By AFP

From its hillside overlooking the Ethiopian capital, Berhanu Mengistu’s century-old, gabled family home has seen emperors and governments rise and fall.

The post Africa As Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa rises, history rots appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Russia’s new strategic weapon has rendered any missile defenses useless at a small fraction of their cost, officials said Thursday.

The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle flies 27 times faster than the speed of sound, making it impossible to intercept, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told Russian state television.

The new weapon “essentially makes missile defenses useless,” he said.

Borisov spoke a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw what he described as the conclusive successful test of the Avangard and hailed it as a reliable guarantee of Russia’s security for decades to come.

In Wednesday’s test, the weapon was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. The Kremlin said it successfully hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on Kamchatka, 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) away.

The Defense Ministry released footage from the test launch, in which a ballistic missile could be seen blasting from a silo in a cloud of smoke, but it hasn’t released any images of the vehicle itself.

Putin said the Avangard will enter service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces next year.

The test comes amid bitter tensions in Russia-U.S. relations, which have been strained over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Sergei Ivanov, a former Russian defense minister, said in televised comments that the Avangard constantly changes its course and altitude as it flies through the atmosphere.

He emphasized that unlike previous nuclear warheads fitted to intercontinental ballistic missiles that follow a predictable trajectory allowing it to calculate the spot where they can be intercepted, the Avangard chaotically zigzags on its path to its target, making it impossible to predict the weapon’s location.

A smiling Ivanov likened the weapon’s flight through the atmosphere to a pebble skipping off the surface of water.

Ivanov, who now serves as Putin’s adviser, said the Avangard could be fitted to the Soviet-made UR-100UTTKh intercontinental ballistic missile, which is code-named SS-19 Stiletto by NATO.

He noted that Russia has a stockpile of several dozen such missiles, which are in a factory-mint condition and not filled with fuel, allowing them to serve for a long time to come. Ivanov added that they could be put in existing silos, sharply reducing the costs of Avangard’s deployment.

“The Avangard has cost hundreds of times less than what the U.S. has spent on its missile defense,” Ivanov said.

He noted that Russia began to develop the Avangard after the 2002 U.S. withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and started to develop defenses against ballistic missiles.

Moscow feared that the U.S. missile shield could erode its nuclear deterrent, and Putin announced in 2004 that Russia was working on a new hypersonic weapon.

Ivanov recalled that when Russian officials warned their U.S. counterparts about the new weapon program at the time, American officials were openly skeptical about Russia’s ability to carry out its plan.

“We aren’t involved in saber-rattling, we simply ensured our security for decades to come,” he said.

The post The new Russian weapon 27 times faster than speed of sound and makes missile defenses useless appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By Tekleab Shibru Associate Professor of Geomatics, Chicago State University

The video observed youth physically assaulting elderlies in Shashemane has sent the wave of shock across the country and here in diaspora. The reasons been that footage marked a stark departure from Ethiopian (Oromo) common values and beliefs. Most of us, if not all, grew up vacating sitting places and prestigious stages for the elderlies. As Oromian, we are embodied with a tradition of yielding the elderlies and seeking their blessing as they are believed to have divine power to discharge or withhold fortune and misfortune. In general, it is universal principle to respect elders because the present (we) is (are) the workmanship of the past (i.e., our grandparents).  Elderlies are wisdom, knowledge and backbone that bounds the community together. They balance by imparting culture in otherwise fast modernizing (changing) society.

Contrary to this value that we hold close to our heart, we lived long-enough to see youths recklessly throwing fist toward elders. Throwing elderlies on the ground, hitting and bumping them against the wall. The youths’ glaring mercilessness was in displace while knocking elderlies down. As if the kicking, fisting, hitting, throwing, bumping etc…weren’t enough, stones, and cobbles were thrown to hurt and baton used to damage. Painfully, it was an unfair match-up between the youths in the age of 20s or less against elderlies in the 60s and 70s. Their hopeless and helplessness are devastating to see and no one could watch the footage without tears dropping on both sides of the chins. Since when our upcoming generations transformed into breaking our extremely revered and protected custom? How and Where did they this cruelty against the weakest among us?

The tragedy is that this is not an isolated incidence. There are three other incidences in Borana Zone, Southern Oromia, in just past 6 weeks. The first two was in Yabello Woreda, the capital city of Borana Zone. In what can only explained as utter display of human cruelty, On November 05, 2018, youths identify themselves as Yabello Qeerroo denied the burial of an old man with the name “Gimbe Borde”. Working Norwegian Church Aid, Gimbe Borde was known for life-long dedication and services to the people of Yabello, in particular and the zone, in general.  He was relief, rehabilitation and development expert in this semi-arid region often hit by recurrent draught.  In an attempt to deny the burial of the deceased, a group of 50 youths (Qeerroo) marched to the graveyard and started beating the old and young working on the tomb. The deceased was wronged for being member of Burji community of Yabello, an ethnic minority in the woreda. While, the burial did take place, escorted by police officers and security forces, several individuals sustained minor and major injuries. None of these Qeerroos held accountable.

Ten days later, on November 16, 2018, in Yabello Comprehensive High Schoo,l a student from the Burji tribe was found holding a “bullet case” on his hand. This was enough for Yabello Qeerroos to disrupt the school and started beating and assaulting students and teachers (i.e., Ocha Golo and Dube Simon) from Burji tribe. Alarmed by the situation, the principal called the police for intervention, Qeerroos overpowered the policemen and chased them out of the school premise. The next day, November 17, 2018, the principal, Borana zone administration, the community leaders were gathered to resolve the issue. “Qeerroos”, started physically assaulting and beating extremely revered community elders, Boru Boneya and Sara Jirmo in a manner that is unprecedented in Borana culture. Severely beaten elder had to be hurried to Hawassa Hospital for medical treatment due to sustained life-threatening injuries.

Just last week another conflict erupted between “Qeerroos” of Teltele and elders of the woreda, Borana zone. Angered by the conflict in Moyale, Teltele Qeerroos organized to vandalize and steal ethnic Somali shops and properties in town. In a perfect example that mirrors what Gamo elders had done in Arbaminch, the elders, mostly from Burji community, marched in the town and pleaded with “Qeerroos” not to do these crimes against fellow native Teltelians. With experiences of Gamo elders, Teltele elders believed the youths wouldn’t trespass their plea. However, Teltele Qeerroos, had long-lost any sense of culture, trespassed, beat the elders and invaded the village to loot, destroy and burn properties. While no body was killed, the violence displaced approximately 3000 people, 706 household looted, 61 homes destroyed, and 250 cattle was stolen.

In Shashemane, the city administrator pointed the blame on the timing of the video release as if what shames the city is not the act of violence but the timing of its release. It hard to believe and fathom the explanation. The expectation was for the administrator to use the video footage, he was going to hunt these culprits to the end of the earth and make the face the full weight of the law.

In Borana zone, at least administration admit that the local government is totally overpowered by Yabello “Qeerroos”. The local government feels extremely powerless as the unruly mobs threaten to burn the entire city upside down, should they not get their way. The fact that few cabinets allegedly covering and remotely agitating the youths have produced a crack in the local government to further humble their situation.

In Teltele woreda, government officials allegedly orchestrated and facilitated the disaster. Local population alleges the following individuals for triggering the violence, and submitted the name to the powerless zonal administration.

1) Nura Huka Kusaro (the woreda peace and security expert).

2) Baraqo Cana (Teltelle Woreda ODP head)

4) Tadhi Wako (Woreda Peace and Security head)

5) Habtamu Halake (Local Police officer head)

However, as I am wind-up this note, can’t help but shake grasping what I only hope to be a nightmare not reality. Our elders, and Abba Gadaas are facing a bitter dilemma of urge to carry out their social duties (i.e., reconciliation and pacification) on one hand and avoiding wraths of lawless and uncultured “Qeerroo” on the other. It’s a troubling dilemma. So difficult to say goodbye to the Ethiopia, my people and culture we cherished since the time of immemorial. No one can fathom this sea-change in perspectives. Where, what and how did we go wrong as people to get to this? I thank ESAT for their Eletawi yesterday December 26, 2018, it was great conversation and it need to continue.

The post Shashemane is not an isolated incidence, Fake uncultured “Qeerroos” are beating elderlies elsewhere in Oromia appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By ELIAS MESERET | Associated Press

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Eritrea has partially closed two border crossings with Ethiopia that opened this year after the former East African rivals made peace and restored relations, an Ethiopian official said Friday.

Thousands of people have crossed the border that had been closed for two decades, with traders pursuing brisk business and families reuniting after years apart. The crossings opened with fanfare in September as both countries said they would remove their troops.

It was not clear why Eritrea closed the crossings to Ethiopians, spokeswoman Liya Kassa with Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region told The Associated Press. She said Eritreans were still crossing freely.

The Zalambessa and Rama crossings were closed as of Wednesday morning and preliminary information “indicates it was closed from the Eritrean side,” she said.

Eritrean border officials are now asking Ethiopian travelers to provide a travel document issued by federal authorities, she said. “We have communicated the issue with the federal government and we were told they don’t have any information about it,” she added. “Only Ethiopians are facing the restrictions.”

Eritrean officials were not immediately available for comment.

Ethiopia’s foreign ministry spokesman on Thursday told reporters he had no information about the new border restrictions. Photos posted on social media show stranded buses and trucks at the two crossings.

Abraham Gedamu, an Ethiopian traveler who went to Zalambessa to cross into Eritrea for a religious event, said he was denied entry on Thursday morning.

“They said I have to wait because they are drawing up a new travel directive. Several hundred others are facing the same issue,” he told the AP by phone.

Ethiopia and Eritrea restored relations in June after Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, assumed power in April and fully accepted a peace deal ending a bloody border war from 1998 to 2000. Dramatic changes followed, with Abiy and longtime Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki visiting each other’s capitals and embracing while phone lines opened and air links resumed.

The international community welcomed the new peace that has led to further diplomatic breakthroughs in the often turbulent Horn of Africa region. In November, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to lift sanctions against Eritrea after nearly a decade.

“Eritrea recognizes that a more difficult and complex task is waiting ahead,” Eritrea’s Charge d’Affaires Amanuel Giorgio said after the council’s vote. “It is determined to redouble its own efforts and work closely with its neighbors to build a region at peace with itself.”

The post Eritrea closes border crossings to Ethiopian travelers appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Gete Alemayehu of Ethiopia smashed the 10k course record at the Corrida Pédestre Internationale de Houilles today.  The men’s race was won by Julien Wanders of Switzerland, who also set a new European record for the race.

