By Geremew Nigatu Kassa

This paper was presented at Oromo Study Association (OSA) annual conference at the University of Minnesota, USA, on 14th -15th July 2012 as a contribution to the effort to understand our own culture, norms and tradition. The paper addresses the question of how the Oromo traditional democratic institution, Gada System, interact with the modern Oromo political organization in the process of Oromo struggle against Ethiopian government oppression. It also discusses some ideas of Gada political or ideological philosophy and culture of democracy. This article is of interest not only for the Oromos, but also for other Ethiopians who are interested in knowing what Gada system realy is. The article provides information about the original essence of Gada political philosophy and democratic ideas as one of the homegrown democratic cultures in Ethiopia and African as well. –—Read  more— 

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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: The ex-spokesman for Ethiopia’s main opposition Blue Party has been charged with inciting violence and being a “ring leader” of a banned rebel group after he criticized the government on Facebook.

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LONDON — Sadiq Khan became London’s first Muslim mayor Saturday, as voters rejected attempts to taint him with links to extremism and handed a decisive victory to the bus driver’s son from south London.

Khan hailed his victory as the triumph of “hope over fear and unity over division.”

His win was the most dramatic result in local and regional elections that produced few big changes but underscored Britain’s political divisions ahead of a referendum on whether to remain in the European Union.

Labour Party candidate Khan received more than 1.3 million votes — 57 percent of the total — to Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith’s 43 percent, after voters’ first and second preferences were allocated.

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By Markos Berhanu

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Author’s Note: This is the third installment [1] in a series of ongoing commentaries that I expect to post regularly under the rubric, “Apartheid in Ethiopia”.

The twin aims of the series “Apartheid in Ethiopia” are:

1) to demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that the political system created and maintained by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF)  is a slightly kinder and gentler ethnic form  of the racial apartheid system practiced by the white minority regime in South Africa before the establishment of black majority rule, and

2) to engage Ethiopia’s Cheetah (younger) Generation in broad and wide ranging conversation, debate and discussion necessary for the creation of the New Ethiopia cleansed of ethnic apartheid.

In the series, I aim to go beyond mere critical political and legal analysis and intellectual and academic examination of the objective political, social and economic conditions in Ethiopia under T-TPLF rule. Indeed, I aim to make a clarion call to Ethiopia’s Cheetah (young) Generation work hard and usher the New Ethiopia where the rule of law is supreme and the rule of tyrants ancient history. I call on all Ethiopian Cheetahs to put their shoulders to the wheel and build a city upon a hill in the Land of 13-Months of Sunshine for the entire world to see.

Apartheid white minority use of “anti-terrorism law” to terrorize black South Africans

John Dugard in his book “Human Rights and the South African Legal Order” (1978, p. 136), perfectly summarized the repressive use of the “law” to maintain a vast system of repression: “Although designed to combat terrorism, the Terrorism Act [of 1967] has itself become an instrument of terror and a symbol of repression.”

The 1948 white minority parliamentary election in South Africa was transformational. Whites were offered two choices. The United Party offered a political pathway which accepted the inevitability of racial integration (if not black majority rule) and urged relaxation of the most repressive laws which limited black African freedom of movement. The National Party favored strict racial segregation and complete disenfranchisement of black South Africans. The National Party won and legislated its system of racial segregation in a series of “apartheid” (apart-hood; being apart) laws which aimed to entrench absolute white rule in South Africa.

In 1950, the apartheid white minority government passed the “Suppression of Communism Act, No 44 of 1950 (three decades later renamed “Internal Security Act, 1982” expanding the scope of application to anyone “endangering the security of the State or the maintenance of public order”). The  Communist Party of South Africa composed of the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and others were established in 1921 and opposed racial segregation and apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act criminalized the advocacy of “any political, industrial, social or economic change in the Union by the promotion of disturbances or disorder.” IN practice, anyone who dared to criticize or challenge white minority rule was classified as a “communist” and jailed. The Rivonia Trial of 1963-4 and conviction of African National Congress leaders Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki was accomplished principally through this Act. Thousands of other ordinary black South Africans were also prosecuted and banned (subject to extreme restrictions on their movement, political activities, and associations) under this law.

The apartheid regime passed other laws to clampdown on dissent and protest. The Criminal Law Amendment Act, No. 8 of 1953 sought to suppress public protests against repressive laws and policies. The  General Law Amendment Act, No. 39 of 1961 suspended habeas corpus (a legal process to challenge illegal government detention) and bail and authorized a 12-day arbitrary detention. The General Law Amendment Act, No. 37 of 1963 allowed the warrantless arrest and detention of  anyone suspected of violating the Suppression of Communism Act. Warrantless detention of 180 days was authorized by the Criminal Procedure Amendment Act, No. 96 of 1965.

In the lead up to passage of the Act in 1967, the apartheid South African government made repeated claims regarding “terrorist attacks on South Africa’s borders”. The 1967 Terrorism Act (Act No. 83 of 1967) was enacted to control and suppress terrorism from within and outside of South Africa. The Act became singularly the most repressive law enacted by the apartheid regime to terrorize black South Africans.

Under the Terrorism Act, a “terrorist” is “(a) any person [who] with intent to endanger the maintenance of law and order in the Republic…  [engages in any act which] incites, instigates, commands, aids, advises, encourages or procures any other person to commit, any act; or (b) [engages in any training which]   endangers the maintenance of law and order… or (c) possesses any explosives, ammunition, fire-arm or weapon and fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt [that he has possessed such things for a lawful purpose].

The Terrorism Act lists a dozen specific terrorist offenses including:

(a)   hampering  or deterring  any person from assisting in the maintenance of law and order;

(b)   promoting by intimidation the achievement of any object;

(c)   causing or promoting general dislocation, disturbance or disorder;

(d)  crippling any industry or the production or distribution of commodities or foodstuffs at any place;

(e)  causing or encouraging an insurrection or forcible resistance to the Government or the Administration of the territory;

(f)   encouraging the achievement of any political aim, including the bringing about of any social or economic change, by violence or forcible means;

(g)  causing serious bodily injury or endangering the safety of any person;

(h) causing substantial financial loss to any person or the State;

(i)  causing or encouraging feelings of hostility between the White and other inhabitants of the Republic;

(j)  damaging, destroying, etc., the supply or distribution at any place of light, power, fuel, foodstuffs, water, etc.;

(k) obstructing or endangering the free movement of any traffic on land, at sea or in the air;

(l)  embarrassing the administration of the affairs of the State.

Section 6 of the Act gave police complete and unquestioned power over “terrorist” suspects who could be arrested without a warrant and held for 60 days (which could be renewed) “until the Commissioner orders his release when satisfied that he has satisfactorily replied to all questions at the said interrogation or that no useful purpose will be served by his further detention, or until his release is ordered in terms of subsection .”  A police officer at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel or above who believes a person to be a “terrorist” could order the arrest and detention of that person. No court on its own could order the release of detainees; only the Minister of Justice had final authority.

The Act excluded any habeas review or pretrial judicial intervention even to adjudicate detainee allegations of abuse and torture. Information blackout on detained “terrorism” suspects was imposed and the identities and number of detainees could not be publicly revealed. Many detainees, in the absence of public accountability, simply disappeared without a trace (and their whereabouts unknown until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was able to track down the fate of some of the disappeared victims).

The Terrorism Act made admissible in court “any document” as evidence if such document is acquired from any person or organization suspected of terrorism. Any person alleged to have directly or indirectly assisted in any way a person suspected of terrorism receives same punishment as the accused. Regardless of the location of the occurrence of the alleged terrorist act, a South African court or attorney general could prosecute the case.

The Terrorism Act placed the burden of proof not on the prosecution or the police but on the defendant. The Act presumed the terrorism guilty until the suspect can prove himself innocent of the charges.

For decades, the Terrorism Act was used by apartheid police and security forces to detain, harass, intimidate, persecute and prosecute black South African opposition leaders and organizations and facilitate sweep up ordinary protesters and citizens, labor leaders, clergymen. Winnie Mandela, Steve Biko and Cyril Ramaphosa, among many others, were arrested under Section of the Act  Section 6 of the Act.

The horrendous crimes against humanity committed by the white minority apartheid regime in South Africa are documented in three massive volumes of the Truth and Reconciliation commission. [2]

T-TPLF use of “anti-terrorism law” to terrorize Ethiopians 

FIRST INDISPUTABLE FACT:  The T-TPLF is itself a certified terrorist organization listed in the Global Terrorism Database.

So there is no question whatsoever that the T-TPLF is a terrorist organization clinging to power in Ethiopia!

How can a certified terrorist organization use “anti-terrorism law” to go after others it calls “terrorists”? (That is the million dollar question!)

The whole “terrorism” thing was a god-send for TPLF thugmaster Meles Zenawi in the mid-2000s.  “Terrorism” in the Horn of Africa was both Meles’ get-out-of-jail-card for his crimes against humanity and a welfare card to get maximum handouts from the United States.

Like the apartheid regime which  raised the specter of terrorism crossing into South Africa from neighboring countries before enacting the Terrorism Act in 1967, Meles also invoked jihadists terrorism in Somalia as a pretext for his anti-terrorism measures.

In a November 2006 in commentary  entitled “The Jihadists are Coming”, I argued Meles was using the Somali “terrorism” thing to divert attention from his own crimes against humanity, particularly the massacres he personally authorized in the post-2005 election period in Ethiopia. I opposed Meles’ War in Somalia in the name of fighting terrorism while he is conducting terrorism of his own in Ethiopia: “The problem is the Ethiopian people cannot fight two wars at once: defend themselves in a political war declared on them by Zenawi and his regime, and mount an attack on a distant and invisible enemy rattling sabers somewhere in the “failed state” of Somalia.”

