sraelis of Ethiopian descent take part in a protest. (photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)
The wider issue is that the Ethiopian community needs to feel that the government cares about them.
BY JPOST EDITORIAL FEBRUARY 1, 2019
Thousands of Israelis, mostly Ethiopians, protested on Wednesday, nearly two weeks after 24-year-old Yehuda Biadga was shot by police in Bat Yam. Biadga’s is the latest controversial death at the hands of police in Israel, and comes amid anger and fear among Ethiopian Jews that the police use disproportionate force against their community.
The thousands who came to the protest in Tel Aviv have been waiting for answers and seeking support from the wider Israeli society. They expect politicians, in the midst of the election cycle, to address their concerns. They also feel that without a large protest, these kinds of incidents come and go without being addressed – by either the police or the government.
Biadga was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, his family says, when he ran into the street with the knife. A police officer shot him, claiming that he feared for his life. The incident comes four years after a series of protests in 2015 that were sparked after police beat an Ethiopian soldier who was walking with his bicycle. Those protests came after years of accusations of police brutality that black Israelis say disproportionately targets them.
At the time, Ethiopians made up a disproportionate number of youth offenders who were charged with crimes, as well as of IDF soldiers incarcerated for minor infractions during their service. In 2016, the Prime Minister’s Office established a division for implementing a comprehensive plan for integrating Ethiopian Israelis into Israeli society.
The police also invested resources in trying to come to grips with perceptions of racism and misunderstandings with the community. Messages of multiculturalism were part of a 2017 police video campaign highlighting an Ethiopian police officer to showcase the new police effort.
Demonstrators on Wednesday did not think enough work has been done. “Erdan go home,” they shouted, a reference to the Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. Signs called for an end to violence and racism. Yesh Atid’s Pnina Tamnu-Shata, the first female Ethiopian MK, called the protest “a just struggle for equality against racism and discrimination.”
The struggle to end racism and address accusations of police brutality is not a simple one. It is multi-layered and involves not only difficult relations with the police, but also anger over lack of integration in other sectors, poverty and past cases of abuses. On one level, the protesters asserted that reforming Israel is necessary to make the country better for all of its citizens – and that the Biadga case needs to be addressed to get the police to stop using disproportionate force against other sectors of society as well.
Young, black Israelis say they are they afraid of police and of going out at night because of past incidents of racial profiling. Mothers say that after the Biadga case, they are afraid to phone the police because Biadga’s family had called hoping they would help, only to have their son shot dead by a police officer. There are feelings that no one is listening.
After the protest on Wednesday, there were clashes between some youth and the police; eleven were arrested. “We will not show any tolerance to those who seek to harm public safety,” a police spokesperson said. Protest leaders had called for a peaceful demonstration, but the scenes of violence at the end marred its importance.
Similar scenes took place in 2015 when protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv briefly deteriorated into clashes. At the time, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat came out to the streets and spoke with the demonstrators.
It is important for all of Israeli society to listen to the protesters. Racism doesn’t only affect one community; it affects everyone in different ways. It is important for the police to take the investigation into Biadga’s death seriously.
The wider issue is that the Ethiopian community needs to feel that the government cares about them. For instance, Avera Mengistu is still being held in Gaza after he wandered into the Hamas-held enclave from the Zikim Beach in 2014. Community members wonder why he was not prevented from crossing over and argue that if he was not black then there would be more national concern.
The government has made impressive strides towards integrating the Ethiopian community. The protests on Wednesday show that there is still more work that needs to be done.
Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the assault and said it had killed 16 Ethiopian soldiers, although the claim could not be independently verified.
A local elder who witnessed the attack told Reuters the explosion had killed 10 people including soldiers and civilians | Image for representation | Photo Credit: AP
Mogadishu: A suicide car bomb exploded outside a military base for Ethiopian soldiers in southern Somalia on Saturday, leaving an unspecified number of casualties, a police official said. Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the assault and said it had killed 16 Ethiopian soldiers, although the claim could not be independently verified. A local elder who witnessed the attack told Reuters the explosion had killed 10 people including soldiers and civilians. “The mini bus was very dusty, it must have come from a far region, it was fired (on) as it started speeding up,” he said.
Police officer Major Nur Abdullahi told Reuters from the town of Bardheere where the attack occurred that the vehicle involved was a mini bus carrying vegetables as a disguise. “It was fired (on) before it reached the gate. We understand there are casualties,” the officer said. Al Shabaab is fighting to topple Somalia’s western-backed central government and establish its own rule, based on a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
The group regularly stages attacks against the Somali military and against troops from the African Union-mandated peacekeeping force AMISOM. Ethiopia is one of the countries contributing troops to AMISOM, alongside Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and others. Somalia has been gripped by violence since the early 1990s after the toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
I never thought there would come a time where would I admire an Ethiopian prime minister over a United States president. It is a strange time. President Trump is stripping away inherited ideals that long existed in United States while PM Dr. Abiy Ahmed is instilling ideals in Ethiopia that didn’t exist in the first place.
United States is founded upon timeless ideals. Yes, there is prejudice and racism but that doesn’t speak to America as a whole. Instead, that can be attributed to the fallen state of humanity. America has been on a journey to enlighten and deal with such ignorance. That progress is the beauty of America, one victory at a time. That is why America is an inspiration for the world, and a sanctuary for the persecuted. America’s soul speaks of such priceless identity.
Now the president single handedly undermines those ideals to re-invent America and in doing so, he is making America lose her soul. It is an oxymoron for an immigrant president (albeit his ancestors) to turn around and label Mexicans that aspire to come here as drug dealers and criminals. Ensuring legal immigration through secure borders is a noble thing, but dehumanizing immigrants to sell his agenda by holding the united states hostage is insane.
When the highest office in the land debases the ideals of America, it is an American identity crisis. Being the super-power of the world or the super-rich of the world is meaningless and short lived unless one can be the super model of the world. There have been many rises and falls of civilization in history: Axum, Egypt, Athens, Rome, Great Britain. America is not meant to join this list. America’s soul dictates that America will keep herself from the fall through wisdom and understanding. At the time wisdom and understanding is a hard commodity in the White House, we need to look for guidance at the faraway, unlikely place known as a “dark continent” (what the president calls “shit hole countries”).
There, we find Ethiopia: grabbing the imagination of not only Ethiopians but Africans and the world at large. PM Abiy Ahmed espouses regional integration and openness to the world. He champions Ethiopianism within the context of “medemer” (coming together). His “love wins” philosophy had the power to end the twenty-year hostility with Eritrea, practically overnight. All political prisoners have been set free. All parties have put their arms to rest and are roaming Addis Ababa in freedom. Every morning, the impossible is becoming possible. There is distinct joy and aura of hope in the air. What has enabled each of these historic changes is one and the same: the fact that PM Dr. Abiy Ahmed is instilling timeless ideals for Ethiopia. That is what makes or breaks a nation.
Subject: Justice for Ethiopia for the War Crimes perpetrated by Italy with the Vatican’s Complicit Support.
The Global Alliance for Justice – The Ethiopian Cause presents its compliments for Your Excellency’s outstanding efforts for the achievement of democracy and respect of human rights in Ethiopia and a peaceful brotherly integrated coexistence throughout the Horn of Africa.
We also admire Your Excellency’s contribution to the strengthening of Ethiopia’s historic achievements including the honor of His Imperial Majesty (HIM) Haile Sellasie I’s role in the establishment of the OAU and African liberation as a whole. Hence, we applaud the forthcoming installation of the commemorative statue for HIM at the headquarters of the African Union.
Taking into account Your Excellency’s admirable successes and the world’s recognition of your progressive and global perspective, we hereby resubmit, most respectfully, our appeal during your recent official visit to Europe. The attempt was made through the Ethiopian embassies in Italy and Switzerland, requesting fervently Your Excellency’s intercession on behalf of the objective of achieving the justice required by Ethiopia. The issue concerns the Fascist Italian war crimes committed with the Vatican’s complicit support. It is our hope that Your Excellency has raised the issues of the Italian Government’s remuneration and restitution required for Ethiopia, and the need for the Vatican’s apology to the Ethiopian people for its complicity with the Fascist Italian war crimes in Ethiopia.
Our appeal relates to Italy’s war crimes on Ethiopia during the 1936-41 poison gas- backed invasion. Our claim is based on the fact that, so far, the Italian Government has not taken the appropriate action to remunerate Ethiopia duly with the restorative justice and due consideration that the country deserves. In fact, the issue has been muted after Italy has provided a mere US$25 million for the construction of the Koka Dam in 1947, and the more recent return of the Aksum obelisk. We are certain that this is completely inadequate for the heinous war crimes committed by the fascist regime.
It should be noted that the Italian Government has decided to remunerate Libya with $5 billion for the massacre of 30,000 people. It should also be noted that the Armenian people are claiming a $3 Trillion remuneration for the one million massacre they suffered by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.
It is well known that in Ethiopia, the Fascist Italians perpetrated the massacre of one million Ethiopians, of whom 30,000 were murdered within only three days i.e. February 19-21, 1937. The murder spree includes 2,000 monks and parishioners, who were executed in cold blood at the Debre Libanos monastery. Moreover, 525,000 homes and 2,000 churches as well as 14
million animals were destroyed. Huge quantities of Ethiopian properties and manuscripts were also looted by the Fascist Italians. Most sadly, Ethiopia’s educated manpower was systematically decimated. Mussolini was determined to conquer Ethiopia “with or without Ethiopians” as suggested by his commander in Ethiopia, Rodolfo Graziani.
To add insult to injury, a mausoleum was recently established to honor the Fascist criminal, Rudolfo Graziani at an Italian town called Affile. It is encouraging to note that an Italian court has adopted a verdict for its removal, although the decision is subject to an appeal.