Alemayehu proved to be the strongest at the end as she just got the edge of compatriot Helen Tola. The 20-year-old won in 31:12 to take 55 seconds off her previous PB.

Tola, who clocked a marathon best of 2:22:48 in Berlin in September, finished just one second behind, three seconds better than her previous PB.

Susan Jeptoo rounded the podium in 32:34. Clémence Calvin, who reduced the French record to 31:20 earlier this year, finished ninth in a more modest 34:00.

LEADING RESULTS

Women
1 Gete Alemayehu (Ethiopia) 31:12
2 Helen Tola (Ethiopia) 31:13
3 Susan Jeptoo (Kenya) 32:34
4 Karolina Nadolska (Poland 32:44
5 Ophélie Claude-Boxberger (France) 32:50

Men
1 Julien Wanders (Switzerland) 27:25
2 Berehanu Tsegu (Ethiopia) 27:36
3 Albert Chemutai (Uganda) 27:52
4 Filmon Ande (Eritrea) 27:57
5 Haftu Teklu (Ethiopia) 28:09

Source: IAAF.org

The post Gete Alemayehu smashes course record at Corrida Pédestre Internationale de Houilles appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By Andrew Irumba

Khartoum- Sudan president Omar Al-Bashir has resigned after weeks of demonstrations and a mutiny by some top police leadership in his country.

Vice-President Bakri Hassan has been sworn in as interim president and immediately vowed to up hold ‘rule of law’. He was sworn in amid heavy security deployment.

Mr.Bashir who has been in power since the 1989 military coup is now being held at the presidential palace in the capital against his will, his brother told the press.

The post Breaking! Sudan President Steps Down Amid Unrest! appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

December 31, 2018

Tegenaw Goshu

As any genuinely concerned ordinary Ethiopian, I try to go through any written or verbal political ideas and views brought forward by individuals and groups, and of course by politicians and leaders of the ruling front and government.

I do sincerely, not surprisingly try to make sense out of some political behaviors and actions which intentionally or otherwise are terribly messy or ugly as far as the very critical political juncture of our country is concerned.  I do feel very sad, not hopeless when I come across political attitudes and behaviors that aimed at those compatriots who with all their weakness (sometimes making big mistakes) have done their best and keep doing so instead of targeting the very messy or extremely treacherous political behavior and action of EPRDF and those of its members who are trying to stifle peoples’ fight for freedom and justice.

I am not saying those politicians of opposition politics do not deserve criticism and also challenging ideas and views. What I am saying is not to do it in a rational and constructive manner is not just stupid way of doing politics but also very counter-productive to the efforts being made in order to make our dream of truly democratic Ethiopia a reality.

I carefully, not surprisingly read an article (comment) by Getachew Shiferaw on Satenaw Web Site, Amharic page. I sincerely respect his right to express his ideas and views the way he perceives and understands the politics of our country.

I equally believe that I have to express my ideas and views on his article the way I perceived and understood it. I  want to leave the question of how our exchanges of ideas and views make sense to not only rationally critical readers but also to all fellow Ethiopians who are genuinely and seriously concerned about the way we deal with politics at this very critical movement  .

Here is my case in point which is aimed at the very undesirable political attitudes and behaviors in our country, not at the very personal character and behavior of Getachew or any other compatriot for that matter.

It is not clear why this kind of dirty and stupid campaign is being launched by some Ethiopians such as the writer of this highly conspiratorial article. I am neither a member nor an uncritical supporter of this or that party or group. I am with the side of any party or group that make necessary efforts for the prevalence of truly democratic Ethiopia that should be a home of peace and prosperity to all of her citizens.

Though Arbegnoch Ginbot 7 can have its own weaknesses and difficulties as any political movement that operates in still back ward and extremely difficult political culture of ours, it is one of the political entities which are trying their best as far as our aspirations and efforts to make a difference is concerned.

It is not really clear why some compatriots consistently try to blackmail and undermine the efforts being made by members of the movement.

I understand those guys who named their “political parties” after this or that ethnic group are so allergic to the political movements which make their agendas, principles, and practices in line with the politics of citizenship within a democratic Ethiopia.

To my understanding, those badly parochial (yemender) groupings are driven by a bunch of people or individuals who have stupidly chosen a political game that may enable them to become big but ugly fishes in a small pool  ( big but foolish kings/queens in their own villages or so called kilil).

They know very well that this kind of ugly political game is much more sensational or emotional and very easily manipulative to their very voracious and idiotic ambition and satisfaction.

They are very crazy about being parts of an election that is not well-thought, well-designed, well-stabilized, well-coordinated, well- organized, and well- operated, free and fair in a real sense of creating a democratic Ethiopia.  This is because they know very well that it is through this kind chaotic and highly vulnerable to emotional appeal political environment that they could be able to win some seats  (“thrones of their majesties”)  right from the very bottom (kebele) to the very  top ( the three branches of government) and “enjoy” their wildly voracious and stupidly aspired political ambitions.

Two or three days ago I watched a round – table discussion at which Ato Andargachew was one of the participants. I sadly, not surprisingly listened to a guy who represented the so-called Amhara National Movement reaffirming that his movement is ready to take part in an election that he expects to take place without considering any delay or extension. Imagine, this guys of parochial (yemender) politics either do not know the very toxic and extremely difficult political situation of their own country, or their movement which is a collection of a bunch of either infantile or disingenuous politicians does not care about anything else but help them play the politics of parochialism and ethnic DNA and become big but sick fishes in a small pool or big but badly foolish kings/queens in their own villages.

Look at very carefully the very “advice” of Getachew. His ‘great advice ‘ is get Arbegnoch Ginbot 7 split or break up into  functions ,  nullify or ignore the attempt to bring  a couple of political entities together (AG7, Semayawi, and …) and join the parochial or ethno-centric  political entities which continue mushrooming ( breading and multiplying) but ending up being good for nothing   .

Is this really an advice from an honest and truly concerned political personality? I hate to say but I have to say that it is not at all!    An honest and truly concerned political personality never suggests let alone advises the politics of break up and join a much worse politics of parochialism and horribly ethno-centrism.

It is ridiculously a stupid political mentality to launch a very nonsensical but damaging political campaign against those Ethiopians who have been trying to do the best they could for years and still are trying to do so as far as the efforts to bring about a truly democratic system is concerned.

How this type of political stupidity if not idiocy can be explained otherwise? To my understanding, there is no any other rational and plausible explanation to this kind of very infantile and badly thought political mentality and behavior.

How this kind of political mentality and behavior can make sense at this very critical political juncture in our country?

How can we afford to launch this kind of terribly undesirable and terribly disturbing  political campaign against those Ethiopians who with all their weaknesses  are trying to do something helpful to the ongoing struggle for freedom and justice whereas we try to rationally   deal with the political behavior and action of EPRDF as a system?  It absolutely does not make sense!

It is quite right and valuable to extend strong and straight –forward criticism or any idea that helps us move forward by taking timely and effective efforts of making what went wrong right and make progress accordingly.

But engaging in a very irrational, emotional, disingenuous, unproductive and destructive political bevaoiur and mentality is absolutely not only ugly but terribly damaging.  Yes, it is damaging not only to the political party or group we may try to make our target but to the very effort being made in order to make the dream for the prevalence of true democratic system a reality in our country.

Is it not great to behave and act in such a way that We All Together (as Citizens) should make a truly concerted effort of making our country truly democratic, peaceful and prosperous instead of  sliding back to the very horrible quagmire we have gone through a quarter of a century?  I absolutely argue and believe we should!  And I am optimistic we would be willing and able to do so!!!

The post Moving Forward or Back-slide ? appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

The post AFAR FORUM Press Release appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By: Fikre Mariam Workneh

As a former celibate priest or monk, I had the privilege of serving both Abune Tewophilos and Emperor Haile Selassie I, and I would like to share my indelible memories about these two giant Ethiopians.

Abune Tewophilos:

It has been nearly forty years since His Holiness Patriarch Tewophilos was murdered by the Ethiopian military/communist government in 1979. This barbaric act by the Ethiopian government against His Holiness was performed with the blessing of some members of the Orthodox Church clergy. Although many years have passed since His Holiness was strangled to death, for me it feels as though it happened just few days ago. I am still going through a profound sadness, an overwhelming sorrow and outrage about the fact that he was murdered in such an inhumane manner. No one had to die with such savagery. The Church, instead of preaching the gospel of love, mercy and forgiveness, became a collaborator to the military regime’s brutality. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was left with an immeasurable loss of a wise leader. Those who came after him did not measure up to his intellectual caliber or vision.

Abune Tewophilos was a visionary leader who was ahead of his time. He was a beacon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He had taken several progressive steps to bring the Church forward into the 20th century, making it more relevant to the new generation of the Orthodox Church’s faithful. He put some basic reforms in place.

His Holiness was acutely aware that the Church had had a longstanding shortage of priests and deacons. In many regions, churches did not have the required priests and deacons in order to conduct communion. Sunday services were not held on a regular basis. According to the Church’s tradition, two priests and three deacons were required for service. He suggested some relaxations in the old customs and traditions. He advocated that communion service could be conducted with just one priest and one deacon. He consulted his idea with His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie and Patriarch Baslios, and they were in agreement with him.

His Grace also put in place some basic educational requirements for ordination into the priesthood. Deacons were also required to go through a similar regimen. In addition, he set up primary and high religious schools. He encouraged other bishops to establish similar programs in their jurisdictions. He modernized some existing theological schools to include courses such as biological sciences, mathematics, languages and geography alongside theological teachings in their curricula. The theological school he found in the city of Harer (ራስ መኮንን መንፈሳዊ ትምህርት ቤት）was a case in point. The school was specially designed to educate clerical students with an emphasis on modern subjects. The majority of students enrolled were already well-educated in clerical education. They had training in a wide range of theological studies in the tradition of the Church. In other words, they were the cream of the crop. Specifically, many were teachers, poets, or philosophers. They were also well versed in geez translation.

Among many other of Abune Tewophilos accomplishments was the translation of several liturgical and daily prayer books from Geez to Amharic. His critics, of course, did not like that and saw it as less sacred and even blasphemous when, in fact, it was designed to facilitate the reading of spiritual books. Equally significant was that the translation of books from Geez to Amharic brought on greater congregational participation.

In addition, His Grace established and expanded Sunday school programs, previously nonexistent. Sunday school programs have remained a vital component of the Church to this day.

