Ethiopia’s dream of reaching the U-20 AFCON Zambia 2017, for the first time since 2001, will be tested on Sunday when they entertain Ghana in a Second Round first leg clash in Addis Ababa.

Head coach of the Ethiopians, Girma Habteyohannis is upbeat about registering a positive result when his side takes on the highly rated Black Satellites.

“We have seen some match highlights of our opponent’s game. We gave our players a chance to think about what they should do when they face the Ghanaians. We have prepared well psychologically. Likewise, the fans will for sure turn up to support us and my boys will use the support as a motivation to beat Ghana,” claimed Habteyohannis.

The Junior Walias will be without midfielder Biniam Belay due to injury, but Habteyohannis remains convinced in the squad he has assembled.

“We were forced to drop some players due to injuries. Others were axed for being out of form. We worked to bring some other good players in place of the dropped ones. We still have a problem in our attacking proficiency. I believe we have worked on our finishing ability during our preparations. We all know Ghana, they are a good side. They are one of the most powerful teams in Africa. We will do our best to get a positive result against this strong side,” added Habteyohannis.

On his part, Ghana coach Didi Dramani is hoping for a better outing when the two sides lock horns.

“We don’t have much information about the Ethiopians. All that we know is that it is a qualifier. Once it is a qualifier you need to respect your opponent and keep your preparation at the highest level. Playing in a high altitude area like Addis Ababa needs a lot of strategic elements. I think we have been very positive and we carry a winning mentality. Everywhere we go, we need to carry a winning mentality in order to get the very best result,” said Dramani, who attained global fame after guiding Ghana’s U-17 women’s team to a bronze place at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2012 in Azerbaijan.

Ethiopia edged Somalia 4-1 on aggregate at the previous round whilst Ghana drew a bye.

Fixtures

Friday, 20 April 2016

Mauritania vs Mali

Saturday, 21 April 2016

Tunisia vs Senegal

Gambia vs Morocco

Cote d’Ivoire vs Guinea

Burkina Faso vs Congo

Burundi vs Nigeria

Rwanda vs Egypt

Angola vs Gabon

Mozambique vs Lesotho

Namibia vs South Africa

Sunday, 22 April 2016

Ethiopia vs Ghana

Zimbabwe vs Cameroon

The rationale for this piece:

One of the key reasons for my decision to write this piece consists in my desire, which I hope Tsegaye shares, to see Tsegaye reorient his public engagement with people who are active participants in issues that affect and shape the future of Ethiopia. It is my desire to see a redemption of Tsegaye’s mode of engagement for his own sake and for the sake of the public good. It is my deep concern with Tsegaye’s subjecting people who disagree with him to public ridicule and humiliation that led me to address my concern in public. It is also my hope that other public intellectuals and participants in public discussions and debates regarding issues that affect Ethiopia would take a note that our culture of public engagement needs a lot of change and improvement.Anyone who is following the current Ethiopian politics, especially news and developments in relation to the Oromo Protest in the last six months, would be familiar with who Dr. Tsegaye R. Ararssa is. In my view, Dr. Tsegaye is one of the more prominent intellectual faces of the Oromo Protest. Starting from this sentence, I address Dr. Tsegaye as Tsegaye, because of a friendship that spans over two decades that makes addressing a friend with a title awkward. Despite our disagreements in our views concerning Ethiopia, I have never ceased to regard Tsegaye as my friend. I address him in this piece as such.

I have witnessed Tsegaye violate the norms of public engagement with people who disagree with him, and this violation of the norms of public engagement is fast closing the public sphere. It is very likely that Tsegaye will end up being alone with no one being willing to engage him in a public arena, both in the social (Facebook) and the traditional media (TV and Radio). By “norms of public engagement” I mean to refer to (a) civility in dialogue with people with whom one disagrees on important issues, (b) respect to both the views and persons who present views that are in disagreement with one’s dialogue partner, and (c) charity in interpreting another person’s views. Some of the readers of this piece might be surprised to hear that Tsegaye has violated any of the norms of public engagement in his interactions with people who hold views with which Tsegaye disagrees.  Below I present the evidence from his writings on his Facebook that shows his pre-emptive tactic for people who could and would want to engage him in a public forum. As the evidence shows, it becomes clear that when people avoid engaging him in a public forum, he would   appear as the one who has issued an invitation for a public debate, but no one is willing to debate him in public. I show that Tsegaye’s mode of operation makes engaging him in a debate something like an invitation to engage in an exercise in an intellectual and moral morass. The one who is willing to debate him must also be willing to be the subject of personal attacks from Tsegaye in public, especially on Tsegaye’s Facebook.  Who, in his/her right mind, would be willing to be the subject of Tsegaye’s public attacks for every disagreement in their views with his views? A person who issues an invitation to debate with others and at the same time engages in a public personal attack of the people who disagreed with him is like a person who enters a competitive sport alone and ends up being  a winner, as it were. Next I present the evidence from Tsegaye’s Facebook posts and commentaries.

The Evidence:

On his Facebook page Tsegaye has offered a commentary on the Wazema radio interview of Drs. Semahegn G. Abebe and Derese G. Kassa.  His commentary was titled: “Arguing a non-issue, Answering a non-question.” The commentary was posted on May 6 at 7:47am. In that commentary Tsegaye writes, “Now, Deresse says Zewg is related to Zewd (to mean crown). (Does this guy know Amharic and the etymological roots of the word?)”.  He adds, “Apparently, intermarriage absolves the state of all constitutive wrongs.”Yes, yes, there was conquest and violence. But there was also a unity we should celebrate! Yes, unity, because we started to inter-marry! You know!”  [Note the sarcasm]. (What has marriage got to do with it? This guy must be insane.)” Furthermore, he adds, “And then, right then, he derides ethno-nationalists for being primordialists who talk of blood, genealogy, etc. Didn’t he just talk about inter-marriage and mixed births. (Truly, this guy doesn’t listen to himself. I think he needs friends who need to echo his voice to him….” He goes on to add, “The most hilarious part is that this Deresse fellow calls ethno-nationalists primordialists who lack imagination. Why?” And: “And then, Deresse waxes lyrical in praising nostalgia (longing for the past) and even arrogantly says that one can only long for the past. Really? (He doesn’t even know the difference between nostalgia and longing. How pathetic can you be, my friend?).” And he adds: “But, for now, I just can’t stop laughing at the recent tirade, this renewed scramble to generate a discourse of imperial counter-insurgency.”

Most recently, in his Facebook post titled, “Nothing is Uglier than a Poor Caricature–especially of EPRDF” (May 12 at 2:35am) among so many similar comments, Tsegaye writes, “Some self-appointed Ethiopisant ‘intellectuals’ (especially those who never read a book beyond the introduction) are trying to foment a (borrowed) hatred on the Oromo. They write from a space of (borrowed) Oromophobia to silence the discourse around the Oromoprotests. Those that dared to take their hateful and fear-mongering propaganda I have publicly engaged. I have even challenged to an open public debate. And none dared to do so. However, I am informed by friends that they are throwing their tantrums here and there on Facebook (until they re-group and come back through Wazema Radio or Sebat Kilo, etc). PS. A piece of advise [sic]: do your studies properly, read books AND finish them rather than running a thread of tantrums here and there. Tantrums don’t make up a PhD.”

In his Facebook post in which Tsegaye reposted his interview on Wazema Radio with Dr. Semahegn,  he prefaces his post by writing the following: “For the sake of the bigoted Ethiopianists (or ‘Ethiopisants’ as Ullendorf says), who listen to the voice of the ghost in their head whenever an Oromo person speaks rather than to what the latter says; for the sake of those who never want to come out and debate issues of common concern in public; for the sake of those who comfort themselves with mooshy platitudes that pass for learned discourses; I have to share this again if only to irritate them infinitely more (for I don’t otherwise owe an explanation to the idiots, especially to the bigoted breed).” [April 15, 2016 at 12:31am]. If one thinks that Tsegaye’s personal attack is limited to those with whom he disagrees on issues he publicly engaged, the following quotation, again from his Facebook, shows that there is a pattern of his attack against almost anyone who holds different views than his, especially his interpretation of things pertaining to the Oromo people.  For example, on his post on March 1, 2016 at 8:13am, 2016, Tsegaye expressed the following view regarding Menelik II and the significance of Adwa for black people, “This is also the Menelik that these nonthinking Ethiopians (averse to critical thinking while pretending to understand history or their country) are trying to celebrate as the man who fought Adwa to defend and secure the freedom of black peoples across the globe.” In this connection, in another of his Facebook posts, Tsegaye alluded to Bewketu Seyoum’s new book, Ke Amen Bashager, in which Bewketu discusses Menelink, as follows: “With all this in the background, when people come out to fetishize Adowa as a war fought and won for the emancipation of black peoples of the world, I cringe at the lie. When I see scholars, poets, lyricists, and wannabe historians (apologists of empire such as Psychologist turned poet Bewketu [Seyoum]) who seek to fabricate a new set of narratives that the old man [Menelink] himself would totally reject, I smile.” [March 1, 2016 at 1:03 pm]. Now, it is natural if some, who are familiar with Tsegaye’s media appearances on the TV and radios, would be puzzled by the evidence that is in conflict with the Tsegaye that is familiar for so many. I offer below an explanation that can mitigate the puzzling experience.  Other explanations are also available, but I do not intend to pursue them for various reasons.

Two Tsegayes:

Here is one way of understanding Tsegaye’s strategy that leads people to think that Tsegaye has not been observed violating the norms of public engagement or mistreating people who disagree with him. TSEGAYE OF THE TRADITIONAL MEDIA, the TV and Radio: In most of his TV interviews with ESAT and radio interviews/conversations with the VOA and Wazema, he restrains himself from violating the norms of public engagement or ridiculing and condescendingly dismissing others and their views. In my view, the reason for exercising restraint is easy to understand: The TV and radio interviews have a larger audience in Ethiopia, especially those who do not use the social media, and that is an important target for his purpose. Note that Tsegaye emerged as a public intellectual and an Oromo activist in the context of the Oromo Protest. So, in my view, Tsegaye acts in the traditional media appearances deliberately different posing as a public intellectual with little evidence that resembles what I presented above.  TSEGAYE OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA (Facebook): Tsegaye adopts a completely different personality for his social media operation or mode of engagement. [Note that Tsegaye’s social media audience has access to the traditional media version of Tsegaye, but the majority of those Tsegaye targets as his larger audience in Ethiopia do not have access to the Tsegaye of the social media,  and to the evidence as to how Tsegaye operates on the social media].   As the evidence above shows, on his Facebook page, he frequently belittles, ridicules people who hold different political views than his and he is condescendingly dismissive of the views of people who shared a platform, for example, on the Wazema Radio interviews. Next, I show negative effects of Tsegaye of the social media in the public arena in the current Ethiopian politics, which is a great disservice to Tsegaye as an active participant in current issues that affect Ethiopia and the broader culture of public engagement for the good of the Ethiopian people.

Tsegaye’s Media Strategy:

Of the two Tsegayes, Tsegaye of the traditional media (TV, Radio) is an amicable, apparently respectful dialogue partner. But the Tsegaye of the social media is what the evidence shows. Note this: Those same people who are targets of his public ridicule, and humiliation are observed to be the same people whom he invites to the public debate. Does Tsegaye,  it’s not clear which Tsegaye I’m talking about now, sincerely believe that his invitation is genuine, and he means what he says? Does he not have any idea what the effect of Tsegaye of the social media would have on his debate partners on the TV or radio? I bet that he does have a clear idea about the impact of his social media posts in which he engages in bullying and belittling his potential debate or discussion partners. If he has a good idea about the negative impact of his social media behavior, why does he engage in it? Here is one plausible explanation I can think of: When people who hold opposing views to his decline to engage him because of his abusive behavior, Tsegaye will appear like the only intellectual whose views no one could challenge. It is already clear that he is claiming, as I have quoted him above, that no one “dared” to engage him in a public debate despite his public invitation. I leave it to my readers to judge whether Tsegaye’s invitation is a genuine invitation for a public debate with people who hold different views in light of his public abusive behavior.

To be left without anyone to engaging him in a public debate to challenge his views seems to be the scenario he wants to emerge in the current public sphere.  This unfortunately is exactly what happens when a regime like Ethiopia’s treats its citizens, dissidents as a result of which the state media becomes the only voice without other competing voices. Likewise, Tsegaye will emerge, apparently, as “the only unchallenged voice” when it comes to promoting his views in relation to Ethiopia and as an Oromo intellectual and activist. Strikingly, when public intellectuals act the way Tsegaye of the social media acts, the public arena, especially about the debate involving the Oromo intellectuals, of whom Tsegaye is a prominent one, will look like the composition of the parliament in Ethiopia. In this case, Tsegaye of the traditional media assisted by Tsegaye of the social media, would resemble the EPRDF parliament whereas people who disagree with his views would resemble members of the opposition party, which is zero. Note that I am just drawing a striking analogy between the composition of the Ethiopian parliament, familiar for the Ethiopian readers, and the most likely scenario that seems to portray what it is like to engage Tsegaye in a public forum. I believe the last person Tsegaye wants to look like in his public behavior is the late Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi who acted as if he knew everything and everyone else was wrong. To ensure that Meles must be listened to, and emerge right about almost everything, he had to use guns to silence dissident voices. Tsegaye uses abusive public behavior to silence those who disagree with him. [Interestingly and ironically, almost every view that is presented by people who disagree with Tsegaye’s  in the current Oromo Protest,  he interprets such views  as being intended to silence the voice of the Oromo people. Even when those who disagree with him are Oromos themselves! I encourage readers to visit Tsegaye’s Facebook for evidence].   I think no one wants to see Tsegaye become “Meles Zenawi” # 2 in a public sphere where issues affecting the state of Ethiopia are being discussed, and debated without any respect to the norms of public engagement.  Even though Tsegaye can manage to appear in a winsome manner in the traditional media, his social media behavior has proved to be abortive or pre-emptive of the realization of fruitful public debates and dialogues with Tsegaye in the traditional media. It is quite astonishing for me to see a public intellectual who is becoming one of the most prominent voices against the tyrannical government in Ethiopia act and operate in a much similar manner to that very government! It is to be noted that my conception of “two Tsegayes” is a suggestion I proposed to make sense of the two quite different modes of media operations by Tsegaye. I submit that this is a mode of media operation Tsegaye has intentionally adopted for reasons I offered above.