We should also recall that although the Vatican has apologized to the Jews, the Latin American people and the people of Rwanda and has recognized the Ottoman Empire’s genocide against the Armenian people. It is painful, however, to know that it has yet to apologize to the Ethiopian people. It should also be noted that over 500 historic manuscripts looted from Ethiopia are currently in the custody of the Vatican library.
We would like to bring to Your Excellency’s attention that our Alliance has also previously submitted its letters of appeal to the Italian Government, the Vatican, the European Parliament, the African Union, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Association of Ethiopian Patriots, the Governments of USA and UK, etc. Among the many positive achievements we have, with the assistance of the Almighty, been able to achieve are the commemorations of Yekatit 12 by some 30 cities throughout the world including the one in Rome by Italian supporters, the signing of the petition on our website by 6,400 global
supporters so far calling on the Vatican to apologize to the Ethiopian people, the verdict obtained regarding Rodolfo Graziani by Italian and Ethiopian supporters, enhancing awareness
about the Fascist Italian war crimes with the support of certain media such as VOA, DWelle, ESAT, etc., encouraging responses by the EU Parliament and Cardinal Berhaneyesus, etc.
Our Alliance respectfully submits this appeal to Your Excellency. GAJEC implores Your Excellency to take up the need for justice with the Italian Government as well as the apology required from the Vatican , so that the Ethiopian people finally achieve the remuneration and justice they deserve.
Finally, we thank Your Excellency for your outstanding leadership.
With the assurances of our highest respect.
Respectfully yours
Ermias Sahle Selassie, Prince, Chairman
Dr. Aklilu Habte, Member
Dr. Getatchew Haile, Member
Dr. Girma Abebe, Member
Dr. Astair Mengesha, Member
Dr. Mikael Wossen, Member
Dr. Jon Levy, Member
Dr. Steve Delamarter, Member
Mr. Nicola DeMarco, Member
Kidane Alemayehu, Executive Director
CC:
His Holiness Pope Francis I
H.E. Mr. Giuseppe Conte
Prime Minister of Italy
The African Union (AU)
The European Union (EU)
UNESCO
Genocide International
EOTC
Assocn. Of Eth Patriots
Institute of Ethiopian Studies
December 5, 2018
Ms. Alessandra Mussolini, MEP
European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
Altiero Spinelli 10E261
1047 Brussels
BELGIUM
Dear Ms. Mussolini,
The Global Alliance for Justice – The Ethiopian Cause is a nonprofit corporation that advocates for the recognition of the Italian Genocide in Ethiopia and is chaired by His Imperial Highness Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie Haile Selassie, the grandson of Emperor Haile-Selassie I who along with Ethiopian patriots liberated the country from the Italian fascists under the leadership of Benito Mussolini.
Recently, you have been quoted in the press, praising the memory of your grandfather Benito Mussolini and threatening anyone who speaks ill of him. While I am sure no one took your lack of justice seriously; it is still important to remind you that the crimes of Benito Mussolini did not fall only upon Italians.
Our organization is dedicated to exposing those behind the Fascist Italian genocide of the Ethiopian people during 1936-1941 whose prime mover and architect was your grandfather Benito Mussolini.
Your grandfather was responsible for not only the genocide in Ethiopia of a million victims including my grandfather, Grazmach (title) Gessese Fanta, but also helped make possible the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christian Serbs in Croatia 1941-1945. He is double cursed as a result. And while his role in the Holocaust of the Jewish people was relatively minor compared to his comrade Adolf Hitler, he nonetheless ordered the cruel deaths of tens of thousands of Italian Jews.
Let me remind you of just a few historic facts about Benito Mussolini’s many crimes in Ethiopia:
2
In 1937, Rodolfo Graziani directed a three-day massacre of over 30,000 unarmed civilians in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, upon the orders of Benito Mussolini. Over 2,000 Orthodox Christian monks and parishioners were singled out and murdered at the Debre Libanos Ethiopian Monastery by Fascist Italians. People were dismembered, and soldiers took photos of the hangings, beheadings and torture proudly alongside their dead victims. The “Graziani Massacre” is well known to every Ethiopian. Graziani, prior to arriving in Ethiopia, was named “The Butcher of Libya.” In Libya, Graziani presided over concentration camps, used chemical weapons and murdered thousands of innocents for your grandfather too.
In Ethiopia, one million Ethiopians perished as a result of the genocidal Fascist occupation. 2,000 Orthodox Christian churches as well as 525,000 homes were destroyed. Vast quantities of Ethiopian properties were looted. The poison gas sprayed by numerous Fascists air planes also destroyed 14 million animals and the environment. The crimes of Benito Mussolini in Ethiopia alone are too numerous to list here.
Whatever good your grandfather accomplished, if any, was erased by his genocidal crimes. Benito Mussolini stands among the top ranks of murderers of innocent victims in
Africa and Europe. He alone is responsible for the deaths of at least 1.5 million Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia and former Yugoslavia, may his memory be cursed and reviled.
The African Union has declared 2019 as the year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons finding durable solutions. The theme is expected to address the challenge Africa is facing with at least over 6 million displaced persons. The year also marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the AU convention and the 10th year anniversary of the Kampala convention on IDPs. This will be declared at the 32nd summit of the Heads of state and government. The February 2019 Summit will also take stock of the progress made towards the reform of the African Union (AU) decided in an extraordinary Summit in November 2018, in Addis Ababa
While this has been lauded by stakeholders across the continent given the challenge Africa has faced with migration within the continent and more troubling, the loss of lives in the Mediterranean sea and the slavery in Libya, there is cautious optimism due to the slow pace of implementation of key political decisions and policies like the African passport and most recently, the CFTA.
These issues including shrinking civic space and lack of responsible democratic governance revealed in sham elections and the use of armed force to stem citizens action have raised concerns about the continent’s leadership commitment to addressing the theme in an effective manner that puts people at the centre of policies and programmes to achieve this theme.
It is against this background that Oxfam Pan Africa, Pan Africa Citizens Union, FEMNET, Trust Africa and other Pan African civil society organisations are coming together under the auspices of the 8th Citizens conference to raise the voice of citizens in the continent and speak truth to power by making their voices heard in the Implementation of the theme and demand accountability from their leaders.
The conference which will take place from the 4th – 6th February 2019 at the Capital hotel in Addis Ababa, will see over 300 citizens in the continent respond to the theme Where is the Africa we want? Citizens Perspectives will be captured in a press conference on:
Date: Wednesday 6th February 2019
Time: 3pm (GMT +3)
Venue: Capital Hotel
22 Haile Gebre Silase St Addis Ababa ET 1878, Haile Gebre Silase St, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
For any press queries, interviews and further information, please contact:
Ms. Maimouna Tall (Oxfam Pan Africa Communications and Media Manager) – Maimouna.Tall@oxfam.org
In Ethiopia, some monks are using Facebook and YouTube to gain thousands of disciples, who see them as modern Messiahs.
Yohannes Tesfamariam sits surrounded by followers.CHARLIE ROSSERTOM GARDNER / Atlantic
TISSISAT, Ethiopia—“What do you expect from me?” a monk roared into a microphone onstage. Young men shuffled toward him, kneeling in rows. One scratched his arms frantically, his head rolling backwards and forwards to the sound of drumming. Women wrapped in white shawls wailed and gnashed their teeth. “What do you want?” the monk asked again, his voice rising over the screams and chants of the audience. “Heal me!” they replied, the beat of drums growing louder.
These pilgrims were participating in a mass exorcism in September at Wenkeshet, a remote monastery in northern Ethiopia, near the village of Tissisat and the tumbling waters of the Blue Nile Falls. They had come from across the country and as far away as Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East, seeking relief from a wide range of maladies—HIV, mental illness, professional failure, heartbreak. The monk presiding over them was Yohannes Tesfamariam, a 61-year-old Ethiopian Orthodox Christian whose followers believe he is endowed with miraculous healing powers.
“This father is very special,” a young pilgrim named Michael Asrat told me at Wenkeshet, likening him to John the Baptist. “You’ll never find anything like him all over Ethiopia.”
In fact, Yohannes is part of a growing trend in Ethiopian Christianity, one which is most visible within its Protestant churches but is slowly beginning to impact its ancient Orthodox community, too. It’s characterized by charismatic preachers redolent of American televangelists, an entrepreneurial approach to mass media, and an internationalist outlook. These features reflect the influence of Pentecostalism, an extraordinarily fast-growing Protestant revival movement that emphasizes a personal experience of God. On the rise across swaths of Africa and the developing world, Pentecostalism is transforming some of the very oldest Christian societies, including Ethiopian Orthodoxy. Other Christian denominations around the world are likewise reviving the practice of exorcism.
CHARLIE ROSSER
Yohannes often travels the world spreading his message, with the result that an average of 40,000 pilgrims, by his count, pass through Wenkeshet “like the flow of a river” each month, while a few thousand live in makeshift tents inside the monastery compound at any given time. But what really helps him cultivate an international following is modern technology.
He screens his mass exorcisms and baptisms on Facebook and YouTube, where his monastery has a combined following of more than 70,000 people. Several pilgrims told me they first heard of Wenkeshet online. Eshetu Neta, a government official from the town of Adama, near the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, told me that his sister in Germany had her spinal cord fixed “simply by watching this program on YouTube and coming here.” Meaza Lemma, a 25-year-old woman suffering from asthma, learned about Yohannes from her sister in Dubai who watched his services on Facebook. And at the end of the ceremony I witnessed, Yohannes asked a young woman to testify in front of a camera that she had been successfully cured of mental-health issues.
This technical savvy is characteristic of modern Pentecostalism, according to Naomi Richman, a scholar of African religion at Oxford University. So is mass exorcism, which she told me is “fast becoming a staple practice in African Christianity.” Few denominations in Ethiopia have been left entirely untouched by these recent developments.