Furthermore, His Grace allowed and encouraged women to have active role in the life of the Orthodox Church. This was considered a milestone as women were able to play a vital, complimentary, roles on a variety activities, including serving as church choirs.

For the first time, His Grace put forward new initiatives for greater exposure of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Consequently, the Church was able to gain membership and closer relationship with other sister Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Church also gained an ecumenical membership with the World Council of Churches. Through His Holiness’ outreach initiatives, the Church received some developmental assistances. Many foreign Churches offered the Ethiopian clergy to attend their seminaries on scholarship. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, under the leadership of Abune Tewophilos, was able to send a number of students abroad for advance theological studies. For instance, the late Patriarch Abune Paulos had often attributed his educational advancement and leadership development to the support of Abune Tewophilos.

Abune Tewophilos’ vision and deeds, on the other hand, seemed to have created some strong opposition from a group of fanatic clergy within the Church. He came face to face with some old timers who got in his way by putting up some stumbling blocks. They became engaged in spreading false propaganda among church followers. They accused him of shaping the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to look like the Catholic or Protestant Churches. They also questioned his faithful guardianship of the Church. This group of the clergy alleged that the Patriarch squandered some money from the Church’s treasury and that he ordained bishops without the permission of the synod.

The underlying reason for this group of clergy for objecting His Holiness as the leader of the Church had, however, to do with their petty regionalism. They did not like the fact that he was a native of the Gojjam province. In their narrow-minded view, he was not entitled to be elevated to the office of the patriarchate of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. For instance, some members of the clergy from the Shewa province had thought that the patriarchate belonged to them. Their false claim seemed to be based on the premise that the first Patriarch, Abune Baslios, was born in Shewa. Since the monarchy’s seat was in Addis Ababa (Shewa), the argument went, the patriarch had to be from Shewa. It was said that upon hearing this, His Majesty rebuked this group of the clergy and did not consider its claim to be worthy of his support. Perhaps this group might have been misinformed by the old tradition of the Church of Rome, which for over 500 years elevated exclusively Italians into the papacy.
There were also some members of the clergy from the Gonder province who entertained a similar notion. They are believed to have entertained the idea that the seat of the Ethiopian monarchy should be returned to Gonder, as was the case between the seventeen and nineteen centuries. By extension, they tried to make the case that the seat of the patriarchate should be in Gonder. Their movement and aspiration were led by Like-Siltanat Habte Mariam Workneh (now Abune Melketsadik), an individual with a highly inflated ego. This too was another poorly conceived idea, which never got off the ground. It was an exercise in futility.

Indeed, Like-Siltanat Habte Mariam Workneh’s animus with Abune Tewophilos had started even before the latter became a Patriarch. It is said that after Like-Siltanat Habte Mariam became the dean or Like-Siltanat of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, he had wanted to evict His Grace Abune Tewophilos from his residence in that church. The Emperor had given the residence to the latter upon becoming the first Like-Siltanat of the Cathedral. Abune Tewophilos continued to reside in that residence even after he became the bishop of Harergie province. Abune Tewophilos needed to spend time in Addis Ababa as His Majesty had also appointed him to lead the Church’s head office as a deputy to Patriarch Baslios. The latter had been in poor health. Like-Siltanat Habte Mariam appealed to his majesty to get Abune Tewophilos’ residence but was advised by the Palace to move into another house located in a close proximity to the Cathedral. He was very disappointed that the Emperor ruled against him and became more furious at Abune Tewophilos. It is said that he turned his fury against Abune Tewophilos and began a campaign of disinformation. He defiled and defamed Abune Tewophilos’ name whenever he got a chance.

It is believed that Like-Siltanat Habte Mariam’s followers and friends, including 15 bishops, led a rebellion against Abune Tewophilos. They insisted that the new military government should remove him from his position and that was what exactly happened. Within a short of time, not only was the Patriarch removed from his office, but he also went to prison for three years and was murdered in 1979. He was strangled to death and his dumped body was not even recovered until years later. He was a victim of a disoriented clergy and a ruthless regime.

Emperor Haile Selassie I:

His Majesty was not just a devoted follower of the Orthodox Christianity Church. He was also very engaged in advising and, at times directing, the Church’s leaders on how to run it affairs. He appropriated funds for building hundreds of modern churches around the country. The Emperor, with the help of Abune Tewophilos and others, was also instrumental in making the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to become independent from the Coptic Church in Alexandria, Egypt.

Emperor Haile Selassie was a very important supporter and ally of Abune Tewophilos. The Emperor, as the Ecclesiastical Head of the Orthodox Christianity Church, was intimately aware of Abune Tewophilos’ work and very much appreciated his prudent leadership. The Emperor’s appreciation of Abune Tewophilos went way back to when he selected him as the first dean or Like-Siltanat for the newly completed first National Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Addis Ababa. He was known as Like-Siltanat Meliktu at the time. The Cathedral Church was the center for major national events. For instance, annual national war victory celebrations began with prayer services at the Cathedral. It was built with a special design to serve as the final resting place for His Majesty and his royal family members. Many Ethiopian war heroes are also buried in the compound. His Majesty had an enormous respect for Abune Tewophilos and encouraged him to proceed with his reforms that were underway.

In 1947, His Majesty selected Abune Tewophilos and four others to be the last bishops to be ordained by the Church of Alexandria. Not too long after he was ordained as a bishop, Abune Tewophilos was appointed as the bishop of Harergie by Patriarch Baslios and the Emperor. The bishop of Harergie, as the birth place of His Majesty, was considered a very important assignment. Additionally, the Emperor designated Abune Tewophilos to be the deputy to Patriarch Baslios, who was much older and was in poor health. He served in that capacity until he was elected as the second Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in 1971. Contrary to the displeasure of his small-minded critics who claimed that he was, indirectly, handpicked by the Emperor, Patriarch Tewophilos was elected by an overwhelming majority of the clerical congregation. His consecration was celebrated with huge fanfare. Several patriarchs from Eastern Orthodox Churches around the world as well as many more from other Christian denominations were in attendance.

In the early 1950s, the Emperor invited some Western missionary churches to come to Ethiopia in order to help the spread of Christianity to the south and southwestern parts of the country, such as Sidamo, Arusi, and Welega. He instructed them to preach the Gospel to those Ethiopians who were not the followers of the Orthodox Church at the time. Some of the leaders of the Orthodox Church were, however, very unhappy and privately expressed their displeasure at the Emperor for bringing missionaries of other Christian denominations into the country. To the opposition, Ethiopia was supposed to be an Island of Orthodox Christianity. However, the Emperor was not impressed by their argument. One of the core objectives of the missionaries was building elementary and high schools. In addition, they built several clinics and hospitals. Their academic and health institutions were topnotch and more advanced. Consequently, many wealthy Ethiopians sent their children to missionary schools. The Emperor even allowed them to build a major broadcasting center in Addis Ababa (የብስራተ ወንጌል ሬዲዮ ድምጽ) that can reach many eastern African countries. Missionary churches were no longer considered as the enemy of the Ethiopia Orthodox Church. In fact, the Orthodox Church came around to accept them as partners. As a result, the Orthodox Church benefited in a verity of ways, including receiving scholarships for its clergy to attend theological seminaries abroad.

Sometime in the early 1960s, His Majesty learned that some eastern Caribbean leaders would be very much interested for the establishment of Ethiopian Orthodox churches in their countries. He was told that the islanders would accept Ethiopian priests in open arms, as they were resenting the services of their former colonial churches. Some Caribbean leaders even promised to give free land to build the first few Ethiopian churches. The Emperor immediately ordered the Orthodox Church’s leaders to dispatch a few priests to the islands. The Church’s leaders agreed to follow through with His Majesty’s order. However, they did not seem to assess the long-term prospect of the new churches in the Caribbean. Specifically, no serious foundational work was put into the kind of resources that the new mission churches would need. Nor did they (unlike their medieval-period counterparts who were very influential in the spread of Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia) have discernible ideas or experience about running such mission churches. However, they were able to allocate small salaries for two priests and a deacon for every church and that was how the branches of the Orthodox Church in the Caribbean were established. In the ensuing years, however, no adequate support was provided from Addis Ababa. Nor did the Church’s leaders pay frequent visits to the Caribbean.

The Emperor, though small in his physical stature, possessed a special mystic and was considered by many as having a Solomonic wisdom. The Church’s leaders saw him as possessing divine authority. His Majesty’s coronation was considered as Godly ordained similar to those of David’s and Solomon’s of the Old Testament. Church leaders preached to the faithful not to question His Majesty’s authority. His name was praised in daily prayers. He was feared, and at the same time his subjects respected his authority without reservation. No one, until later years, suggested that he ruled as an autocrat. His strict governing style was accepted. He was seen to be moving the country into a civil society. Of course, those assumptions were challenged as time went by. An attempt was made to overthrow the Emperor by Brigadier General Mengistu Neway and his brother, Germamie Neway, in 1960. Twelve years later, the Emperor’s downfall came. His accomplishments to his country were instantly wiped out. Rather than demanding evolutionary or gradual reforms, people called revolutionary or radical changes. About 60 senior government officials were executed in 1974 and the Emperor himself was killed a year later.

The Ethiopian revolution did not just lead to the demise of the country’s Heads of State and Church. The revolutionary government of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam executed thousands of innocent Ethiopians. Many more people were put in prison without a single charge. Several thousands of Ethiopians went into hiding out to the country side, and an estimated three to five million people fled the country altogether experiencing countless hardship in foreign lands. The majority of the exiled or murdered were highly educated in a wide range of professional disciplines. Their beloved country was gravely harmed by their absence. The country that they cherished was deprived of invaluable talents and expertise. The military/communist government also nationalized the properties of millions of Ethiopians with a vengeance. Some, hoping to gain favors from the government, became government informers against their own families, neighbors, and friends.

How I Got to Know Abune Tewophilos and Emperor Haile Selassie I:

I was born in the village of Yedaguat, in Bichena, Gojjam. It was in my home province of Gojjam that I also received my clerical education. In 1954, I became a monk (a celibate priest) at the Debre Libanos Monastery. The first time that I met Abune Tewophilos was in Addis Ababa in 1954 right after I became a monk. It was in the same year that Abune Tewophilos chose me, with four other monks, to serve at his private chapel in Harer. One of the memorable moments for me while I was in Harer was when His Majesty, Patriarch Baslios, and Abune Tewophilos came to the city and we held a prayer service for them at Teklehaymanot Church. I was the lead priest. With the assistance of another priest, I conducted a full service for the country’s top political and spiritual leaders. Later in the day, I heard that His Majesty remarked to Abune Tewophilos that I was a fiery young priest. I was very delighted to hear that.