In December 2006, Meles invaded Somalia to prop up the so-called transitional government in Baidoa.  Meles justified his invasion of Somalia as an act of pre-emptive self-defense: “Ethiopian defense forces were forced to enter into war to protect the sovereignty of the nation. We are not trying to set up a government for Somalia, nor do we have an intention to meddle in Somalia’s internal affairs.”

In 2008, I debunked Meles’ justifications for prosecuting a proxy war for the U.S. in Somalia.  But Meles continued his slick public relations offensive that without him the plague of global terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism will consume the Horn of Africa. Meles and his T-TPLF terrorized the Somali people and committed  against them unspeakable crimes against humanity as documented in the Human Rights Watch  report, “So Much to Fear’: War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia”. Meles’ proxy war in Somalia failed in its objective of crushing terrorism and by 2009 T-TPLF troops were withdrawn.

By 2009, Meles and T-TPLF had invented a terrorist threat in Ethiopia. Anyone who criticized, opposed, openly disagreed or dissented with Meles and the T-TPLF was branded “TERRORIST”!

The T-TPLF has used a diktat (a personal order of the late TPLF thugmaster Meles Zenawi) known as “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009”  to invent terrorists and fabricate terrorism.  That  diktat was approved on a 286-91 vote in the T-TPLF rubber stamp parliament. The diktat was so repressive on its face that Human Rights Watch in 2009 criticized the draft as a “new and potent tool for suppressing political opposition and independent criticism of government policy.”

The T-TPLF has used its “Proclamation” to muzzle the press, shutter independent newspapers, suppress dissent and neutralize opposition leaders and parties over the past seven years. Hundreds of T-TPLF opponents have been openly charged and convicted while tens of thousands have been secretly arrested and left to rot in T-TPLF jails.

Terrorism by Facebook!

Yonatan Tesfaye is a spokesperson for Blue Party in Ethiopia. The 29-year old is the latest victim of T-TPLF’s  “anti-terrorism” Proclamation.

Last week the T-TPLF charged Yonatan with multiple counts of terrorism. His alleged crime is he used Facebook to incite violence, disrupt the social, economic and political stability of the country, criticized the EPRDF (the shell front organization of the T-TPLF).

Among the specific terrorist allegations against Yonatan include the following statements he  posted on his Facebook page:

Our Muslim citizens are complaining that they have been deprived of their houses of worship. They are crying out, “Let our voices be heard.”

Our Oromo citizens are complaining about land grabs in their areas. They are saying “We do not want the [Addis Ababa] Master Plan.”

Amhara people are saying ‘Because of those practicing ethnic division, they are being displaced. Where can they go if they can’t live in their own country?’”

The people of Gambella are being uprooted from their land. They are saying, “We do not want to be villagized.

[Ethiopian] in Tigray, Afar, Wello, Harargie and Somali regions are dying from famine. They are saying “Give us bread (injera).”

Young [Ethiopians] are perishing in the deserts and seas. Terrorists are beheading them. They are saying “Don’t kill me. Let me live for my poor mother country.”

Ethiopians have their rights trampled, humiliated, disappeared and exiled. They are suffering oppression. They are saying “We have had enough”.

Two weeks ago, the T-TPLF filed bogus terrorism charges  against Bekele Gerba and 21 others.

T-TPLF monkey see, monkey do “anti-terrorism” law

Meles  claimed his anti-terrorism diktat was not only the best in the world but also “flawless”.  Yes, he used the word “flawless” to describe his diktat!

Meles was the consummate charlatan and a phrase-monger. He was shockingly clueless about the law.

Meles believed by wholesale plagiarism, cherry picking words, phrases, sentences and clauses from the “anti-terrorism” laws of different countries, he could craft a “flawless” one for himself.

In January 2012, Meles offered the following  description  (video of Meles’ statement to “parliament in Amharic, translation below) of his “flawless” anti-terrorism law:

In drafting our anti-terrorism law, we copied word-for-word the very best anti-terrorism laws in the world. We took from America, England and the European model anti-terrorism laws. It is from these three sources that we have drafted our anti-terrorism law. From these, we have chooses the better ones.  For instance, in all of these laws, an organization is deemed to be terrorist by the executive branch. We improved it by saying it is not good for the executive to make that determination. We took the definition of terrorism word-by-word. Not one word was changed. Not even a comma. It is taken word-by-word. There is a reason why we took it word-by-word. First, these people have experience in democratic governance. Because they have experience, there is no shame  if we learn or take from them. Learning from a good teacher is useful not harmful.  Nothing embarrassing about it. The [anti-terrorism] proclamation in every respect is flawless. It is better than the best anti-terrorism laws [in the world] but not less than any one of them in any way… 

When I heard Meles saying these words on video, I was not sure if I should laugh or cry.

I knew Meles’ “tongue outvenoms all  the worms of Nile”, to borrow from Shakespeare, but I was not prepared to see him give a video testament of his total and abysmal ignorance of the law.

Then I thought of Goethe’s maxim: “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” Meles and T-TPLF are the apotheosis of ignorance in action.

At the time, I tried to tutor  Meles that though imitation may best the highest form of flattery, to boldly claim that a mindlessly patched diktat as “flawless” is just mindless. I tried to explain to him on his level that his cut-and-paste anti-terrorism law could be likened to an imaginary biological creature:

One cannot create a lion by piecing together the sturdy long neck of the giraffe with the strong  jaws of a hyena, the fast limbs of the cheetah and the massive trunk of the elephant. The king of the jungle is an altogether different beast. In the same vein, one cannot clone pieces of anti-terrorism laws from everywhere onto a diktat and sanctify it as “flawless in every respect”.

The fact of the matter is that the laws Meles scarfed his “flawless” anti-terrorism law are as flawless as piece of industrial diamond.

I gave copy cat Meles and his T-TPLF minions a lecture on the subject, but I doubt they understood a word I wrote!

Where in America, the U.K. or Europe has anyone ever been arrested and prosecuted for posting words on Facebook? Where?!

“Flawless” anti-terrorism law, my foot!

Of course, Meles did not “copy word-for-word the very best anti-terrorism laws in the world”.  Meles did not take the “very best” from America, England and Europe.

Meles took the absolute worst from apartheid South Africa’s 1967 Terrorism Law.

T-TPLF terrorism by “anti-terrorism law”

Like the apartheid 1967 Terrorism Act, the T-TPLF anti-terrorism Proclamation under section (3)  classifies as “terrorist”  anyone or “group intending to advance a political, religious or ideological cause [seeks] to destabilize  or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional or, economic or social institutions of the country” and “causes damage to public property, natural resource, environment… [or] disrupts public service.”

In section (5), the T-TPLF law condemns as “terrorist” anyone who “provides a skill, expertise or moral support or gives advice… makes available any property in any manner… monetary, financial or other related services … provides any training or instruction or directive”.  Section (6) criminalizes as a terrorist act publication of “a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public as a direct or indirect encouragement… of an act of terrorism…” Section (7) criminalizes the “recruitment” of any person “for the purpose of a terrorist organization or committing a terrorist act.”

Like the apartheid 1967 Terrorism Act, the T-TPLF anti-terrorism Proclamation  authorizes warrantless searches and seizure. Section (14)  allows warrantless “interception and surveillance on the telephone, fax, radio, internet, electronic, postal and similar communications of a person suspected of terrorism”, “enter into any premise in secret to enforce the interception” or “install or remove instruments enabling the interception.”  (I am not sure about this one. It seems Meles scarfed the digital surveillance thing from the 1988 Chinese law on the Protection of State Secrets. It further allows any “police officer who has reasonable suspicion that a terrorist act may be committed and deems it necessary to make a sudden search…,  stop vehicle and pedestrian in an area and conduct sudden search at any time, and seize relevant evidences.”

Section (19)  of the T-TPLF Proclamation authorizes any police officer to “arrest without court warrant any person whom he reasonably suspects of terrorism.” Section (20)   allows the court to grant endless continuances and postponements so that the police/prosecutor  “for sufficient period to complete the investigation.” Section (23) allows the admission of  unverified  intelligence reports, hearsay or indirect surveillance evidence including those gathered by  “foreign law enforcement bodies” and “confessions of suspects, including coerced confessions. Section (25)  authorizes the “House of Peoples’ Representatives” the power to list and de-list an organization as terrorist organization. Section (37)  allows the “Council of Ministers” to issue “regulations necessary for the implementation of this Proclamation.” (In other words, Tweedle Dee makes regulation for Tweedle Dum.)

Application of the T-TPLF “anti-terrorism law”

Proclamation No. 652/2009 in nearly identical ways to the apartheid Terrorism Act is replete with  ambiguous, vague and overbroad language. Under the sweeping provisions of the Proclamation,  any act, speech, statement, and even thought, could be punished. Anyone the T-TPLF prosecutor/police believe or make-believe is engaged in “advancing a political, religious or ideological cause” and intending to “influence the government”, “intimidate the public”, “destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social institutions of the country” could be condemned to long imprisonment or suffer the death penalty. That was precisely what the apartheid Terrorism act did. The apartheid police and prosecutors could charge anyone they wanted without so much as a scintilla of evidence of wrongdoing.

Making or publishing statements “likely to be understood as encouraging terrorist acts” is a punishable offense. Anyone alleged to have provided “moral support or advice” or has had any contact with an individual accused of a terrorist act is presumed to be a terrorist supporter. That was exactly how the apartheid regime used the Terrorism Act to sweep up suspected anti-apartheid activists in the urban areas.