But that doesn’t mean that such articulations of the religion are entirely new, or that figures like Yohannes are without precedent in the history of Ethiopian Christianity. The faith, according to historical accounts, was brought to the country in the late fifth century by monks and missionaries from North Africa and the Middle East. Some, it is said, came bearing wonders. “The focus on miracles was there right from the inception of the monastic movement,” said Theodros Teklu, a theologian at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, a Protestant seminary college. Father Garima, a Byzantine prince and one of the so-called Nine Saints of early Ethiopian Christianity, was famed for his spiritual gifts, notably a power to heal the sick. For centuries, Ethiopia held a special place in the European imagination as a mythical Christian kingdom sealed off from the outside world.
CHARLIE ROSSER
Throughout Ethiopian Christian history, monks and mystics known as Bahitawi sprang up. Nomadic and usually dreadlocked, some of them gathered large followings. Joachim Persoon, a scholar of the Bahitawi, has argued that they often appeared in times of social change and unrest. “When the government was weak and unstable, people were looking for guidance and leadership,” he told me. “They went looking for charismatic leaders.”
Exorcism and holy water, for which many of the pilgrims in Wenkeshet were queueing, are also familiar to other Orthodox Christians—though not usually in this way. Exorcism is rarely carried out in such a spectacular, almost theatrical form. And holy water is traditionally understood by Ethiopian Christians to flow only at certain locations. For example, today many HIV victims live at Mount Entoto near Addis Ababa, in the hope of being cured by the spring water found there. Those in Wenkeshet, by contrast, are drawn by the reputation of Yohannes himself.
For preachers like Yohannes or his much more well-known counterpart in Addis Ababa, Father Girma Wondimu, “holy water is more of an accessory,” said Diego Malara, an anthropologist at Glasgow University who has studied exorcisms and healing in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. “What matters is the spiritual gift of the exorcist himself.”
Orthodox figures like Yohannes and Girma often warn against rival charismatic preachers rising to prominence in Ethiopian Pentecostalism today. Some of these preachers have amassed enormous followings by appearing to model themselves on Nigerian televangelist superstars such as T.B. Joshua. But they all share an entrepreneurial—or, according to their critics, overly commercializing—attitude toward religion.
Wenkeshet, which Yohannes founded nearly 20 years ago after four decades as a traveling holy man, has administrative offices in towns across the Ethiopian region of Amhara. A workshop at the monastery makes textiles to sell to pilgrims, and Yohannes also produces his own CDs and books for sale there. He envisions turning the site of the monastery into a recreation center that will welcome tourists. And that’s just the first of the five monasteries he’s built so far.
“I want to build them all over the world,” Yohannes told me, adding that he is currently in negotiations to purchase a plot of land in Australia. He hopes to build a hospital, schools, and a university, too, at Wenkeshet and in the surrounding area. “My vision is not just religious,” he explained. “I’m an engineer, doctor, activist, writer, and farmer as well as a monk.”
CHARLIE ROSSER
Even more controversial than this business-minded approach, at least in the eyes of Orthodox traditionalists, is the emphasis on the power of the individual preacher. “Individuals should not shine: that has been the identity of the Church for centuries,” said Tekalign Nega, also of the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. Figures like Yohannes emphatically do shine. Michael, the young pilgrim, told me that “everybody here believes [Yohannes] is the Messiah.”
Many of Yohannes and Girma’s disciples are young, educated, and urbanized—similar in profile to those Ethiopians who have converted from Orthodoxy to Pentecostalism in the past few decades. Since the 1960s, Pentecostalism has grown from about 1 percent of the Ethiopian population to nearly a quarter of it today, with many converts drawn to the worldly modernity of new Pentecostal churches, their uplifting message of individual prosperity, and the promise of bodily and emotional healing through mass exorcism (or “deliverance,” as it tends to be known among believers).
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is under pressure to adapt so as to stem their congregants’ flight to rival denominations. Charismatic preachers represent one possible response. In addition to pomp and theater, both Yohannes and Girma profess to offer solutions to the ills of contemporary life, like business failure, and to characteristically modern physiological complaints, like diabetes.
In this way, they also resemble their counterparts in other Christian denominations. Richman, the Oxford academic, argued the growing popularity of these traditional practices can be understood as “a refusal to buy wholesale into modernity, with its outright denial of the existence of the spiritual and supernatural.” Exorcism in the contemporary world is popular, she suggested, because it works directly to address problems in the realms of health, finance, and personal relationships, “which seem to intensify in a globalized environment where the gap between those with and those without appears to be extreme.”
Yohannes and Girma may be products of Ethiopia’s painful encounter with globalization and its rapid socioeconomic modernization. But such theoretical explanations seemed far from the minds of the young pilgrims I spoke with in Wenkeshet, who were overwhelmed by their encounter with Yohannes. Michael, for instance, had recently landed an exciting new job with a European development agency. He credited the monk with his professional good fortune. “[Wenkeshet] helped a lot,” he told me with a smile at the monastery. “This place is really blessed.”
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Ethiopia government is set for a legal battle in respect of patent rights for teff – an African grass economically important as a cereal grass.
Teff, famed for yielding white flour of good quality is at the center of a patent war between the government and a Dutch company.
Speaking on the issue, Ftism Arega; a former Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister and Commissioner of the Ethiopian Investment Commission wrote on Twitter: “I looked into the Teff patent issue.
“It is an issue of our inability to own our national assets in the international legal system. I’m told Federal Attorney General office is looking into it-to hire international intellectual property lawyers. We need to defend it!” he added.
The produce also serves as forage and hay. It is used in ‘injera’ bread and other traditional Ethiopian food, Teff is widely known as part of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage…”
For centuries, millions of Ethiopian farmers have depended on the growing of teff which is native to the country. The country has a factory that makes teff into flour for export. Processed teff is also made into bread, biscuits and pizza.
Fitsum Tekele, an Ethiopian farmer, harvests their staple Eragrostis tef, also known as teff grain in his field northeast of the Mekelle, Tigray region, Ethiopia December 10, 2018.
The Ethiopian government for over a decade has been battling for the revocation of the rights of the Dutch company granted patent for the production and distribution of teff in Europe.
Ethiopia is thus barred under the agreement from exporting its teff to Europe. The company that was granted the patent incidentally however has ceased to exist and the patent is in the name of an individual.
Fitsum Arega
✔@fitsumaregaa
I looked into the #Teff patent issue. It is an issue of our inability to own our national assets in the international legal system. I’m told Federal Attorney General office is looking into it-to hire international intellectual property lawyers. We need to defend it! #Ethiopia
Addis Standard@addisstandard
Teff flour: #Ethiopian or #Dutch?https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06zddjn … “#Ethiopia has been in a legal tussle with a Dutchman owning a patent on the production of #Teff flour. Used in #injera and other traditional Ethiopian food, Teff is widely known as part of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage…”
Ethiopia’s state monopoly telecommunication service provider, Ethio Telcom, has earned 16.71 billion birr revenue ($593 million at the current exchange rate) in the first six months of Ethiopia’s fiscal year started July 8, 2018.
This is indicated by the agency, which presented its six month performance report to the national parliament this morning. Out of the total 63.2% is collected from mobile phone subscribers, while the contribution of data and internet to the total income is 28.7%.
The contribution of international telecom service to the overall income was only 5.5%, according to the report. Last year the same period in six months the agency has earned a total collected 18.4 billion birr revenue.
The total number of mobile data internet users in Ethiopia has reached 19.49 million, says the state monopoly Ethio Telecom. The total number of telecom service subscribers in Ethiopia has also reached 41.1 million, according to the report. Out of the total 39.53 million are mobile subscribers.
The report also indicated that the total telecom coverage in Ethiopia has reached 43%.
Including Ethiopian Airlines, Ethio Telecom is one of the mega state enterprises, which Ethiopian government has announced to partially privatize selling minority share to foreign investors. The latest move of the government announced a few months ago by the reformist prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also involves the long awaited liberalization of the sectors.
The telecom history of the country shows that telecommunications service was introduced in Ethiopia by Emperor Menelik II in 1894 when the construction of the telephone line from Harar to the capital city, Addis Ababa, was commenced.
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. — Émile Zola, 13th January 1898
“… Some hooligans and political members of CUD [opposition party Coalition for Unity and Democracy] started throwing stones and crashing buses. Government soldiers and police tried to protect the buses. The police had to defend themselves and shoot at the hooligans… — Audio recording of Bereket Simon, prime suspect in the commission of crimes against humanity in Ethiopia in an interview following the post-election massacres in 2005.
My fiery protest for the past 13 years…
“Bereket” in Amharic means blessings.
But Bereket Simon has been the curse, the scourge of Ethiopia for the past 27 years.
For 27 years, Bereket Simon has caused untold deaths and political destruction in Ethiopia.
Bereket Simon was the invisible hand behind the trigger fingers of those police and security officers who unleashed the massacres on unarmed protesters following the 2005 elections.
In February 2019, I stand before the court of world opinion and accuse Bereket Simon, a/k/a Mebratu Gebrehiwot, of crimes against humanity in the deaths and malicious shooting with intent to kill hundreds of unarmed protesters in Ethiopia on June 8, 2005, and November 1–10, 2005.
My long time readers and followers know that I got involved in Ethiopia human rights advocacy because of one and only one reason: To bear witness to the victims of the Meles Massacres of 2005 and to ultimately bring the criminals who are directly and personally responsible for those massacres to the bar of justice.
As I have said so many times over the past decade, the victims of the Meles massacres cry out for justice from the grave.
Though we do not know the identity of all of them, we do have a fairly substantial list of names and some gruesome photographs of victims in the Testimony of Yared Hailemariam before the Extraordinary Joint Committee Meeting of the European Parliament Committees on Development and Foreign Affairs, and Sub-Committee on Human Rights, May 15, 2006.