His Holiness Abune Tewophilos was my mentor, one I had the utmost respect for. I idealized him for his profound wisdom and farsightedness. He had high hopes and confidence that I would become one of the future generation of priests who would lead the Church into the 21st century. He knew that I was a good priest and skilled practitioner of the priesthood. He chose me to celebrate mass on special Holydays. For instance, whenever the Emperor came to Harer to attend his yearly mass during St. Mary’s two week fasting (ፍስለታ) in August, His Holiness called on me to be the lead priest. When His Majesty was in attendance of mass, the religious service must be conducted with a degree efficiency and the leading priest must have an excellent chanting skill. I was very fortunate to possess a good voice. My religious songs were, in fact, of high demand and had to be recorded and provided to some of the country’s ambassadors living abroad.

After serving at the private chapel of Abune Tewophilos for four years in Harer, I became (with the help of Major Getachew Nadew, who later on became a General) the first Chaplin of the newly established Ethiopian Airborne Battalion force in Debre Zeit. At the airborne base, I gave weekly sermons. I was not just another monk or priest at the Airborne’s base, however. I jumped from airplanes alongside the paratroopers. As a young priest in my mid-20s, I saw myself capable of performing what the soldiers did. Looking back, my sermons to the members of the airborne were consistent with social and political issues and concerns of the day. I stressed on Christ’s concern for the poor and how He detested the greed of the wealthy. Several people from the academia and other professions (from Addis Ababa area) attended my sermons. His Grace Abune Tewophilos was my guest on two occasions.

In 1966, His Grace Abune Tewophilos sent me to Trinidad and Tobago to serve in of the Ethiopian Orthodox churches that were established a few years earlier. In my first year in Trinidad and Tobago, in 1967, His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie made an official visit to that country. He was accompanied by a large contingency of high-level Ethiopian officials. The Emperor and his entourage visited two Ethiopian churches that were already serving the community in that country. He also laid a cornerstone for a fairly new small church, which I later became its parish priest.

While I was in Trinidad and Tobago, I received a scholarship from the World Council of Churches to study at the American Region and Psychiatry Institute in New York City. I had already received my high school diploma through correspondence not too long before that. As I was ready to leave Trinidad and Tobago in 1968, I called Abune Tewophilos and told him about my plan, going to the United States in order to pursue modern education. He asked me to wait until a replacement priest was sent to Trinidad and Tobago. He also suggested that I returned to Ethiopia for consultation, which I declined to do. And that was the last time I had a conversation with him. Once I arrived in the United States, I decided to leave monkhood or celibacy priesthood. A few years after I arrived in the Unites States, I got married to, coincidentally, a former nun and we are now the parents of three children. His Holiness was probably disappointed when he found out that I was no longer serving the Church. I was deeply sorry about that. I just hoped that he would be forgiving. Be that as it may, I never had the opportunity to see His Holiness again. Indeed, I have been living with a heart-breaking sadness ever since, having a difficult time of accepting the very fact that he was savagely murdered.

Sources Consulted:

አባ ኪዳነ ማርያም ጌታሁን ፤ የሀሰት ምስክርነት ፡ የቋሚ ምስክርነት ፤ አዲስ አባባ 1994 ዓ.ም

ጌታቸው ኃይሌ （ፕ/ር）፤ አንዳፍታ ላውጋችሁ ፤ ኮሌጅቪል ሚኒሶታ 2000 ዓ.ም

ታምራት አበራ ፤ ቀዳማዊ ቴዎፍሎስ ፓትርያርክ （የሕይወት ታሪክ）፤ አዲስ አበባ 2001 ዓ.ም

Gizachew Tiruneh. (2014). On the Run in the Blue Nile: A True Story. Create Space, United States.
[ግዛቸው ጥሩነህ （ዶ/ር）፤ ነፍስ አድን ሩጫ በአባይ ሸለቆ ፤ አዲስ አበባ ፡ አሜሪካ 2006 ዓ.ም]

The post Abune Tewophilos and Emperor Haile Selassie I: Their Invaluable Contributions to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam

An open Thank You note to H.E. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed

Dear Prime Minster Abiy:

For over a decade, I have used the last of my weekly commentaries to catalogue the crimes against humanity, the corruption and abuses of power that occurred in  Ethiopia during the year.

But not this year.

This year is very special for me.

2018 is a year of gratitude.

I believe I resonate the feelings of millions of Ethiopians in my expressions of gratitude to the Almighty first and to all of the young Ethiopians who, through their blood, sweat and tears, managed to liberate Ethiopia from the iron clutches of ethnic apartheid.

I also believe millions of Ethiopians share my expressions of gratitude to you and The Team for toiling behind the scenes for years to root out ethnic hate, religious bigotry and social division in Ethiopia.

PM Abiy, when the Ethiopian Diaspora Trust Fund (EDTF) broke the USD$1 million last week, you expressed gratitude to all Ethiopians scattered throughout the world “for having kept our word”, our promise.

When you have been doing all of the heavy lifting over the past 8 months, and millions of us in the diaspora could not lift a dollar a day to support the EDTF, I am not sure we deserve such overwhelming gratitude from you.

But I humbly accept your magnanimous expression of gratitude as the chairperson of EDTF on behalf of the Ethiopian Diaspora.

But I would like to tell you, in the poetic words of Robert Frost, we Diaspora Ethiopians know we “have promises to keep, And miles to go before we sleep, And miles to go before we sleep.” For the work of EDTF has only just begun!

I have written this personal note as an expression of my personal gratitude for all you have done for Ethiopia over the past eight months.

I also belatedly thank you and so many others for your collective labor of love as  unknown and unsung heroes toiling invisibly for years to bring the people of Ethiopia into an age of unity, multiparty democracy and the rule of law.

Perhaps you may wonder why I should write a public personal note of thanks to you.

It is because I hear and read few expressions of gratitude for your monumental, unrivalled and historic achievements in just the few months you have been in office.

I do not want to admit it but it pains me to see that those who most admire and honor your achievements in glowing terms are not your compatriots.

Here are just a few examples.

In July, Herman Cohen, former U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs 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.”

I am certain you will bring multiparty democracy to Ethiopia and the Nobel Prize will come to you. Mark my words!

In August, Black Star News declared, “Dr. Abiy Ahmed is a legitimate Nobel Peace Prize candidate.” I think you know my views on that.

The Financial Times wrote “Abiy Ahmed may be the most popular politician in Africa” and called you, “Ethiopia’s Mandela”. I think I said that first.

The New York Times says Abiy Ahmed is the “most closely watched leader in Africa.”

The Economist has been trying to figure out why “Ethiopians are going wild for Abiy Ahmed.”

Al Jazeera wondered if Abiy Ahmed is the real thing: “Are Ethiopians blinded by Abiymania?”

Two weeks ago, African Leadership Magazine declared you “2018 African of the Year”.

Just a few days ago, BBC reported, “Abiy Ahmed has been doing the seemingly impossible ever since he unexpectedly became prime minister of Ethiopia in April.” He has done the “equivalent of making the sun rise from the west.”

The sun rising from the west?!

In August, CNN tried to explain “Why Ethiopians believe their new prime minister is a prophet”.

Today, CNN wrote, “Abiy Ahmed: The Ethiopian Prime Minister who captured Africa’s imagination.”

What did we, your people, write about you?

Suffice it to say, “A prophet has no honor in his own country and among his people.”

There are those who are quick to criticize you and insist that you walk on water before they even acknowledge your work let alone express their appreciation.

They demand that, at least if you cannot walk on water, you must solve all of Ethiopia’s problems overnight but no less than eight months.

I call your carping critics “nabobs of negativism”.

They are a bunch of feckless and self-righteous windbags and busybodies who are nothing more than empty barrels. I ignore them with contempt.

I must tell you that it really bothers me why your compatriots, particularly those in the learned and professional communities, withhold their gratitude and appreciation for your extraordinary accomplishments.

That has puzzled me for some time.

I am told public expression of gratitude and appreciation for a job well done is not part of “our Ethiopian tradition”.

I am told Ethiopians generally do not publicly and enthusiastically express gratitude they fear being perceived as “weak”. Others withhold gratitude because of personal “envy”.

Someone once gave me a curious explanation. “Ethiopians express their gratitude in silence.”

That impresses me as wrapping a beautiful gift for someone but never giving it.

Of course, I do not believe any of these explanations because they suggest we are an ungrateful nation.

I must tell you that in the land where I spent nearly one-half century, gratitude is a highly cherished value. It is a hallowed tradition.

To me, gratitude is the most important virtue in life.

I am a grateful person by nature.

When I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family last month, I told them during the invocation blessings that I must be the most thankful person on the planet.

I am so grateful to so many who helped me along my path in life.

I am so grateful to those who helped us raise donations for EDTF.

When I express gratitude, I feel good.

I get joy when I express gratitude to you for your extraordinary achievements and unparalleled service to Ethiopia over the past eight months.

Truth be told, my public expression of gratitude for your historic and monumental achievements washes away the anger, the bitterness, the resentment, the sadness, the despair, and the heartache I carried for the past 13 years after I joined the Ethiopian human rights movement.

I have been accused, from time to time, of never, ever having said a good word about the previous ethnic apartheid regime or it leaders. “How come you never say one good thing for the economic development and double-digit growth they brought about?”

I came to Ethiopia in September. I saw their double-digit growth. I laughed and then I cried.

I cried because as I traveled throughout the countryside, I found out first-hand the vast majority of the people did not have clean water to drink.

The schools I saw were a mockery of education. The youth I talked to were regretful of the lack of educational and employment opportunities.

And they talk about double-digit growth.

The arrogance of the ignorant!

The fact of the matter is I do not thank or express appreciation to murderers, torturers, thieves, criminals against humanity, haters and abusers of power and in general for Princes of Darkness.

But, PM Abiy, for over a decade, my year-end commentaries were tales of woe, heartache and tragedy in Ethiopia. They were  chronicles of corruption and gross abuses of human rights in Ethiopia.

But not 2018!

This year, PM Abiy, marks, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the end of “the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this sun (son) of Ethiopia/And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house/In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

Nine months ago, I along with millions of Ethiopians were in deep despair as the cloud of civil war and strife lowered on our House of Ethiopia.