A plea from an old friend:

Tsegaye has become a prominent champion of the value and the use of memory, and remembering past atrocities committed against the people of Ethiopia by various regimes, and people groups against other people groups in Ethiopia. Remembering is championed for the purpose of bringing about reconciliation between those who committed injustice and their victims. As an Oromo, he has become a key voice for this project. Reconciliation can come about when those who committed injustice acknowledge their role and ask their victims for forgiveness.  As a champion of the project of remembering to bring about reconciliation, I urge Tsegaye to publicly acknowledge his unfair treatment of people in public as documented above and to apologize to whoever has been a victim of his public abusive behavior. Hence, I publicly issue a plea to my old friend, as a friend, to sacrifice (to say “no” to) his abusive public behavior for his own sake and for the sake of fruitful intellectual engagement with others to contribute ideas, visions, and perspectives that can positively affect the future of Ethiopia and the quest for justice for the Oromo people, for which Tsegaye is a champion. I implore my old friend to be a responsible and an exemplary public intellectual who deeply cares about the value of character in both a public sphere as well as in one’s personal treatments of others, even those who sharply yet respectfully disagree with one’s views.

I close this piece with a couple of excerpts from Tsegaye’s emails [to me] from 2011 so that Tsegaye can be sure that I do remember and cherish our long-time friendship, which I see no reason why we cannot continue to cultivate and cherish despite our disagreements regarding issues concerning Ethiopia: On July 25, 2011 Tsegaye wrote:  “…I owe it to you to do it well, whatever it is that I choose to do. (You started me into writing, remember (?)– whether it is pieces, essays, papers, or articles, and hopefully books.) As I might have probably said it before, you are one of the folks for whose sakes I want to succeed in my academic or any other career. I owe it to you as much, my friend.” In another email the same date: “Thanks for your kind responses. No, I am not being kind. It is just my way of being grateful to you for investing in me through your books, through the long times we spent together, through the pieces we exchanged, especially when you were in Soddo [1994-1995], and through the life you modelled to me (a life of committed mind, committed passionately to the pursuit of the life of the mind). I hope your efforts will prove to be worth their whiles in the years to come.” Your wishes, my friend, have continued to be realized for quite some time and I want to say thank you, once again. I shared these couple of excerpts from Tsegaye’s old emails as a testament to our once great friendship that is now the source of my confidence that Tsegaye will take my appeal to him seriously so that he can exhibit an exemplary public presence in the days and in the years to come. Finally, I want to assure you (Tsegaye)   that I’ve forgiven you of all the things you’ve said about me on your Facebook posts without mentioning my name. I do also ask you to forgive me for anything that was not proper that I said about you without mentioning your name on my Facebook posts.  I am sure you, Tsegaye, can tell by now one more reason why I chose to write this piece in this manner. If I shared views that are in disagreement with Tsegaye’s views on my Facebook posts by mentioning his name, I could easily tell that Tsegaye would most likely say similar things he has said to others as I documented above, besides what he has said without mentioning me be my name. Since I do not want to engage Tsegaye in such a manner, I decided to seek another venue, this one, to address my concern. I am sure many others would share with me the concern I share in this piece. I have one more reason to choose to address Tsegaye in this manner: For many years Tsegaye and I were among the best of friends, and it is my heart’s desire to see Tsegaye continue to positively contribute to the public discussion and debate about a country, Ethiopia, that has shaped our lives in so many ways than we can say. I consider addressing Tsegaye in this manner, in public, as one way of recognizing him because he deserve a recognition for the kind of work he is doing and will do.

Tedla Woldeyohannes is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at Saint Louis University in Saint Louis, Missouri. Tedla has taught Philosophy at Western Michigan University and Saint Louis University.

Ethiopians continue to wonder; how a small time world recognized terrorist group known as Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) pulled the greatest scum in history of Ethiopia.

It is unspoken rule without saying; TPLF is a mercenary group unleashed on the people of Ethiopia. But, the question remains whether its supporters and apologists are part of the scum or on only in it for the money.

Nevertheless, how it is a hardline Marxist-Leninist ethnic liberation pushing TPLF clowns turned 360 degree to become Ethiopia’s # 1 snake oil salesmen of the century in a matter of two decades to put the nation in the auction block to foreigners?

More bewildering g is; how did the same internationally recognized ‘terrorist ’ turned ‘mercenary’ accused of elaborate assassinations, kidnapping and   racketeering ended up to be endorsed by non-other than the leader of the Free World and the first ‘African-American’ President of the United States of America as a ‘democratically elected government of Ethiopia’ and its assassination squad as mercenaries for hire – reducing President Obama’s Africa legacy into the ashes of history with no one noticing it?

Wait, it gets worst. How it is the same TPLF clowns outwitted US authorities to circumvent the laws of the land to receive US taxpayers’ money and charities in the form of foreign aid and import and export what they extorted from the people of Ethiopia in and out of the US and got away at will for these long without being noticed, charged and jailed.

Don’t go yet, there is more. How it is TPLF outsmarted the World Bank, IMF as well as the Donor Group and Foundations to pour in 100s of millions of dollars all these years without knowing TPLF’s scum of laundering it to its own coffer? And, who is responsible for the entire debacle?

As I said before; the devil is all in the details.

But, before I go on to say who could possibly be responsible to the crises brought on our people and nation; it is appropriate to say why it was possible (the cause) to begin with. I firmly believe; the slash-and-burn politics of our contemporary elites opened the door wide for TPLF clowns and associated con artists, criminals, drifters, invaders, pseudo intellectuals, lookalike journalist and preachers to believe the people of Ethiopia are disposable for their personal adventure or interest and the nation is their playground at their disposal. That said, I also believe, there is foreign interest behind the elites behavior at the expenses of the rights and liberties of our people.

This uncomfortable yet row truth continues to be the biggest hindrance for the democratic movement to free the people from a smalltime mercenary-led ethnic Apartheid regime.

Let me explain briefly why what I say is true before I become another causality of the slash-and-burn politics of the usual suspects including the mercenary TPLF clowns.

There is unspoken rule among the Ethiopian elites. That is, they knowingly and unknowingly believe; the freedom and liberty of the people of Ethiopia are under their mercy. Therefore, depending their mood or political and economic ‘adventure’; they reduced the right and liberty of the people into a zero-sum game to their liking and worse yet; a trial and error experiment of their prevailing imagination of what the people’s rights and liberty ought to be.

For instance, in the last four decades since the traditional monarchy rule ended, the ruling political elites implemented Marxism, ethnic liberation and crony capitalism on the people to produce the two most criminal regimes in the modern history of Africa with millions of death, displacement, famine and corruption to show for it and it continues to be so at the present. But yet, not one elite involved in both regimes took any responsibility or made accountable by anyone for crimes of the century, not one.

Now, unlike the Derg regime’s elites; Ethiopians are under ethnic elites that mastered the worst of Marxism, ethnic politics and crony capitalism combined all-in-one never seen in modern experience since the South African Apartheid regime rule ended.

But yet, have you noticed how many self-appointed political elites play slash-and-burn politics –reducing the rights and liberty of the people of Ethiopiaconditional to their ever changing political adventure or interest from ridding the ruling elites?  This reality alone should be sufficient to illustrate the ever changing self-serving conditions the elites forward on the democratic rights of the people of Ethiopia as a principle cause for the people not to own their freedom and liberty all these years. In other words, the people’s freedom and democratic rights are conditional to the self-appointed political elites’ imagination of what democracy means to our people.  If that is not the case; why are the elites not coming together for democratic rule to end Apartheid tyranny besides inserting democracy in their slogan in the last hour?

That said, coming back to the subject matter; the ruling TPLF elites’ slash-and-burn politics and the ever changing political and economic adventure (Marxism, ethnic liberation, revolutionary democracy, crony capitalism and more to come) came out of the same belief—Ethiopians are disposable for the elites’ political adventure or economic interest in general.  What makes TPLF elites different and more dangerous than others is; their willingness to be mercenaries for hire to foreign interest against the interest of the people of Ethiopia never seen in history. Credit (‘legacy’) is due to the leadership of the late TPLF con artist extraordinary Melse Zenawi.

Now, the screaming crying TPLF clowns/apologist must swallow the bitter truth; they are conned to commit heinous crimes of atrocities and corruption instead of blaming anyone or skirting the issue and live with it.

But, If there are two ‘important’ ‘foreigners’ among many around the world that consistently duped the world on behalf of TPLF clowns to get away with ‘murder’ and at the mean time to make a mockery of President Obama’s African legacy, Susan Rise, the former Secretory of African Affairs and UN Ambassador and the present Senior National [in] Security Adviser and honorary Ambassador/lobbyist of TPLF followed by Gale Smith, the present Director of USAID should take the credit.

The dual recruited early on brought TPLF in the world stage and did more damage on the Africa people rights and liberties on behalf of one dictator or another, particularly the late dictator/conman of Tigray/Ethiopia Melse Zenawi than any other foreign official ever did. The Rwanda genocide under Susan Rise watch and how she got away to become the lead expert and adviser to President Obama should tell you there is more than the hype we hear.

Susan and Gale that pride themselves as close friend of the late dictator of Ethiopia since his gorilla days up to his death in mysterious circumstances essentially wrote the African policy of the Clinton as well as the Obama Administration in what appears the copy of Melse’s policy. The con artist that groomed the dual since they were junior State Department officials assigned in Africa owes him for what they know about Africa and the position of power they hold in the US government.

Journalist and historians will do Ethiopians and Africans in general and the American people in particular a great favor if they obtain and dig in on the dual’s official correspondence with the then guerilla leaders under the Freedom of Information Act to find out how he conned and coached the two clueless junior American officials not only to become lobbyist on behalf of TPLF on expenses US taxpayers and against the people of Ethiopia but, to write the US policy on Africa.

Likewise; informing the American people how the dual on behalf of TPLF duped President Obama that despised African dictators at the beginning of his administration to end up embracing them at the end of his term to the point of calling TPLF led Ethiopian rogue regime ‘democratically elected government’. At the meantime, it would be appropriate to find out who TPLF agents the two US government officials rely on at present to utter the hogwash we have been hearing from the Administration officials.

Regardless, the first ‘African American’ President’s legacy on Africa turned out to be nothing more than historical embracement– a hype to dupe Africans in believing things will change for the better under his Administration when in reality it got worst, thanks to Susan Rise and Gale Smith lobbying on behalf of African dictators against the interest of United States as well as Africans.

Ethiopians is the Diaspora should also take responsibility for failing to make the two officials accountable in the court of law or concerned congressional oversight committees as Professor Al Mariam continue to hound them.

When conning Westerners weren’t enough, how TPLF clowns managed to out maneuver the Chinese Communist Party, Indian and Arab government officials and investors with a pyramid scheme without being discovered for far too long is another saga in the arsenal of the mercenary TPLF.

Think about it. The late Melse Zenawi, the mastermind of slash-and-burn politics at home and pyramid scum abroad wasn’t an ordnary con artist. He knew all along every bodies ‘expectation of African small men and the right incentive for greed to blind and entice the greedy to come and throw their repetition for diplomatic cover and their money in to TPLF coffer. After all; he and his comrade in arms were expert selling sand as wheat out of the mouth of starving Ethiopians to dupe Westerners out of their cash. Therefore, for scum artists that use human disaster as opportunity to pickpockets; the greedy are easy prey to entice.

A good example of a born sucker of TPLF scum in recent memory was the arrogant and greedy owner of Karuturi Global that salivated to get free land the size of Belgium not knowing TPLF’s scum. The stupid man deserve what he got for believing  a few pages contract signed by TPLF cadre posed as government official  is good enough to grab land a size of a country.  But, again many Ethiopians in diaspora are tripping over each other to grab a little plot of land they don’t even know who it belongs just because an illiterate TPLF cadre in Diaspora told them to do so. Many end up crying behind closed doors scammed of their money as TPLF clowns planned it.  Greed not only blind people not to see what is coming; they put more money in hope of getting what they know was a scam.

Quite frankly, if people closely followed what TPLF scum artist Melse professed for different audience at different times  like ‘over my dead body—land will be privatize’ while he was dispensing it for his cronies like candy they wouldn’t be crying foul. What he actually saying was; Ethiopians have no dollars but land to give TPLF but, no one listened.  Only his loyal cronies and foreign nationals with dollars will get land practically for free to keep them silent and milk them for more later on.  That is not all, they will even get subsidized loan in birr to entice them to come in. When you think about it; why would he gives his self-proclaimed enemies (Ethiopians) their own land when he can sell/lease it for a dollar to fatten his coffer? If you look at who was first in line to grab prime urban and rural land (good luck finding the complete list) you would understand what TPLF scum/policy is all about.

Moreover, the most preferred foreign land grabbers beside TPLF’s cronies are Arabs, Indians and Chinese in that order.  They weren’t picked for being good stewards of the land nor because they are legitimate investors but for their contribution to enhance TPLF occupation and robbery without raising questions or making noises.

Obviously, the Arabs have special place in TPLF’s heart. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Arab governments invented TPLF and without them there wouldn’t be TPLF period. In fact, TPLF con artist Melse Zenawi was heard saying he is Arab before he was born-again Ethiopian.-When he found out there is easy money to be made being Ethiopian the entire TPLF con artists became more Ethiopian than the Ethiopians they despised. And, the ring leader ended up buried; not in Tigray he supposedly liberated from his ‘Ethiopian enemy’ but in the heart of the ‘enemy’ nation —reducing the bogus ‘Tigray liberation’ in to the ashes of history with the ‘golden people’ he profess to belong disposable at will.

The irony is; even his TPLF cronies couldn’t see being conned in daylight– scrambling to build a Foundation for the conman; not in Adwa where he declare to belong but, Addis Ababa. After all, they are too busy selling and stealing like urban drag kingpin to see anything else.

Looking at the top real-estate con artist/Ambassadors assigned in each country to sell Ethiopian’s land will tell you the other side of the story. The successive handpicked TPLF agents/ Ambassadors in the petro rich Arab countries’ embassies tell you why they were assigned there. But, noting come close to the unofficial TPLF Ambassador and biggest land- grabber/broker/investor than the Saudi nationalSheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi. A close confidant of TPLF conmen Melse Zenawi and Birket Simon (an Eritrean national masquerading as Amhara official) he became the de facto TPLF regime official.

Al-Amoudi became a nuisance among Ethiopians since he started playing his Ethiopian nationality to do TPLF’s political bidding and his Saudi nationality to do TPLF’s economic bidding and showed his true color. The irony is; why would a man of enormous wealth and business interest around the world reduce himself to associate with the most dangerous mercenary masquerading as the government of Ethiopia raises more questions than answers.

