Suffice to mention about students who were pursing training at the university of Haifa, Israel. All students belong to one ethnic group, Tigre, and come from Qalamino Special High School. A few years ago, another group of students solely from one ethnic group have been trained in the same university.
An Engineering student of Ethiopian origin said in an interview given to compile a research paper, ‘Ethiopia: Intellectual Genocide in the making?’ that he had seen exclusively Tigrean students in Haifa university campus for the past two years. According to him, some of the students are at the undergraduate level while others were pursuing their training at post graduate level. “They study civil engineering and irrigation. I think all of them came from Qalamino Special High School. The elites boast that the future leaders of Ethiopian people will emerge out of this school.”
If one moves around in offices in Addis Ababa, s/he confidently recognizes that the majority of the workers who had enjoyed overseas scholarship and fellowship opportunities are the ones selected exclusively from Tigray ethnic group.
Dear Prime Minister, citizens need you to make certain that such way of intellectual genocide will not happen again in our country.
Ermias Legesse, once a state minister of Communication Affairs Office, said in his book, ‘Yemeles Liqaqit’ that 90% of the students at Geology Department of Addis Ababa University are from Tigray Region. As this department was made to be controlled by Tigrean students and instructors, it is nick-named Department of Tigray. Ermias states that Tigrean instructors secretly supply Tigrean students with copies of examinations which are translated in to Tigrigna language. After graduation, Tigrean students from this department will be assigned on permanent basis to different companies of EFFORT (Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray) like: Ezana Mining Development, Biruk Chemical, Mesobo Cement Factory, Saba Emnebered (marble) and Sur Construction. The astonishing thing is that graduates from other ethnic groups are told to look for jobs by themselves or organize themselves and create jobs like coble stone construction…
Dear Prime Minister, I am pleading with you to pay heed to an issue that only qualified instructors and academics should be placed in universities if quality of education is needed to be realized. Moreover, political assignments of citizens must be on the basis of efficiency, excellence or experience. Merit should be given special focus of attention in every walks of life. I hope your government will take this in to consideration. The future of our young progenies depends on what your government is doing in this country. Your positive action is a fuel for the young people who will be encouraged to give due attention to education. Alem Mamo states in his article entitled, “The Disgraceful State of Higher Education in Ethiopia: How TPLF/EPRDF Killed Higher Learning’ that “…merit and qualification has never been TPLF/EPRDF’s strong suit. Starting from senior cabinet positions to all the way to the lowest level of the administrative body they have appointed their cadres to run the country, and, quite frankly, the regime is not going to treat universities in any different way…” This is what we all hate. We bear witnesse to the outcome of the governance of bunch of idiots.
Dear sir, I want you to make sure such things will not happen hereafter in this country. I want this issue to be under the watchful eyes of your honor. I feel your honor will have to follow such developments of the education sector along with the effort you ae putting forth to bulldoze the barrier wall of hatred, disunity, irresponsibility, corruptions, nepotism, racism, ignorance, poverty, malnutrition.
Addis Abeba, July 08/2018 – The International Development Secretary, Penny Mordaunt, has today launched the UK’s biggest ever tax partnership programme to help Ethiopia generate more tax during her visit to the country.
The program will transform Ethiopia’s tax system, helping it to harness the potential of its booming economic growth. This new partnership will also help the country generate revenue so that it can better finance its own services and development, becoming less reliant on aid.
Ms Mordaunt announced the scheme on August 07 before a meeting with Ethiopia’s Finance Minister, Dr Abraham Tekeste. She may also have the opportunity to meet new Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, becoming the first UK Government Minister to do so.
Ethiopia is rapidly industrializing, and with this new partnership the UK will support the country to meet its ambitions to develop its economy. Extra tax revenues will help the country tackle poverty, invest in its own services, boost economic growth and move beyond aid.
During her visit to Ethiopia, Ms Mordaunt visited UK garment factory Hela at Hawassa Industrial Park to see how the country’s industrialization is opening up opportunities for UK business, trade and investment. She marked the launch of the previously announced Jobs Compact which is creating over 100,000 jobs for some of the most vulnerable Ethiopians, including refugees.