Under the T-TPLF Proclamation, anyone who “writes, edits, prints, publishes, publicizes, disseminates, shows, makes to be heard any promotional statements encouraging, supporting or advancing terrorist acts” is deemed a “terrorist”. Peaceful protesters who carry banners critical of the regime could be charged for “promotional statements encouraging” terrorist acts. Anyone who “disrupts any public service” is considered a “terrorist” (Section 3); and workers who may legitimately grieve working conditions by work stoppages could be charged with “terrorism” for disruption.  That was exactly what the apartheid regime did with its Terrorism Act to arrest peaceful protesters, students, labor union activists, journalists and other dissidents.

Under the T-TPLF Proclamation, a  person who “fails to immediately inform or give information or evidence to the police” on a neighbor, co-worker or others s/he may suspect of “terrorism” could face up to 10 years for failure to report.  Two or more persons who have contact with a “terror” suspect could be charged with conspiracy to commit “terrorism”. That was exactly what the apartheid regime did with its Terrorism Act charging family members, neighbors, friends and acquaintances of suspected terrorists.

The procedural due process rights (fair trial) of suspects and the accused guaranteed under the T-TPLF constitution and  international human rights conventions are ignored, evaded, overlooked and disregarded by the “law”.  “The police may arrest without court warrant any person whom he reasonably suspects to have committed or is committing a terrorism” and hold that person in incommunicado detention. The police can engage in random and “sudden search and seizure” of the person, place or personal effects of anyone suspected of  “terrorism”.  The police can “intercept, install or conduct surveillance on the telephone, fax, radio, internet, electronic, postal, and similar communications” of a person suspected of terrorism.   The police can order “any government institution, official, bank, or a private organization or an individual” to turn over documents, evidence and information on a “terror” suspect.  Section 6 of the apartheid terrorism Act gave complete power to the police to search and seize persons and evidence at any time and in any place from anyone suspected of terrorism.

A “terror” suspect can be held in custody without charge for up to “28 days” with unlimited renewals. Any “evidence” presented by the regime’s prosecutor against a “terror” suspect in “court”  is admissible, including “confessions” (extracted by torture), “hearsay”, “indirect, digital and electronic evidences” and “intelligence reports even if the report does not disclose the source or the method it was gathered (including evidence obtained by torture). The “law” presumes the “terror” suspect to be guilty and puts the burden of proof on the suspect/defendant in violation of the universal principle that the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Under the apartheid Terrorism Act, a terrorism suspect could be held on a warrantless detention for 180 days (renewable by order of police and prosecutorial authorities). Any evidence including involuntary confessions and hearsay could be used in court as evidence.  Like the apartheid Terrorism Act, the T-TPLF Proclamation bars habeas review or pretrial judicial intervention even to adjudicate detainee allegations of abuse and torture.

In apartheid South Africa and apartheid Ethiopia, terrorism suspects got kangaroo (monkey) court trials.

Today, T-TPLF prisons are full of opposition leaders, journalists, activists and dissidents falsely charged and/or convicted as “terrorists.” Among the thousands of people falsely accused of terrorism include Eskinder Nega, Bekele Gerba,  Ahmedin Jebel, Woubshet Taye, Temesgen Desalegn, Andualem Aragie, Andargachew Tsgie, Emawayish Alemu, Deldessa Waqo Jarso,  Akello Akoy Uchula, Zone 9 bloggers,  Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye.

For a partial list of hundreds of T-TPLF political prisoners held under the Proclamation, click HERE

For an additional list, click HERE.

Victims of T-TPLF  “anti-terrorism law” 

The T-TPLF “anti-terrorism” diktat form its inception was intended to muzzle journalists from criticizing, youths from peaceably demonstrating, opposition parties from political organizing, ordinary citizens from speaking, civic leaders from mobilizing, teachers from imparting knowledge, lawyers from advocating scholars from analyzing and the entire nation from questioning his dictatorial rule. It is a “law” singularly intended to criminalize speech, police thought, outlaw critical publications, intimidate hearts, crush spirits, terrorize minds and shred constitutional and internationally-guaranteed human rights.

In the police state Ethiopia has become, opposition political and civic leaders and dissidents are kept under 24/7  surveillance, and the ordinary people they meet in the street are intimidated, harassed and persecuted. The climate of fear that permeates every aspect of urban and rural society is reinforced and maintained by a structure of repression that is vertically integrated from the very top to the local (kebele) level making impossible dissent or peaceful opposition political activity. As former president under the T-TPLF and currently an opposition leader Dr. Negasso Gidada hasdocumented, the structure of state terrorism in Ethiopia is so horrific one can only find parallels for it in Stalin-era Soviet Union:

The police and security offices and personnel collect information on each household through other means. One of these methods involves the use of organizations or structures called “shane”, which in Oromo means “the five”. Five households are grouped together under a leader who has the job of collecting information on the five households… The security chief passes the information he collected to his chief in the higher administrative organs in the Qabale, who in turn informs the Woreda police and security office. Each household is required to report on guests and visitors, the reasons for their visits, their length of stay, what they said and did and activities they engaged in. … The OPDO/EPRDF runs mass associations (women, youth and micro-credit groups) and party cells (“fathers”, “mothers” and “youth”). The party cells in the schools, health institutions and religious institutions also serve the same purpose….

Apartheid South Africa and T-TPLF state terrorism

In any country where the rule of law prevails and an independent judiciary thrives, such a diktat  would not pass the smell test let alone a constitutional one. But in a world of kangaroo courts, rubberstamp parliaments and halls of vengeance and injustice, the diktat of one man, one party  is the law of the land. So, in 2016 Ethiopia has become George Orwell’s 1984: Thinking is terrorism. Dissent is terrorism. Speaking truth to power is terrorism. Having a conscience is terrorism. Peaceful protest is terrorism. Refusing to sell out one’s soul is terrorism. Standing up for democracy and human rights is terrorism. Defending the rule of law is terrorism. Peaceful resistance of state terrorism is terrorism.

State terrorism is the systematic use and threat of use of violence and coercion, intimidation, imprisonment and persecution  to create a prevailing climate of fear in a population with a specific political message and outcome: “Resistance is futile! Resistance will be crushed! There will be no resistance! ”

State terrorism paralyzes the whole society and incapacitates individuals by entrenching fear as a paramount feature of social inaction and immobilization through the exercise of  arbitrary power and extreme brutality.

In Ethiopia today, it is not just that the climate of fear and loathing permeates every aspect of social and economic life, indeed the climate of fear has transformed the “Land of Thirteen Months of Sunshine” in to the “Land of Thirteen Months of Fear, Loathing, Despair and Darkness”.

When the State uses the “law” to silence and violently stamp out dissent, jail and keep in solitary confinement dissenters, opposition leaders and members, suppress the press and arbitrarily arrest journalists, trash human rights with impunity, trample upon the rule of law and scoff at constitutional accountability, does it not become a terrorist state?

Welcome to Apartheid Ethiopia!

 (To be continued…)

[1] Parts I and 2 available at the following links: http://almariam.com/2016/02/21/a-special-message-in-a-bottle-to-ethiopian-cheetahs-born-free-live-free/

[2] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Reports:

Volume I:  http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%201.pdf

Volume II:  http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%202.pdf

Volume III:  http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%203.pdf

Ethiopia, Africa’s oldest independent country, is one of the West’s closest allies in the Horn of Africa.

Bordering Kenya, South Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia, this vast nation is home to about 80 different ethnic groups, many with their own languages and customs.

Despite Ethiopia’s demographic diversity, the country’s power structure in mainly centralised in its capital Addis Ababa, located in the heart of the country.

And this is resented by some of Ethiopia’s many different ethnic groups.

To the far east of the country lies Ethiopia’s Somali region. The people there have Ethiopian nationality but identify as Somalis. Many there say that their desperately poor region is starved of resources.

This has led some to rise up and challenge the government.

Self-determination struggle

A movement for self-determination for Ogaden, which is officially known as the Somali region, led by the Ogaden National Liberation Force (ONLF), began in the mid-1980s. ONLF took up arms a decade later.

Their attacks led the Ethiopian government to send in troops and to carry out what many describe as a brutal crackdown on the some five million ethnic Somalis who live in this arid region.

Thousands of people have died in a struggle that few outsiders are allowed to witness. It’s an invisible conflict that has cost lives and livelihoods, and despite several rounds of talks in recent years, has no end in sight.

After decades of conflict with little or no progress, should ONLF give up their fight?

“How long did South Africa [take to] defeat Apartheid? When you are fighting for your rights, time is not an issue,” Abdirahman Mahdi, a founding member and the foreign secretary of ONLF, tells Al Jazeera.

The only policy in the Somali region they have is to dominate it, to exploit the oil, to consider the people as just a nuisance, and to exploit our resources and kill our people. Even if they allowed 10% of our rights in 1994, this fighting would not have started.

Abdirahman Mahdi, founding member and foreign secretary of the Ogaden National Liberation Force (ONLF)

“My father was fighting for our rights and my children will fight for our rights. So for us, justice is the only solution – there is no other way.”

Madhi denies that ONLF wants to secede from Ethiopia and claims this is “a misconception that’s being propagated by the Ethiopian regime”.

ONLF’s fight, he says, is about seeking the “right to decide our future”.

The movement wants the “right to self-determination, including even leaving the country”. ONLF “cannot decide what the Somali people want. What we are saying is let them be given their right to decide.”

He says: “Free choice is not secession; free choice means you can choose the right to live together in peace and dignity.”

ONLF’s fight is not with federalism nor with ethnicity, Madhi says. “The issue is when one group wants to dominate the rest of the people in Ethiopia. So we are going to dismantle that.”