When that wasn’t enough; Al-Amoudi went out of his way to disfranchise and harass Ethiopians in the diaspora   and to lobby US government officials on behalf of TPLF– spending millions of dollars. His 20 million dollar contribution for the Clinton Foundation on behalf of the ‘government of Ethiopia’ is the tip of the iceberg of how far he would go to defend TPLF clowns his questionable investment depends on. There got to be more than financial gain that motivate him to put everything he got online on  a small time corrupt regime led by TPLF. Ethiopians can only guess why he isn’t coming out to explain his reason to cover up for TPLF crimes against the people of Ethiopia.

His denial;  his  contribution on his official website stating “The Sheikh made a donation of only $6m to the Clinton Foundation but donated separately $16m to AIDS awareness in Africa wholly unconnected to the Clinton Foundation” by skirting the issue sounds fear of being implicated by US laws and contradicts his public statement of  unwavering political and financial support for TPLF regime and how far he goes to undermine the oppositions in Diaspora. His recent unsuccessful attempt to break up the Ethiopian Football Federation in North America by spending millions of dollars bribing players and officials is a testimony to his commitment to sustain the corrupt TPLF regime.

Here again, the elites conspiracy to believe the people of Ethiopia are disposable to their will is at work.  If Al-Amoudi with an enormous wealth and influence that could afford to take a stand for the people’s freedom and right is not a testimony to that facts who could be? In fact, he is a prime example of what is wrong with contemporary elites that reduced our people as their indenture servants.

Moreover, the legality of an investor of a Saudi national to influence Western governments on behalf of a third party corrupt foreign regime in the name of ‘Aid awareness’ is a million dollar question that requires investigation by legal experts and mainstream Media alike.

In Asia, one of the TPLF mob boss/real-estate agent/Ambassador assigned to deal with the Communist Party of China that trained him to be a Marxist assassin then and “Developmental State’ crony capitalist at present is the Dishonorable TPLF conman Seyom Mesfin. The main reason the Former Foreign Minister sent to China as Ambassador was to use the Chinese Communist party to expand TPLF political as well as economic hegemony on Ethiopia behind closed doors and to counter Western governments’ pressure for reform. In that capacity; he managed to make TPLF owned EFFORT companies the number one exporters of stolen commodities’ destination in Asia countries he oversee from his base in China and China the number one contractor of infrastructure projects. It appears; the officials of China have no clue how TPLF duped them; partly because no one inform them they are dealing with TPLF con artistes posed as Ethiopian government officials.

But, the real-estate agent/Ambassador Gent Zewde in India stand out as the only none TPLF con women that appears to work for commission to sell her country’s land to Indians for a bargain. Her unconventional tactics never heard of in history speaks for itself.

In an interview she conducted with Indian ITMI TV (video deleted for unknown reason) , she confessed the true nature of TPLF. She said referring to listening Indian audience; ‘

“You don’t have to buy the land in Ethiopia because the government gives you the land for an almost negligible lease price for 25 to 50 years, which is then, of course, renewable. There are other government incentives as well.”

She was also allegedly responsible for multiple advertisements on local newspapers for Indians to come and grab cheap land in Ethiopia. Indians were rushing to grab in the greatest land- rash since the Westward Expansion of European Americans from East Coast to West Coast of US to grab land in the late 19^th century. Unfortunately, at the meantime; TPLF was chasing Ethiopians out of their land at the other end in a cover of Villagazation Program–cashing in more money from the World Bank and the Donor Group while agents like Gent were selling the land to Indians.

(See also Haliamriam Desalegn mumbled on an interview with Vickram Bahl of ITMI TV regarding land give away claiming lands given are empty land with no settlement.

One Indian farmer that took the offer early on was heard saying “my land in Ethiopia is bigger than my village in India” while Ethiopians were pushed out of their land into exile by TPLF cadres.

The February 2013 Guardian article; ‘India-investors-forcing-Ethiopians-off-land’ partially showed Gent Zewde’s accomplishments during her tenor.  Again, the irony is no one including the Indian government that poured in 100s of millions of dollars into TPLF coffer in the name of building sugar factory makes her or TPLF conmen accountable.

Tell me; what else can you call TPLF scavengers but mercenaries for hire?

The crime of TPLF clowns & associates are many to list here. In fact, as a policy; TPLF elaborately sealed off any information that exposes its and associates crimes from coming out of the country.  Therefore, not a fraction of the crimes committed against the people of Ethiopia are known to the public and the world at large made possible by fake propaganda Medias in the English language masquerading as Free Press. If you look at the propaganda machines posed as private press at home you understand mercenaries are on the loss in your beloved Ethiopia.

By now; there is absolutely no doubt in every Ethiopian mind the ‘Adwa’ gorillas & associates allover Ethiopia and in diaspora proven to be the enemies of Ethiopians. Therefore, the ball is in Ethiopians’ court to rid the enemies within. The only things holding back Ethiopians at the moment are those that ask what ‘if-and-but’ for one reason or another in denial to accept the reality – TPLF clowns institutionalized criminality against their own people in the name of ethnic Fedralsim. Therefore, the democratic struggle is not about ideology but criminality.

There’s a saying “Do it right or don’t do it at all”. Ethiopians must and will be free from tyranny once and for all to be ruled under democratic regime of their choice, it is a matter of time. The question is what do the political elites want? If opportunist elites keep asking what if-and-but, or continue to play slash-and-burn politics; they aren’t any better than the conning TPLF clowns in insulting the intelligence Ethiopians.  Ethiopians should and must make them accountable for extending the rule of TPLF.

The fate of Ethiopians can only be drawn by the people themselves no one else. No more Ethiopians can be duped by opportunist elites that kept the rogue regime alive and extending the misery of the people for far too long.

They say ‘talk is cheap’. Let every elite swallow the bitter truth and submit for the will of the people to be free and governed under democratic rule. Anything else is opportunism at its worst.

The conning and conniving TPLF clowns must and will surrender for the people will by choice or by force. The question is; can the rest of the elites love their people more than themselves to surrender in kind for the people will to shorten the live of TPLF Apartheid rule? If-and-but is the answer or crying foul is sufficient; there must be accountability by the people that are paying the ultimate price of TPLF tyranny. A little humility to tell the truth and accept personal responsibility to do the right thing goes a long way to end the nuisance of tyranny for good and to tell the world; Ethiopians means business this time around.

Warning for TPLF clowns: Committing crimes against the people of Ethiopia from your hiding is not going to help you. Only confessing your crimes in public may help. Your fate is on your hand to do right by surrendering for the will of the people than TPLF. But, expecting to con your way out of your predicament as usual or looking for someone as scapegoat will not help you avoid the unavoidable.  The sooner you accept you are nothing more than a henchman for TPLF Apartheid regime the sooner you realize you are ‘dead fish’ in the ocean.

End of the story

This article is dedicated to our people jailed, displaced and exiled by TPLF land-grab policy. Until the struggle for democracy achieves its goal to rid the regime do not give up hope.

Despite allegations that it was stolen from the Ethiopian Imperial Palace more than 30 years ago, a sequestration order on the timepiece may be lifted in the next weeks.

By Yohannes Anberbir, Hargeisa, Somaliland

Somaliland’s ruling party chairman and potential successor of the sitting president blamed Addis Ababa for delaying Somaliland’s plea for recognition, which he said has not been answered for the last 25 years

Muse Bihi Abdi, chairman of the ruling party of the self-declared Horn of Africa nation and presidential candidate plus potential successor of the incumbent president, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo, told The Reporter and other selected media on Friday that the main challenge for recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state during the last quarter of a century is Addis Ababa.

He pointed out two reasons justifying the blame. The first and main challenge his country is facing is the African Union (AU) which he described as the ”tallest tower” in the capital of Ethiopia.

“The tallest tower built by the Chinese at the heart of Addis Ababa, where the continent’s heads of state gather every year is our challenge,” he said.

The Government of Somaliland has submitted its case of international recognition to the AU decades ago but it has not been considered, he said.

The second main challenge, according to him, are neighboring countries, especially Ethiopia, he said. “The big brother in this part of the region is Ethiopia, followed by Kenya and Djibouti, who perfectly know the case of Somaliland more than any African nation; nonetheless, they just kept silent with regards to our case,” he said.

Somaliland is currently celebrating its 25th independence anniversary in the capital Hargeisa.
According to him, all three neighboring states, particularly, Ethiopia, “the superpower” as he described it, have a lot of excuses and said that none of the excuses could hold water for Somaliland.

He said that one of Ethiopia’s excuses is because of the age-long hostility it has with Somalia while the other is claiming neutrality as it is the headquarters of the AU. “The same is true with Djibouti and Kenya,” he said, “They don’t want to be the first to recognize Somaliland,” he added.

Analysts, however, blame world powers, specifically the United States and the European Union for hindering Somaliland’s recognition aiming to maintain the Union of Somalia. Therefore, they say, the AU and member countries of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are helpless unless they got the nod from the world powers.

The chairman, however, opposes this assertion. “We are Africans and are independent to make our own decisions even if the western influence exists,” he argued.

Chairman Muse Bihi Ahmed believes that African leaders are phobic when it comes to recognizing Somaliland. African nations are afraid of the reality including Ethiopia which is brave to put
a secession article in its constitution, he concluded.

Ethiopia: More than 8, 000 people attended the public meeting in Welkait

By Alemayehu G.Mariam

The question is NOT if Ethiopia needs a new constitution.

The question is, “Does Ethiopia need a constitution?”,  since it currently does not have one.

The so-called “1995 Ethiopian Constitution” is a constitution of the T-TPLF, by the T-TPLF, for the T-TPLF.

The T-TPLF (Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples’ Liberation Front) is a certified terrorist organization currently listed in the Global Terrorism Database.

The crass and brazenly rapacious political  objectives of the T-TPLF are bared in the text and structure of their constitution.

The T-TPLF constitution purports to create “a federal and democratic state structure.”

This so-called federal and democratic structure has one and only one purpose:

The complete centralization of political power and control in the hands  of the T-TPLF and the total incapacitation of any other political groups and organizations in Ethiopia.

The T-TPLF “federal constitution” draws its textual and ideological inspiration from  the polemical writings of  Joseph Stalin, the bloodthirsty and homicidal master of the Soviet Union who died in March 1953.

In 1912, the ideological and organizational crises long brewing in the Bolshevik organization broke out into factional rivalry and strife. Arguably, the most important of the ideologically divisive issues for the Bolsheviks was the “national question”.

In 1913, Stalin wrote a tract entitled “Marxism and the National Question”. In it, he argued that the solution to the “national question” of oppression was to recognize the existence of entities he described as “nations”, “nationalities” and “peoples”, and incorporate the issue it into the Bolshevik political program.

Stalin drew on the Marxist theory of dialectical materialism to support his argument.  Stalin argued  the rise of nations and nation-states and the emergence of national consciousness is a peculiarly capitalist phenomenon cultivated and guided by the “bourgeois class” seeking to expand markets. Lenin, in a 1914 tract entitled  “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” articulated the reason: “The bourgeoisie must capture the home market, [and to do so] there must be politically united territories whose population speak a single language.”

In pre-capitalist (feudalist) societies, there was no real national consciousness  based on a sense of shared or common ethnic, linguistic or cultural heritage. Pre-capitalist societies generally identified with people in their villages, towns and fiefdoms and at most pledged allegiance to the monarch who owned all the land in the kingdom through the feudal hierarchy.

The rise of capitalism and ensuing bourgeois national-democratic revolutions led to the creation of nation-states and emergence of national consciousness and identity. According to Stalin, some nations in Western Europe avoided  the “national question” because they had developed the  rudiments of a nation-state at the cusp of the capitalist revolution.  In Eastern Europe, the pre-existing empires, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, came into existence before ethnic groups had formed  into nations creating the problem of multi-national peoples in a given nation-state.

Stalin offered his own definition of “nation” in analyzing “national question”. Stalin argued, “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” He emphasized,  “It is only when all these characteristics are present together that we have a nation.”

For hardline Bolshevists like Stalin and Lenin, the Russian “national question” (i.e. oppression of “nations”, nationalities” and “peoples” in the Russian Empire) proved problematic. The Russian Empire included a number of smaller nations, or “subject peoples” as Lenin called them, such as Ukrainians, Poles, Armenians, Azerbajanis, Finns, Georgians, etc. Lenin supported national independence movements within the Russian Empire and regarded their demand for the right of self-determination as intrinsically revolutionary. Lenin argued, “If, in our political agitation, we fail to advance and advocate the slogan of the right to secession, we shall play into the hands, not only of the bourgeoisie, but also of the feudal landlords and the absolutism of the oppressor nation.” Lenin also believed the demand to end oppression of “nations” and “nationalities” under bourgeois nationalism was indistinguishable from other democratic demands.  Stalin later wrote more calculatingly: “The principle of self-determination ought to be used as a means in the struggle for socialism and it ought to be subordinated to the principles of socialism.”

Rosa Luxemburg, the influential Marxist theorist, disagreed with Lenin arguing that under socialism the working class had no need to struggle for national self-determination because that would be reactionary; at best the oppressed “nations” should aim for cultural autonomy. Luxemburg insisted socialists should fight not for national independence but the international unity of workers.

Stalin and Lenin understood the implications of the “national question” for their revolution.  They saw two potential dangers: 1) Absent a revolution, the Russian Empire could be maintained by reformists in some sort of federal structure organized and managed by a multiplicity of national parties. Such a multi-party system would lose its revolutionary nature and perpetuate the Russian Empire. 2)  There was a real risk of replacing or merging the revolutionary socialist  aspirations and ambitions with the oppressive practices of the Russian Empire.

Stalin and Lenin concluded  that  it was necessary to dismantle the Russian Empire and divide the people into “nations, nationalities and peoples” to facilitate the Bolshevik revolution and ensure their takeover of power. They sought to depict the “national question”  as a class struggle against national bourgeois oppression and denial and suppression of cultural and linguistic rights, among others.

Article 39 of the T-TPLF Constitution

The T-TPLF’s constitution under Article 39 (1) (“Rights of Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples”)  provides:

Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.

Article 47 designates the “Member States of the Federal Democratic Republic” in the following order:

1) The State of Tigray
2) The State of Afar
3) The State of Amhara
4) The State of Oromia
5) The State of Somalia
6) The State of Benshangu-Gumuz
7)  The State of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples
8) The State of the Gambela Peoples
9) The State of the Harari People

The late TPLF thugmaster Meles Zenawi drew important lessons from Stalin’s and Lenin’s tracts on the national question and self-determination in his efforts to consolidate power by dismantling the  “Ethiopian Empire” in much the same way the Bolshevists dismantled the Russian Empire.

Meles re-conceptualized the Bolshevik’s notion of “class struggle” in the Russian Empire into a notion of “ethnic struggle” in the “Ethiopian Empire”.