Ethiopia is currently host to over 900,000 refugees from across the region. By empowering refugees to get jobs, the UK is helping them to rebuild their lives so that they do not seek dangerous migratory journeys outside the region. This is ensuring Ethiopia remains a force for stability in a volatile region. “Ethiopia’s security, development and prosperity matter for the UK – which is why we’re working with the country to help it generate more tax from its rapid growth. This will help Ethiopia fund its own development – and ultimately transition beyond aid,” Secretary Penny Mordaunt said. She also announced new support to improve the welfare and security of employees at the Industrial Park.
During her visit Ms Mordaunt also had the chance to visit a camp for internally displaced people in Ethiopia, where over two million people across the country have been forced to leave their homes. She saw first-hand how the UK’s flexible response is currently providing an uplift in basic lifesaving support for almost a million people. Ms Mordaunt added that the UK was also “helping the most vulnerable Ethiopians, including refugees who have fled neighboring countries, to find jobs and rebuild their lives, creating the stability which will allow Ethiopia and the region to prosper. This is a win for Ethiopia and a win for the UK, including British businesses such as Hela which are thriving in East Africa.”
Amid historic change and optimism in the country, Ms Mordaunt also launched a Civil Society Support program to empower some of the most vulnerable people in Ethiopia, including those with disabilities, to have their say in the changes happening in their country.
Agreement appears to be another step by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to improve the country’s security.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is also from the country’s Oromia region [File: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
Ethiopia’s government has signed an agreement to end hostilities with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which it had previously labelled a “terrorist movement”.
The deal signed in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, on Tuesday appeared to be another step by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to improve security and diplomatic relations, reform institutions and open parts of the state-controlled economy.
Since the 1970s, the rebels have fought a low-level battle for self-determination for the Oromia region, which is Ethiopia’s largest and home to the Oromo ethnic group.
The OLF was initially part of a transitional government set up in 1991 by rebels from a coalition, which had driven former military ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam from power, but they soon fell out with the coalition.
The government has now signed a reconciliation agreement to end hostilities with the OLF’s exiled leader, Dawud Ibsa, who lives in exile in Asmara, the capital of neighbouring Eritrea, said Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.
“The agreement further states that … the OLF will conduct its political activities in Ethiopia through peaceful means,” he said on Twitter.
The group declared a unilateral ceasefire last month after parliament removed it from a list of banned terrorist groups that it had been part of since 2008.
Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said that the agreement is a “huge boost for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed”.
“Prime Minister Abiy himself is an Oromo and having a rebel group from his own community fighting his government would have been a huge setback for the raft of reforms that he has initiated in the country,” Adow said, adding there are additional reasons why the OLF signed the agreement, ending hostilities with the state.
“They were getting most of their support from the Eritrean government and now that the Eritrean government has normalised relations with the Ethiopian government, that support was not forthcoming,” Adow said.
Abiy took office in April and his reforms have included extending an olive branch to dissidents overseas.
He has also acknowledged abuses by security services and ended a military stalemate with Eritrea that followed a 1998-2000 border war in which 80,000 people are thought to have died.
Jawar and his group arrived at the city of Bahr Dar. Looking forward to discussing with officials, intellectuals and academics on united Ethiopians. Finger Crossed!!!!
An easing of cross-border tensions, a zeal for free trade, and a more globalist-minded young leader have brought change to the Horn of Africa. Can this formula catch on across the continent?
RICHARD POPLAK
Eritrea’s President, Isaias Afwerki talks to Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed during the Inauguration ceremony marking the reopening of the Eritrean Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri – RC13F9FB50E0
On June 23 in Addis Ababa, a hand grenade exploded within earshot of Abiy Ahmed Ali, Ethiopia’s newly inaugurated, widely adored prime minister. Due to either good luck or ineptitude on behalf of the assailants (likely both), Abiy emerged unscathed. Regardless, this was no way to treat a strong contender for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize: The 42-year-old premier had just ended the two-decade-long conflict between Ethiopia and its recalcitrant neighbor, the mountainous redoubt of Eritrea. Five suspects were charged following the attack, which appears to have been an attempt to derail Abiy’s aggressive slate of reforms—an agenda with its share of motivated critics along with its legions of supporters.