Nine months ago, I saw a vision of darkness at noon in Ethiopia.

Nine months ago, I saw no light but the darkness of hate engulfing Ethiopia.

Nine months ago, I was in the pit of despair. I was convinced it was The End for Ethiopia.

Nine months ago, I mulled and brooded over the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Nine months ago, I saw no exit for a nation trapped in ethnic apartheid.

Then a miracle happened, because that is the only way I, and millions of others, can explain it.

To me it was a prophesy fulfilled: “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”

But princes did not come out of Egypt.

They came out of Ethiopia itself.

Ethiopia was lifted from the abyss and raised to new heights.

In 2018, the sun of freedom shone brightly on 27 years of darkness.

Thank God, the evil ethnic apartheid system that lasted for 27 long years in Ethiopia is now buried not in the ocean, but in the very mantle of the earth.

PM Abiy, as I read my words from my December 29, 2009 commentary (“Groundhog Year in Prison Nation Ethiopia”, in December 2018, I am overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude to the point “my cup runneth over.”

Back then I wrote:

2008 in Ethiopia was Groundhog Year! It was a repetition of 2007, 2006,  2005, 2004… Everyday millions of Ethiopians woke up only to find themselves trapped in a time loop where their lives replayed like a broken record. Each “new” day is the same as the one before it: Repression, intimidation, corruption, incarceration, deception, brutalization and human rights violation. Everything that happened to them the previous day, the previous week, the previous month, the previous 18 years happens to them today. They are resigned to the fact that they are doomed to spend the rest of their lives asphyxiated in a Prison Nation. They have no idea how to get out of this awful cycle of misery, agony, despair and tribulation. So, they pray and pray and pray and pray… for deliverance from Evil!

In 2018, our prayers were answered when a modern-day Moses was sent to lead us out of wilderness of ethnic apartheid, sectarianism and hate.

You are living proof of Dr. King’s wisdom. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Over the past eight months, you have been driving out the Forces of Darkness and the darkness of hate from the land of Ethiopia.

You have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.

As BBC recently wrote, you have done the “equivalent of making the sun rise from the west.”

Who would have thought nine months ago darkness and the Princes of Darkness would run and hide in darkness at the first sign of sun light?

Nine months ago, our expectations were far different.

We were resigned to accept ethnic apartheid as the way of life in our lifetimes.

PM Abiy, in July 2015 I was in such despair that I had a letter delivered to President Barack Obama.

I asked him a special favor in the paraphrased words of the old Negro spiritual: “Go down Moses way down in Ethiopia land/ Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go/ Oppressed so hard they could not stand…”

I thought President Obama could serve as our temporary Moses until the real one showed up. I could not have been more wrong.

On July 27, 2015 at 1:47 p.m., President Obama stood side by side by with the masters of ethnic apartheid and declared, “the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected.”

Those words were like a dagger in my heart.

What an insult to the dignity and intelligence of 100 million Ethiopians.

But on July 27, 2018 you came to America and mended my shattered heart and raised me to the peak of the mountain of hope.

Thank you, PM Abiy!

Thank you for ending our 27-year long captivity and long day’s journey into the dark night of apartheid.

Thank you for resurrecting ETHIOPIAWINET from the burial crypt of ethnic apartheid.

Thank you and I thank those who taught us “Ethiopiawinet is an addiction. Those who sang and taught us Ethiopiawinet “can never be lost. It is as deep as religion. Ethiopiawinet has a delicate mystery to itself. It has a very deep foundation.”

Thank you for proving to us the Beast had feet of clay.

Thank you for leading us out of the hellfire of civil war and destruction into a state of tolerance, reconciliation, peace and love.

Thank you for elevating the status of women in Ethiopia. 

Thank you for being the Fire Chief organizing the fire brigade to save the burning House of Ethiopia and cutting the fuse on the Ethiopia powder keg.

Thank you for standing your ground that the only path for our future is forgiveness, love and reconciliation.

Thank you for telling the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth: “Jailing and torturing, which we did, are not constitutional. Does the constitution say anyone who was sentenced by a court can be tortured, put in a dark room? Torturing, putting people in dark rooms, is our act of terrorism.”

Thank you for sowing love and harvesting peace with our neighbors and brothers and sisters: “Forgiveness frees the consciousness. When we say we have reconciled, we mean we have chosen a path of forgiveness and love. When I spoke with Isaias, I told him that there may not be enough hotels as Ethiopians visit Massawa and Asmara. He said he would leave his house for them and stay in balconies.”

Thank you for making me feel proud again for being an Ethiopian. After 48 years of being ashamed of being an Ethiopian, ashamed of Ethiopia being called the “beggar nation of the world”, the land of famine and civil war. Today, I proclaim to the world they shall soon learn the true meaning of multiparty democracy in Ethiopia. When EDTF is properly funded, Ethiopia will never, never, never again accept foreign aid, foreign loans or help from international NGOs. We will take care of our own!

Thank you for inviting me to return to my homeland after 48 years and live out my declaration, “I, PROUD ETHIOPIAN.”

Thank you for making us feel, Diaspora Ethiopians, proud to be Ethiopians. For 27 years, we were told Ethiopiawinet is a crime, a badge of blame and shame. We were  forced to confess our tribal and ethnic affiliations.

Thank you for coming to America to show us your love. Did we not show you we love you more? We love ya!

Thank you for bringing back the lost rainbow to our rainbow nation.

Thank you for showing courage under fire, literally, telling the Forces of Darkness who raised their swords and grenades and told you are not strong enough to weather their storm.

Thank you for telling the Forces of Darkness, “I am the storm”.

Thank you for bringing change by changing the hearts and minds of Ethiopians.

Thank you for endless efforts to liberate our minds from the mental slavery of ethnic politics.

Thank you for showing us that it is only through the collective efforts of Ethiopians working together (Medemer) that they can build the New Ethiopia as the shining city upon a hill.

Thank you for teaching us power does not come from the barrel of the gun but the power of love.

Thank you for teaching us killing to remain in or to grab power is the politics of losers.

Thank you for preaching  the only way we can solve our problems peacefully is through civilized dialogue, not through the chatter of AK-47s.

Thank you for proving Mandela’s maxim. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Thank you for preaching Ethiopia will rise up as a nation only when the power of love overcomes the love of power of those in power and those hungry and thirsty for power.

Thank you for preaching we cannot make progress unless we learn and practice to forgive and reconcile.

Thank you for showing us a new way to do our politics, Medemer.

PM Abiy, you may find what I am going to say rather puzzling.

Thank you for saving the criminal leaders of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front. Without you, I shudder to think what could have happened to them. Those ignorant and arrogant fools have no idea you are their insurance policy from the wrath of the people!

Most of all, PM Abiy thank you for…

Busting wide open the political space that had been the playground of the masters of ethnic apartheid for the past 27 years.

Emptying the country’s prisons of political prisoners.

Ending gross human rights violations in Ethiopia and bringing those criminals to the bar of  justice.

Guaranteeing with unwavering certainty that in May 2020 Ethiopia will have an internationally-monitored free and fair election.

Allowing opposition leaders to return home from abroad and freely and peacefully participate in their country’s politics.

Granting amnesty to those unjustly declared to be “terrorists”.

Laying the groundwork for true multiparty democracy.

Restoring the people’s constitutional rights to free expression and allowing the media to function freely.

Allowing internet access without control or censorship.

Allowing the people to exercise their right to peaceful protest.

Bringing harmony and understanding among factions of the two religions in Ethiopia. You played a decisive role in bringing healing to the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church in the country and in the Diaspora. You played a decisive role in bringing healing to factions in the Islamic community.

Pleading allegiance to the rule of law and due process for the accused.

Condemning collective punishment for the crimes of a few.

Ending torture in Ethiopia’s prisons and exposing the secret prisons of the previous regime.

Removing criminals against humanity from the police, security and military forces.

Professionalizing the country’s defense and police forces to be in the service of the whole nation, not a single group.

Bringing a new era of peace with our neighbors.

Proving Mandela’s maxim: “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” The partnership you and H.E. President Isayas Afeworki created has wrapped the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea in a single garment of social, economic and political destiny.

Helping play a key role in bringing  South Sudan’s power contenders to the peace table.

Being a messenger of peace in the Horn of Africa. For going to Somalia and telling the people their peace and stability is Ethiopia’s peace and stability.

Opening peaceful relations between Eritrea and Djbouti.

Building a bridge of hope and cooperation with Egypt over the River Abay (Nile) and not a dam of strife and war.

Working to make sure the Horn of Africa does not become the  battleground in global and regional geopolitics by leading a peace initiative with the contending regional powers and others to peacefully engage in the Horn of Africa.

Stabilizing the Ethiopian economy and the foreign exchange crises.

Establishing a commission to look into privatization of certain state-run institutions and liberalizing the economy with the aim of improving services through market competition.

Setting in motion an open, accountable and transparent government in which ministers will be evaluated by parliamentary committees, government agencies and offices are required to publish information on their activities.

Cleaning up your party of the “dead wood” and bringing in young people to leadership positions.

Elevating women from second class status to the epicenter of power.

Encouraging Ethiopia’s Cheetahs (young people) to believe in themselves and in the higher destiny of Ethiopia.

Inviting the older generation (Hippos) we also have a place in the construction of the New Ethiopia.

The road ahead…

There will be great challenges and opportunities in 2019.

The Forces of Darkness will continue to devise their evil schemes, but they will amount to nothing.

Let it be foretold.

The swords of the Forces of Darkness will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.

There will be many mountains to climb to build that New Shining Ethiopia upon the hill.

There are many walls to tear down.

We have to tear down the mud walls the kilil-istans (ethnic homelands) that have kept the people of Ethiopia corralled like cattle.

PM Abiy, is it not ironic that the people who created “kilils” to corral Ethiopians today find themselves in self-imposed kilil prisons of their own?

We have to build bridges to connect people that have been separated and segregated over the past 27 years.

We will need many leaders like you for the job; leaders with capability, integrity, morality, respectability, intentionality and personality to do it right.

Some afterthoughts…

I have heard many Ethiopians ask, “Do we really deserve Abiy Ahmed?

My answer is simple. Africa deserves Abiy Ahmed. The world deserves Abiy Ahmed.

I know there are people who will say I am effusive in my praise and gratitude for all you have done.

That I am blinded to your shortcomings and deficits. That I must think you are perfect to deserve such appreciation.