According to the Meles/T-TPLF mythology, the “Ethiopian Empire” came into being in the 19th century in the rivalry between feudal “Amhara” kingdoms and principalities which fought each other for ascendancy and domination. In the mid-19^th century, Emperor Tewodros II crowned himself  “negusa negest” (king of kings) in the northern part of Ethiopia and marched down south with his  army swallowing up land and subjugating the “nations, nationalities and peoples” on his warpath.  Following Tewodros’ death, Emperor Menelik II took over and led his armies expanding the “Ethiopian Empire” gobbling up more lands and subjugating more “nations, nationalities and peoples”.  According to T-TPLF fable, Ethiopia today is the product of forced and brutal amalgamation of completely different “nations, nationalities and peoples”.

In 1993, thugmaster Meles told an interviewer, “Ethiopia is only 100 years old. Those who claim otherwise are indulging themselves in fairy tales.”

In much the same way as Stalin and Lenin manipulated the national question to ensure Bolshevik ascendancy and domination, Meles and the T-TPLF manipulated the “national question” to convince the “oppressed nationalities” into believing that they have been forcibly and brutally incorporated into Ethiopia.

The T-TPLF remedy to the problem of “oppressed nationalities” was to constitutionalize “ethnic federalism”, which presumably would liberate and enable them to achieve political, cultural, economic, social, etc. autonomy and self-government.

But the T-TPLF flimflammed the “oppressed nationalities” in selling its “ethnic federalism”. Meles and the T-TPLF could not care less about “oppressed nationalities, nations and peoples”.  Their one and only interest was and is T-TPLF domination.

Indeed, the T-TPLF’s drumbeat around the “national question” was a smoke screen to conceal the real and hidden T-TPLF agenda consisting of three objectives. First, their aim was to ensure that they will perpetually remain in power and entrench themselves as overlords of the people of Ethiopia. Second, they  aimed to weaken and cripple any and all opposition to their rule by dividing Ethiopians along ethnic, regional, linguistic, cultural and religious lines. Third, they sought to portray themselves as defenders of  oppressed nationalities against an imaginary  “Amhara” conspiracy to return to power and enslave non-“Amhara” “nations, nationalities and peoples.”

Simply stated, the T-TPLF drafted a constitution that would present a veneer of ethnic federalism while cleverly masking the  centralized T-TPLF state which is controlled and operated by a secret cabal of a state within a state. (I did not say a secret Mafiosi state.)

The whole “national question” for Meles and the T-TPLF was a clever and shrewd gimmick which they used to divert public attention from their real agenda of permanent political domination. The fact of the matter is that the central and core mission of the T-TPLF has always been the disintegration and dismemberment of the Ethiopian nation. Their master plan has been and remains the complete destruction of the Ethiopian nation. Any Ethiopian who does not believe this is living in his/her own La La Land. The T-TPLF never had a plan to liberate “nations, nationalities and peoples.” Once the T-TPLF seized power, they took tactical advantage of the national question by proclaiming to unite the “oppressed nationalities” of the “Ethiopian Empire”. Their aim was and remains the creation of a new order, the establishment of the T-TPLF Empire. (Just as an aside, I challenge anyone to produce documentary, audio or video evidence in which any top T-TPLF leader (including the late Zenawi) is ever recorded saying, “I am an Ethiopian” or “I love Ethiopia.”)

The T-TPLF constitution is one of the slickest constitutional scams in history.

I would put it second only to the Brooklyn Bridge scam:

“Hello, sir. Would you like to buy this lovely bridge here? It’s on sale for today only. Think of all the money you could make from tolls.”

The confused man answered, “Are you sure it’s for sale?”

Came the reply, “Why else would it have a ‘For Sale’ sticker on it?!”

That is exactly what the T-TPLF did with the “national question”.

The T-TPLF sold its “ethnic federalism” Brooklyn Bridge to Ethiopia’s oppressed “nations, nationalities and peoples”.  The T-TPLF told them it is only available from the T-TPLF. “Think of all the freedom you are going to have under ethnic federalism”, hustled the T-TPLF scammers.

Undoubtedly, the T-TPLF constitution is the greatest con in any con-stitution ever written in Africa.

For 25 years, the T-TPLF scammers made suckers out of the Ethiopia’s oppressed “nations, nationalities and peoples”.

The T-TPLF has paraded their constitution for the last 25 years as THE emancipation proclamation liberating the “subjugated peoples” of the Ethiopian Empire from their “prison houses of nationalities”, to borrow phrases from Lenin.

In their smoke-and-mirrors constitutional game, the T-TPLF created a bogus front organization called the “Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic front” to unite the oppressed victims of  “Amhara” oppression; and just like Stalin and Lenin, the T-TPLF guaranteed them the “right of self-determination”, which means complete separation from the Ethiopian nation-state at any time.

In T-TPLF fairy tale, by guaranteeing the right to complete separation, Ethiopia was saved. The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF has fragmented Ethiopia to facilitate and guarantee its own perpetual political dominance.

Like Stalin, the late thugmaster Meles Zenawi arbitrarily combined unrelated ethnic groups within a single ethnic territory.  Meles and the T-TPLF went about creating their bogus ethnic federalism willy-nilly  drawing  fabricated,  sham and artificial borders. For instance, recently Prince Mengesha Seyom, governor of Tigray under the imperial administration, stated that the historical landmark between Tigray and Begemedr was the Tekeze River and that Wolkait Tsegede had never been in Tigray administration. Indeed  based on T-TPLF’s constitutional criteria of language, history, territory, culture, etc., the people of Wolkait Tsegede should be part of “Amhara” region. (Just for the record: I do not believe, never have believed and never will believe in any idea which tags Ethiopians as “Amhara”, “Oromo”, “Tigre”, etc. I believe and will defend the absolute right of any Ethiopian to live, work and raise a family in any part of Ethiopia.)

For the past 25 years, the T-TPLF has used the “nations, nationalities, peoples” slogan effectively to fool some of the people most of the time, most of the people some of the time but never all of the people all of the time.

The fact of the matter is that the “oppressed nations, nationalities, peoples” of Ethiopia never became free from oppression. The T-TPLF allows only nominal autonomy under ethnic federalism.

Like Stalin, Meles and his T-TPLF have brutally suppressed those who opposed their rule and those seeking to exercise their right to self-determination.

Like Stalin who deported millions, Meles Zenawi and the T-TPLF have called “Amharas” sefaris (illegal squatters) and deported thousands of them from different parts of the country.

The T-TPLF has displaced and villagized en masse the people of  Gambella and other “peoples” and sold their ancestral homelands to fly-by-night international land-grabbers and scammers.

The T-TPLF has used “self-determination” defensively to portray itself as the Avenging Angels against the “Amhara Bogeyman”. The T-TPLF has used “self-determination” offensively to demonize “Amharas” and dream up the “Amhara Bogeyman” who, the T-TPLF warns, will rise up and go on a rampage to re-enslave the “nations, nationalities, peoples”.

Today, the T-TPLF avenging angel has become a demonic spectre.

To paraphrase Marx in the “Communist  Manifesto”, “A spectre is haunting Ethiopia- the spectre of the T-TPLF. All of the “nations, nationalities and peoples” who have entered into an unholy alliance must resolve to exorcise this spectre.”

Today, the T-TPLF has drawn the “nations, nationalities and peoples” of Ethiopia under its central control and disempowered them.

The T-TPLF dominates the “federal structure” in every way. The T-TPLF has one hundred percent ownership and control of the land in Ethiopia.

The T-TPLF has one hundred percent control of the military, the security and police apparatuses.

The T-TPLF has one hundred percent control of the economy, and with its supporters has created a crony capitalism for its supporters.

The T-TPLF controls one hundred percent of the bureaucracy and the judicial process.

Those who chafe at and yearn for the fabled “Ethiopian Empire” should think hard about the real T-TPLF Empire. The “Ethiopian Empire” created in the hate-filled minds of Meles Zenawi and his band of ignorant thugs never existed.

The real empire is the T-TPLF Empire, an empire of hate, an empire of injustice, an empire of inequality, an empire of corruption and an empire of abuse of power.

Despite the rhetoric of ethnic federalism and claims of a democratic republic, the T-TPLF has managed to secure in its con-stitution the reconfiguration of the fabled “Ethiopian Empire” into a real and live T-TPLF Empire.

Does Ethiopia need a constitution?

You are damn right it does!

Ethiopians need a constitution of the people, by the people and for the people.

Ethiopia needs a constitution which begins with the following words: “We the People of Ethiopia in order to form a more perfect union…”

Ethiopia needs a constitution that helps its ONE people create a “more perfect union” among themselves.

What does a “more perfect union” mean?

To me, a more perfect union is not about territorial union.

A “more perfect union” is about the union of the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian people.

Ethiopians were able to defeat one of the most modern European armies twice in less than 40 years and keep their country free of colonial domination because they were of ONE heart and mind.

Ethiopians became the symbol of freedom for all Africans suffering under colonial rule because they stood together as ONE people.

Ethiopians became the inspiration to African Americans suffering racism and discrimination because they proved by example that when the people united as ONE can never be defeated.

Ethiopians became a beacon of freedom and were celebrated by some of the greatest poets of the English language because they stood as ONE people and defended their freedom with blood, sweat and tears.

How do we create a more perfect union among the people of Ethiopia?

Simple!

To ensure a more perfect union among the Ethiopian people, we (each one of us) must work tirelessly to ensure

the supremacy of the rule of law.

the human rights of all Ethiopians (freedom of speech, press, religion, petition, assembly, etc.) are protected and respected.

strict legal accountability is imposed on all persons in positions of power and authority.

the institutionalization of free and fair elections.

the right to property, especially in land, is guaranteed and government is constitutionally constrained in its interference in the exercise of property rights.

the operation of a vigorous and independent judiciary.

During the civil rights struggle in the U.S., leaders often used the metaphor of the “Five Fingers” to teach the grassroots on the importance of unity. I believe Ethiopians can learn from that metaphor as they work to create a “more perfect union”:

There are five fingers on each hand. As long as the ten fingers are stretched separately from each other, they do not have much punching power.

If the ten fingers are pulled together in a clenched fist, they become a formidable weapon.

If one finger is lifted from each hand, a lot of the power in the fist is lost.

If a second finger is lifted, all of the power in the fist is gone.

For the past 25 years, Ethiopians who have been chopped up, diced, bantustanized and kililized by the T-TPLF. They have been unable to make a fist and rage against the T-TPLF Empire.

But Ethiopians should look into their own history to appreciate the power of the clenched fist.

They conquered their mightiest enemies when they came together, closed ranks and raised their fists in defiance.

Let history testify:

The Oromos alone did not defeat one of the mightiest European powers that invaded their country.

The Amharas alone did not defeat one of the mightiest European powers that invaded their country.

The Tigreans alone did not defeat one of the mightiest European powers that invaded their country.

The Gurages alone did not defeat one of the mightiest European powers that invaded their country.

The Afaris, Ogadenis, Hararis, Gambellans and all others in southern, northern, eastern and western Ethiopia did not alone defeat one of the mightiest European powers that invaded their country.

The Oromos, Amharas, Tigreans, Gurages, Afaris, Ogadenis, Hararis, Gambellans and all others in southern, northern, eastern and western Ethiopia came together asONE PEOPLE  and defeated one of the mightiest European powers that invaded their country.

Likewise, they are not going to defeat the T-TPLF each one fighting alone.

Like the ten fingers of the hand, Ethiopians from all walks of life must come together, made a fist  and gave the European invader a sucker punch he will never forget.

The nine fingers (kilils) the T-TPLF imposed on Ethiopia should now come together as ONE fist and give the T-TPLF a sucker punch it will never forget.

Ethiopians do not need a constitutional thugmocracy.

Ethiopians do not need a constitution that germinated in the mind of the genocidal maniac Joseph Stalin.

Ethiopians do not need a constitution that severs their bonds of family, marriage, kinship and friendship developed  over thousands of years.

Ethiopia does not need a constitution that is a master plan and a blueprint to keep Ethiopia in a state of perpetual disunion, discord, dissension and dismemberment.

Ethiopia does not need a constitution that is a tool of political division, power centralization, social segmentation and geographic dismemberment of the people and territory of Ethiopia.

Ethiopia needs a constitution that unites the people of Ethiopia as ONE nation, ONE nationality and ONE people on the basis of equality, brotherhood/sisterhood, and liberty.

The struggle for the soul of Ethiopia

I dream of a constitution for Ethiopia that recognizes not the ethnicity of a group of Ethiopians but the humanity of every single Ethiopian.

I believe Ethiopians are human beings created free in the image of God before they are members of  “nations, nationalities and peoples”.  The humanity of Ethiopians comes before Ethiopianity, nationality or Africanity.

As born-free human beings, I believe in the sanctity and dignity of every Ethiopian. I do not believe in group rights. No one should be denied or granted the equal protection of the laws, due process or equal opportunity merely on the basis of his/her affiliation or membership in any group whatsoever. Period!

Ethiopians have individual rights that are paramount to any group rights.

Every Ethiopian has the right to choose his/her government and government leaders.

Every Ethiopian has a right not to be enslaved by a gang of bush thugs.

As I talk to young people across the spectrum, I am convinced that struggle for the soul of Ethiopia is reaching a critical mass.

I call on all patriotic Ethiopians to come together and make a “fist for freedom” in Ethiopia.

But there are others far more eminent than I who have made calls to Ethiopians to make a fist for freedom.

The great African American (“the people’s poet”) poet, Langston Hughes, called on Ethiopians to make a fist for freedom, and liberate all of Africa, when he wrote his poem in September 1935, just as the Italian aggressors launched their campaign of colonial conquest of Ethiopia:

Call of Ethiopia

Ethiopia
Lift your night-dark face,
Abyssinian
Son of Sheba’s race!
Your palm trees tall
And your mountains high
Are shade and shelter
To men who die
For freedom’s sake —
But in the wake of your sacrifice
May all Africa arise
With blazing eyes and night-dark face
In answer to the call of Sheba’s race:

Ethiopia’s free!
Be like me,
All of Africa,
Arise and be free!
All you black peoples,
Be free! Be free!

Ghana’s first president and the great Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah wrote in his poem not only will all Africa arise but

Ethiopia shall rise [with a fist for freedom]

Ethiopia, Africa’s bright gem
Set high among the verdant hills
That gave birth to the unfailing
Waters of the Nile
Ethiopia shall rise
Ethiopia, land of the wise;
Ethiopia, bold cradle of Africa’s ancient rule
And fertile school
Of our African culture;
Ethiopia, the wise
Shall rise
And remould with us the full figure
Of Africa’s hopes
And destiny. 