We also have video clips of police engaging unarmed post-election protesters with machine gun fire in the background and images of severely wounded gunshot victims being transported to hospital.
I have been the voice from the grave of the victims of the Meles-Bereket Massacres in the court of world public opinion for the past 13 years.
I cannot remember the number of times people have told me, “Let it go. It is in the past. You can never bring back those people. Let bygones be bygones…”
They misunderstand my personal crusade against criminals against humanity.
Did I undertake my quest only to seek legal accountability and vindication for the masterminds of the Meles Massacres?
Did I labor day and night and post my fiery protests every single Monday for the past 13 years only to keep their memory alive?
Not at all.
I believe not bringing to justice those who commit crimes against humanity is itself a crime against humanity.
But my efforts transcend my endless crusade for justice for the victims of the 2005 massacres.
I want to make sure that my efforts will contribute in a small way to the prevention of crimes against humanity in Ethiopia in the future by those in power and out of power.
It is of the greatest importance to me that the younger generation of Ethiopians today and future generations to believe no individual or group will escape justice after committing crimes against humanity in Ethiopia.
But there is a hard and shocking truth we must all face.
The vast majority of the younger generation over the past decades has been driven into cynicism and believes that in Ethiopia those who commit crimes against humanity do so with impunity and almost always escape justice.
That was the shocking truth I learned talking to some young people at random when I visited Ethiopia this past September.
They would chuckle and say something along these lines: “Gashe, but that is the way it has always been in this country. No official is ever brought to justice for killing or torturing innocent citizens. It happens and then it is forgotten until it happens again. That will never change.”
It will change and is indeed changing before our very eyes today.
H.E. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed is proving to Ethiopians and the world that no one is above the law in Ethiopia and those who have committed gross human rights abuses will be brought to justice.
Today, dozens of such suspects are in custody awaiting trial. Others have chosen to live in hiding as fugitives from justice.
By standing up and speaking up for the victim of the Meles-Bereket Massacres, I wanted to demonstrate to the present and coming generations of Ethiopians that it is their moral duty to protest crimes against humanity and to work diligently to bring such criminals to justice no matter how long it takes or how difficult the task.
I want to eradicate the culture of indifference to crimes against humanity which has spawned deep cynicism in the younger generation and ensure that a culture of rule of law and accountability takes root in the hearts, minds and souls of every young person in Ethiopia today and in coming generations.
Young people are acquiring the conviction that foul deeds are never punished on earth, that they always bring prosperity. In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. It is going to be uncomfortable, horrible, to live in such a country!
Exactly seven years to the month, I wrote about the Ethiopian Gulag prison system.
I do not want to see the New Ethiopia we are struggling to build to be an uncomfortable and horrible country for our young people of today and tomorrow.
The only way to prevent future crimes against humanity is by learning from the past and by bringing criminal perpetrators swiftly to justice.
We must show absolute resolve in this commitment and learn from the experiences of others.
The great Nazi hunters spent decades dedicated to the search and arrest of Nazi criminals against humanity including Simon Wiesenthal, Efraim Zuroff, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, Elliot Welles, Rafi Eitan and many others.
We must understand that the great Nazi hunters were all private individuals whose consciences were seared by the crimes against humanity committed on their people and were moved to action to bring those responsible to justice.
When the Nazi Hunters captured Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann, Mossad chief Isser Harel told his men: “For the first time in history the Jews will judge their assassin, and for the first time the world will hear the full story of the edict of annihilation against an entire people”.
In my tiny and insignificant, but absolutely unrelenting and indefatigable way, I too want the world to hear for the first time the full story of the massacres of hundreds of unarmed protesters in 2005 and see the people of Ethiopia pass judgement on the wicked gang of assassins responsible.
I know there are some who will laugh at me and say, “Here he goes again dreaming of the impossible. It will never happen. The criminals against humanity like Bereket Simon who were personally and directly responsible for untold murders, torture and gross human rights abuses in Ethiopia will never be brought to justice. He is wasting his time.”
My answer is simple.
The search for justice for victims of injustice is never, never a waste of time. Anytime is the right time to do justice.
Of course, they all laughed at me for the last 13 years and said I was dreaming an “impossible dream and fighting unbeatable foe carrying an unbearable sorrow” and crying in the wilderness trying to bring to the bar of justice a ruthless gang of murderous thugs.
I dare say my cries were not bootless. They helped bring a magnificent Abo Shemane (Cheetah) who goes by the name Abiy Ahmed.
Mandela said it best, “It all seems impossible until it is done.”
As PM Abiy said a few days ago, no one who has committed gross human violations and perpetrated corruption on the people of Ethiopia shall escape the long arms of the justice:
You cannot expect to walk freely after committing murder. The only choice is to be held in government custody or self-imprisonment. There is no one in Ethiopia today who has been accused by the government of committing corruption and human rights abuses who is not in custody. The only difference between those in government custody who are taken care of properly at public expense and those who have voluntarily jailed themselves. Those in official custody enjoy the benefits of proper accommodations, family visits, sports activities, access to reading and writing materials and are free from harassment in detention. I don’t think those who have imprisoned themselves enjoy these benefits.
No doubt, the fugitives from justice may hide out in their ethnic enclaves. They can remain holed up in fancy hotels or curl under the rocks from which they came. They may even sit quietly amongst us hoping not to be noticed.
The fact of the matter is they can run in circles all they want, but they can’t hide from the long arms of justice.
All of them will be brought to justice, if not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, next week or next month, next year or the years after that. Of that I am certain just as I am certain the sun will rise tomorrow.
In 2012, I told the criminals against humanity, “Justice will arrive like a slow, chugging and delayed train for those who have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ethiopia.”
The Justice Train has arrived in Ethiopia emblazoned with the words, “Day of Judgment for the Wicked is at Hand”.
Bereket Simon, the chief architect of the Meles Massacres of 2005
On May 16, 2005, one day after the general election, the late Meles Zenawi declared a state of emergency and outlawed all public gatherings. He placed under his direct personal command and control all police, security and military forces, and replaced the capital’s city police with “federal” police and special forces.
In his state of emergency declaration, Meles Zenawi issued a shoot-to-kill order (see video, forward clip to 9:13):
It has been decided that all security forces are placed under a single command and they are accountable to the Prime Minister. I would like to announce on this occasion that, for a period of one month, all public demonstrations and meeting outside the home are prohibited. A directive has been issued to security forces to take severe action, severe action (sic) against those who have not accepted the [election] decision of the people with patience and grace.
In the coming weeks and months, Bereket Simon coordinated the implementation of Meles’ Directive with the security, police and military services.
Between May and November 2005, hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot and killed by security forces and hundreds more suffered severe gunshot wounds.
In an interview following the massacres, Bereket publicly declared the individuals killed by soldiers and police during the protests were violent “hooligans” trying to break bus windows:
… Some hooligans and political members of CUD [opposition party Coalition for Unity and Democracy] started throwing stones and crashing buses. Government soldiers and police tried to protect the buses. The police had to defend themselves and shoot at the hooligans…
In June 2005, barely a month after the May 2005 election, Bereket Simon began talking about a genocide that makes Rwanda “child’s play”.
Talking to BBC’s Martin Plaut, Bereket Simon said the protesters were trying to create a genocide that would make the Rwandan genocide look like child’s play:
The alternative was strife between the different nationalities of Ethiopia which might have made the Rwandan genocide look like child’s play. If you allow people who defy law and order, [to] take matters into their own hands and government sits idly, not discharging its responsibility of maintaining law and order, anybody who feels they are capable of taking matters into their own hands will reign over society and that will definitely bring the whole Ethiopian society into turmoil. The alternative to this would have been much more disastrous where you might find millions or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands perishing within the coming days and months. (Emphasis added.)
It is unimaginable how any person could think the deaths of nearly one million people in Rwanda as “child’s play”!!!
In November 2005, Prof. Christopher Clapham wrote:
It is difficult to exaggerate the enormous amount of damage that has been done to the EPRDF government by Bereket Simon, the… principal spokesman for the government. His neurotic and consistently inflammatory pronouncements, extending even to threats of an equivalent to the Rwanda genocide, have conveyed a very clear impression, both to the opposition and to the outside world, that the EPRDF is entirely unwilling to engage in any normal or reasonable political process…”
On the other hand, Meles was not concerned at all about a Rwanda-style genocide taking place as a result of the protests.
Meles simply tried to whitewash the bloody massacre as an outcome of lack of professionalism on the part of the police force in terms of managing such events. The government recognized that the police were under-trained for the task and under-equipped for the task. As a result we have worked on this and I believe it is now adequately addressed.”
In March 2007, Meles told Aljazeera, the killings occurred to repel a “challenge to the constitutional order in Ethiopia and that challenge had to be faced.
In February 2007, Meles told the Financial Times that “when people try to change the government by unconstitutional means, the normal thing is to take these people to court.”
So, why weren’t the election protesters arrested using normal non-lethal crowd control methods and brought to court?
But an official investigation established by Meles and his parliament “conclusively determined the protesters shot and killed and wounded by soldiers and police were unarmed and peaceful and did not commit any destruction of property.
The protesters posed no threat to the constitutional order nor were they trying to cause genocide.
This was a massacre. These demonstrators were unarmed yet the majority died from shots to the head … There is no doubt that excessive force was used. Many people were killed arbitrarily. Old men were killed while in their homes, and children were also victims of the attack while playing in the garden.
According to the July 18, 2007 report of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Meles Zenawi and his parliament
established an Inquiry Commission to investigate whether government security forces used excessive force, caused damage to life and property, or showed a lack of respect for human rights during disturbances that occurred on June 8, 2005, and November 1–10, 2005 in different parts of the country.
The Commission visited several regions, reviewed police reports, met with prisoners and government officials, made 122 radio and TV announcements to the public, examined 16,990 documents, and took testimonies from 1,300 people.