My answer is simple. You are as imperfect as any man.

What I look for in a man or woman is not perfection but content of character.

Courage and grace under fire, literally.

Courage of convictions.

Integrity and commitment to truth.

Acceptance of responsibility. Humility. Authenticity.

Honor. Compassion. Respect. Excellence.

Patience. Tenacity. Generosity. Empathy.

But Pm Abiy, to me, the greatest of all virtues is ETHIOPIAWINET.

To those ingrates who say I am too generous with my gratitude, I tell them to walk a mile in your shoes and tell me how it feels.

Could you please tell me something?

How does it feel to carry a nation on your back 24/7?

How does it feel to walk among poisonous serpents?

How does it feel to live among crabs in a basket that claw you down every time you try to rise up?

How does it feel to carry the hopes, dreams and despair of 100 million people 24 hours a day?

How does it feel to sleep two hours a night because the Forces of Darkness are awake 24 hours a day?

I ask because I don’t know.

Truth be told, PM Abiy, I don’t give a damn what the empty barrels say or do.

I speak my mind because I am an intellectual in the mold of  Edward Said: “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.”

PM Abiy, my philosophy and attitude today is Medemer.

Medemer to build the New Ethiopia.

When 1 billion fingers come together (Medemer), we can build the New Ethiopia upon the hill.

I believe in Medemer in America too.

We have to fight the forces of hate and division in America with the synergy of Medemer.

I say Medemer in the world for a better world for all of God’s children.

Medemer is my dream for 2019.

In my very first open letter to you dated April 8, 2018, 6 days after you became prime minister, I told you regardless of what happens, failure is not an option for you.

It is not an option for me; for all of us who believe and toil for justice, equality, rule of law, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia..

All of us are invested heavily in your success because if you lose, We, the People of Ethiopia collectively, will be the biggest losers – of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Our only choice is to get it right this time around because we get only one chance.

PM Abiy, I am guided by the wisdom of Harriet Tubman, the great African American abolitionist and slavery-fighter: “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

That is my message of hope and resolution for you as the great Ethiopian Dreamer.

You PM Abiy have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change Ethiopia, Africa and the world.

Have no doubts you will succeed!

Oh! One last thing before I finish.

Don’t worry.

We will always have your back!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, PM Abiy and the People of Ethiopia….

ETHIOPIAWINET FOREVER!

The post Thank You PM Abiy Ahmed for All You Have Done for Ethiopia! appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Addis Abeba, January 02/2018 – A source close to the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tells Addis Standard that both Billene Seyoum and Helen Yosef will remain in their position at the press secretariat department of the PM’s office. Although Nigussu Tilahun is assigned as head of the Press Secretariat department, Billene will remain at her position.

In addition, the news that Kassahun Gofe, former state minister at the Government Communication Affairs Office, will become the deputy press secretariat is incorrect. It was first reported by state affiliated FanaBC.

View image on Twitter

FANA BROADCASTING C@fanatelevision

Kassahun Gofe has been appointed as deputy press secretary at the office of the Prime Minister. #Ethiopia

22

11:31 PM – Jan 1, 2019

See FANA BROADCASTING C’s other Tweets

Twitter Ads info and privacy

“Kassahun Gofe has not been appointed to the Press Secretariat. Not true,” our source clarified.

This morning, all major news media outlets, including Addis Standard, have reported that, Nigussu Tilahun, the Amhara regional state Culture & Tourism Bureau head, who previously served the region’s communication director, will be “replacing” Billene Seyoum, who was appointed to the position on November 05. 

“Nigussu Tilahun is joining the secretariat to support the Amharic section of the press secretariat while Billene continues supporting the English and digital media section of the press secretariat,” the same source said.

AS

The post Billene, Helen remain at PM’s press secretariat; Kassahun Gofe not joining appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

The reforms by the country’s new prime minister are clashing with its flawed Constitution and could push the country toward an interethnic conflict.

Mahmood Mamdani
The New York Times

Mr. Mamdani is the director of the Institute of Social Research at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and a professor at Columbia University.

Jan. 3, 2019

Abiy Ahmed, the 42-year-old prime minister of Ethiopia, has dazzled Africa with a volley of political reforms since his appointment in April. Mr. Abiy ended the 20-year border war with Eritrea, released political prisoners, removed bans on dissident groups and allowed their members to return from exile, declared press freedom and granted diverse political groups the freedom to mobilize and organize.

Mr. Abiy has been celebrated as a reformer, but his transformative politics has come up against ethnic federalism enshrined in Ethiopia’s Constitution. The resulting clash threatens to exacerbate competitive ethnic politics further and push the country toward an interethnic conflict.

The 1994 Constitution, introduced by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front governing coalition, recast the country from a centrally unified republic to a federation of nine regional ethnic states and two federally administered city-states. It bases key rights — to land, government jobs, representation in local and federal bodies — not on Ethiopian citizenship but on being considered ethnically indigenous in constituent ethnic states.

The system of ethnic federalism was troubled with internal inconsistencies because ethnic groups do not live only in a discrete “homeland” territory but are also dispersed across the country. Nonnative ethnic minorities live within every ethnic homeland.

Ethiopia’s census lists more than 90 ethnic groups, but there are only nine ethnically defined regional assemblies with rights for the officially designated majority ethnic group. The nonnative minorities are given special districts and rights of self-administration. But no matter the number of minority regions, the fiction of an ethnic homeland creates endless minorities.

Ethnic mobilization comes from multiple groups, including Ethiopians without an ethnic homeland, and those disenfranchised as minorities in the region of their residence, even if their ethnic group has a homeland in another state.

Ethnic federalism also unleashed a struggle for supremacy among the Big Three: the Tigray, the Amhara and the Oromo. Although the ruling E.P.R.D.F. is a coalition of four parties, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front representing the Tigray minority has been in the driving seat since the 1991 revolution. The Amhara, dominant before 1991, and the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in the country, complained they were being treated as subordinate minorities.

When the government announced plans to expand Addis Ababa, the federally run city-state, into bordering Oromo lands, protests erupted in 2015. The Amhara joined and both groups continued to demand land reform, equal political representation and an end to rights abuses.

Ethiopian army soldiers controlled protestors from the capital and those displaced by ethnic-based violence over the weekend in Burayu, as they demonstrated demanding justice from the government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last September.CreditMulugeta Ayene/Associated Press

 

Image

Prime Minister Haile Mariam Desalegn, who took office in 2012 after the death of the long-term premier and Tigray leader Mr. Zenawi, responded brutally to the protests. Security forces killed between 500 and 1,000 protesters in a year. Faced with a spiraling crisis, the ruling E.P.R.D.F. coalition appointed Mr. Abiy, a former military official and a leader of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization — a constituent of the ruling coalition — as prime minister.

Mr. Abiy’s reforms have been applauded but have also led to greater ethnic mobilization for justice and equality. The E.P.R.D.F.’s achievement since 1991 was equal education for girls and boys, rural and urban, leading to greater prominence of women, Muslims and Pentecostal groups.

The recent reforms of Mr. Abiy, who was born to a Muslim Oromo father and an Orthodox Amhara mother and is a devout Pentecostal Christian, have further broadened political participation to underprivileged groups.

Mobilization of ethnic militias is on the rise. Paramilitaries or ethnic militias known as special police, initially established as counterinsurgency units, are increasingly involved in ethnic conflicts, mainly between neighboring ethnic states. A good example is the role of the Somali Special Force in the border conflict with the Oromia state, according to Yonas Ashine, a historian at Addis Ababa University. These forces are also drawn into conflicts between native and nonnative groups.

Nearly a million Ethiopians have been displaced from their homes by escalating ethnic violence since Mr. Abiy’s appointment, according to Addisu Gebregziabher, who heads the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

Fears of Ethiopia suffering Africa’s next interethnic conflict are growing. Prime Minister Abiy himself is constantly invoking religious symbols, especially those linked to American Protestant evangelical megachurches, and has brought a greater number of Pentecostals into the higher ranks of government.

Ethiopians used to think of themselves as Africans of a special kind, who were not colonized, but the country today resembles a quintessential African system, marked by ethnic mobilization for ethnic gains.

In most of Africa, ethnicity was politicized when the British turned the ethnic group into a unit of local administration, which they termed “indirect rule.” Every bit of the colony came to be defined as an ethnic homeland, where an ethnic authority enforced an ethnically defined customary law that conferred privileges on those deemed indigenous at the expense of non-indigenous minorities.

The move was a response to a perennial colonial problem: Racial privilege for whites mobilized those excluded as a racialized nonwhite majority. By creating an additional layer of privilege, this time ethnic, indirect rule fragmented the racially conscious majority into so many ethnic minorities, in every part of the country setting ethnic majorities against ethnic minorities. Wherever this system continued after independence, national belonging gave way to tribal identity as the real meaning of citizenship.

Many thought the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, representing a minority in the dominant coalition, turned to ethnic federalism to dissolve and fragment Ethiopian society into numerous ethnic groups — each a minority — so it could come up with a “national” vision. In a way it replicated the British system.

But led by Mr. Zenawi, the T.P.L.F. was also most likely influenced by Soviet ethno-territorial federalism and the creation of ethnic republics, especially in Central Asia. Ethiopia’s 1994 Constitution evoked the classically Stalinist definition of “nation, nationality and people” and the Soviet solution to “the national question.”

As in the Soviet Union, every piece of land in Ethiopia was inscribed as the ethnic homeland of a particular group, constitutionally dividing the population into a permanent majority alongside permanent minorities with little stake in the system. Mr. Zenawi and his party had both Sovietized and Africanized Ethiopia.

Like much of Africa, Ethiopia is at a crossroads. Neither the centralized republic instituted by the Derg military junta in 1974 nor the ethnic federalism of Mr. Zenawi’s 1994 Constitution points to a way forward.

Mr. Abiy can achieve real progress if Ethiopia embraces a different kind of federation — territorial and not ethnic — where rights in a federal unit are dispensed not on the basis of ethnicity but on residence. Such a federal arrangement will give Ethiopians an even chance of keeping an authoritarian dictatorship at bay.

Mahmood Mamdani is the director of Makerere Institute of Social Research in Uganda, a professor of government at Columbia University and the author of “Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism.”