Ethiopia shall rise from T-TPLF tyranny and domination!

Support the right of self-determination of all Ethiopians from the T-TPLF Empire!  

MY ETHIOPIAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS: WE ARE ONE NATION, ONE NATIONALITY, ONE PEOPLE!

“We think of this as the reign of people who inspire terror; on the contrary, it is the reign of people who are themselves terrified. Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves.” Marx in a letter  to Engles during the Paris Commune (1870)

TO BE CONTINUED…

By AFP

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom on Tuesday launched his candidacy to lead the World Health Organization, insisting it was time for an African to occupy the key UN job.

“The fresh view we can bring from our continent and the perspective of a developing country can help improve the global health situation,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva, as he announced his desire to succeed WHO chief Margaret Chan of Hong Kong when she steps down next year.

Tedros, a doctor by training, highlighted the experience he acquired during his seven years as Ethiopia’s health minister until 2012, when he implemented widespread reforms that among other things allowed the country to slash its infant mortality rate by two thirds.

He also said he had held top international health jobs and helped guide the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria through far-reaching reforms.

The 51-year-old said that uptil now global health had been seen “from the rest of the world’s perspective only”, adding: “But as you know, Africa and many of the developing countries carry most of the burden,” he said.

“It’s time for a director-general who has lived some of the most pressing challenges facing our world today, as I have lived in Africa.”

His candidacy has the unanimous backing of the African Union and Tedros is among the first to officially throw his name into the hat.

Former French health minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has also been campaigning for the post in Geneva this week on the sidelines of WHO’s main annual assembly, and Pakistan has thrown its weight behind the candidacy of former health minister Sania Nishtar.

Candidates have until September 22 to join the race and next May the WHO will elect the winner, who will take the over as director-general in July 2017.

May 24, 2016

By Kirk Bekele

Editor’s Note: For the last 25 years, TPLF has committed unimaginable crime on the Amhara ethnic group. It has expelled Amharas from different part of the country not to mention the thousands who were mercilessly and savagely killed by TPLF or its surrogates. We have witnessed these horrible killings in the Ormoia region as well as in Southern Ethiopia. The population of Amharas has dwindled by 4.5 million since TPLF took power while other ethnic group increased considerably. What happened to the 4.5 million Amharas? They were ethnically cleansed.

Despite all these horror happening to the Amharas, no body came to their defense. Politicians and opposition media prefer to stay away from defending the Amharas from TPLF terror. Why? Supporting and defending Amharas is considered as a taboo and every hopeful politician or any opposition media including ESAT works hard to stay away from. And this is wrong. Not only politically wrong. It is immoral and downright shameful.

It is true that no one defends self better than one self. Don’t expect somebody to defend you more than you defend your self. If the Amhara ethnic group is to survive a possible holocust it has been facing till now or in the future, it has to defend itself by any means necessary. It is a matter of life and death. It is not a matter of election and democracy. The Amhara ethnic group has to survive first before it plays any role in nation or democracy building or in any other fancy stuff.

We should support the organized Amhara groups in Wolkait and where ever they may be before it is too late. The Ethiopia we are trying to rebuild is a pipe dream when the survival of the main ally in building that dream is about to be marginalized and eventually exterminated. Those of you who are dreaming that big dream of building a really free Ethiopia and belong to the Amhara ethnic group, should contribute what they can where ever they are to save this important ally that can play a crucial role in restoring Ethiopia.

Addis Standard 

On March 30 – April 1, a group of three EU parliamentarians from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the second largest grouping within the European Parliament after the European People’s Party (EPP), visited Ethiopia. Led by S & D Group President Gianni Pittella (pictured above), the visiting members included Cécile Kyenge MEP, ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly vice-president and Norbert Neuser MEP, S&D co-coordinator for the development committee. The trio have met with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and held discussions on various issues including the thorny topic of democracy, freedom of the press and human rights in Ethiopia, as well as migration and the current drought affecting the country. They have also met with various representatives from civil society organizations, the opposition and officials from the African Union (AU).  

“The democratization process in Ethiopia must be supported in order to deeply reinforce democracy, human rights and a real freedom of the press. In Ethiopia, as in the rest of Africa, development cannot be detached from democracy,” Gianni Pittella told reporters afterwards. Norbert Neuser on his part reflected on the group’s discussion with the officials from the AU regarding the same topic.  “During our first meetings with the African Union in Addis, we have insisted that democracy, rule of law and the respect for human rights must be at the heart of relations between the EU and Africa.” On her part, Cécile Kyenge emphasized on the topic when she said: “we call on African countries to improve their democratic systems, not only by the traditional confrontations among political parties, but also by allowing regional and local organizations to contribute to the political and economic wellbeing of society.”

At the end of the group’s visit Addis Standard’s Editor-in-Chief, Tsedale Lemma, was granted a brief opportunity to sit with Mr. Pittella for this exclusive interview. Excerpts:

Addis Standard – What is your reading or your understanding of what’s happening now in Ethiopia, particularly for the last five months?

Gianni Pittella – My opinion is the following: Ethiopia is assumed in these years [to have] a strong rule; a strong rule in the region, a strong rule in fighting terrorism, a strong rule to welcome and keep inside around 700 000 refuges. And I think that this country made also some progress in terms of economic and social development. For sure Ethiopia is not comparable with other African countries which suffer many problems that Ethiopia doesn’t suffer. Having said that, I immediately want to add that some problems remain open. This is “[sic]” for a country in development. And I think the Prime Minster is aware of that. It is necessary that all the positive things that I mentioned will be accompanied by a stronger effort to respect human rights, to expand democracy and to avoid any restriction of the freedom of the press.

AS – When it comes to pursuing your foreign policy you are often criticized for cushioning undemocratic governments such as the one in Ethiopia because it is your ally in the fight against terrorism, is containing mass migration and its economy is growing, which are all true. But many people don’t look at it from that perspective only. The political situation within Ethiopia is neglected in that some even say it is a time bomb in wait; others worry if you continue pursuing your foreign policy of neglecting chronic human rights abuses you’ll have to deal with the same problem that Syria is producing today. What do you say to that? Do you see the connection between your silence and its potential in tolerating a government like Ethiopia run its course?

 GP – Well, there is no silence from me. I exclude a tradeoff between the action of the government in fighting terrorism and managing migrants and other things with our silence on the political lack of democracy, in [your] government’s decision to put in jail journalists and other forms of repression such as lack of respect for human rights. I am not in silence. I denounced these problems publicly and I denounced them in front of the Prime Minister. I told him [that] a real leadership doesn’t depend on repression. If one person, one political leader was to keep his power using these tools, he makes a great mistake. I told him. And apparently he answered positively; he told me how the concept of democracy evolved through the generations. He told me that he was happy that his daughter doesn’t obey him while he obeyed his father. He stressed a lot on the necessity to increase education. And in his opinion (and in this I agree) it’s true that more education helps to build a good democracy because democracy is made by the people. If the people are educated to the values of democracy we can build a strong and resilient democracy.

And when I speak about political partnership between Europe and Ethiopia and Africa I’d like to say that for us the questions of democracy are not sidelined by the economy. They are a priority. If we sign a political partnership, it’s useful for our partners to work to achieve democracy.

AS – But in Ethiopia things have been sliding back in terms of democracy, the issues of human rights, rule of law and freedom of the press. You have been in the Parliament since 1999, if I’m not mistaken. So you probably had a chance to see Ethiopia hold elections in 2005 and in 2010. The degenerating of parliamentary pluralism that you talked about earlier was disappearing into the thin air since the 2005 election. How does that fit into this explanation from our Prime Minister and into your personal belief as someone who strongly advocates for democratic values?

 GP – There was no monitoring of the electoral process.

AS – That was for the last elections in May 2015. The EU has monitored the two elections, in 2005 and 2010, and declared it unfair.  

 GP – Personally I was not part of this monitoring. In my long European season, I made many things; I raised many, many issues. It’s clear for me that it’s a political anomaly to have a parliament composed of 100 per cent members of a ruling party. The first thing that I asked when I met the Ambassadors of the EU countries [here] was how is it possible that in a parliament there are only members of the ruling party? They told me that it’s the electoral system. But I remain doubtful of that.

AS – Let’s talk about the recent EU parliament resolution on Ethiopia which was adopted on the 21^st of January. There is a debate here in Ethiopia because some say the parliament itself is just a paper tiger; others contest it will have a lot of impact in redefining the relationship between the EU and Ethiopia because it’s the strongest EU-led resolution by far.  Others till argue the resolution is business as usual. The later seem to have been vindicated so far because none of the points that were mentioned in your resolution happened so far. What do we expect next?

GP – We will return to the questions. The political resolution is a tool that the European Parliament uses to blame, to denounce, to put on the table such situations. But we don’t have the power to force somebody to make something. It’s clear that we will insist in this direction.

AS – Are you telling me that there is no mechanism to follow on the implementation of recommendations on the resolution?

GP – We can make pressure on the Commission, on the member states to modify their relationship with the Ethiopian government if the Ethiopian government doesn’t change. But we don’t have this possibility – concrete possibility. We have the power to denounce politically some problems then if our resolution is not implemented by the government we ask the European Commission and member states to act because this resolution can be implemented. And if the situation continues, it’s possible to force it. I don’t hope for that, but it is possible to stop relationship. I don’t think this is in the interest of the Ethiopian government.

I can make an example. My group and the majority in the European Parliament now are asking to stop the fund for Eritrea. This is our reaction to the unfair regime. The Parliament asked the commission to stop the funding. This is another way. First of all we make a resolution. Secondly we push. Thirdly we verify the follow up. Fourthly we ask the commission and the member states to ask again the government to implement and if all that doesn’t happen, or doesn’t produce an outcome, there is a last chance to stop the financial support from the Commission.

AS – But you do face challenges to push it that far even from within the Parliament itself. For example shortly before the May 2015 elections in Ethiopia while the Parliament was discussing the situation in Ethiopia during its monthly plenary session MEPs like Louis Michel or James Carver have argued prioritizing EU’s relationship with Ethiopia based on regional stability. How challenging is that to push the issues of democracy and the rule of law?  

GP – Our group is clearly, strongly in favor of keeping united the economic and social questions, the economic partnership with the respect of human right, freedom of the press and pluralism. We should not separate these things. We don’t accept any more, never.

AS – Do countries like Ethiopia confront you with any moral dilemma while dealing with their governments?  

GP – No. For us there is no dilemma because the two things have to go together. This is our approach. This is the approach of the President of the Subcommittee for Human Right, Elena Valenciano, Socialist. This is the approach taken by Pier Antonio Panzeri, coordinator of the Socialist group in the Human Rights Committee. No dilemma.

Convicting an intel

After almost three years of proceedings, former head of domestic intelligence at the Ethiopian National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), Woldeselassie Woldemichael, has finally been convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison just the other week. Doubts linger as to the real motives of the charges. A falling out with colleagues cannot entirely be ruled out. After all, nobody out of the tight-knit band of brothers could have known about the misdeeds. It has all the signs of a domestic affair situation.

For reasons unknown, the stories of the trial for the large part were covered by ruling party owned and affiliated media: Walta Information Center(WIC), Fana Broadcasting Corporate(FBC)and the Reporter. In the good old days Walta was addressing the accused as “senior researcher on peace and security” occasionally quoting his “words of wisdom” in terror related stories.

We’ve heard that before

Woldeselassie, along with two of his siblings (if it rings a bell, you got it!),was charged with grand corruption,namely,using public office for personal gains and accumulating wealth beyond his means. If you think about it, owning expensive properties in the posh suburbs of the capital; hoarding prime lands; opening multiple accounts under various names by officials and the army top brass is a stuff of legend.

One charge brought by the Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (FEAC) is particularly interesting: misleading a top official (currently minister of state) into printing his work entitled Terrorism in Ethiopian and Horn of Africa. Little did we know the security chief had the calibre to take on such global issues in the absence of information about his academic or professional credentials. To add salt to the wound, he also forced scores of enterprises to buy hundreds and thousands of books taking cash in advance and never delivering the products In the most anecdotal fashion, Et Fruit, a public enterprise responsible for the most mundane task of distributing fruit and vegetables is among the major sponsors of the publication!

Indications are Beyene Gebremeskel, former director general of Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA), seems to have cowered in the face of the mighty security official. Not only did he give a green light for the production in at least three of the printing houses he oversees, but also according to the charging documents, might have been involved in editing the manuscripts. No charges were brought against him.

Handle with care

After the court passed a guilty verdict, the consideration of mitigating factors clearly shows how some citizens are handled with special care. The defendant didn’t let the opportunity slip without mentioning his involvement in the “struggle” to topple the Marxist regime gone a quarter of a century ago. The judge bought it! Translation: being a member of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) can help reduce prison terms! Paradoxically, the publication which is at the center of the crime has also helped lesson the gravity of the sentence as the court concurred with the defense the work has created awareness about terrorism in the society.

The roots

Publishing books and squeezing companies to buy them has helped some ardent party hacks make quick money. Almost all who wrote the story of Meles had no difficulty disposing of the books to schools, various institutions and local government offices. One most notorious example is a Colonel Eyasu Mengesha who cobbled together a “biography” of the dictator launched in a pompous ceremony at the Sheraton Addis in the presence of the then head of state. A couple of others followed suit making good fortune in the process. The late head of Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development (EIIPD) had a knack for churning out volumes and twisting the arms of government agencies into buying them. In that regard, it is hardly surprising that another TPLF official comes up to claim his share of the pie.

Woldeselassie’s actions are typical instances of abuse of power and lack of accountability at the highest level. The war against corruption is hopelessly lost. FEAC which is in its last legs,happily so, after a series of legislation took their prosecutorial power away from them, may take credit for successfully bringing a criminal to book. However, without risking to sound cynic, it is the squabbling rather than the actions of the dormant government watchdogs that eventually will bring the corrupt officials down.

The writer can be reached at ab.media@yahoo.com

By Kristy Siegfried

Authorities in Sudan have launched a crackdown on Eritrean migrants – arresting those living in the capital, Khartoum, and intercepting hundreds travelling north through the country towards Libya, the launching point for smugglers’ boats heading for Europe.

Reports that 900 Eritreans were rounded up in Khartoum on Monday and that a further 400 arrested en route to Libya have been deported to Eritrea, come amid recent revelations in the British and German media that the EU is planning to deepen its cooperation with a number of African countries, including Sudan and Eritrea, to stem migration towards Europe.

Kibrom*, a 16-year-old Eritrean refugee who used the route through Sudan and Libya to reach Europe in 2015, told IRIN that his twin sister was among a group of 130 Eritreans captured by Sudanese soldiers in the town of Dongola, about halfway between Khartoum and the Libyan border, earlier this month.