The Commission concluded that 763 civilians were injured and 193 killed. The Commission also reported that 71 police officers were injured and 6 killed. Damage to property was estimated at $512,588. The Commission also reported that more than 30,000 civilians were detained, some were tortured, and prisoners in Kaliti were killed.
The Commission reported that security forces fired 1,500 bullets at prisoners, killing 17 and injuring 53. The Commission stated that civilians did not use weapons and reported bank robberies by demonstrators did not take place.
Shortly after the Commission reached its decision, the Ethiopian Government reportedly began to put pressure on Commission members to change their report. The Chairman of the Commission, a former Supreme Court President of the Southern Region of Ethiopia, was told by a senior advisor of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to call for an emergency meeting of the Commission in order to change the Commission’s report. (Emphasis added.)
Who is Bereket Simon?
Bereket Simon’s birth name is Mebratu Gebrehiwot. He is presently in custody on corruption charges.
Prime Suspect in Crimes Against Humanity
Bereket Simon was the second-in-command, advisor, confidant, buddy, alter ego, evil twin, second-self, Meles’ left-hemisphere brain and the trigger finger on Meles Zenawi’s iron fist, among other things.
According to one report, Mebratu appropriated the name “Bereket Simon” from one Eritrean guerilla fighter who is said to be still alive today.
Those who know and have worked with Bereket Simon describe him in diabolical terms, a conscienceless man of extreme depravity and cruelty.
He has been likened to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbles.
I would add Bereket Simon was also Meles Zenawi’s Albert Speer, Hitler’s closest friend and confidant who was responsible for the slave labor in the Nazi war machine.
Ana Gomes, Member of the European Parliament and the European Union’s chief observer for Ethiopia’s 2005 national elections does not mince words in describing Bereket Simon:
That is good news. Bereket Simon is a callous, repressive, deceptive, liar and ruthless individual. I dealt with him extensively in the 2005 elections and will never forget our extremely tense conversation in the afternoon of the 8th June massacre of civilians, in Addis Ababa.
Bereket Simon was Goebbels of #Ethiopia, as Propaganda minister of dictator Meles Zenawi. I will never forget his cruelty on 8 June 2005, with hundreds massacred in Addis Ababa, after stolen elections of May 15. I am for Truth Commissions, but worst criminals must go to trial.
So. Finally that criminal Bereket Simon, ex-Goebbels of dictator Meles Zenawi, has been arrested in #Ethiopia. Many can breath better now.
Bereket Simon is also known for his utter mendacity, shameless lies, outrageous disinformation and calculated misinformation campaigns.
As Meles’ confidant and information minister, Bereket Simon undertook numerous campaigns to mislead the public.
After Ethiopian Satellite Television confirmed Meles Zenawi had died in 2012, Bereket Simon went on television and lied through his teeth to public that Meles was merely vacationing following medical observations for minor health issues. He assured the public Meles will be back on the job in just a few days.
A few days later, Bereket Simon went on television and declared, “After attending medical services abroad, the prime minister has passed away yesterday around midnight… Now is time for his remains to come back to Ethiopia and his funeral proceedings will be according to a plan prepared by a committee which deals with this…”
Of course, for there to have been a “prepared plan” for Meles’ funeral, he must have died days, if not weeks before, to set in motion a funeral planning committee. It appears unlikely that a full funeral plan would be prepared between midnight and early morning when Bereket Simon made the announcement.
However, during the many weeks the public was talking about Meles’ absence, Bereket Simon was telling a patently false story that Meles was on vacation and taking care of minor health problems and will be back on the job soon.
Meles Zenawi allegedly passed away on August 20, 2012. Meles’ cause of death remains a secret to this day!
In my August 5, 2012 commentary, “Day 46: Has Meles Zenawi Gone AWOL?”, I did a forensic analysis of the anecdotal evidence and concluded Meles has been dead for quite some time absent demonstrable evidence he is alive.
Bereket Simon is a ruthlessly vindictive man who believed he is so untouchable that he is ready to crucify anyone who even dares to talk to him in a manner Bereket believes is disrespectful.
Bereket Simon is the kind of humanoid who sees chaos, death and destruction everywhere, unaware of the fact that he and his TPLF thugs are the fountainheads of the chaos, death and destruction in Ethiopia over the past 27 years.
In a secretly recorded conversation, Bereket Simon told his partner-in-crime Addisu Legesse that those who disrespect him have the “potential to create chaos in the city” and must be isolated, targeted and destroyed whether they are friends or foes:
… But the incredible thing is that anyone to have the audacity to say something like this to me, one can see the potential of such individuals to create chaos in the city. So, all those who spread propaganda and people like that must be singled out and we must isolate them. Even those people who have been telling us for a long time that they are our friends in the past..
Bereket Simon, a/k/a Mebratu Gebrehiwot must face trial for crimes against humanity
A thousand unanswered questions…
The single most important question in the trial of Bereket Simon is whether a “massacre” was committed on unarmed protesters in Ethiopia on June 8, 2005, and November 1–10, 2005.
The official Inquiry Commission established by Meles Zenawi and his parliament definitively concluded a M-A-S-S-A-C-R-E was committed by police, security and military forces under the direct command and control of Meles Zenawi under his state of emergency decree.
The evidence shows in his state of emergency declaration, Meles Zenawi announced, “A directive has been issued to security forces to take severe action, severe action (sic) against those who have not accepted the [election] decision of the people with patience and grace.”
How textually different is the “Directive” (if written) from the “state of emergency decree” ?
Was the Meles Directive issued orally, and if so who issued ?
If the Directive is written, as it appears to have been, specifically what is the language in the order authorizing the use of deadly force against protesters by police and soldiers?
What is the exact language of the Directive that was issued to the police and soldiers? Was the Directive revised, modified or suspended at any time? If so by whom?
To what extent did the police and soldiers depart from the plain language of the directive in firing at the unarmed protesters?
How did the Directive incorporate the language announced by Meles in the state of emergency decree that security and police officials are “ordered to take sever, sever action”?
Bereket said “soldiers” were used in the shooting of the unarmed protesters? Is there a legal basis for the use of soldiers for crowd control?
As Meles’ top advisor and confidant, what role did Bereket Simon play in the drafting of the directive against the “people who have not accepted the [election] decision of the people with patience and grace”?
What role did Bereket Simon play in the dissemination of the directive to the security and military authorities?
What role did Bereket Simon play in following up with the implementation of the directive and reporting to Meles about outcomes?
The smoking gun evidence points squarely at Bereket Simon, a/k/a Mebratu Gebrehiwot as the point man who implemented the Meles Directive.
The evidence shows that Meles and Bereket were the only individuals who made authoritative statements on the indiscriminate killings, massacres, following the 2005 election.
The evidence shows Bereket, in addressing questions about the killings, did not offer explanation as a spokesperson relaying secondary information he has received from other sources but as someone with a direct and personal knowledge of the killings and general use of deadly force.
The evidence shows Bereket has stated on the record that the killings in the post-election period occurred to prevent a highly likely genocide that would make Rwanda child’s play.
Bereket also said the police fired upon protesters “to protect the buses. The police had to defend themselves and shoot at the hooligans…”
Did the Meles Directive authorize the shooting of stone-throwing Protesters (“hooligans”) to protect bus windows from being broken?
How did Bereket know and when did he know the protesters were planning to undertake genocide?
What evidence did Bereket possess at the time he made his statement that the protesters were planning to undertake genocide that would make “Rwanda child’s play”?
Who provided Bereket information on the genocidal plans of the protesters?
How did Bereket justify the use of massacres to prevent damage to uses by stone throwing protesters?
Bereket Simon’s explanation for the use of deadly force completely contradicts Meles Zenawi’s who stated on the record that the killings were a series of unfortunate events caused by lack of training, professionalism and poor equipment.
Did Meles or Bereket lie? Did both lie about the real reasons for the massacres?
The state of emergency decree went into effect on May 16, 2005. The first set of killings that were investigated by the Inquiry Commission occurred on June 8, 2005 even though protests broke out immediately after the election.
What was the state of civil protests between May 16 and June 8, 2005 when the first massacre occurred?
From Meles’ state of emergency announcement, the Directive to use “severe, severe action” against protesters were issued on May 16. But the first massacre occurred on June 8, 2005. What actions were taken by the police and soldiers to deal with protesters between May 17 and June 7 without committing massacres?
What specific events and facts occurred on June 8 that did not occur between May 17 and June 7 to justify use of indiscriminate deadly force?
Did the attempt by protesters to cause a genocide, if we accept Bereket’s explanation) or the overthrow of the constitutional order (if we accept Meles’ version) occur only on June 8, 2005, and November 1–10, 2005?
Since Meles’ claim for the killings is lack of training and professionalism, how did the soldiers and police officers implement the Directive and with what supervision or oversight?
The Inquiry Commission established the “demonstrators were unarmed yet the majority died from shots to the head.”
The Commission also found evidence police/military snipers used high powered rifles to literally blow the brains of the unarmed protesters. Were sniper rifles authorized for use to deal with the protesters? Who authorized the use of sniper rifles?
Why was it necessary to use snipers against unarmed protesters?
Meles tried to avoid responsibility by throwing the “untrained and unprofessional police and soldiers” under the bus. But why were untrained and unprofessional soldiers and police given machine guns, AK47 and sniper rifles to control unarmed protestors? Who authorized issuance of these weapons?
The Inquiry Commission found, “Old men were killed while in their homes, and children were also victims of the attack while playing in the garden.” How did these old men and children undertake a genocide plan that would make Rwanda’s genocide “child’s play” or threaten the constitutional order?
The Inquiry Commission found that on November 3, 2005, during an alleged disturbance in Kality prison that lasted 15 minutes, prison guards fired more than 1500 bullets into inmate housing units leaving 17 dead, and 53 severely wounded.