#Ethiopia : አንዳንዱ ኢትዮጵያ ስትገነባ ማገር ያቀበለ ይመስል አሁን አዞ በአዋጅ ኢትዮጵያን የሚያፈርስ ይመስለዋል ትፈርሳለህ እንጂ ኢትዮጵያ አትፈርስምጠ/ሚ ዶ/ር አብይ አህመድ

Posted by Natnael Mekonnen on Wednesday, January 2, 2019

 

The post The Trouble With Ethiopia’s Ethnic Federalism appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Prime Minster of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy Ahmed

The post Prime Minster of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy Ahmed – BBC News Report appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Ethiopian Airlines flight ET338 from Addis Ababa Thursday morning skidded off runway upon landing at Entebbe International Airport, Uganda.

The post Ethiopian Airlines plane skids off Entebbe Airport runway appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

The Ethiopian government on Wednesday announced amnesty to some 530 federal prisoners amid Ethiopia’s unique Christmas day celebrations.

Prisoners were pardoned amid the unique Ethiopian Christmas, as the country prepares to mark the day on January 7 to remember the birth of Jesus Christ based on the traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, state affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate reported on Wednesday.

According to the Ethiopian Federal Attorney General’s office, the amnesty was made as part of the ongoing national reconciliation move.

Ethiopia, which celebrated its New Year on September 11, had also granted an amnesty for thousands of prisoners on the occasion of the Ethiopian New Year.

Hundreds of exiled Ethiopians over the past months have flocked into the East African country following recent reform move by Ethiopia’s ruling coalition the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front.

The Ethiopian government, following Abiy Ahmed’s appointment as the country’s Prime Minister in April 2018, has been implementing various decisions aimed at creating a nationwide reconciliation.

They include the release of high-level political prisoners, invitation for Ethiopian rebel groups for talks as well as the decision to normalise relations with its regional arch-rival Eritrea.

(Xinhua/NAN)

The post Ethiopia pardons 530 prisoners amid unique Christmas day celebrations appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

By Teshome M. Borago

Former Member of Ethiopian Parliament Girma Seifu Maru has called for the official recognition of multiethnic mixed-Ethiopian identity on the upcoming 2019 Census. Girma was an official of the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) opposition party led by its leader Judge Birtukan Mideksa, who is now the head of Ethiopia’s election commission.

The former MP said “it should be up to Ethiopians to choose how and who they want to identify as or to not identify with any group at all” during the Census. And Girma wants Census officials to provide an alternative option and ask citizens whether or not they want to be classified as mixed-Ethiopians or choose one tribe.

Tens of millions of Ethiopians are believed to have two or more mixed ethnic ancestry; however most select one ethnicity based solely on mother tongue during recent Census collections. Some mixed-Ethiopians living in homogeneous tribal areas usually select the local tribe in order to escape persecution economically and socio-politically. Others are pressured to randomly pick only one fraction of their family, or one tribal label: particularly those residing in urban centers like Addis Ababa, Adama, Dire Dawa and Hawassa.

The Ethiopian Census has been politicized since the arrival of the TPLF ruling party, as its former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his Oromo allies imposed an ethnic based federalism throughout Ethiopia in the 1990s. Initially, Zenawi’s ethnic-federalism project faced two major obstacles nationwide: one from cosmopolitan mixed-Ethiopians who refused to pick a tribe; and the second from rural Amharic speakers who refused the “Amhara” label in exchange for their regional identities like Shewan, Gondare, Wollo and Gojame.

However, after two decades of institutional tribalism, the new generation northern Amharic speakers have gradually adopted the “Amhara” label recently. Yet, urban mixed-Ethiopians remain opposed to tribalism, as the current constitution virtually denies their existence and thus representation.

Due to being stateless, mixed-Ethiopians often support opposition parties, like Ginbot 7, who promote individual rights over group rights. Meanwhile, mixed-Ethiopians in Addis Ababa established a new organization known as Movement for Ethiopian Nationalism (MEN), led by its founder Andualem Buketo Geda, a staunch opponent of ethnic federalism. Also the diaspora organization, Gosaye Ethiopia Movement (GEM), advocated for the rights of mixed-Ethiopians, transforming the name “Ethiopia” itself into an ethnic group: one that promotes multilingualism while maintaining similar culture, shared history, geography or common polity and consciousness.

They scored a small political victory last year when Addis Ababa government was pressured to remove ethnic labels on identification cards in the capital city. The move by the city government was criticized by ethnic nationalists like Tsegaye Ararssa but praised by the multiethnic citizens of the capital.

While multiethnic mixed-Ethiopians have historically opposed ethnic federalism; the system has recently been challenged by its own proponents as ethnic violence continues to grow exponentially. The raging ethnic conflicts near ethnic borders all over Ethiopia today have triggered a virtual self-destruction of ethnic federalism. In contested towns like Moyale, claimed by both Oromos and Somalis as their homeland, the carnage has been gruesome and historic. A new op-Ed on New York Times (NYT) Thursday urged the new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to scrap ethnic federalism in favor of territorial federalism based on citizenship.

According to the New York Times article, the Ethnic federalism crisis created “an additional layer of privilege” and “the fiction of an ethnic homeland creates endless minorities;”  adding that “Ethiopia’s 1994 Constitution evoked the classically Stalinist definition of ‘nation, nationality and people’ and the Soviet solution to ‘the national question.’”

For the millions of multiethnic mixed-Ethiopians in the country, being recognized in the 2019 Census does not only benefit them; but they also might become a bridge to unite the rest of a country that was artificially and unnecessarily divided by ethnic politics.

The post Ex-MP calls for “mixed Ethiopia” identity in 2019 Census appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Aklog Birara (Dr)

I have consistently opined that if Ethiopians wish to create a just and prosperous society, the current elite-based and dictated Constitutional system of ethnic-federalism that is based on the old colonial system of divide and rule and that creates enclaves of false-self-governance, autonomy and growth must be addressed honestly and boldly. Practice shows that ethnic elites perpetuate a culture of “my territory, my land, my water, my mimineral  (የኔ መሬት፤ የኔ ኃብት፤ የኔ! ክልል! የኔ! የኔ! የኔ! ” at an enormous cost to the rest of the society. I can find no plausible explanation or best practice from the rest of the world, especially those that are multiethnic and growing fast that any form of divide and rule and exclusion work.

Human rights are, by definition, indivisible. Human rights are citizen rights. Regardless of where she or he lives and irrespective of ethnic or religious affiliation, each and every Ethiopian must enjoy freedom as well as socioeconomic, political and religious rights without restrictions. The current ethnic federal system has essentially failed to create socioeconomic and political cohesion. On the positive side, there is a high correlation between inclusion and sustainability. On the opposite side, there is a high probability that divided societies become poorer, conflict ridden and unsafe.

Ethiopian political elites, intellectuals, civil and spiritual society must, at last, come to grips with or face the incontestable reality that ethnic federalism has proven anathema to peace, harmony, sustainable and equitable development. The recurring and sporadic episodes of elite led, stimulated and financed conflicts in most parts of the country today entail huge human, financial and environmental costs. When these episodes occur, the federal government expends precious resources; but is unable to resolve the problems. The reason is because neither federal or regional or local authorities are willing and ready to deal with the root cause of the problem. The Constitutional system imposed by the TPLF and its allies in the early 1990s was deliberate in crafting and imposing ethnic divide for the political and financial benefit of the few.

The parallel to Ethiopia’s current indefensible system is a similar one of ethnic divide and rule imposed on Sub-Saharan Africa as well as a few nations in the Middle East and Asia that the British and other colonial powers imposed. The adverse developmental impacts of these divisions continue to reverberate.

While I foresee enormous opportunities, the greatest and most formidable governance hurdle Ethiopia faces and will continue to face in the years to come is human and mostly elite made. Among these is the artificial and poorly designed system of ethnic federalism that I argued in 2010/2011 in my book Waves would undermine the country’s rapid sustainable and equitable development.  The problem is not federalism at all; rather, it is the type of federalism that undermines citizenship rights and cohesion, collaboration and growth on the basis of individual human rights.

In 1991, ethnic elites led by the TPLF excluded multiethnic parties thereby paving the way for 27 years of plunder, theft, corruption and massive illicit outflow by deploying the tool of ethnic divide and rule.  This artful state craftsmanship works by ensuring that new political and financial beneficiaries at all levels of society. So, the problem is not confined to the TPLF; there are numerous pockets of new beneficiaries that defend the defunct system in the name of the people and the Constitution.

In my view, if Ethiopians decide to live together in peace and harmony; they must accept one another; and they must adhere to the rule of law and commit to justice for all. For Ethiopia and its 110 million people to thrive, they must possess a patriotic and inclusive leadership and empowering governance. Not only would these conditions enable citizens to survive; but equally, favorable governance conditions will propel Ethiopian society to thrive. Backwardness and poverty will be history. Dependency on foreign largesse will become unnecessary. In its new role as a manufacturing and technological hub, an innovative, resilient and self-sustaining Ethiopia will also lift the dormant Sub-Saharan Africa and encourage it to form a unified Africa. The old adage a divided, dysfunctional, poor, backward and dependent Africa will be gone.  So, Ethiopia’s future matters not only for Ethiopians but also for the rest of Africa.

Ethiopia would have served Africa and all black and brown people everywhere twice: First in its capacity as a free and independent African country; and second as multiethnic, unified and prosperous country.

This is not wishful thinking. Ethiopia served as a beacon of independence when the rest of Africa and in fact the rest of the “Third World” suffered under the yoke of colonialism and imperialism. It supported African liberation movements. Once again, this ancient and historic country is in the process of asserting itself in the 21^st century by boosting its productive capacity.

I acknowledge the enormous Constitutional, political, policy, structural, cultural and environmental hurdles Ethiopia’s 110 million people face. Until April last year, Ethiopia was literally a captured state on the verge of Balkanization and ethnic war and conflagration. Thanks largely to its youthful population, the unthinkable occurred. Those who captured state power and converted the country into a piggybank collapsed; and many of them resorted to the only thing they know, resistance against the will of the people. In the process, they have left a society in socioeconomic and political tatters.

Their stolen hidden wealth is now being deployed to strengthen resistance, to force the general public that the old was better than the new with the mean-spirited intent of reversing the unstoppable change. The flawed Constitution that was also abused to punish the innocent for almost three decades is now being defended as a panacea. Anyone who had the courage to watch the ETV broadcast የፍትህ ሰቆቃ (The Degradation of Justice in Ethiopia) must ask the question how the Ethiopian people tolerated the TPLF lead and managed cruel and crude punishment for 27 years. In my assessment, Ethiopians will never go back to a system that punished and impoverished them.