“I passed the same way. When we were travelling, we had to bribe the police. My sister used the same smuggler, but when he tried to bribe the police, it didn’t work,” he said.

Kibrom’s sister, along with the rest of the group, were taken to a prison in Khartoum where they spent three days. Kibron said he tried to alert the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, but failed to make contact.

“Only the Eritrean Embassy was informed. They took them in an open truck at night time to the Eritrean border,” he said. “From there they were taken to a prison located in my city – Teseney.”

Leaving Eritrea without permission is a criminal offense and Kibrom is extremely concerned about his sister, who was trying to evade military conscription, as well as his mother and two younger brothers who are still living in Teseney.

“My mother can’t even try to see my sister or she will be arrested as well,” he told IRIN over the phone from Sweden where he has applied for asylum. “I’m so worried what’s going to happen to them.”

A spokesperson with UNHCR’s office in Khartoum confirmed that a number of migrants, including Eritreans, had been intercepted in northern Sudan heading towards the Libyan border. Of those being held at the Aliens Detention Centre in Khartoum, UNHCR had only identified six individuals who had previously sought asylum and been recognized as refugees.

None of those six had been deported and the spokesperson did not comment on the other deportations but said: “If an individual does not apply for asylum through the channels provided and subsequently does not express a wish to seek asylum, Sudan may be within its legal right to pursue deportation of irregular migrants from its territory.

“For UNHCR, the principle prohibiting forcible returns or non-refoulement only takes centre stage when the affected individuals are persons of concern to UNHCR, which does not appear to be the case in this particular instance.”

It is unclear whether UNHCR had access to all of the Eritreans detained in Khartoum prior to their deportation. Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean activist based in Sweden who has been in touch with the relatives of some of the deportees, told IRIN that another group of around 300 Eritreans arrested while making their way to Libya were deported last Friday.

Sudan has a prior record of deporting Eritreans without allowing them access to asylum procedures, a practice that UNHCR has condemned in the past as amounting to refoulement.

Increased border controls

In addition to the arrests of migrants in Sudan, Estefanos said there has also been a noticeable increase in controls on the Eritrean side of the Sudan-Eritrea border in the last two months. “Leaving Eritrea to Sudan is becoming hard now,” she told IRIN. “People are being intercepted and sent back.”

Last year, a UN inquiry found evidence that Eritrea is a totalitarian state responsible for “systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations” including a system of indefinite national service that amounts to forced labour.

Eritrean soldiers are instructed to shoot at anyone they discover trying to leave the country illegally, a policy that hasn’t prevented thousands from fleeing across the border every month. While the majority of Eritreans remain in camps in Sudan and Ethiopia, over 70,000 applied for asylum in Europe during 2014 and 2015, according to EuroStat figures.

Last week, Der Spiegel and the New Statesman reported on a leaked plan to increase cooperation with African countries of origin and transit for migrants. The articles alleged that the EU plans to use funding from the recently launched Emergency Trust Fund for Africa to send equipment and vehicles to help Sudan police its border with Eritrea and to assist with the construction of two closed reception centres in Gadaref and Kassala. Eritrea would be given assistance to develop or implement human trafficking regulations.

A spokesperson with the EU’s Office for International Cooperation and Development, said the reports were inaccurate and that there are currently no plans to provide equipment to the Sudanese government, or to help them build reception centres.

“Any decision to provide civilian equipment will be taken on the basis of a forthcoming appraisal mission to Sudan from the EU,” she said, adding that any future donation of equipment would comply with EU sanctions against Sudan, which include a ban on the provision of services related to military activities.

“The activities related to Sudan are part of a broader regional project in the Horn of Africa, worth EUR 40 million, financed under the EU Trust Fund for Africa and designed to improve migration management,” said the spokesperson, noting that the main objective was to cooperate on fighting trafficking and smuggling.

“No funding will be channelled through the beneficiary countries’ government structures.”

EU outsources migration policy

The EU has increasingly sought the cooperation of African states to control the flows of migrants headed for its shores by using the promise of aid and trade agreements. Critics argue that such policies have contributed to states viewing migrants as bargaining chips to be leveraged for maximum political capital with disastrous results for their safety and human rights.

Europe’s engagement with Sudan and Eritrea, and other countries along the Horn of Africa to Europe migration route, dates back to the Khartoum Process, launched in November 2014. The EU spokesperson said such initiatives were important for “keeping a dialogue going” with the otherwise isolated Eritrean regime.

But sceptics argue that the Khartoum process risks legitimizing the governments of Sudan and Eritrea by treating them as partners in tackling irregular migration, when in fact those countries’ own policies are a major factor in driving migration and fuelling migrant smuggling and trafficking. Sudanese officials have repeatedly been accused of colluding with or turning a blind eye to traffickers who kidnap Eritrean refugees and hold them for ransom.

A former journalist from Eritrea, who asked not to be named, said that Eritrea’s stepped up border controls were partly related to security concerns as it celebrates 25 years of independence, but that they were also about “trying to make themselves look like a good partner” to the EU.

“They’re helping the trafficking networks become smarter, because people will still look for a way out,” he told IRIN. “If these people stay in power, there’s no way to stop migration.”

Not his real name

ks

Last week, Barack Obama was in Vietnam preaching the gospel of human rights. He told his tired old story  about human rights to the Vietnamese:

When there’s freedom of the press — when journalists and bloggers are able to shine a light on injustice or abuse — that holds officials accountable and builds public confidence that the system works.  When candidates can run for office and campaign freely, and voters can choose their own leaders in free and fair elections, it makes the countries more stable, because citizens know that their voices count and that peaceful change is possible.

Last month, Obama was in Cuba preaching the same chapter and verse to the Cubans:

I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear — to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights.

Last July, Obama was in Ethiopia to certify as “democratically elected”, the  Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF).

The T-TPLF claimed to have won the May 2015 election” by one hundred percent.

The T-TPLF claimed to have won the May 2010 election by 99.6 percent.

The T-TPLF is a certified terrorist organization listed in the Global Terrorism Database.

But Obama did not skip a beat when he stood in Addis Ababa and said :

I don’t bite my tongue too much when it comes to these issues. We are opposed to any group that is promoting the violent overthrow of a government, including the government of Ethiopia, that has been democratically elected. [Ethiopia’s]elections put forward a democratically elected government.

Obama said nothing about the bogus T-TPLF election.

Obama said nothing about the young bloggers jailed by the T-TPLF for writing on Facebook.

Obama said nothing about Ethiopian journalist languishing in subhuman T-TPLF prisons.

Obama did not meet with groups and leaders opposed to the T-TPLF.

Obama did not say he will continue to speak out about human rights abuses by the T-TPLF.  In Vietnam and Cuba Obama said, “We will continue to speak out on behalf of human rights that we believe are universal, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.”

What Obama did in Ethiopia was hold hands and rub shoulders and sing kumbaya with the T-TPLF criminals against humanity.  What a disgusting touch of dEvil!

Obama said, “I don’t bite my tongue when it comes to these issues.”

True, it is difficult to bite one’s tongue when it is forked like a serpent’s.

And now I am back to put in my two cents worth.

I am sick and tired of hearing Barack Obama talking loud about human rights and sayin’ nothin’.

He has made a virtue of hypocrisy in his human rights litany.

I am now coining a new word, “Virtue-ization”, to describe the process by which a particular vice such as hypocrisy or greed is transformed into a virtue.

Remember Gordon Gekko preaching  the virtues of greed in the motion picture Wall Street:

The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

As greed is a virtue for Gekko, hypocrisy is no vice to Obama.

Hypocrisy is right, hypocrisy works.  Hypocrisy, in all of its forms; hypocrisy for life, for power;  hypocrisy in politics, in diplomacy, in international relations, in fighting terrorism. Hypocrisy in talkin’ about human rights and sayin’ nothin’. Hypocrisy in coddling criminals against humanity and genociders and diplocrisy ( a word I coined to describe Obama’s hypocritical human rights policy) to excuse and conceal their crimes. And hypocrisy, you mark my words, will NOT save African thugtators and dictators or the other malfunctioning “military-industrial complex” called the USA, to borrow a phrase from Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Barack Obama has made hypocrisy a virtue.  He goes around the world preaching and teaching the gospel of human rights. Of course, he does not mean or believe any of it.

Obama is the snake oil salesman of human rights.  Obama believes in human rights as much as the snake oil salesman believes in the curative effects of snake oil.

There is a line in Eugene O’Neill’s play “The Iceman Cometh”, where the con man character (Ed Mosher) reminisces about the late “old doc” who is “standing on a street corner in hell right now, making suckers of the damned, telling them there’s nothing like snake oil for a bad burn.”

I feel Obama made “suckers of the damned and wretched of Africa” telling them there is nothing like the rule of law and democracy to cure a bad burn of tyranny and thugtatorship:

Make no mistake: History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power.  Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions…

No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery.  That is not democracy,  that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end…

The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it’s no longer needed…

I have directed my administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human rights reports…

Obama made a sucker out of me and burned me with his human rights snake oil. (No, I will never get over that. Never!)

In 2016, Obama is standing tall with the strongmen of Africa who are changing constitutions and claiming 100 percent election victory to stay in power while pressing their heavy boots on the necks of the little people of Africa.

Africa today is on the dole permanently attached to the life-support system of American tax payers’ pocketbooks.

Corruption is king in all of Africa.

I believe every person, however high or low on the social totem pole, will have at least one defining moment in their lives, a moment when they will face a choice of defining the moment or being defined by it.

That is the moment a person faces the Socratic axiom: The unexamined life is not worth living.

For me,  Barack Obama defined the man (not the president) he is when he stood alongside a gang of bloodthirsty and murderous TPLF thugs in late July 2015 in Ethiopia and proclaimed them “democratically elected”.

What an irony for a man who stood up for the little people, the downtrodden, the oppressed and persecuted.

Before Obama was President of the United States, he was a lawyer.  Correction, a constitutional lawyer who defended the rights and liberties of the little people of the United States.

Before Obama was President of the United States, he was a community advocate. In his memoir, “Dreams From My Father”,  he wrote, “In my legal practice, I work mostly with churches and community groups, men and women who quietly build grocery stores and health clinics in the inner city, and housing for the poor.”

Before Obama was President of the United States, he was a civil rights lawyer for those who were disenfranchised and could not vote. He directed Illinois Project Vote and became a rising star for his work.

When President Barack Obama spoke at the 50^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 2015, he said:

There are still too many ways in which people are discouraged from voting.  Some of the protections … have been weakened as a consequence of court decisions and interpretations of the law.  State legislatures have instituted procedures and practices… that have the effect of discouraging people from voting, may have a disproportional effect on certain kinds of folks voting. And that means that the decisions that are made in the corridors of power all across this country begin to reflect the interests of the few, instead of the interests of the many.

On July 27, 2015,  Obama spoke  in Addis Ababa and proclaimed the T-TPLF is “democratically elected” by 100 percent of the votes.

Were there a serpent seen with a more practiced forked tongue than Obama’s?

Barack Obama making virtue of hypocrisy

Shakespeare wrote:

O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!”

Barack Obama pretends and proclaims to be the global guardian angel of human rights.

It took me six years to figure out that Obama was just talking loud about human rights but saying nothing.

But his actions spoke louder than his words. Obama became the best friend of Africa’s devil’s incarnates – those notorious criminals against humanity.

They say, “judge a man by the company he keeps.”

What if a man’s friends are not angels but the devil’s incarnate?

Obama set conditions on Cuba and Vietnam for improved relations and closer ties: 1) improvement in their human rights climate, 2) improvements in the treatment of government critics, 3) respect for press freedom and observance of universal human rights principles, and 4) basic guarantees for free expression and assembly and removal of censorship on access the internet and social media.

The T-TPLF is the fourth worst jailer of journalists in the world (and second in Africa).

Under the T-TPLF, Ethiopia has the third worst internet service in the world, after Somalia and Niger.

When Obama visited Ethiopia, he set NO conditions on the T-TPLF. He turned a blind eye, deaf ears and muted lips to the crimes of the T-TPLF. What a low down shame!

Faith healers, health-and-wealth preachers, voodoo shaman and human rights snake oil salesmen.

It is the sign of the times!

Obama, out!

Smoke and mirrors: The T-TPLF replacing its “anti-terrorism law” with a “computer crimes law”?

The Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) is getting hammered left and right and upside the head on its so-called antiterrorism law (“Anti-Terrorism Proclamation No. 652/2009”.)

Now, T-TPLF’s strategists have come up with a new trick to fool everybody: Slowly phase out the “anti-terrorism law” and replace it with what they hope will be a less contentious and innocent sounding garden variety penal “law” dealing “computer crimes”.

The T-TPLF thinks that if they continue to chase and hound Ethiopian journalists, bloggers, dissidents and their other opponents as computer criminals instead of terrorists, their donors and loaners and the international human rights organizations will go easy on them.

Imagine how much better it sounds for the T-TPLF to say they are prosecuting journalists, bloggers, dissidents, opposition leaders, human rights advocates, civic society leaders as “computer criminals” instead of terrorists. Imagine the international public relations payoff for the T-TPLF to be accused of prosecuting individuals for computer fraud and hacking than to be condemned for using a bogus anti-terrorism law.

My suspicion is that once the “computer crimes law” is in effect, the T-TPLF plans to quietly phase out its anti-terrorism law, for which it is getting universal condemnation.

It never ceases to amaze me. The TPLF thugs think they are so smart that they can fool all of the people all of the time.

Get this T-TPLF! It is true that “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But a “computer crimes law” that smells like an “anti-terrorism law” stinks to high heaven.

T-TPLF, you ain’t foolin’ nobody. We got you pegged!

The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF has lost ALL credibility with its “anti-terrorism law”.

Every major international human rights organization and donor and loaner has condemned the T-TPLF’s “anti-terrorism law”.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry demanded the T-TPLF stop using its “anti-terrorism law” to crush democratic dissent. A State department spokesperson publicly stated, “We reiterate Secretary Kerry’s May 1 [2014] call on Ethiopia to refrain from using anti-terrorism laws as a mechanism to curb the free exchange of ideas. The use of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation in previous cases against journalists, activists, and opposition political figures raises serious questions and concerns about the intent of the law, and about the sanctity of Ethiopians’ constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of the press and freedom of expression.”

The White House issued a statement, “urg[ing] the Ethiopian Government to release journalists and all others imprisoned for exercising their right to free expression, to refrain from using its Anti-Terrorism Proclamation as a mechanism to silence dissent, and to protect the rights of journalists, bloggers, and dissidents to write and speak freely as voices of a diverse nation.”