What threats did the Kality prisoners pose to authorities while huddled in their prison cells to warrant the firing of more than 1,500 bullets and killing of 17 unarmed and defenseless prisoners?
The Commission reported that more than 30,000 civilians were detained and some tortured following the 2005 elections?
Was mass and arbitrary detention of civilians part of the Meles Directive? Who gave the order to undertake mass and arbitrary detentions?
Meles said one of the reasons for the massacres was the “under equipped” nature of the police force.
What kinds of equipment were the police provided to deal with the protesters. Did the police have riot control gear? Did the police have non-lethal crowd control such as tear gas available to them?
From the available video clips of police engaging the unarmed protesters, it is clear the police were clad in full riot gear.
Did the police have tear gas and other similar non-lethal chemical agents to disperse the crowd?
Colonel Michael Dewar, British Army (Rtd), in his 2008 report, “Modernising Internal Security in Ethiopia” stated 237 police officers were dismissed from their positions allegedly for the use of deadly force. Why weren’t these police officers prosecuted? This fact stands in stark contrast to what the Meles regime routinely does by swiftly prosecuting journalists and bloggers for writing on social media but is unable to prosecute known murderers?
Was the 2005 massacre part of a long-term strategic planning of Meles, Bereket and their core allies to consolidate power by hook or crook and cling to power indefinitely.
The fingerprints of Bereket Simon are all over the AK 47 and machine guns that were used to massacre unarmed protesters following the 2005 election.
The man presently alive who is directly and personally responsible for the massacres of 2005 is none other Bereket Simon!
My theory of why the Meles-Bereket Massacres were committed
My theory of why the Meles-Bereket massacres occurred is as follows:
Meles and Bereket had Plan A and Plan B for the 2005 election.
In their Plan A they would win the election and things would continue as normal. In fact, the very reason they allowed free elections to take place was because they were absolutely convinced they had wide popular support and would win hands down.
In their Plan B, Meles and Bereket were prepared to remain in power by any means necessary.
After suffering a humiliating defeat in the 2005 elections, they implemented Plan B.
Plan B is straight out of the bush, from their days fighting the Derg, brushed up for the 2005 election.
In the bush, Meles and the top bosses of the TPLF did not tolerate dissent, challenge or opposition to their position.
They took care of those they suspected of disloyalty or opposition by either jailing them in dark dungeons or simply executing them out of view of the guerilla army or assigning someone to shoot them in the battlefield and reporting them as battle casualties.
Meles and his TPLF gangsters always believed the only way they can remain in power is by killing, jailing and stealing. This has been proven time and again over the past 27 years.
In implementing their Plan B, Meles and Bereket wanted to shock and awe the opposition and the total population with massive and indiscriminate use of deadly force.
Meles and Bereket wanted to communicate the message to the population that they will kill, slaughter and massacre as many people as necessary to maintain their gang of thugs in power indefinitely.
To put it simply, Meles and Bereket wanted to terrorize the population into absolute submission by demonstrating to them that they are a ruthless, merciless, vicious, vindictive, unforgiving, brutal, vengeful, pitiless, cold-blooded and meaner-than-a-junkyard-dog S.O.Bs.!
This theory is supported in many other cases.
Meles and Bereket used extreme deadly force against civilian populations in the Ogaden region as collective punishment in 2007-08.
The fact of the matter is that the Meles Massacres were part of a grand strategy and design to ensure Meles’ and the will remain and cling to power by hook or crook indefinitely.
Ending the culture of impunity in Ethiopia
There is an entrenched and pervasive culture of impunity in Ethiopia.
No one really gets punished for gross human rights abuses.
For decades, gross and widespread abuses of human rights have been ignored and turning a blind eye to the perpetrators has been the standard operating procedure.
Because there is virtually no accountability for crimes against humanity, those in power have been emboldened into committing murder and getting away with it.
For the last 27 years, Meles, Bereket and their TPLF gang believed they were above the law; indeed they believed themselves to be the law.
Today, as they sit in government jails or self-imposed prisons, they have found out the truth of Gandhi’s immortal maxim. “Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
How the mighty TPLF has fallen.
How the mighty and fearsome Bereket Simon has fallen!
Bereket Simon revealed his true pathologically narcissistic self when he was arrested for corruption and brought before a judge.
Bereket Simon’s single complaint was that he was not getting good food in detention. Apparently, he expected kitfo, tibs and tre siga.
Bereket Simon is the same man who watched over millions of Ethiopians face famine, starvation and death over the past 27 years.
Bereket Simon is the same man who watched hundreds of thousands of political prisoners die from poor nutrition and medical care.
Poetic justice for a man who saw millions face famine and starvation?
Real justice is what Bereket Simon needs.
H.E. PM Abiy Ahmed is transforming the culture of impunity in Ethiopia with a civic culture of the rule of law and accountability.
In February 2018, I, Alemayehu G. Mariam, stand as a witness petitioning to be heard on behalf of the victims of the Meles- Bereket Massacres of June 8, 2005 and November 1-10, 2010.
I can hear their cries from 10,000 miles begging for JUSTICE.
I call upon the people of Ethiopia to open their ears, hearts and minds and listen to their cries from the grave too.
The victims of the Meles-Bereket Massacres deserve JUSTICE!
“The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”
Let us do justice to the victims of the Meles-Bereket Massacres.
Let us all join hands and bring Bereket Simon, a/k/a Mebratu Gebrehiwot to trial!
Feel this,
To all those races, colors, and creeds, every man bleeds for the
Countless victims and all their families of
The murdered, tortured and slaved, raped, robbed and persecuted
Never again, to the men, women, and children.
Who died in their struggle to survive, never to be forgotten.
Ethiopian Falash Mura arrive to the Immigration offices at the Ben Gurion airport, outside Tel
Nearly 100 Ethiopian Jews have landed in Israel in the first wave of new immigration since the government said last year that it would let some of the 8,000 remaining community members join relatives in Israel
By ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press
Nearly 100 Ethiopian Jews landed in Israel on Monday in the first wave of new immigration since the government said last year that it would let some of the 8,000 remaining community members join relatives in Israel.
Local Ethiopian community members welcomed the newcomers after years of delays. Israel recognizes the community’s Jewish roots but does not consider them fully Jewish, so they require special approval to immigrate that has not always been forthcoming.
Atersau Baiye, 61, said he had been waiting for over 12 years to come to Israel and be reunited with his daughter, who lives in Tel Aviv.
“I am very happy to be here and excited to see my daughter, but it’s a mixed feeling,” he said. Baiye said that because he immigrated with his wife and six kids, he was forced to leave two adult children behind in Ethiopia who were not immediately eligible to immigrate. “I don’t know if we will see them again.”
Alisa Bodner, spokeswoman for an Ethiopian-Jewish activist group, said she was “far from satisfied” by the slow trickle of Ethiopian immigration, long stalled despite government promises to bring all remaining members of the community to Israel.
“This is a continuation of the discriminatory practices against Ethiopian-Israelis emanating from this current government,” she said.
The activists renewed their calls for Israel to make good on its 2015 promise to bring all remaining members of the Jewish Ethiopian community to Israel. The government never approved a budget for the move, and the slow trickle of immigration ground to a halt over a year ago. Last fall, the government announced it would absorb 1,000 of the remaining 8,000 Jews in Ethiopia, frustrating community members.
The bulk of the Ethiopian Jewish community was airlifted to Israel in major clandestine operations in the 1980s and 1990s.
Although many of the newcomers are practicing Jews, Israel doesn’t consider them Jewish because their Jewish ancestors underwent forced conversion to Christianity over a century ago.
Ethiopian Jews who have made it to Israel complain of racism, lack of opportunity and endemic poverty. Last week, thousands of Ethiopian-Israelis marched through major roadways in Tel Aviv to protest police brutality and discrimination.
Despite the challenges, Baiye said he is ready to start his new life. “I’m going to work hard, earn a living, and live like everyone else.”
The theme of my speech at a community empowerment event organized by Jantilla on Saturday, February 2nd, 2019 in Silver Spring, MD at Double Tree by Hilton hotel was “Leadership in the 21st C”. One of the many outstanding questions that were asked during the Q&A session was “What are some of the barriers that are preventing many Ethiopians from becoming leaders?”
Before answering this question heads on, I had disclaimed by admitting that we cannot ever know why each individual Ethiopian hesitates from taking lead to pursue their passion. The barriers to leadership are subjective and vary from person to person, culture to culture, generation to generation even though there are some common obstacles that deter the vast majority from stepping up to the plate and playing their fair share in tackling the challenges their respective community faces. I pointed out that one of the culprits why most people, not just Ethiopians, refrain from considering themselves as leaders to advance the cause they care about is the way leadership is defined. I confessed that this very reason led me to write and title my first book “Redefining Leadership.” The book was published in 2011 and is available on Amazon.
In this article, rather than recounting my full answer from this past Saturday, I thought sharing with you the Introduction part of the book. This is my hope that the excerpt below will paint a clear picture of why some misunderstandings have been keeping millions, if not billions, at bay from claiming their birthright of leadership.
“Leadership has a different meaning for different people. People from different cultural, historical, political, and religious backgrounds view it differently. Some people view leadership as a privilege set aside for those who have certain attributes and qualities. The existing definitions of leadership play a great role for this perception. Read a couple of dictionaries and books on leadership and you will be surprised to find out that leadership is defined in relation to certain aptitudes, and as if it is about leading others and organizations. For instance, most definitions have this pattern: ‘Leadership is the ability/skill/capacity to lead/guide/inspire/influence …others…’ As you can easily imagine, many individuals from various cultures may read these kinds of assertive phrases and think that they don’t qualify to lead because they don’t have these and other similar competencies mentioned in these definitions.