Madhi speaks of the marginalisation of Ethiopia’s Somali region. “[Until] recently, we had only one secondary school after 100 years of Ethiopian occupation, we had one hospital … Our women have no maternity services.”

The region, he says, suffers from a brutal trade and aid embargo and a military occupation, which he alleges has resulted in the rape of 30% of the region’s women and more than 30,000 detentions.

“How can you develop people you are raping?” he asks.

Madhi says ONLF is an Africanist movement, the struggle is expanding and the group is now working with other ethnic groups in the country by staging “peaceful mass demonstrations”.

“Our alliance is now expanding,” he says. “Like the Arab Spring, we are going to start insurrection all over the place. Ethiopia is now boiling … The regime is now in disarray; they’re divided. The people of Ethiopia have now risen up. They want their rights. We are tired of one clique dominating the rest of Ethiopia.”

On Talk to Al Jazeera, Madhi discusses the future and vision of ONLF, the criticism that he is out of touch with the needs and situation of the people in Ethiopia’s Somali region now that he lives abroad, and he responds to allegations of human rights abuses committed by ONLF and that the group is armed and trained by Eritrea.

You can talk to Al Jazeera too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on Facebook.

Source: Al Jazeera

JOINT STATEMENT  | By Four Oromo Liberation O rganizations | Minnesota – May 1, 2016

We, the representatives of four organizations which are committed to the liberation of the Oromo people and the independence of Oromia, announce that we have concluded a meeting where we discussed issues pertaining to the Oromia-wide popular protests that have rocked the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)-led unjust regime in Ethiopia. We deliberated on and reached an agreement for cooperation on ways of strengthening the protests and leading them to a successful conclusion, on the future of the liberation struggle, on the right to self-determination, on our relationships with the people of the Horn of Africa and of the world. To implement our agreement, we have established a Coordinating Committee.

It is clear that the Oromo protests that have now lasted more than five months were started to end the dictatorship of the TPLF, the rapacious system of exploitation and the heavy burden of oppression. Though they were triggered by the land grab scheme around the city of Finfinne (Addis Ababa), the uprising in Oromia was spurred by structural factors, primarily the lack of self-rule, the dearth of respect for human rights, denial of rights to self-determination and absence of genuine democratization.

The popular protests were peaceful and demonstrations were conducted in accordance with the Ethiopian Constitution. Instead of responding to the popular demands in a peaceful manner, the government chose to unleash its security forces against the peaceful protestors, firing live ammunition at unarmed men and women, young and old. Even children were not spared. As a result, hundreds were killed, several hundred wounded, and thousands rounded up and subjected to torture in prisons. We note these atrocities with profound sadness and anger.

The EPRDF/TPLF leaders bear primary responsibility for the wanton destruction of human life and property. It is our duty to work with all concerned parties to bring to justice those who perpetrated crimes. Meanwhile, we believe it is still necessary to search for a peaceful political solution to the entire problem that triggered the protests. In this vein, we have messages for the Oromo people, the EPRDF/TPLF, the Ethiopian people and to all countries who have strategic interests in the Horn of Africa.

To our dear Oromo compatriots,

Your struggle is just. You are not going to be defeated by the unlawful killings, false propaganda, and other injustices perpetrated against you. We are filled with pride that you have removed the structures of bad governance and replaced them with local committees of self-government that now maintain law and order. We have no doubt that you will continue moving along this path you have blazed. We believe that your blood that was shed and the bodily harm you sustained because of EPRDF/TPLF action will become the building blocks for constructing a free and democratic Oromia. The cases of each life that they cut short, the injuries they caused, and the innocents they herded into prisons must be documented fully. We express our full support for your uprising and assure you in the name of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice that those who committed these crimes will be brought to justice. The political organizations that stand for Oromo liberation and Oromia’s independence pledge to continue our struggle while standing alongside you. The EPDRF/TPLF has not ceased from pitting you against other peoples by murdering non-Oromo residents of Oromia, destroying their property and burning down houses of worship and then blaming everything on the Oromo protesters. This will not subvert your uprising against injustice. Recall that the EPRDF/TPLF was caught while trying to plant explosives to incriminate on what it described as “agents of unknown forces.”

To EPRDF/TPLF leaders,

Just as happened with your predecessors, the rising tide of popular uprising is about to wash away your system of oppression. This is because of your refusal to address popular demands frontally. If, however, you prefer to give peaceful means of conflict resolution and dialogue a chance, Oromo liberation forces are ready to resolve the existing political problems through peaceful means. Barring this, we would like to restate that we will intensify the ongoing struggle to bring to a successful conclusion the Oromo struggle for freedom.

To the Ethiopian people,

The lawlessness and authoritarian dictatorship of the EPRDF/TPLF has now caused the Oromo people to rise up demanding genuine democracy and respect for human rights in the face of a heavily armed military force. We are aware that you are also affected by the regime’s excesses. We call on all forces who seek democratic and human rights to continue their own struggle alongside the Oromo people. Even though you have not yet openly supported the Oromo protests, perhaps terrified by fear of EPDRF/TPLF reprisals, we take this opportunity to assure you that the huge sacrifice that the Oromo are paying is aimed at ensuring respect for human rights, democracy, and the right to self-determination of all oppressed peoples.

To all forces with strategic interests in the Horn of Africa,

The incumbent regime is blindly marching toward darkness. Only a peaceful resolution of the conflict will be able to obviate the looming catastrophe. We urge you to encourage the EPRDF/TPLF, urgently to seek a peaceful resolution of the conflict and begin dialogue with the genuine representatives of the Oromo people in the country and out of the country. If this is not done, we predict that that the chaos in Oromia will engulf the rest of Ethiopia and will spread to the neighboring countries.

The four Oromo liberation organizations:

– Oromo Liberation Front
– Oromo Liberation Front, “United”[1]
– Oromo Democratic Front
– Front for Independence of Oromia

[1] Media-imputed

Wed May 11, 2016 11:36PM

The Daesh Takfiri terrorist group has released a new horrifying video purportedly showing the gruesome execution of at least 16 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

The 29-minute video, released on Wednesday, was composed of scenes from two different locations, one shot under some trees and the other one along a nearby seashore. In both locations, masked terrorists made the separated groups of victims kneel in front of them.

In a statement read by one of the Takfiris, the victims, dressed in orange and black, were described as “followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church,” who neither pay a compulsory religious tax nor convert to what terrorists call Islam.

Then, they executed those under trees by shooting in the back of their heads and decapitated the second group on the beach.

This is not the first time Daesh committed such grisly crimes against Ethiopian Christians in Libya on similar grounds. Back in April, another video released by Daesh showed terrorists carrying out two separate executions of some 30 Ethiopians through shooting and beheading.

The terror group has so far forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to flee from their homes in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Libya, where the military alliance of NATO helped overthrow longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, has been experiencing a power vacuum and is considered by many to have withered into a failed state. Daesh, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has seized upon the chaos to fan out through Libya and seize control of its northern city of Sirte.

More on Press TV

East African Aviation, a private company, has inaugurated Ethiopia’s first ambulance transportation service.

The Company owned by Captain Mulat Lemlemayehu, a former commercial pilot at the Ethiopian airlines,  also inaugurated its newly established aviation school and air charter service at a ceremony later Thursday in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.

East African Aviation has become the first aviation company in East African region to provide air ambulance transportation, flight training and private charter services all in one place.

Officials of the company have told reporters that East African Aviation has introduced the first air ambulance service in Ethiopia with aircrafts that are equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and licensed medically trained personnel to provide a safe and efficient air transportation for those requiring prompt medical attention in East Africa.

The inaugural ceremony has taken place in the presence of senior government officials of Ethiopia, diplomats, and other prominent personalities among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Demeke Mekonnen, Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia, has hailed the air ambulance service introduced by East African Aviation.

The deputy prime minister noted that new investments are being introduced in Ethiopia due to the economic growth witnessed in the country.

Speaking during the inaugural ceremony, Mulat Lemlemayehu, Owner and CEO of East African Aviation, said,:

“With the state-of-the-art medical equipment fitted in the air ambulance, we specialize in transporting patients with the same level of care that would be expected from a hospital ICU.”

“Air ambulance has been non-existent in our country Ethiopia with over 90 million people, a tourist hub in the whole region of Africa and, above all, with a city like Addis Ababa that is the diplomatic capital of Africa where we have a big international community,” he noted.

He told reporters that East African Aviation has a team composed of accomplished, knowledgeable, and qualified pilots who have served Ethiopian Airlines for many years.

East African Aviation flight school has the first full motion simulation for a private school in Ethiopia, he said, the trainer aircrafts such as the Cessna 172 Sky Hawk glass cockpit are well tailored providing user friendly interface for the student and are known to be the best trainer aircrafts in its class.

Captain Mulat Lemlemayehu

East African Aviation said its aircraft for private charter, is the King Air 350 which is one of the most durable and comfortable aircrafts in its class.

With its capability of landing on short and gravel runway, the aircraft reaches cruise speeds of up to 578 km per hour and will get passengers to their destinations quickly and efficiently, according to the company.

Lemlemayehu has founded the company after having served the Ethiopian Airlines commercial pilot for 39 years.

With over 27,000 flight hours, Captain Mulat has the experience of flying aircraft ranging from DC-3, DH-6, ATR 42, Boeing 707, 720 upto to Boeing 777 and 787.