Abiy is a warrior poindexter, a former military man who co-founded and directed Ethiopia’s domestic cyber-intelligence agency, and who most recently served as science and technology minister. The international press has portrayed him as an educated, Western-style reformer, and with good reason: His early economic policies are lifted straight from the liberal orthodoxy, and his speeches promote a secular, Bono-esque “one love” that is bracingly rare in an age of rampant sectarianism. His PhD thesis, entitled “Social Capital and its Role in Traditional Conflict Resolution in Ethiopia: The Case of Inter-Religious Conflict In Jimma Zone state,” is an incisive diagnosis of the ethic, cultural, and religious problems blighting his country, and perhaps the planet.
Nothing symbolizes the transformative nature of Abiy’s efforts better than Ethiopia-Eritrea rapprochement. Beyond the images of families uniting for the first time in decades, peace has upended the region in hard geopolitical terms, with talk of the United Nations Security Council lifting its sanctions on Eritrea, and the very real prospect that Ethiopia could elevate itself to a regional superpower. There are winners in such an arrangement, and losers—and observers fear that the latter will start expressing their displeasure in terms more forceful than ad hoc grenade attacks.
First, though, the good news: Ethiopia’s economy was the fastest-growing in the world in 2017. But despite the ecstatic figures, on a per capita basis, Ethiopia isn’t much better off than Haiti, making it one of the poorer countries in the world. Long run by devout Maoists suspicious of anything smacking of free-market capitalism, Ethiopia’s economy was under tight state control until Abiy’s ascension. While Addis Ababa transmogrified into a tower-clogged megalopolis, social discord rendered parts of the nation virtually ungovernable. Abiy has promised to change all that, in no small part by opening his borders. As if presaging his endeavors, and certainly designed to encourage such reforms, since 2014 African countries have been adding their signatures to the Niamey Convention, which called for increased cross-border co-operation. (Only about 10 percent of African trade is intra-continental.)
Nothing articulated the insanity of African border regimes better than the Ethiopian-Eritrean deadlock. In 1952, the United Nations rolled tiny Eritrea, a former Italian colony, into an Ethiopia- dominated federation. Emperor Haile Selassie unilaterally annexed his neighbor 10 years later, sparking an insurgency which bubbled away until Eritrea was liberated in 1991. The country officially celebrated independence in 1993, when Isaias Afwerki, who became president after leading the liberation movement, rejected the overtures of the international community, and turned the country into a one-party state, ruled by one man, with no room for concessions. In 1998, he launched a war against Ethiopia over a disputed patch of desolate borderland. Two years later, tens of thousands were killed in trench warfare reminiscent of the worst of World War I. The resulting Algiers Agreement, which upheld most of Eritrea’s territorial claims, was ignored by the Ethiopians, resulting in a stalemate grimly described as “no peace, no war.”
In the ensuing decades, fears of terrorism and the threat of regional instability rendered Eritrea one of the most isolated countries on earth. In 2008, the Bush administration declared Isaias’s fiefdom to be a state-sponsor of terrorism; the Obama administration doubled down on this view after finding evidence that the regime was shielding Somali-based insurgents. In June 2015, the UN Human Rights Council published a comprehensive 480-page reportdocumenting the boundless cruelty that Eritrea visited upon its own citizens. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of December 2014, over 363,000 refugees have originated from Eritrea, along with a further 54,000 asylum seekers—nearly 10 percent of the country’s population. At least 3,000 people are said to flee a month, most of them into scorching Sudan and then north across the Mediterranean, contributing significantly to the largest global refugee crisis since World War II.