These definitions also don’t click for everyone, especially for those who are not interested in their leadership to center around doing something to, for or against others. These definitions aren’t wrong or irrelevant. Nevertheless, they define the term leadership using the most important tasks of leading without answering or offering some hints on why someone should lead in the first place. For many people, there must be a bigger reason than leading, guiding, inspiring, and influencing others before they take this kind of huge step.
Besides, these assertive words fend off many people from cultures such as mine and many in the East and South. In these cultures, making oneself vulnerable and submitting to others is more important than influencing or inspiring others. However, leadership isn’t all about leading others or submitting under another’s influence. Its definitions should embrace the very reason why someone should lead without sounding from the West or South or East cultures. Leadership was there before our cultures existed. It is an ancient ideal longer than the history of our cultures and will continue to exist as far as human civilization continues in this universe and beyond.
Leadership is also wrongly perceived as a career set aside for those who have certain attributes like oratory, charisma, courage, and confidence. Its scope as well is narrowed and considered as one of the social science fields. Not only that, leadership is related with formal authority, hierarchical positions, official titles, and governing power. These lead many people to assume that they should first meet certain requirements, show some proofs, and get acceptance or recognition from others before they lead. In worst cases, leadership has been portrayed in a negative light and perceived as a tool used by the few to dictate, exploit, manipulate, and abuse others. Because of these bad reputations, some leaders have shown, many may vote themselves out from ever leading…
Thus, leadership should be redefined, put into context, and reintroduced to reflect its true meaning and secure its rightful place among all humankind. It is our birthright as we are born to this physical world and the key to our fulfillment beyond time and space. Our being born to this world uniquely entitles us to lead this uniqueness. Yes, as we know who we are and why we are here and pursue it, we may maximize our potential, become resourceful, inspire and influence others, even may leave legacy beyond our generation. But leadership shouldn’t stop there. We should fulfill our mission in life; this is the accountability part. That is why I am saying that the existing leadership definitions overlooked these key truths and ingredients that would have changed the face of the world and inspired everyone to lead according to its passion, originality, and towards individual and collective success and fulfillment. No one should have been excluded, exempted, or left behind from leading.
In ‘Redefining Leadership’; leadership is simply defined as knowing oneself, the reason for existence, and pursuing it until fulfilled. In other words, leadership is primarily about oneself, not others nor founding and leading organizations. A true leader is a person who has discovered himself and his assignment in life and pursuing it until fulfilled. While in the process he may influence others and lead organizations towards achieving his own destiny, and contribute his share towards the collective destiny of his family, community, organization, national, and global levels…”
I would like to conclude this article by emphasizing the fact that countries like Ethiopia cannot attain sustainable economic development with a few leaders alone what so ever outstanding and great these leaders maybe in their leadership abilities. The magnitude and depth of the challenges we face requires raising as many grassroots level leaders as possible in every sector. Of course, I’m not promoting mass production of leaders for the sake of just having multitudes of leaders everywhere. Quality is very vital too. We need leaders who have the necessary competencies to lead with passion, clarity, capability, and character.
The responsibility to build the nation’s leadership capacity, nonetheless, shouldn’t be left to the federal and regional governments alone. Other stakeholders should also consider playing proactive roles in this regard. Each individual should also make some efforts to build their own leadership capacity. Remember, leadership starts with self. Self-leadership is the foundation of impactful leadership.
Wherever you may be right now, begin taking leadership initiatives in the area of your passion. Find a cause that matter to you and do something about it. Start small scale. If necessary, join the already existing organizations or start one. You may fail here and there. That shouldn’t discourage you. Learn as you lead. Don’t forget, ‘Leaders are learners’.
This is high time to claim your birthright of leadership to pursue the reason of your existence so that you may have a chance to fulfill your destiny and leave an enduring legacy at the end of your journey on this planet. This is an exciting time in Ethiopia. Tap into this golden opportunity, be proactive, and play your part to transform Ethiopia in one generation. Don’t sit on the sidelines and watch what is happening from afar like other onlookers. Roll up your sleeves and be part of the solution to change the destiny of your community and country once for all!
[1] Dr. Assegid Habtewold is a coach, speaker, and workshop facilitator at Success Pathways, LLC. He is also the Founder of PRO Leadership Global, Inc. He has written five books that are available on Amazon. He is a leadership speaker and workshop facilitator for some government agencies and major corporations. Assegid can be reached at ahabtewold@yahoo.com
A groom and his best man have been killed in Ethiopia in an apparent accident involving a grenade belonging to the groom, local officials say.
AFP Image caption Grenades and other weapons have flooded east Africa over decades of conflict
The grenade exploded after a traditional 10-day honeymoon celebration, during which the best man is expected to entertain the newlyweds.
The bride was not present when the grenade went off.
The incident took place in a remote village in the South Wollo Zone in Amhara region, north of Addis Ababa.
The grenade was illegally owned by the groom, the deputy commander of the police force in Borena district, Nigatu Tameme, told the BBC’s Tigrinya service.
The groom has been identified as 25-year-old Mohammed Hassan Mohammed. His best man has been named as Bogale Sebsibe Abera, 24.
Ethiopian authorities have come under pressure to take action against the owners of illegal weapons – particularly those who fire guns into the air to mark events such as weddings and funerals.
February 6, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – The Ethiopian government on Wednesday denied media reports that Foreign Minister, Workneh Gebeyehu, has warned that Sudan’s failure to curb continued arms smuggling into Ethiopia through its border may lead to cutting diplomatic relations.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (Photo AFP)
Last week, the Reporter weekly newspaper said Gebeyhu told lawmakers on 29 January, that his government raised with the Sudanese authorities the need to enhance border control operations to prevent increasing arms smuggling from its territory.
“We have informed the [Sudanese officials] that they should tighten their border control in their part to deter smuggling. We have clearly informed them that, otherwise, this will eventually lead to the cutting or impacting of diplomatic ties or relations,” added Gebeyehu according to the Reporter
However, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nebiat Getachew, on Wednesday has dismissed the reports about cutting relations with Sudan as unfounded.
He told Ethiopia’s news agency (ENA) that the Reporter has taken the Foreign Minister’s speech out of context, saying the newspaper has apologized for misquoting Gebeyehu’s comments.
The spokesperson further described relations between Sudan and Ethiopia as strong and historic, saying it can’t be severed for minor reasons.
He pointed out that the two countries are working closely to combat smuggling of illicit arms.
In August 2018, the two countries agreed to establish a joint border force to combat security threats and prevent all negative activities on the border. It is not clear if effective steps have been taken towards its deployment.
Ethiopia and Sudan are engaged more and more in joint security, military and economic cooperation.
In April 2017, the two sides signed a number of joint agreements to promote economic relations and strengthen ties between the two countries.
Also in February, they signed multiple agreements to further boost up cooperation on a range of development activities.
In March 2012, the Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir announced his support to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), saying his government understands the mutual benefits the project could offer Ethiopia and Sudan.
Tigist Kebede, 38, resides in Sebeta where she and her husband launched TGA Leather, about three years ago. As the demand for their leather products both local and abroad is increasing, their modest company has managed to provide job for ten employees.
TGA produces leather jacket, bags from genuine leather, which Ethiopia is top in Africa in its livestock resources and known for quality leather products. During the last week of November 2018 she displayed her products at the 2nd Djibouti International Trade Fair, where she managed to access new buyers for her products.
“The market is promising. What we now realized is that the market for Ethiopia’s leather products has always been there, as long as we manage to produce quality products. Improving the quality for them should be our priority, which I believe we can reach there soon as we have access to the best quality leather. Rather our challenge now is shortage of high quality accessories such as, zippers,” says, Tigist, who is also a mother of one.
Even though TGA has not yet started direct export, the company has been supplying products to other exporters.
“With support from the Federal Small and Micro-enterprises Agency, we are working to obtain an export license,” Tigist says.
Before starting her own business, Tigist had been working in Pitards Leather Products Factory, where she developed her skills. When her husband, who used to be a farmer in Sebeta, got a compensation payment for his land, they established TGA.
“The 43 square meter shed the municipality provided us about a year ago was very much instrumental in advancing our business as we used to work out of our house,” she says.
Utilizing 60.12 million birr (around $2.16 million) from the Oromia Regional State, by July 2015 the municipality has built 620 sheds and 171 shops for small and micro enterprises (SMEs) engaged in different businesses like TGA.
A total of 25,909 unemployed inhabitants of Sebeta were assisted by the municipality to organize in groups and engage in manufacturing, urban agriculture, construction, commerce and other services, according to the statistics New Businness Ethiopia obtained from the municipality.
Among them 72 enterprises have grown from small to medium enterprise each registering a capital of between half a million birr (around $18,000 at prevailing exchange rate) to 1.5 million birr (around $54,000).
Microfinance institutions have helped unemployed youth to start businesses by providing a total of 33.1 million birr (around $1.15 million).
Manufacturing hub
Founded 75 years ago, the town of Sebeta used to be known much by Addis Ababans for its long leaf tchat (an addictive mild stimulant, which is also one of the major export items of Ethiopia).
From rural town to Ethiopia’s industrial hub
Today the town is the top manufacturing hub in Ethiopia with industries that produce and directly their export products. Involving sub cities like, Alemgena, Furi and Welete Sebeta is 10,000 hectares divided into ten kebeles (sub towns), currently it has a population of over 350,000.
Sebeta is now not very different from some of the sub cities found in Addis Ababa in terms of basic infrastructures. Its proximity to the capital Addis Ababa, which is 25 kilometers, the availability of abudant human resources and conducive investment climate are among the reasons Sebeta is prefered by local and foreign investors, according to Sebeta Mayor Mr. Legesse Negeo, in office for the past two years.