Source -afkinsider.com

May 12, 2016

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Immediate Press Release

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URGENT – Ethiopian troops into South Sudan – East Africa

Gambella, Ethiopia (May 12, 2016) Ethiopian troops entered South Sudan on May 2, 2016. We cannot say for sure it is an invasion, but the military buildup is large enough to characterize it as the invasion. An eyewitness estimated over thirty (30) thousand Ethiopian soldiers crossed borders to South Sudan. They are well equipped with Tanks, heavy weaponry, Armored Personnel Carriers, helicopters, fuel tankers, and food supplies. The troops entered through three main areas – Pochalla, Raad, and Akobo – on the Ethiopian-South Sudanese borders. Currently they are operating in three locations in Pochalla area, Pochalla town, Omila and Otalo villages and about 30 Tanks are stationed in Pochalla.

Today, May 12, 2016 the information coming out Pochalla, South Sudan is worrying some of intense situation which might escalate at any time because the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) are misbehaving, have no respect for the sovereignty of South Sudan by becoming patrol officers while the South Sudanese Pochalla police and South Sudanese National Army known as SPLA are there. The SPLA lead commander is very uncomfortable with the behaviors of ENDF.  There haven’t been tensions or clashes between the two countries troops at the entrances but the situation is very alarming and needs immediate attention.

ENDF entered to South Sudan to recover abducted children of Nuer. Nuer have settled in the Gambella region mostly during SPLA armed struggle then they turned citizens. In April 2016, Murle gunmen conducted reprisal attack on Nuer because in February 2016, Nuer went and attacked Murle in their own territory taking an estimate of 4 (thousands) cattle unfortunately it was not published on any news outlets. It’s usual to have news like that goes unreported in that isolated region whereas Nuer have so much propaganda resources where they spread unsubstantiated news daily.  For Murle to recover their livestock, they trailed the stolen cattle to the Gambella region side of the border to Nuer villages where they carried out raid and took back about 2000 cattle and kidnapped about 100 children 5 of which were Murle kids that were abducted by Nuer prior. The best solution to recover the kidnapped children is not by military power instead through peaceful negation with the Murle.

In the previous years, Nuer had carried out series of genocidal attacks against the Murle people in 2009, 2010, and 2013 in Pibor area and again in 2016. Nuer are the most problematic tribe that create major security threats to South Sudan and Ethiopia that might soon escalate to regional conflict if both governments do not act right. Each year Nuer raid Dinka in places Duk, county of Jongolei,  Anyuak, and Murle areas. Nuer refugees in the Gambella region of Ethiopia carry out attacks on the Anyuak frequently and the government of Ethiopia sits around and watch without disarming them. Even Nuer who claimed to be Ethiopian citizens have been killings the Anyuak who are the indigenous of the Gambella region in order to take over the land. From October 2015 to March 2016 Nuer attacked Anyuak villages in Itang County (Woreda) weekly and Gambella town in January 2016 where they killed 9 Anyuak and Habesha (highlander) and injuring scores in the prison known as Gambella Regional State Correctional Facility. Again, in April 2016 Nuer refugees killed Ethiopians in the refugee camps.  They mutilated bodies, even inserted foreign objects into female private parts and  due to this barbaric killing, Ethiopian citizens have finally fed up with Nuer violence culture and demanded that all Nuer be repatriated to South Sudan. To this point, situation between Ethiopian mainstream and Nuer remained very tense.

We call on the South Sudanese government to pressure the ENDF to withdraw immediately and allow the Murle leadership to find the children. Ethiopian government must call on Nuer to cease violent behavior wherever they are.

Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, Benin. Ask Robert Mugabe, Africa’s longest reigning president, about these countries and doubt not he would beam with pride. This is a partial litany of African countries, whose presidents sought third terms in 2015, the year Mugabe chaired the African Union, despite constitutional provisions limiting them to two terms.

To those who defend presidential term-limits, Mugabe, speaking from an African Union podium, had two-word ready-made response – pink noses. Amazingly, his distinguished audience, amongst them a sizeable contingent of African presidents, reacted not with disdain and outrage but suppressed laughter and scattered applause.

Is Africa reverting to the 1980s era of cartoonish dictators? Certainly, the portent, which places Benin, a precursor of Africa’s democratic epiphany in the 1990s, in the same list with perennially genocide-prone Burundi, is not encouraging.

No nation in history rose higher and faster than the Soviet Union did in the three decades between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s. When most African countries gained independence in the 1960s, this trajectory was still in ascendancy, albeit at a slower rate, posing a viable alternative to the dominant model as embodied by the West.

But by the 1970s Africa went on to retain more of the authoritarianism rather than the developmental state of the Soviets. By the 1980s, only a handful of African countries, prominently Botswana and Ivory Coast, both rejecters of the Soviet model, attained the annual four percent GDP growth developmental states would be expected to register for two successive decades. In fact, the norm was for real income to decline below pre-independence levels.

When the wave of democratization swept Africa in the 1990s, an essential base for its sustenance, a militant intellectual class committed to its cause was lacking. Europe had philosophers, pamphleteers, writers, artists, poets, playwrights, who were seriously committed to the cause of their age. It was the moral and intellectual environment established by this creative elite, rather than popular pressure by itself, which eventually enabled the consolidation of democracy.

As exemplified by the backslide from democracy in Egypt after the 2010 revolution though massive peaceful protests are indispensible catalysts, democracy is not possible without an elite committed to its principles. African democracy wavers because of the wavering of its elite due to primeval tribal allegiance, politicized religion and grand corruption. But the dismal state of democracy notwithstanding, the much delayed economic transformation of Africa, thanks in no small part to Western aid, has been on the upswing in recent years. Following, the 2008 US financial meltdown, more than half of the world’s ten fastest growing economies have become African. Even stateless Somalia’s growth rate, no doubt much to the glee of libertarians, is hovering around the magical four percent marker.  Jumpstarting the continental economy has at last been successfully accomplished. Only its sustainability remains as the last threshold to be crossed.

While this is indeed welcome news not only to African but also to the world at large, the distortion of its significance, which entangles a nation’s welfare solely or mostly to its economic performance, is in the word of R.H. Tawney, author of the 1920s classic, The Acquisitive Society, “the confusion of the minor department of the life with the whole life.”

No nation has ever been defined by the good and services it produces. No adage has ever been more wrong than “America’s business (in the sense of its national purpose) is business ( in its commercial sense).” A nation is sustained by its spirit and this is an amalgam of its memory of the past and hope for the future. Only on a foundation established by this sentiment – a preserve of writers, poets, artists, politicians, engineers or techno-wizards – is sustainable economic growth – the preserve of scientists, engineers, techno-wizards and business persons – possible.

Africa’s tragedies- the ravages of slavery, the lost years under colonialism, the crippling post-independence malaise- is an untapped reservoir of epic novels, transcendent poems, world-touring plays, thought-provoking essays, new insights into governance and much more. It is to tap into this real-life reservoir, which the rest of the world can only experience vicariously, that Africa is in dire need of intellectual elite, which is passionate about defending the truth, which is universal in spirit, which is wary of convention, which is preoccupied with the pursuit of knowledge, and which is contemptuous of money. Africa’s conscience, the ultimate antidote against tyranny, is waiting to be stirred.

No leader in Africa imagined his role more indispensable than Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, who died pitifully convinced, thanks to the cruel cynicism of the sycophants who surrounded him that he was genius. If Mugabe and his third-term seeking peers are apt to notice, post-Meles Ethiopia is faring no worse than before. No leader in history, let alone a dictator, has ever been indispensable to a nation.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

History shall absolve democracy! 

Eskinder Nega, Gulag! 

In God I Trust!

ESAT Radio Monday May 16, 2016

(ESAT News) 17 May 2016— The number of soldiers deserting the Ethiopian army that’s riddled with corruption and joining opposition forces is on the rise.

The Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM) said in a statement on Monday that several soldiers of the minority regime in Addis Ababa have joined the Movement. TPDM has released a list of the names and other information of those who recently deserted the regime’s army. Some of the deserters had higher ranks in the army.

The soldiers said they had enough of the regime that’s using the army to prolong its stay in power. They said they would rather join democratic forces and fight to save the country from disintegration.

Adem Mohammed and Beshir Yosef said nepotism and corruption were rampant in the army. They said the rank and file were marginalized by the higher officers and generals who hail from one ethnic group. As a result, there is no unity and cohesion in the army, they said, adding that no soldier wish to stay in the army on his will; everyone wants to abandon the army, according to these soldiers.

Unbridled plunder of resources by a handful of generals when the rank and file eke out a living has been one of the causes of the rise in defection; in addition to refusal by some members of the army not to serve as a hit squad for the regime against people who are deemed to be political opponents.

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

There is  “no famine in Ethiopia… Ethiopians aren’t starving to death… People aren’t dying… Animals are dying of thirst…” Alex de Waal

Last week, in an op-ed piece in the New York Times (International Edition), Alex de Waal from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia declared the end of the “era of great famines” and proudly announced to the world, “Ethiopians aren’t starving to death”, only their “animals are dying of thirst.” Of course, that is exactly what USAID Administrator Gayle E. Smith said  in her recent interview.  I guess they all use the same talking points.

de Waal proclaimed:

The worst drought in three decades has left almost 20 million Ethiopians — one-fifth of the population — desperately short of food. And yet the country’s mortality rate isn’t expected to increase: In other words, Ethiopians aren’t starving to death… [their ] animals are dying of thirst. (Emphasis added.)

de Waal feigns astonishment over the adeptness and resourcefulness of the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (T-TPLF) in licking famine in Ethiopia (no pun intended):

I’ve studied famine and humanitarian relief for more than 30 years, and I wasn’t prepared for what I saw during a visit to Ethiopia last month. As I traveled through northern and central provinces, I saw imported wheat being brought to the smallest and most remote villages, thanks to a new Chinese-built railroad and a fleet of newly imported trucks. Water was delivered to places where wells had run dry. Malnourished children were being treated in properly staffed clinics.

de Waal is beside himself fawning over the T-TPLF’s  savvy statecraft  (I did not say witchcraft) which has delivered the coup de grace in the final conquest of  famine and starvation in Ethiopia:

How did Ethiopia go from being the world’s symbol of mass famines to fending off starvation? Thanks partly to some good fortune, but mostly to peace, greater transparency and prudent planning. Ethiopia’s success in averting another disaster is confirmation that famine is elective because, at its core, it is an artifact and a tool of political repression.