The European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the T-TPLF’s “anti-terrorism law”: “The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (Law no. 652/2009), adopted in 2009, contains a definition of terrorism that is broad and vague and has been used to target Human rights defenders, journalists and the political opposition, encouraging self-censorship, as it foresees imprisonment for up to 20 years for the publication of statements considered to encourage acts of terrorism; whereas it also provides the government with additional power to conduct online surveillance, and imposes sharp restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.”

United Nations human rights experts (U.N. Special Rapporteurs) have condemned the T-TPLF’s use of its “anti-terrorism law”. The Special Rapporteurs condemned the ongoing use of anti-terrorism laws to curb a broad range of freedoms in Ethiopia. Ben Emmerson, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights said that “the anti-terrorism provisions should not be abused and need to be clearly defined in Ethiopian criminal law to ensure that they do not go counter to internationally guaranteed human rights.”

U.N. Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue said, “Journalists play a crucial role in promoting accountability of public officials by investigating and informing the public about human rights violations. They should not face criminal proceedings for carrying out their legitimate work, let alone be severely punished.”

U.N. Special Rapporteur Margaret Sekaggya said, “journalists, bloggers and others advocating for increased respect for human rights should not be subject to pressure for the mere fact that their views are not in alignment with those of the Government [of Ethiopia].”

U.N. Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai said “The resort to anti-terrorism legislation is one of the many obstacles faced by associations today in Ethiopia. The Government must ensure protection across all areas involving the work of associations, especially in relation to human rights issues.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the T-TPLF “anti-terrorism law” from the time it was in draft form in 2009. HRW said the “law” “contained numerous provisions that fundamentally contravened human rights guaranteed by Ethiopia’s constitution and international law.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists also condemned the T-TPLF “law” because it “criminalizes any reporting authorities deem to ‘encourage’ or ‘provide moral support’ to groups and causes the government labels as ‘terrorists.’”

Freedom House concluded, “Journalists reporting on opposition activities face serious harassment and the threat of prosecution under Ethiopia’s sweeping 2009 Antiterrorism Proclamation.”

I called the T-TPLF’s “anti-terrorism sim law” state terrorism.

Law and diktat in the TPLF thugocracy/thugtatorship

Whenever I read or hear someone talking about a T-TPLF “law”, I either laugh or shake my head in quiet disbelief at the ignorance of those who call T-TPLF’s “laws”, laws.

Thugs know as much about the law as heathen know about Scripture.

The benighted leaders and followers of the T-TPLF can only issue diktats, never law.

What are diktats?

Simply stated “diktats” are the law of the jungle; or in T-TPLF’s case, the law of the bush.

When the T-TPLF leaders in the bush (and before they put on fancy designer suits), they dealt with each other with diktats.

The few at the top would dream up stuff and tell everyone it is the “law”. (I did not say dream up stuff while they are high on khat (ch-at).)

Shakespeare’s Hamlet asked, “What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?”

I ask, “Thugs! How dost thugs understand the law?”

The same people who talk about T-TPLF “laws” also talk about T-TPLF “elections” and “courts”. I believe the least these people could do is spell the words correctly, “elektions” as in rigged and “kourts” as in monkey.

Everyone knows that the T-TPLF is a certified terrorist organization listed on the Global Terrorism Database.

Terrorists and thugs in a three-piece Armani suit are like the pig in lipstick. At the end of the day, both the pig and the terrorists/thugs are who they are.

I have explained in previous commentaries the differences between the rule of law, rule by law, rule by unjust law and rule of men (diktat).

The T-TPLF and their ilk all over Africa rule by diktat (decrees pulled out of the back pockets) which they try to palm off as “laws”.

Thugtators scribble down their ignorant diktats, send it over to a parliament of ignoramuses and have it rubber stamped as “law” or “proclamation”. They use the diktat to play policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. Under rule by diktat, dictators use the “law” as a bludgeon — a sledgehammer — to vanquish their opposition. For the T-TPLF, the “law” is a sledgehammer to crush dissidents, jail journalists, harass, intimidate and persecute opposition political leaders and maintain itself in power by using the “law” as an instrument of terror.

That is what the T-TPLF does with its “laws”. That is what the T-TPLF has done in its draft “computer crimes law”.

After the late thugmaster Meles Zenawi wrote his “anti-terrorism law” (diktat), he told his rubber stamp parliament:

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 chosen 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 [antiterrorism] 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…
Only a pathetic ignoramus would copy “word-by-word, without changing one word, not even a comma” and call it a “flawless law. Thus spoke the great visionary leader of the T-TPLF!

Here is a simple question: Do the Americans, the English and the Europeans whose anti-terrorism law Meles “copied word for word” without even missing a “comma” jail journalists, bloggers and dissidents?

The T-TPLF’s “computer crimes law”

First, is a “computer crimes law” even necessary in a country where computer ownership and internet access are so negligible? Put differently, in order for criminals to commit a “computer crime”, they need computers and internet access.

The T-TPLF owns Ethio Telecom that has a monopoly over telecommunications in the country.

According to Internet World Stats, an organization that tracks internet usage data, “Only 3.7 percent of Ethiopians have access to the internet.” In contrast, “South Sudan, [which became a country in July 2011] which lacks most basic government services, has an internet penetration rate of 15.9 percent.”

According to World Bank data, internet users per 100 people in Ethiopia between 2011-2015 was 2.9.

Second, who is really committing computer crimes in and outside Ethiopia?

The T-TPLF has converted the internet into a weapon of surveillance and intimidation against its opponents.

The T-TPLF criminals who “have been working with several European tech companies to expand its surveillance powers in the past few years, potentially with the goal of improving its capabilities to monitor its own citizens.”

The T-TPLF criminals have been using spyware to monitor U.S.-based journalists in violation of U.S. law.

In 2014, the T-TPLF was sued in U.S. federal court for illegally spying on an American citizen in the United States using FinSpy surveillance software in violation of the Electronic Privacy Communications Act. (To read about the shocking computer crimes of the T-TPLF, click HERE.)

According to Motherboard, a leading technology online magazine, “It’s clear that the government of Ethiopia is one of the most aggressive purchasers of surveillance technology out there. They are building mass surveillance capabilities to monitor everyone in country, and using hacking tools to spy on dissidents and journalists at home and abroad.”

Third, is the T-TPLF’s “computer crimes law” another mindless cut-and-paste, copycat job?

From whom did the T-TPLF scarf its “computer crimes law” this time around?

The Chinese? The “flawless” Chinese “cyber-crimes law”?

The stench of the “Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China” (articles 285, 286 and 287) is palpable in the T-TPLF’s “computer crimes law”. These and related articles in the Chinese criminal law deal with illegal accessing and obtaining computer data, illegal control of computer systems, illegal use of software for access, control or to damage computer systems.

I believe the T-TPLF plagiarized (cannibalized) its “computer crimes law” from various Chinese internet laws, administrative regulations and guidelines.

(Is there a single creative policy measure the T-TPLF has initiated on its own without copycatting and cutting-and-pasting someone else?)

Here is the BIG question: Does the T-TPLF need new “laws” to combat “computer crimes” when the T-TPLF has choked off internet services and tightly controls access to online information?

The T-TPLF already has sufficient provisions in its “Criminal Code” to deal with “computer crimes”.

Article 706 of the T-TPLF “Criminal Code” prohibits “access, taking or using computer services without authorization.” Article 707 metes out punishment for “causing damage to data”. Article 708 prohibits “disruption of computer and services by an authorized user.” Article 709 punishes anyone who “facilitates the commission of computer crimes.” (Hey! That sounds just like the Chinese computer crimes law!)

The bottom line on the T-TPLF “computer crimes law”

Here is the bottom line on the T-TPLF “computer crimes law. The draft T-TPLF “law” creates:

an internet police force to troll social media and other sites to catch T-TPLF critics.

internet detectives to catch T-TPLF online critics.

a process for T-TPLF monkey courts to railroad those accused of “computer crimes”.

a system of self-censorship for internet users and those who have computers.

a climate of fear for young people using social media and reinforces the closed political space by closing access to cyberspace.

a system for the prosecution of cyber-dissidents.

a crime out of simple civil defamation causes of action.

significant restrictions on anti-T-TPLF dissidents.

criminal liability for internet café and other access providers for the alleged crimes of anyone who uses their services.

criminal liability for the use of mass emails that are against T-TPLF rule.

The elements of the T-TPLF’s “computer crimes law”

The draft T-TPLF “Computer Crime Proclamation No. —/2016” is intended to replace Proclamation No. 761/2012. It is actually a clever cover to reinvent the 2009 “anti-terrorism law.” It is the same old vinegary wine in a new bottle. The T-TPLF thinks by changing their tune and dressing up their barbaric “anti-terrorism law” as a kinder and gentler “computer crime law”, they could hoodwink everyone. Not a chance! As I have told the T-TPLF a thousand times before, you can put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day it is still a pig. So is a thug in a designer suit. The difference between the T-TPLF’s “computer crime law” and “anti-terrorism law” is the difference between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

The “Computer Crime Proclamation No. —/2016” has two major sections.

The T-TPLF has frontloaded the “proclamation” with a whole bunch of garden variety “computer crimes” to distract the reader from its real objectives, namely use the “law” to punish, intimidate, harass and jail those who use computers and the internet to express dissent.

Garden variety computer crimes

The first section of the draft “law” is the cover, the smoke and mirrors. But stripped of its diversionary legalese (that is to make it look like a real computer crimes law) about the “vital role of communication technology in the economic, social and political development of the country” and other such gibberish, the aims of the T-TPLF “computer crimes law” are starkly evident.

The first part of the “law” deals with what appear to be garden variety crimes committed using the internet and computer software. These include:

Illegal access to the whole or any part of computer system, computer data or network.

Illegal interception of non-public computer data or data processing service.

Interference with computer system to interfere in the proper functioning of computer systems.

Causing damage to computer data by any means and rendering it useless.

Criminal acts related to usage of computer devices and data.

Forgery and falsification of computer data for illegal benefits or economic loss.

Electronic identity theft caused by illegal acquisition, possession or distribution of information using a computer.

Dissemination of obscene or indecent materials involving minors.

Crimes against liberty and reputation of persons by online intimidation and threats.

“Crimes against Public Security”

It is in the “computer crimes” against “public security” section of the “law” that the T-TPLF bares its dingy teeth.

In that section are the following provisions:

Whosoever intentionally disseminates through a computer system any written, video, audio or any other picture that incites fear, violence, chaos or conflict among people shall be punishable with rigorous imprisonment not exceeding three years. (Translation: Use of the internet and use of computers on the internet for such things as social media, etc. is a crime of inciting fear, violence, chaos and conflict among the people.)

A service provider shall be criminally liable for any illegal computer content data disseminated through its computer systems by third parties. (Translation: If you are an internet café, hotel and other internet access provider, shut down your internet operation and find another line of work, like spying for the T-TPLF.)

The public prosecutor and police shall have joint power to investigate criminal acts provided for in this Proclamation. And the public prosecutor shall lead the investigation process. (Translation: Unlike any other crimes committed in the land, in computer crimes, the public prosecutor is required to lead the investigation. (By the way, that is exactly what the “public prosecutor” does in “terrorism” cases (I mean, of public prosecutors who can read and write instead of sign criminal charges with their thumbprints.)

Any service provider shall retain the computer data disseminated through its computer systems or data relating to data processing or communication service for at least one year. (Translation: Internet cafes, hotels and other internet access provides shall serve as record keepers for the T-TPLF.)

*** I don’t get it! The T-TPLF owns Ethio Telecom as a monopoly. Ethio Telecom is the only internet service provider in the country. Ethio Telecom has all the servers for the internet service it provides. Do the T-TPLF ignoramuses know that internet cafes, hotels and other facilities providing internet access maintain no servers to retain computer data? Do the T-TPLF ignoramuses know that information accessed on Facebook and other social media is stored in proprietary servers outside Ethiopia? For crying out loud, what the hell is wrong with these people!?***

The Minister may give permission to the investigatory organ to conduct interception or surveillance without court warrant. (Translation: A T-TPLF minister can override the order of any court at any time and authorize illegal searches and seizures of computers and persons suspected of involvement in “computer crimes”.) order

Any service provider who has knowledge of the commission of the crimes or dissemination of any illegal content data by third parties through the computer system shall immediately notify the Agency. (Translation: Internet cafes, hotels and other access providers shall serve as government informants.)

Where the investigatory organ reasonably believes that the computer data sought is stored in another computer system, the search or access may be extended to that other computer system without requesting separate search warrant. (Translation: Any computer suspected of having any connection with a suspect computer is subject to search and seizure without a court order.)

Computer crimes as state terrorism

The aim of the draft T-TPLF “computer crimes law” is the same as the T-TPLF’s “anti-terrorism law”: hunt down and jail journalists, bloggers, political activists and others by cracking down on their use of the internet to express dissent.

The aim of the draft T-TPLF “computer crimes law” is to criminalize the expression of dissent by shutting down both the political space and cyberspace.

The aim of the draft T-TPLF “computer crimes law” is to terrorize those who use social media to express themselves.

The aim of the draft T-TPLF “computer crimes law” is to criminalize human rights, human rights advocacy and human rights defense.

Today, there are thousands of Ethiopians in T-TPLF secret and official prisons who have been jailed for expressing their dissent online and off. Eskinder Nega, the Zone Nine bloggers and other journalists have been jailed for using their computer keyboards to express themselves.

Yonatan Tesfaye, the spokesperson for Blue Party, has been in detention for posting on Facebook

As the T-TPLF points its legal index finger on journalists, bloggers and dissidents as “computer” and “cyber-criminals”, it should be mindful that three fingers are pointing firmly at it.

T-TPLF’s desperate efforts to close the political space and cyberspace

I have been following the T-TPLF’s efforts to use the internet as a weapon of dissent suppression.

In June 2012, I wrote a commentary on the T-TPLF’s efforts to choke off Skype.

In that commentary, I also reviewed the T-TPLF’s “Proclamation on Telecom Fraud Offences” (PTFO) 2012.

I have wasted way too many hours studying and analyzing T-TPLF’s mindless laws. I invite my readers to read my previous commentaries on these topics.

Suffice it to say that when it comes to con artists, scammers, swindlers, fraudsters and computer criminals, the T-TPLF is second to none!

Talking about scammers and such, do you remember that in 2008 “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the bank in Addis Ababa in broad daylight never to be seen again?

Do you remember the time in 2011 when 10,000 tons of coffee earmarked for exports simply vanished from the warehouses and Meles Zenawi called a meeting of commodities traders and threatened to “cut off their hands” if they steal coffee in the future. In a videotaped statement, Meles told the traders he will forgive them this time because “we all have our hands in the disappearance of the coffee”.