Youth led protests and forums indicate that the ultimate purpose of the popular uprising is not cosmetic but fundamental change. These social forces openly critique the well-entrenched rent seeking, corrupt and crony system that still affects ordinary citizens. The financial and monetary system of the country is dysfunctional and requires surgical remedy. Ethiopia’s private sector is still crowded out by highly entrenched state and party enterprises. Forex is in short supply and prices continue to rise. The old guard of the TPLF has effectively garrisoned itself in Mekele. Sadly and despite the enormous harms it caused to Ethiopian society, its founders and new adherents see themselves as “saviors.” and as the “guardians of the Constitutional order.” They drum up for war in a country where any form of conflict is a non-starter. They are unable to lift themselves out of a paradigm of thinking that has outlived its time. Among other things, the old leadership that had captured the Ethiopian state and national economy lacks a new vision and new leadership with the foresight to forge alliances with the rest of Ethiopia’s progressive forces. Instead of pushing for dialogue, peace and reconciliation, the old guard subverts peace, undermines people to people relationships and genuine political pluralism.

Against these and other formidable odds, the political, social, spiritual, economic and geopolitical indicators, including relations with Eritrea and the rest of the Horn of Africa, are promising and compelling for Ethiopia’s future. For the first time in Ethiopia’s modern political history, there is no single journalist in jail. Ethiopians are free to move into and out of the country with ease.

Credit goes to the new and energetic Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed. Frida Ghitis of the Washington Post provided a succinct commentary on why Abiy stood stands tall in a continent marred by ‘BIG AND CORRUPT MEN’ whose grip to political power and the wealth that comes from this power is legendary.

In a piece on December 17, 2018, Ghitis wrote. ”By almost any measure, 2018 has been a disastrous year for democracy. Authoritarian leaders have made decisive moves to tighten their grip on power by eroding practices indispensable to a functioning democracy, such as the rule of law and a free press, and blithely ignoring or violently suppressing mass protests in places such as Hungary, Nicaragua, the Philippines and elsewhere.

And yet, there are parts of the world where, quite unexpectedly, the struggle for democratic reform made giant strides — a reminder that the right mix of activism, leadership and circumstances can suddenly change the course of history. The good news came from starkly different countries, where undemocratic practices had been playing out in unique ways. Remarkably, whether toppling autocrats or reversing corrosive practices, the bold leaders and committed activists that shocked the system managed to achieve their goals without violence.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year came in Ethiopia, a country of 100 million people and a solidly authoritarian past. Its jails teemed with political prisoners and journalists, and regime critics knew that the safest place was in exile. Since overthrowing a military regime in 1991, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) monopolized power, profited from corruption, crushed its critics and blatantly favored the privileged ethnic Tigray minority.”

What is the real surprise that the Ethiopian people and the rest of the world has come to note and admire? It is the selection of Dr. Abiy Ahmed first as the Chairman of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDF), in power for 27 years and always dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF); and later as Prime Minister. This change is unlike any other in Ethiopia’s tumultuous political history.  “His appointment ushered in changes that Ethiopians at home and abroad could hardly believe….Abiy freed thousands of political prisoners. He released jailed journalists — not a single one remains in prison, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists — and ended a decades-old war with neighboring Eritrea. The euphoria that gripped Ethiopia, as opposition leaders started returning home, spread to the diaspora. Abiy met with a hero’s welcome during his travels to exiled Ethiopian communities. In a meeting with Ethiopian dissidents in the United States he explained his vision: The next step, he declared, is a ‘democratic’ election.”

As mentioned earlier and in my commentaries issued in Ethiopia, Abiy and his government face enormous real challenges, among them the ethnic Constitution. These challenges are natural in a country that had not witnessed a semblance of freedom for almost half a century.

The good news is this. The vast majority of Ethiopians, most of them under the age of 45, welcome and support fundamental changes. Projecting ahead, this huge social or human capital requires a dose of massive investment in new factories, modern farming and other sectors. This too is achievable with good and sound macro-economic, sector policies; among other things by designing and implementing an industrialization policy and program (specially manufacturing) and that takes advantage of both Ethiopia’s natural resources and its youthful population (the youth dividend).

The first priority is getting the political narrative and national institutions right. Other countries have done it and we can learn from them.

When I first visited China in 1977 in my capacity as Economic Advisor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), the country was relatively backward and poor. It had an estimated GDP of $200 billion. Its young people left China in droves. In 1978, China initiated a new path of rapid and integrated modernization. It opened up its economy and soon became the manufacturing hub of the globe. Young and educated women and men found lucrative jobs in the new China.

The Chinese used the right mix of policies and programs in empowering citizens and in establishing a resilient and self-sustaining economy.

Today, with a GDP in excess of $11 billion, China’s economy is the second largest in the world. Poverty and destitution have become history.

Ethiopia has the potential to become a manufacturing hub; and a real food granary. I therefor continue to support the change led by Prime Minister Dr. Abiy because it provides a compelling alternative to a shameful and harmful past.

1/4/2019

The post Let Ethiopia Thrive – Aklog Birara (Dr) appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Record Ethiopian champions Saint George Sports Club have released former AFC Leopards’ Nigerian forward Alex Orotomal, just 76 days after he signed a three-year contract.

The post Ethiopian giants fire ex-AFC Leopards striker appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Written by, co-directed by and starring Mulugeta while set in the tight-knit New York Ethiopian community where ancient traditions rub shoulders with the modern world, WOVEN is about two families searching for happiness. But when one tragedy connects their path, a web of secrets is revealed.

RELATED: Ethiopia Elects First Modern-Era Female President

RELATED: ESSENCE Eats: Her Son Bought Her a Restaurant and She Made It a Local Ethiopian Favorite

In the 15 years it took the director, writer, producer, actress and journalist to bring WOVEN to life, breaking into the film industry has proved a challenge. From conception to distribution and during her trial-by-fire period, the determined filmmaker realized the importance of her community and the need to bring stories from Mother Africa to life.

“The Ethiopian community supported our endeavor in so many ways,” Mulugeta tells ESSENCE. “It was more than just giving money.”

In cinematic history, stories from the African continent written by those who truly understand and care about getting it right are shamefully unacknowledged. This fiercely beautiful film deftly intertwines the music and language to provide an immediate relevance within today’s debates about our contributions and importance on the worlds’ stage.

“In a way, the film was a love letter to my culture,” Muguleta stressed. “I’m very proud of my heritage; a country that has not been colonized apart from a five-year occupation by Italy, which Ethiopia won. We are a proud people and for this reason, I felt we had to show that pride in the Ethiopian mother in the film regardless of what she was going through in her life.”

As seen in the film, reality and fiction can sometimes make for a potent combination. Muguleta best illustrated this through her intentional casting of a variety of non-actors who are real-life members of the Ethiopian community. The authenticity of the film was also captured through her inclusion of important coffee ceremonies—an essential part of the culture—along with celebration rituals that highlight traditional Ethiopian dance. Those familiar with the dancer will recognize the emphasis on bouncing shoulder movements and the soaring ululations (ululo)—a long, wavering, high-pitched vocal sound resembling a howl that has a trilling quality.

“As storytellers, I feel we have responsibilities to tell stories of who we are, what we endured and survived, it gives us hope for the future,” added Mulugeta. “The younger generation’s futures depend on them knowing their past. We should tell stories about our cultures, tell about our hardships and triumphs, we should tell stories about where we come from and the past to build a strong future in a community.”

Though unapologetic in her intention to showcase authentic African culture on screen, Mulugeta is also aware that her passion for bringing these type of stories to life inspires a strong reaction. Hollywood’s track record is evidence enough of the challenge Mulugeta will face in her filmmaking, but as an African woman with great pride in her heritage, she insists that it is something she will continue to do.

The well-seasoned director travels the globe directing commercials for big brands like Coca-Cola and Ethiopian Airlines. Most recently, she began developing a television pilot for WOVEN with producers Stephanie Allain and Mel Jones (Homegrown Pictures) and signed on to direct The Academy Nicholl Fellowships-winning screenplay, Addis Abeka.

“The fact that Black Panther surpassed one billion at the global box office makes me believe that Hollywood is definitely open to telling our stories,” says Mulugeta. “We do have a long road ahead of us but, I’m grateful it’s coming to light now in the film industry and that we will all benefit from the movements that have been taking place. I’m an optimist. I believe we will see a change for us. It might be slow but, it will happen. And I want us— Africans— to succeed and believe in ourselves to succeed. I believe it. You believe it? So let’s all believe it.”

WOVEN is available in English and Amharic (with subtitles”). Now playing in Los Angeles and available on Amazon Play. Coming to iTunes and Google Play in January 2019.

The post Ethiopian Filmmaker Salome Mulugeta’s Captivating Family Drama, ‘WOVEN,’ Is A Must-See appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who arrives Addis Ababa on Thursday for official visit, expressed his country’s support to the reform Ethiopia is currently undertaking.

He made the comment after meeting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia. During his one day official meeting in Ethiopia, Minister Wang Yi has also talked to Ethiopia’s President Sahlework Zewde.

Prime Minister Abiy highlighted that in addition to continued support in infrastructure development, the new frontier of a strengthened relationship needs to capitalize on introducing new forms of technology, according to the statement from the PM Press Secretariat.

“Mr. Wang Yi appreciated the successful reform initiatives that have been undertaken over the past few months in Ethiopia. He further emphasized that Ethiopia is on the right path and that China remains committed to supporting and to developing new dimensions to the relationship,” it said.

After the reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power about eight months ago, relation between the two countries has been slowing, according to some observers.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abiy has visited Beijing during the recent Africa-China meeting and managed to extend loan payment period for Ethiopia, which was at sort of financial crises when he came to power.

For the past two decades, Chinese companies have been highly engaged in infrastructure developments in Ethiopia, mostly financed by Chinese government loans.

Chinese government loan to Ethiopian government from 2000 – 2014 was $12 billion, while latest reports also show that the east Africa country has also taken an additional few billion dollars from China.

Even though the loans have helped Ethiopia develop its infrastructures, lack of transparency and quality of the infrastructures were often mentioned as major challenges by critics.

Some also have been expressing worries about the danger of growing state loans of China in Africa, which at times are leading to unforeseen acquisition of some infrastructures of African countries by the Chinese government like, the recent Mombasa Port of Kenya.

The post China Expresses Support To Ethiopia’s Reform appeared first on Satenaw Ethioopian News & Breaking News: Your right to know!.