After reveling in a hearty tribute to the T-TPLF’s masterful management of food security in Ethiopia,  de Wall aims his rhetorical guns and blasts the “military regime headed by Mengistu Haile Mariam”  whose “government blocked trade, bombed markets and withheld emergency supplies in rebel-controlled areas” in Tigray and Eritrea.  Not to worry. The late Meles Zenawi and his T-TPLF rode their white horses into  Addis Ababa and saved the day:

The Mengistu regime collapsed in 1991. Under the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a former guerrilla turned advocate of rapid economic growth, Ethiopia enjoyed internal peace for the first time in a generation. There were localized droughts but no famines — with one notable exception.

de Waal downplays the severity of “food shortages” under T-TPLF rule. He asserts that in 1999 there were “food shortages in the southeastern part of the country [which] killed 29,000 people.” That was  certainly not famine. Just a garden variety food shortage (no pun intended). Another “major drought in 2002 caused hunger nationwide” (not famine), but the following year when de Waal visited, everything was hunky dory “in Wollo (north), Hararghe (east) and Sidama and Wollaita (south)”.

de Waal argues in 2015, “El Niño brought the worst drought in decades” but “Ethiopia was better prepared than ever.” The “government had begun programs to help families facing food shortages with various forms of food and cash assistance. It had taken measures to mitigate the effects of droughts, rehabilitating water catchments, reforesting and building roads and clinics, especially in the countryside.”

Managing the 2015-16 “El Nino drought” is a piece of cake (no pun intended) because the “government” had stashed “aside nearly $1 billion in case oil prices rose” which could be diverted to drought relief.

How does de Waal know all of these juicy tidbits of information on the final conquest of famine in Ethiopia?  “Finance Minister Abdulaziz Mohammed told me,” says de Waal.

In his “there is no famine in Ethiopia” story line, de Waal cleverly slips in the old T-TPLF canard about skyrocketing economic growth rates in Ethiopia. de Waal laments, “The economy will take a hit. Animals are dying of thirst… The G.D.P. growth rate will drop to about 8.5 percent in 2015 and 2016, down from more than 10 percent in 2014. But that’s still 8.5 percent, an impressive figure. And people aren’t dying.”

Of course, de Waal is willfully propagating the lies, damned lies and discredited statistics of the T-TPLF.  I have challenged the T-TPLF, World Bank, USAID and all others to prove up the double-digit growth claims in Ethiopia,  or shut up. They have chosen to shut up. You don’t see the World Bank, the IMF, USAID and the rest of the poverty pimps making the double-digit claim anymore because they know it is a damned lie.

I have demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt, time and again, that the T-TPLF claim of double-digit growth over the past ten years is a crock of statistical horse manure. I challenge de Waal to prove (not merely regurgitate statistics from the talking points handed to him by the T-TPLF and USAID) the veracity of his double-digit economic growth claim!

I also do not understand how de Waal can say the animals are dying of thirst  but the people are not.

Isn’t livestock production the driving force of Ethiopia’s rural agricultural economy and the lifeline of the pastoralists?  If the animals are dying, how long will it be before the people begin to die?

I can imagine how deeply embarrassing it could be to claim double-digit growth over the past ten years and simultaneously admit 20 million people are also facing famine in a country touted as having one of the red hot economies in the world.

But it is what it is.

Who is Alex de Waal  anyway?

I do not know if Alex de Waal is a lobbyist for the T-TPLF.

I do not know if  Alex de Waal is a publicist, media or public relations agent for the T-TPLF.

I do not know if Alex de Waal is the T-TPLF’s international strategic communications officer.

I do not know if Alex de Waal is the Leni Riefenstahl of the T-TPLF.

What I know is Alex de Waal is listed as Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and a Research Professor at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He touts himself as “one of the foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa,” having done his doctoral dissertation  on the 1984-85 Darfur famine. In his biography, he claims to be on “the list of Foreign Policy’s 100 most influential public intellectuals in 2008 and Atlantic Monthly’s 27 “brave thinkers” in 2009.”

de Waal has been in “Tigray on a mission for Oxfam to study local food markets.”

de Waal has been the (un)official historiographer of the Tigrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF)and written “Evil Days: Thirty Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia”, a book which is basically a hatchet job on the “evil” military Derg regime and its relentless counter-insurgency campaign against the TPLF.

de Waal delivered the keynote address in 2013 “on the occasion of the first anniversary commemoration of the death of Meles Zenawi”.  In his speech, de Waal said, “The second pillar of Meles’s security doctrine was national pride. He condemned what he called ‘jingoism on an empty stomach’”.

Today 20 million Ethiopians are dying because they have empty stomachs, and de Waal says, “There is no famine in Ethiopia.”

In July 2015, I had an opportunity to challenge  de Waal over the pending Senate confirmation of Gayle E. Smith to become the Administrator of USAID.

In an “Open Letter” (a letter I believe should have been more appropriately captioned,  “A Public Ode to Gayle E. Smith” since it read like a letter canonizing Smith instead of  urging her confirmation”)  in the Boston Review, Alex de Waal bloviated about Smith’s impeccable credentials and why she should be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Hubristically, de Waal pontificated: “No one should question your [Smith’s] credentials.”

Well, I questioned Smith’s credentials and fiercely opposed her confirmation. But she was confirmed by a vote of 79-7 in November 2015.  In that roll call vote, we separated the wheat from the chaff (no pun intended).  After Smith became Administrator, I have sought to hold her  accountable; and will continue to do so.

But who is really Alex de Waal, the self-proclaimed “comrade” of the late Meles Zenawi and the T-TPLF?

In his “eulogy” of Meles in August 2012, de Waal wrote in the New York Times indicating  that he knew Meles as “Comrade Meles” who “rose to become first among equals… due to force of intellect.”

Alex de Waal is an unabashed toady, apologist, propagandist and hagiographer (a writer of the lives of saint) of the late T-TPLF thugmaster Meles Zenawi.

de Waal claims that he personally trained Meles and his gang in economics and even reviewed Meles’ written papers. de Waal  reminds us  in his beatification and canonization of Meles Zenawi that without Meles and his T-TPLF Ethiopia would be ashes today and a wistful historical memory:

Over nearly 25 years, I was fortunate to be able to discuss political economy with him regularly, including critiquing his incomplete and unpublished master’s dissertation. During this time, his thinking evolved, but his basic principles and sensibilities remained constant… Meles had the quiet certitude of someone who had been tested – and seen his people tested – to the limit. Along with his comrades in arms in the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), he had looked into the abyss of collective destruction, and his career was coloured by the knowledge that Ethiopia could still go over that precipice.

de Waal (a social anthropologist by training) ran a discussion group on political economy for Meles  and the T-TPLF leadership in the bush. De Waal recounted:

As Meles crossed the border back into Ethiopia, I met him for the first time, and we began the first of our seminars on political economy…  Meles was primus inter pares [first among equals] in the EPRDF’s collective leadership and chief economic theoretician.

“I travelled each night on the back of a truck, that was like a travelling seminar”, said  de Waal at “the first anniversary commemoration of the death of Meles Zenawi.”

Meles, the great “economic theoretician” was trained by a “social anthropologist”!

I certainly knew Meles was practicing voodoo economics when I wrote my commentary  by the same title in May 2011. But I used “voodoo economics” as a metaphor. Little did I know that Meles was indeed trained in voodoo economics by a social/cultural anthropologist.  What more can I say!

As the chief expounder of Meles’ political economy, de Waal heaped praise on Meles as the Second Coming, the messiah, not only for Ethiopia but all of Africa. De Waal proclaimed, “Enough of Meles’ writings are in the public sphere to demonstrate that Meles was a truly original thinker. Let us hope that his unpublished papers provide sufficient material to fill out the other, less explored, areas of his intellectual inquiries.”

Does the internet qualify as “public sphere” because there is little online that can be called “writings” of Meles Zenawi.  For years, I have sought to find the writings of the “truly original thinker” in the most comprehensive libraries in the world and have found NONE.

Meles’ magnum opus, “African Development: Dead Ends and New Beginnings” (undated) is available online with the warning “PRELIMINARY DRAFT (Not for quotation).  The “chief economic theoretician” was great at phrase mongering and cooking economic statistics but not much more. Meles should have titled his “book”,  “The Voodoo Economics of African Development”.

Interestingly, no where does de Waal say that he was given honorary membership in the TPLF or the T-TPLF for his service, beyond and above the call of duty, exceeding well over a quarter of a century.

de Waal  speaketh with forked tongue

de Waal has done research on “famine” and “food shortages” in the Sudan and Ethiopia.

In his book, “Famine That Kills” (1989), de Waal wrote, “When faced with a drought that left fifteen million Ethiopians facing hunger in 2002, the fiscal conditionalities for staying on track for HIPC  [highly indebted poor countries debt forgiveness initiative] meant that the government had to reduce spending… Ethiopia had to rely on international agencies to bring huge quantities of food aid… which flooded the market… This is an example of a shockingly bad policy that fails to pass the simple test of being consonant with the realities facing rural people…”

In 2016, de Wall does not talk about the impact of “huge quantities of food aid flooding the market”.  He glibly talks about seeing “imported wheat being brought to the smallest and most remote villages, thanks to a new Chinese-built railroad and a fleet of newly imported trucks.”