Do you remember in 2011 Global Financial Integrity documented that US$11.7 billion walked out of Ethiopia never to return?

Here is the deal: Now, do you want to talk about real criminals or make-believe computer criminals?

– See more at: http://www.zehabesha.com/state-terrorism-and-computer-crimes-in-ethiopia-by-alemayehu-g-mariam/#sthash.jLmAOsjg.dpuf

Girl, 9, sues the government over Holloway father being held on death row

THE nine-year-old daughter of a Holloway man who has been held on death row in Ethiopia for two years is suing the British government over its alleged failure to demand his release.

Lawyers for Menabe Andargachew, from Clerkenwell, have begun judicial review proceedings in the High Court against the Foreign Office over ministers’ handling of the case of her father, Andargachew “Andy” Tsege.

Mr Tsege, a 61-year-old British citizen, was kidnapped and rendered to Ethiopia by forces of that country in June 2014. He remains held there under a sentence of death imposed in absentia in 2009 in relation to his political opposition to the Ethiopian government.

“I’m pretty sure that every British person deserves the protection of the UK government but my father is not receiving this,” said Menabe, who attends Hugh Myddelton primary school and dreams of a career on Broadway.

“After two years he is finally going to get a lawyer but I don’t think it’s going to actually help my dad. The government needs to demand he comes back – they should have done it ages ago.”

The only contact Menabe, her twin brother Yilak and sister Helawit, 16, who live with their mother Yemi Hailemariam, have had with their father since he was abducted was a single phone call in December 2014.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who was in Ethiopia this week, said Mr Tsege was “top of the agenda” at meetings with the government. However, while “securing assurances” that the activist would finally be granted access to a lawyer he did not demand Mr Tsege’s release.

“We had been living in hope but this really feels like a slap in the face,” Ms Hailemariam said. “There’s no way someone who has been detained in this way and who was kidnapped is not going to have a fair trial. The problem is that these people don’t have fair trials.

“To think he can get justice there is an insult to us and the subtext, it feels, is that we are not fully British.”

Menabe added: “I think they would try harder if my father was a white Englishman, definitely.”  The family’s case is that, given the illegality of Mr Tsege’s kidnap, detention and death sentence, the UK’s decision not to ask for Mr Tsege’s release is unlawful.

Ms Hailemariam added: “The government is trying to justify the unjustifiable and I think this is unsustainable, so we just have to keep on fighting.”

Speaking from Ethiopia after his meetings on Wednesday, Mr Hammond said: “I have now received a commitment from the Prime Minister that Mr Tsege will be allowed access to independent legal advice to allow him to discuss options under the Ethiopian legal system.

“At my request, a senior Foreign Office official travelling with me was given access to Mr Tsege in prison. Following that visit, I am satisfied he is not being ill-treated and that he is receiving regular visits from family members in Ethiopia.”

Mr Tsege, a naturalised British citizen who has lived in London since 1979, is an outspoken critic of the Ethiopian regime and a member of the exiled opposition group Ginbot 7.

The jazz fan was on his way to an opposition conference in Eritrea when he was kidnapped and handed over to Ethiopian authorities.

Last year, Menabe’s sister Helawit won a human rights award for a play she wrote with her friends about her father’s plight.

Menabe was chosen by her mother to head up the legal challenge because of her articulate campaigning on her father’s behalf. She is being represented by Clerkenwell-based law firm Leigh Day.

Source- http://www.islingtontribune.com/girl-sues-government

The police failed to bring Tesema Regasa and 15 others in the same file to the court

By Mahlet Fasil / Addis Standard

The Addis Abeba prison administration Qilinto prison police have this morning brought prominent opposition figure Bekele Gerba and the 21 others in the same file for a hearing at a court all barefoot. The detainees were also wearing mere shorts and t-shirts when they appeared at the Federal High Court 19^th Criminal Bench here in the capital.

Once inside the court room the detainees, through Bekele Gerba, first secretary general of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), told the judges that the police have come to their cells in Qilinto, a prison in the outskirt of south of Addis Abeba, yesterday and stripped them all of their clothes and shoes to prevent them from wearing black upon appearing in court this morning.

On May 11 the police have failed to bring the 22 detainees, all charged with Ethiopia’s infamous Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, ATP, to the court because all them were wearing black to protest their arrest.  However, the police have told the court this morning that they didn’t bring defendants during the last hearing because they have not received a letter from the court.  The judge told the police at the court this morning that the police officers on duty on May 11 must appear in court to explain the real reason.

Bekele also told the court that he and his co-defendants were subjected to torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuses inside the prison and requested the judge for a change of prison. But the judge denied the request.

The 22 defendants were all arrested between November and December 2015, shortly after the start (and in connection with) Oromo protests in November that gripped the nation for the next five months. Defendants include several members of OFC, students and civil servants who came from various parts of the Oromia regional state.

Prosecutors have charged the 22 with various articles of the ATP. The charges include, but not limited to, alleged membership of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), public incitement, encouraging violence, as well as causing the death of innocent civilians and property destructions in cities such as Ambo and Adama, 120km west and 100km east of Addis Abeba during the recent Oromo protests in Ethiopia. This morning all of the defendants have presented a written defense statement. The court adjourned the next hearing until June 27.

In a related development, the police at Qilinto have failed to bring this morning 16 other individuals, all from the Oromia regional state and were detained in connection with the #OromoProtests, to the court.  The 16 detainees, under the file name of Tesema Regasa were first brought to the court on April 26. They were subsequently charged with the ATP and have, last month, presented their defense statements to the court. Today’s court appearance was adjourned to hear prosecutors’ counter response for the defense statements. The court re-adjourned the next hearing until June 15.

Wondimu Ebbissa, who is representing Bekele Gerba et.al, said last month that more than 80 defendants, including Bekele Gerba et al, were held in Qilinto and a further 97 were believed to be either at  the Ethiopian Federal Polcie Force Central Bureau of Criminal Investigation, known in Amharic as Ma’ekelawi,  or the Addis Abeba police prison facility near it. All of them are detained in connection with #OromoProtests.

In a separate development, the Federal High Court 19^th Criminal Bench yesterday adjourned the hearing for Yonatan Tesfaye, former spokesman of the opposition Semayawi (Blue) Party, until June 21. The court received Yonatan’s defense statement in its hearing and adjourned the next hearing to receive prosecutor’s counter statement.

Last month prosecutors have charged Yonatan with ATP and have presented as evidence the defendant’s Facebook status updates during the #OromoProtests. The charges against Yonatan allege that he was posting inciting message on his Facebook, encouraging protesters to loot and destruct properties. Charges also allege Yonatan was calling for regime change  through violence.

Muhammad Ali, the silver-tongued boxer and civil rights champion who famously proclaimed himself “The Greatest” and then spent a lifetime living up to the billing, is dead.

Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he had spent the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed to NBC News. He was 74.

Muhammad Ali, the silver-tongued boxer and civil rights champion who famously proclaimed himself “The Greatest” and then spent a lifetime living up to the billing, is dead.

Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he had spent the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed to NBC News. He was 74.

Play

Muhammad Ali Dies at Age 74 2:12

“After a 32-year battle with Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away at the age of 74. The three-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer died this evening,” Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman, told NBC News.

Ali had suffered for three decades from Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition that slowly robbed him of both his legendary verbal grace and his physical dexterity. A funeral service is planned in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

His daughter Rasheda said early Saturday that the legend was “no longer suffering,” describing him as “daddy, my best friend and hero” as well as “the greatest man that ever lived.”

Even as his health declined, Ali did not shy from politics or controversy, releasing a statement in December criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. “We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda,” he said.

The remark bookended the life of a man who burst into the national consciousness in the early 1960s, when as a young heavyweight champion he converted to Islam and refused to serve in the Vietnam War, and became an emblem of strength, eloquence, conscience and courage. Ali was an anti-establishment showman who transcended borders and barriers, race and religion. His fights against other men became spectacles, but he embodied much greater battles.

Play

Fighter and Thinker: the Two Sides of Muhammad Ali 1:16

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay on Jan. 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, to middle-class parents, Ali started boxing when he was 12, winning Golden Gloves titles before heading to the 1960 Olympics in Rome, where he won a gold medal as a light heavyweight.

He turned professional shortly afterward, supported at first by Louisville business owners who guaranteed him an unprecedented 50-50 split in earnings. His knack for talking up his own talents — often in verse — earned him the dismissive nickname “the Louisville Lip,” but he backed up his talk with action, relocating to Miami to train with the legendary trainer Angelo Dundee and build a case for getting a shot at the heavyweight title.

As his profile rose, Ali acted out against American racism. After he was refused services at a soda fountain counter, he said, he threw his Olympic gold medal into a river.

Recoiling from the sport’s tightly knit community of agents and promoters, Ali found guidance instead from the Nation of Islam, an American Muslim sect that advocated racial separation and rejected the pacifism of most civil rights activism. Inspired by Malcolm X, one of the group’s leaders, he converted in 1963. But he kept his new faith a secret until the crown was safely in hand.

That came the following year, when heavyweight champion Sonny Liston agreed to fight Ali. The challenger geared up for the bout with a litany of insults and rhymes, including the line, “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” He beat the fearsome Liston in a sixth-round technical knockout before a stunned Miami Beach crowd. In the ring, Ali proclaimed, “I am the greatest! I am the greatest! I’m the king of the world.”

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Muhammad Ali Celebrated at Compelling, Affectionate New Exhibition 1:06

A Controversial Champion

The new champion soon renounced Cassius Clay as his “slave name” and said he would be known from then on as Muhammad Ali — bestowed by Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. He was 22 years old.

The move split sports fans and the broader American public: an American sports champion rejecting his birth name and adopting one that sounded subversive.

Ali successfully defended his title six times, including a rematch with Liston. Then, in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, Ali was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army.

He’d said previously that the war did not comport with his faith, and that he had “no quarrel” with America’s enemy, the Vietcong. He refused to serve.

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, some poor, hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America, and shoot them for what?” Ali said in an interview. “They never called me nigger. They never lynched me. They didn’t put no dogs on me.”

His stand culminated with an April appearance at an Army recruiting station, where he refused to step forward when his name was called. The reaction was swift and harsh. He was stripped of his boxing title, convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison.

Released on appeal but unable to fight or leave the country, Ali turned to the lecture circuit, speaking on college campuses, where he engaged in heated debates, pointing out the hypocrisy of denying rights to blacks even as they were ordered to fight the country’s battles abroad.

“My enemy is the white people, not Vietcongs or Chinese or Japanese,” Ali told one white student who challenged his draft avoidance. “You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. You won’t even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs and you want me to go somewhere and fight but you won’t even stand up for me here at home.”

Ali’s fiery commentary was praised by antiwar activists and black nationalists and vilified by conservatives, including many other athletes and sportswriters.

His appeal took four years to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June 1971 reversed the conviction in a unanimous decision that found the Department of Justice had improperly told the draft board that Ali’s stance wasn’t motivated by religious belief.

Return to the Ring

Toward the end of his legal saga, Georgia agreed to issue Ali a boxing license, which allowed him to fight Jerry Quarry, whom he beat. Six months later, at a sold-out Madison Square Garden, he lost to Joe Frazier in a 15-round duel touted as “the fight of the century.” It was Ali’s first defeat as a pro.

That fight began one of boxing’s and sport’s greatest rivalries. Ali and Frazier fought again in 1974, after Frazier had lost his crown. This time, Ali won in a unanimous decision, making him the lead challenger for the heavyweight title.

He took it from George Foreman later that year in a fight in Zaire dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle,” a spectacularly hyped bout for which Ali moved to Africa for the summer, followed by crowds of chanting locals wherever he went. A three-day music festival featuring James Brown and B.B. King preceded the fight. Finally, Ali delivered a historic performance in the ring, employing a new strategy dubbed the “rope-a-dope,” goading the favored Foreman into attacking him, then leaning back into the ropes in a defensive stance and waiting for Foreman to tire. Ali then went on the attack, knocking out Foreman in the eighth round. The maneuver has been copied by many other champions since.

The third fight in the Ali-Frazier trilogy followed in 1975, the “Thrilla in Manila” that is now regarded as one of the best boxing matches of all time. Ali won in a technical knockout in the 15th round.

Ali successfully defended his title until 1978, when he was beaten by a young Leon Spinks, and then quickly took it back. He retired in 1979, when he was 37, but, seeking to replenish his dwindling personal fortune, returned in 1980 for a title match against Larry Holmes, which he lost. Ali lost again, to Trevor Berbick, the following year. Finally, Ali retired for good.

‘He’s Human, Like Us’

The following year, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

“I’m in no pain,” he told The New York Times. “A slight slurring of my speech, a little tremor. Nothing critical. If I was in perfect health — if I had won my last two fights — if I had no problem, people would be afraid of me. Now they feel sorry for me. They thought I was Superman. Now they can go, ‘He’s human, like us. He has problems.’ ”

Even as his health gradually declined, Ali — who switched to more mainstream branches of Islam — threw himself into humanitarian causes, traveling to Lebanon in 1985 and Iraq in 1990 to seek the release of American hostages. In 1996, he lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, lifting the torch with shaking arms. With each public appearance he seemed more feeble, a stark contrast to his outsized aura. He continued to be one of the most recognizable people in the world.

He traveled incessantly for many years, crisscrossing the globe in appearances in which he made money but also pushed philanthropic causes. He met with presidents, royalty, heads of state, the Pope. He told “People” magazine that his largest regret was not playing a more intimate role in the raising of his children. But he said he did not regret boxing. “If I wasn’t a boxer, I wouldn’t be famous,” he said. “If I wasn’t famous, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now.”

In 2005, President George W. Bush honored Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his hometown of Louisville opened the Muhammad Ali Center, chronicling his life but also as a forum for promoting tolerance and respect.

Divorced three times and the father of nine children — one of whom, Laila, become a boxer — Ali married his last wife, Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams, in 1986; they lived for a long time in Berrien Springs, Michigan, then moved to Arizona.

In recent years, Ali’s health began to suffer dramatically. There was a death scare in 2013, and last year he was rushed to the hospital after being found unresponsive. He recovered and returned to his new home in Arizona.

In his final years, Ali was barely able to speak. Asked to share his personal philosophy with NPR in 2009, Ali let his wife read his essay:

“I never thought of the possibility of failing, only of the fame and glory I was going to get when I won,” Ali wrote. “I could see it. I could almost feel it. When I proclaimed that I was the greatest of all time, I believed in myself, and I still do.”

Source- NBC