Data obtained from the municipality shows that Sebeta is hosting 418 manufacturing firms ranging from breweries, steel, liquor and cement factories, to over a dozen water bottling companies. In addition dozens of agro industries and other companies engaged in various sectors including, flower farms are currently operating in Sebeta.
As a result, the town has created jobs for close to 54,000 residents and those who come from the nearest sub-cities of Addis Ababa. Reducing unemployment is one of the priorities of the town’s administration.
“…We believe reducing unemployment will have a greater impact in poverty alleviation, a focus area is supporting youth entrepreneurship and job creation,” Legesse says.
Investment areas
In line with Ethiopia’s vision to transform an agrarian into a manufacturing economy, Sebeta has been attracting and supporting investments.
Sebeta Mayor Mr. Legesse Negeo
“We can’t say Sebeta is close to Addis Ababa anymore, the two have almost become one. Everyday people living in Addis Ababa come to work in Sebeta and return home in the evening and vice versa,” he says. This has made Sebeta even more attractive for investors as they can easily access employees from Addis Ababa.
The fact that both terminals of the Ethiopia – Djibouti Railway are found in Sebeta also makes the town more appealing for export oriented businesses.
“We have heavy industries, which directly export their products as well as medium hundreds of and small manufacturing companies in Sebeta. In addition to the railway stations, Sebeta is close to Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa for fresh agricultural product producers and exporters,” says Mr. Legesse
“We invite heavy industries to come and take advantage of these opportunities. We highly value the contributions of such companies in creating jobs for our youth and the economy of the country in general. Investors are also welcome to build lodges and hotels in Sebeta,” he says, indicating that his town is preparing land with the basic infrastructure to welcome potential investors.
Found adjacent to the dense Suba Forest on one side and Mogole Mountain on the other, Sebeta is surrounded by mountains, which makes it a good tourist destination. Mountain climbing and camping are among activities tourists to Sebeta may consider enjoying.
The town has two sites where the traditional Oromo Geda , Erecha festivity, takes place annually. As the nation provides various incentives for investors in both manufacturing and tourism sectors, investing in Sebeta in these areas is indeed lucrative for private investors local and foreign.
The basics
Another key area the municipality is focusing in is development and expansion of infrastructure.
“We can’t attract investments just because we wish for or promoted it. We need to have the basic infrastructures for those industries to exist. We need to be able to provide those investors with the basic ones such as, roads, power and water as well as affordable housing for their employees and inhabitants in general,” says Mayor Legesse.
From rural town to Ethiopia’s industrial hub
To address the housing demand of its growing population, the town has been working on housing schemes. Under the national condominium housing program, by July 2015 the municipality has built over 1,700 apartments and handed them over to the citizens.
There is also an auction program that allows inhabitants or businesspeople to lease land and build houses such as, real estate for medium and high income people. Currently around 20 real estate developers are operating in Sebeta. The town is not only home for those who work in Sebeta, many people who work in Addis Ababa live in the town.
In addition, the town has prepared land with house designs for the construction of over 3, 600 houses. Each house will be built on 140 square meters of land. This program mainly targets the civil servants at the lower level of income.
Of the total, Mayor Legesse recently handed over some 1,200 house designs. “Soon we are also under preparation to provide land for additional 80 associations under this program,” he says.
Out of the 10,000 hectares of total land size of Sebeta, the administration plans to use close to 43% for housing followed by 29% for clean and green development as well as 11.4% for industries.
In order to become beneficiaries of this program, the people living in Sebeta have to organize themselves into associations (groups) each having 12 beneficiary families / members. Then they are expected to start saving in a bank to show their commitment and capacity to build the houses after the municipality provides them the land.
Education and expansion of health facilities for the residents has also been the major focus areas of Sebeta. For any town, understanding a town and its potentials as well as the major challenges are critical to efficiently plan, manage and properly develop the resources, according to Mayor Legesse, who also served previously as Mayor of Dukem, another industrial town in Oromia Region.
Sebeta – From rural town to Ethiopia’s industrial hub
“I strongly urge the municipality to continue expanding its support to the unemployed to get jobs or create their own business, as well as improving the infrastructure problems of the town such as, water and drainage. I also hope the government will continue facilitating our participation in such international trade fairs,” Tigist says.
Even though there are over 15 water bottling companies operating in Sebeta, on the contrary the inhabitants of the town have been facing water shortages.
“To address this challenge we have commissioned a study and we are working to address the problem. One of the means we solve such problem is by attracting more investments, which brings jobs to the youth and help us generate tax revenues and address the challenges,” Legesse says, indicating that the town will also continue to work towards good governance, fighting corruption and democratization as part of the national reform the country has been perusing since prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power last March.
A legal tussle over who owns teff, Ethiopia’s staple grain, has been quietly settled.
A three-judge court in the Netherlands ruled a European patent for the products made of teff lacked “inventiveness,” ending a years-long controversy over who owned the ancient grain. The controversial patent, which was originally filed in 2003, listed Dutchman Jans Roosjen as the inventor of the teff flour that’s used to make injera flatbread and other traditional Ethiopian food. The Ethiopian embassy in the Netherlands confirmed the ruling, which was first filed in June 2014 and whose verdict was delivered in November.
“The reason for the late announcement is the time for appeal was still running,” the embassy wrote on its Twitter handle. “As no appeal was made, the verdict is now final: the claim to processing teff by patent holder is null and void in the Netherlands.”
Rich in protein, fiber, and minerals, teff has slowly been gaining a global foothold especially after the Ethiopian government lifted the ban on exports in 2015. It has also been marked as the next big superfood, as huge numbers of people in the West have moved away from low-fat and sugar-free diets and gravitated towards gluten-free.
Looking at it as a lucrative industry as such, teff products have been introduced in countries including Spain and the United States. Yet its patent by a Dutchman left many Ethiopians, who have cultivated and used it for millennia, confounded.
“It is an issue of our inability to own our national assets in the international legal system,” Fitsum Arega, the former commissioner of the Ethiopian Investment Commission, has said on Twitter of the patent. “We need to defend it.”
REUTERS/TIKSA NEGERI
Farmers transport teff in the town of Woliso in Oromia region
The furor over the teff ownership comes at a time when Africans are increasingly raising questions about creative and artistic theft, cultural appropriation, and pushing to reclaim their narrative. This is especially being amplified by the internet and social media, where online petitions are agitating for change, including most recently on Disney’s trademarking of the Swahili phrase “Hakuna Matata.”
Following the controversy of French and American companies trying to trademark rooibos tea, South Africa sought and won a “geographic indicator status” over the product, meaning goods made in the country and approved by the government could only use the name. In Kenya, Benin, Nigeria, and beyond, artists and museum curators are also seeking the return of looted artifacts kept in Western museums across the world.
Vision Ethiopia Eighth Conference, in Collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education Bahir Dar, June 12-14, 2019 ———-Read More —––
FILE – A woman walks past an Ethio Telecom office in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, Nov. 9, 2015.
Ethiopia’s state-owned telecommunications company will be the first of four companies to be privatised, an official in the finance ministry told journalists on Wednesday.
The communications director in the ministry of finance, Haji Ebsa said the government will give priority to the partial privatisation of Ethio Telecom as it takes notes on the best approach to the process.
The decision to liberalise the economy and privatise state-owned companies in telecommunications, aviation and banking, is part of reforms championed by prime minister, Abiy Ahmed.
Government hopes to stimulate Ethiopia’s development and economic growth through attracting more foreign direct investment.
Specifically, Ethiopian Airlines, Ethio Telecom, Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Services Enterprise, and Ethiopian Electric Power are to be privatised.
Haji said technical and steering committees to drive this project have been established under the finance ministry, while a macro committee has been set up under the Office of the Prime Minister.
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — A detective from the Metropolitan Police Department visited 43-year-old Musba Shifa’s apartment on Tuesday evening.
It has been nearly three weeks since he returned to the apartment, according to his close friends.
“We see each other, at least twice a week,” Nebyu Muzemil said. “We’ve been driving around trying to locate his car, but nobody has located his car.”
Said Aahmednur Fella, “Around the 21st, 22nd, we noticed, we called him, he’s not answering his phone.”
Friends say Shifa, who is a bachelor with no kids, worked as an Uber and Lyft driver six days per week.
DC Police Department
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@DCPoliceDept
Critical #MissingPerson 43-year-old Musba Behiru Shifa, who was last seen in the 1300 block of W Street, Northwest, on Friday, January 18, 2019. Seen him? Call 202-727-9099/text 50411
I never thought there would come a time where would I admire an Ethiopian prime minister over a United States president. It is a strange time. President Trump is stripping away inherited ideals that long existed in United States while PM Dr. Abiy Ahmed is instilling ideals in Ethiopia that didn’t exist in the first place.
H.E. Dr. Abiy Ahmed
The African Union has declared 2019 as the year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons finding durable solutions. The theme is expected to address the challenge Africa is facing with at least over 6 million displaced persons. The year also marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the AU convention and the 10th year anniversary of the Kampala convention on IDPs. This will be declared at the 32nd summit of the Heads of state and government. The February 2019 Summit will also take stock of the progress made towards the reform of the African Union (AU) decided in an extraordinary Summit in November 2018, in Addis Ababa
Ethiopia’s state monopoly telecommunication service provider, Ethio Telcom, has earned 16.71 billion birr revenue ($593 million at the current exchange rate) in the first six months of Ethiopia’s fiscal year started July 8, 2018.
TGA produces leather jacket, bags from genuine leather, which Ethiopia is top in Africa in its livestock resources and known for quality leather products. During the last week of November 2018 she displayed her products at the 2nd Djibouti International Trade Fair, where she managed to access new buyers for her products.
A three-judge court in the Netherlands ruled a European patent for the products made of teff 
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — A detective from the Metropolitan Police Department visited 43-year-old Musba Shifa’s apartment on Tuesday evening.