(I don’t want to sound petty, but American taxpayers have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to provide “huge quantities of food” to Ethiopia. In 2015-16, during the “El Nino drought”,  U.S.  taxpayers  doled out  USD$441 million in food aid to Ethiopia.  A lot more has recently been pledged. In 2012-2014, when there was no El Nino drought, U.S.  taxpayers  doled out USD$759 million in food aid. I guess de Waal could not see the bags of wheat emblazoned with the words “USAID From the American People” loaded on the trains secured by Chinese loans  (built by Chinese companies  who brought their own workers on a no-bid contract) from the backseat of his SUV.  Who gets the big THANK YOU at the end of the day? The Chinese! You are damn right, I am pissed!)

de Waal pontificated in his book that “most books about famine are written from the viewpoint of outsider, such as relief agencies and other organizations [committed] to alleviate famines.” His book “analyses famine from the perspective of the rural people who suffered it.”

de Waal  castigates the international humanitarian donors and distributors for “arrogating to themselves the power to ‘cry famine’, at the expense of the local famine victims who are suffering.” The “foreigners create a perceived moral imperative for external intervention. The famine victims live (or die) under an alien definition. Another strand of this ‘famine industry’ of the specialized agencies , who see famines in terms of technical issues such as ‘early warning systems’, ‘food scarcity’, logistics, and ‘nutritional surveillance’”

de Waal declares, “The starting point for an analysis of famine should therefore lie with the understandings of those who suffer famine themselves.”

When de Waal wrote his N.Y. Times op ed piece, did he step out of the T-TPLF-provided air conditioned SUV to talk to the “rural people who are suffering” from the “drought” or famine?

Did de Waal talk to any villagers and ask them how many have died from the “drought”?

Did de Waal talk to starving (excuse me, extremely food challenged) mothers and ask them how many of their children have died?

Did de Waal talk to health workers in the clinics and ask them how many people died from extreme food challenges?

Did de Waal talk to herders whose animals have died?

Did de Waal talk to any malnourished children and ask them how they feel about not eating for days on end?

There is absolutely nothing in his piece that suggests that he talked to any victims or those helping victims on the ground.

It seems de Waal told his driver to scoot along the Chinese-built roads surveying the Chinese rail lines and trains carrying food aid paid for by American taxpayers (thank you very much, Uncle Sam).

Why didn’t de Waal report a single statement he heard from those suffering the effects of the “El Nino drought”?

The answer is simple. He never got out of his posh SUV to talk to the “drought” victims.

de Waal forgot in his op ed piece his own admonition written long ago.  “Famines are not situations where dying people are constantly and everywhere to be seen. They are situations of acute poverty and destitution are most prominent.”

If he had talked to the famine victims, he would have gotten an earful.  If he had gotten out of his SUV and talked to the mothers, children, herders, the men too weak to go out and beg, he would have seen the savage face of FAMINE etched on their skins and bones.

Who did de Waal talk to for his op ed piece to conclude that “there is no famine in Ethiopia” and “people are not dying”?

de Waal talked to T-TPLF “Finance Minister” Abdulaziz Mohammed. He mentions no one else in his piece.

Abdulaziz told him there is a stash of a billion dollars available for the drought. I imagine Abdulaziz told him there is no famine. Abdulaziz told him only animals are dying and not people. Abdulaziz told him the T-TPLF has “devised a national drought insurance plan”. Abdulaziz told him there is a big pie in the sky that will fall down and feed the people!  Abdulaziz…

(In 2011, Meles Zenawi pompously declared, “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.” In other words, famine, starvation, severe malnutrition, etc. will be banned from Ethiopia for eternity!)

In 2016, the T-TPLF is talking about a national drought insurance plan? (They must think we are all damned fools!)

de Waal wrote in his book that “Mesfin Wolde Mariam has perhaps more experience of famine in Ethiopia than any other social scientist.”

Did de Waal talk to Mesfin Wolde Mariam who currently lives in Addis Ababa for his op ed piece? No, de Waal  preferred to talk to Abdulaziz Mohammed.

de Waal wrote in his book, “In Ethiopia, a major relief operation distributed immense qualities of free food to about fifteen million people, and the government and most of its donors concurred that no famine occurred. The affected people were not consulted over this, and the data that might reveal excess mortality are only now being collected and analyzed (July 2004).”

Do we need to wait for a few more years to accurately determine how many Ethiopians died from famine in 2015-16?

The fact of the matter is that calling the famine-spade, a famine-spade is a power relationship. In the days when de Waal was critical of the international poverty pimps, he wrote:

Who defines an event as a “famine” is a question of power relations within and between societies. Certain famine-relief technologies, serve to give foreign relief organizations more power to define famines, at the expense of rural people…. I am going to argue that the herder’s concept is fundamentally more accurate when it comes to analyzing the nature of famine in this part [Horn of]  Africa.

Did de Waal talk to the herder or pastoralist whose livestock are dying for his op ed piece?  No, he talked to Abdulaziz Mohammed.

Truth be told, de Waal is right.  There is no famine in Ethiopia until and unless the foreign relief organizations, foreign powers and people like de Waal say, “There is famine”.  To be sure, there is no famine in Ethiopia UNLESS USAID, UN agencies, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the rest of the international poverty and famine pimps say, “There is Famine in Ethiopia!”

If 29,000 people die from lack of food, that is just too bad. They died of hunger.

It is precisely because the international poverty and famine pimps have arrogated to themselves the power to “cry famine” that I have raged against them all these years.  Whether there is a famine in Ethiopia  is a question to be answered by Ethiopians suffering famine, not USAID, the World Bank, the IMF or the de Waals of the world.

Let me repeat it: The only way to know if there is famine in Ethiopia is talk to the people suffering famine conditions.

That is what Jeremy Konyndyk, USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, found out when he recently visited the Tigray region in Ethiopia.

As I demonstrated in my April 17 commentary, Konyndyk got an earful  from the people of Tigray:

This drought is massive.  It is the worst drought in 50 years in most of this country… When we were out in Tigray yesterday we spoke with many people living in communities there who told us  this was the worst drought they had ever seen in their lives — worse in many cases than the conditions that their areas had seen in 1983, 1984.  And yet we also know that the outcomes of this drought don’t need to look like the outcomes in 1984…”

de Waal fully adopts Amartya Sen’s “reconceptualization of the nature of famine” that “Famine is the characteristic  of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough food to eat.”

It seems 20 million Ethiopians today do not “have enough food to eat”.

I ask de Waal straight up. By his own definition, do 20 million Ethiopians today have “enough food to eat”? Is there famine in Ethiopia today?

In his article, “Famine and Human Rights” (1991 Development in Practice, Vol. 1, No. 2), de Waal talked about solving the problem of famine:

History is replete with successful methods of preventing famine. Common to them are versions of ‘political contract’ that impose political obligations on rulers. In the most effective anti-famine contracts, famine is a political scandal. Famine is deterred. The contract is enforced by throwing out a government that allows it to happen or otherwise punishing those in power.

How the hell can you have a “political contract” when the T-TPLF says it has won 100 percent of the seats in parliament?

In his book “Famine Crimes” (1997), de Waal argued that the cause of famine is not necessarily drought but political pigheadedness and  lack of accountability on the part of African governments and international humanitarian organizations. He urged the creation of a political environment where food entitlement is a right and government that fails to ensure food sufficiency could be held accountable by its citizens.

de Waal even argued that liberal rights and democratic institutions are critical in preventing famine. He proposed the idea of a political contract which imposes obligations on those in power making famine itself a legal, political and moral crimes for which governments can be brought down, held accountable and replaced. He suggested that the international famine aid industry (international poverty pimps, as I like to call them) including the elite staff of international relief agencies, academics, consultants, specialists, journalists, lobbyist have tended to obstruct the establishment political contracts against famine by eliminating the political nature of famine and making it a problem of a technical fix.

(Is de Waal  one of the obstructionist “academics, consultants, specialists”?)

In his 1991 article, de Waal argued:

When famine looms in a society without a free press and democratic political institutions, there is little pressure on the government to do anything about it. On average, Africans eat more than Indians. But India has not suffered famine for more than 40 years, and this can largely be attributed to the free press and adversarial politics of the country. (The other factor in India’s success is the government’s willingness to intervene in the economy to support the poor when famine threatens.) The occurrence of the great famine of 1958-61 in socialist China has been attributed in part to the lack of information about the crisis, deriving from Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the strict censorship that entailed. Politicians who were aware of the crisis were unable to publicise it or organise to represent the interests of the vulnerable people, on account of the authoritarian political system. Similarly, the occurrence of the famine of 1984-5 in capitalist Sudan can be attributed in part to the strict controls on the press and government actions against groups that tried to organise on behalf of the stricken people. The Sudan government did not want to discourage private investment by admitting to the embarrassment of a famine. These examples demonstrate that political rights – to information, to free association, to representation – are important in fighting famine, irrespective of the economic system. They are important in two ways. One, the free flow of information means that the powerful people in society know about the plight of the poor. Two, the rights of association and representation mean that the poor are able to press for their material needs to be met through adversarial civil politics. These rights are of direct concern to human rights organisations, both because they are prized in themselves, and because their violation makes a poor country vulnerable to famine.

de Waal pulls no punches as he demonizes the Derg military regime and its weaponization of famine.  He says, “Ethiopia is notorious for its famines, and the government which fell from power in May 1991 was notorious for its violations of human rights. [The factors]  which have turned hardship into famine and famine into mass starvation [during the Derg period] include among others “forced removals and displacement by resettlement, villagisation, and military campaigns, heavy taxation, diversion, obstruction, and destruction of food aid.”