Across the border in Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, who became prime minister in 1995, worked to keep al-Shabaab insurgents at bay while viciously repressing his own Muslim population. He was not known for walking away from a confrontation, and on Eritrea he was particularly intransigent: There was every reason to think the detente would last forever. But following a short illness, Meles died in 2012. Into the vacuum walked deputy prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, a former sanitation engineer without a significant power base, who stood down in February, after waves of violent protests sparked by attempts to ethnically gerrymander the capital.
Suddenly, the ruling party anointed Abiy Ahmed Ali prime minister. Popular but untested, he was an anomaly for a number of reasons. First, he was said to be Ethiopia’s first Muslim premier. This is not precisely true—while his father is Muslim, his mother is not, and he exists in a sectarian middle-ground that makes him acceptable to an array of constituencies. Second, he belongs to the traditionally marginalized Oromo ethnic group that constitutes around 40 percent of the Ethiopian population. Within weeks of his inauguration, he freed thousands of political protesters and journalists from jail, and introduced economic reforms that would have been unthinkable under Meles. (They are by no means universally embraced by the ruling elite.) In short, he has rendered the country unrecognizable to itself. Most notably, he accepted the terms of the Algiers Agreement, a gesture that finally ended the “no war, but no peace” impasse that has cracked open the Horn of Africa, perhaps for good.
Where do we situate Abiy in the pantheon of up-and-coming geopolitical superstars? African politicians have for years been visiting Davos and World Economic Forum events and the ideas promulgated in such spaces appear to have taken hold. It’s not a great time for the Davos crowd: The bastion of free-market, entrepreneurial, liberal esprit has been slammed by the hard right and the hard left alike. But it remains the home of young centrists looking for ideas and support. Abiy has clearly internalized the Davos-minted, “everything is connected” view of the liberalized, border-lite nation-state, making him fashionable in elite African circles, at least by current standards. Angola and South Africa, who recently inaugurated new leaders with relatively progressive ideas, have been either advocating for a single African passport or reducing visa requirements for their neighbors. There has even been talk of a single, Bitcoin-esque African currency. (Emphasis on “talk.”) In Rwanda in March, under the eye of the country’s business-minded autocrat Paul Kagame, 44 African states signed an agreement to create an African Free Trade area. The dusty, inflexible socialism of Isaias Afwerki’s generation has given way to Abiy Ahmed’s brand of reformism.
Or so the theory goes. There are 54 countries in Africa, and it’s lunacy to suggest that they’ll all transform into Western-style liberal democracies within the next few years. But the speed with which Abiy has implemented his reforms implies a confidence in ideas that have lost their flavor in the West. What’s more, Abiy’s version of liberalism hasn’t been adopted wholesale like any old colonial consumer product—rather, it’s been adapted to local conditions and requirements. “[Our] identity is built in such a way that it is inseparable,” he said in his inaugural address. “It is threaded in a manner that cannot be untangled. It is integrated out of love.” Ethiopia, in this conception, is a microcosm of the planet. Divided it cannot thrive.
That said: Since America became distracted by terrorism following 9/11, and as Europe continued to see Africa as a basket-case instead of a market, other players have entered the African sphere. China is the continent’s single largest trading partner, while the Middle East are big players in Ethiopia and Eritrea. These relationships are radically re-shaping how African leaders see the world.
Abiy, however, proves that there is still a home for pragmatic, business-first centrist liberal rhetoric, and the Eritrea-Ethiopia reconciliation is the greatest expression of this. By no means is it a done deal; there are many snags to be worked out. After all, it bears remembering that Abiy is a former intelligence hack, and he may end up reverting to type when the going gets tough, as it most surely will. Still, with the ideological (and literal) grenades flying in from all directions, Abiy the reformer appears resolute. There’s almost certainly a Davos keynote slot open for him next January.
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RICHARD POPLAK is a political reporter for the Daily Maverick in South Africa, and the author of a forthcoming book on big mining.
While Ethiopians were celebrating the reconciliation between the exiled and home synod in Addis Ababa yesterday by coincidence or not churches were burnt down in Somali region of Ethiopia and the news coming from the region at this moment is very disturbing.
From: Eskinder Nega, Journalist, Human Rights and Democracy Activist