In my August 2011 commentary, I demonstrated how the T-TPLF had weaponized famine to cling to power. Indeed, the T-TPLF has used “famine as a tool of political repression”, to borrow a phrase from de Waal.

de Waal says absolutely nothing about T-TPLF land grabs that have left hundreds of thousands landless. He says nothing about T-TPLF mass villagization in Gambella and other regions. He says nothing about T-TPLF forced removals in the outskirts of the capital.

de Waal says absolutely nothing about diversion, obstruction, and destruction of food aid by the T-TPLF.

de Waal says nothing about the T-TPLF’s use of food aid for political coercion and recruitment of party members.

de Waal says absolutely nothing about the total and complete ownership of all land in Ethiopia by the T-TPLF and its cronies!

Does de Waal speak with forked tongue?

Were there a serpent seen with a more practiced forked tongue than de Waal’s, to paraphrase Shakespeare?

Why is de Waal so blind to the FAMINE CRIMES of his T-TPLF buddies but is so strident in condemning everyone from Mao Zedung to Mengistu Haile Mariam?

Is it not ironic that the China whose population was decimated by Mao’s famine is today saving Ethiopians  dying from famine? (U.S.A., who?)

de Waal skewers Mao for “strict censorship” during the great famine of 1958-61 and the “lack of information about the crisis.” He castigates the Sudanese government for strict controls on the press and government actions against groups that tried to organise on behalf of the stricken people.”

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), “Ethiopia was the second-worst jailer of journalists in Africa, after Eritrea.”

de Waal says nothing about T-TPLF’s “strict controls on the press” and indiscriminate jailing of journalists and bloggers.

No matter how de Waal sugarcoats it, the only difference between Mengistu Haile Mariam and Meles Zenawi is that the former is a brazen criminal against humanity and the latter a smooth criminal against humanity.

Why is de Waal so blind to the famine that is killing 20 million of Ethiopians today one person at a time?

de Waal wrote in his book, “It is distasteful in some ways to build a career on the suffering of other people…” I say to de Waal, “Look in the mirror!”

de Waal likes to criticize “disaster tourists” who are “drawn towards aspects of the famine that reinforce their prior conceptions of what famines are” and exaggerate the severity of  famines. “Failing to comprehend how rural people really survive, disaster tourists often predict that in the absence of external aid, millions will starve…”

I wonder if the same can be said of “Disaster Scholars and Researchers”.

Whitewashing Famine in Ethiopia: The axis of famine deniers

de Waal asked in his op ed piece if the “era of great famines is over”.

I regret to tell de Waal that the era of great famine never left Ethiopia. It is alive and well in Ethiopia in May 2016.

I regret to tell de Waal that the era of hidden famines, creeping famines, famines that kill and famine crimes that are perpetrated on innocent victims is upon us.

The era of famine apologists who obscure the truth is upon us.

I am pleased to tell de Waal that the era of  international poverty and humanitarian pimps in Ethiopia is over.  Y’all can’t tell us when we hungry, starvin’ or just dyin’ of famine.

You have taken everything from us. But we ain’t gonna let you take our dignity to suffer and die. Drown in your own crocodile tears! Stop telling  us we are just hungry when we are dying of famine!

When the great Harry Belafonte went to Ethiopia (Live Aid)  in 1984 to visit famine victims, he said what impressed him most was the fact that the famine victims maintained their utmost dignity, not fighting to get more food or to get more than their share.

There is no need to add insult to the injury of famine victims by telling them that the fact that do not have enough to eat is the equivalent of missing afternoon tea.

There are all sorts of “deniers” in the world. They are willfully ignorant of the fact that as hundreds of thousands die in genocide, war and famine, they see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing.

I have no problems with de Waal’s support of the T-TPLF or his deification of Meles Zenawi. I respect his right to support whomever and whatever he wishes.

But when he gets involved in matters of life and death of my people and whitewash to the world a notorious famine that is taking place today, the least I expect is full disclosure of his affiliation, service and comradeship with the very people who are, in my view, responsible for the famine.

Everyone knows how I feel about the late Prince of Darkness, the Prince’s surviving Horsemen and the Devil’s Advocates.  I do not hide behind the veil of scholarship to hide the truth. I remove the veil of deceit and hypocrisy so all can see the face of EVIL.

That EVIL is FAMINE and those responsible for failing to plan and prevent it.

Thousands have died in the famine (and many more will die) and the T-TPLF, with the aid of the international poverty and famine pimps, has so far succeeded in keeping the famine crime hidden from public view.

In his op ed, de Waal said Ethiopia used to be a  “a synonym for shriveled, glazed-eyed children on saline drips.”

Is that the litmus test to be met before the international famine pimps officially declare famine in Ethiopia?

I hope this commentary will be food for thought for de Waal and his ilk.

Finally, I ask de Waal two simple question:

In 1991, his Comrade Meles said he would consider his government a success if Ethiopians were able to eat three meals a day.

In 2011, Meles Zenawi pompously declared, “We have devised a plan which will enable us to produce surplus and be able to feed ourselves by 2015 without the need for food aid.”

Are Ethiopians eating three meals a day in 2016?

Are Ethiopians able to produce a surplus and be able to feed themselves in 2016?

There are famine crimes, and they are taking place in Ethiopia today.

There is also a “failure to report a famine crime” crime.  J’accuse de Waal!

THERE IS FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA!!!  THERE IS FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA!!!  THERE IS FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA!!! 

By DICK YOUNG

With all due respect, Mr. de Waal is not asking the right question, and he is doing the people of Ethiopia a great disservice.

I have just returned from Denan, Ethiopia, home to a camp for internally displaced persons. In the Denan camp, despite promises by international aid organizations, food relief had not been delivered in nearly seven months. Many people are lucky to be able to give one meager meal per day to their children. Some get less than that. Perhaps the images are not as shocking as those from the 1980s, but seeing a woman hold a malnourished child who is too weak to walk is an image that will stay with me for a long time.

It may be that due to somewhat better infrastructure and an improved political situation that the numbers of great starvation and death are not what they once were. But this is irrelevant to the families who are still watching their children suffer.

The ultimate goal of The Denan Project, of which I’m the president and co-founder, is to help impoverished communities become self-sustainable. But when feeding one’s children becomes a daily struggle, when hunger pains do not lessen, it is not possible to focus on anything else — least of all the semantics of labeling their unspeakable suffering a “great famine” or not.

DICK YOUNG

Woodbury, Conn.

The Federal Criminal Court has sentenced an Ethiopian pilot who hijacked an aeroplane in Geneva to mandatory supervised psychiatric treatment. He had previously been deemed mentally unsound during the incident.

During Monday’s sentencing, the judge deemed the defendant’s risk of relapse to be high and so sentenced him to undergo therapy while under guard in canton Geneva. The pilot is already receiving treatment for paranoid schizophrenia and was not present at the sentencing hearing.
The defence team had asked that the pilot be set free because he had not endangered the lives of any passengers aboard the aeroplane and the other pilot was able to safely land in Geneva. Lawyers for the 40-year-old Ethiopian reiterated that he had been seeking asylum in Switzerland.
As soon as he is financially solvent, the defendant will have to pay fees for the trial totaling CHF3,000 ($3,092) as well as the costs for his defence team. His pilot’s license has been revoked.

Plea for asylum

In February 2014, the flight from Addis Ababa to Rome was hijacked by the co-pilot while the pilot was in the toilet. While over Sudan a distress message was sent out. Once the plane was in European airspace, two Italian fighter jets, and then French jets accompanied the aircraft. The incident highlighted that Switzerland does not have round-the-clock fighter jet intervention capability.

The plane, with 202 people on board, was rerouted to Geneva. It took a while to land as the co-pilot was trying to negotiate a claim for political asylum. No guarantees were made and the plane was eventually forced to land due to a lack of fuel. It touched down safely and no one on board was injured.
Upon landing, the co-pilot climbed out of the cockpit window and handed himself in to authorities.

Psychiatric diagnosis

It was initially thought that the Ethiopian man would be charged with taking hostages, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison in Switzerland. However, the Attorney General’s office later judged that the man was not capable of making competent decisions at the time and was experiencing paranoia. He was detained in a closed psychiatric ward, while awaiting a ruling on the therapeutic measures to be prescribed to him.

In March, an Ethiopian court sentenced him to 19 years and six months in prison for hijacking. The Swiss authorities decided not to extradite him to Ethiopia in order to try him in Switzerland.
swissinfo.ch and agencies

Interview with Assefa Chabo – SBS Amharic

BBC

There were smoke alerts inside the cabin of the EgyptAir passenger plane before it crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday, reports say.

Smoke was detected in the toilet and the aircraft’s electrics, just minutes before the signal was lost, according to data published on air industry website the Aviation Herald.

However, there has been no independent confirmation.

Flight MS804 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board.

Greece says radar showed the Airbus A320 had made two sharp turns and dropped more than 25,000ft (7,620m) before plunging into the sea.

Debris and body parts were found on Friday by teams searching for the wreckage of the Airbus320, Greek and Egyptian officials said.

Items including seats and luggage have also been retrieved by Egyptian search crews.

The debris was discovered about 290km (180 miles) north of Alexandria, the Egyptian military said.

European Space Agency satellites spotted an oil slick in the area where the flight had vanished – but the organisation said there was no guarantee it was from the plane.

The search is now focused on finding the plane’s flight recorders, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has expressed his “utmost sadness and regret” at the crash.