Hiber Radio Interview – Muluken Tesfaw and Jawar Mohammed on current hot issues of Gonder

MINNESOTA

Mr. Donald J. Trump,

As a recent citizen of this blessed and great country, I feel the pain that my new adoptive country which accepted me with open arms and provided me the freedom and security to live without any fear of prosecution or imprisonment is being considered as a country of racism, prejudice, and bigotry because of your self-serving belligerent and irresponsible political rhetoric.  It pains my humanistic consciousness to ignore your daily incoherent, irrational, illogical, misguided, and un-American representation of facts. It is so sad to witness the melting of the self-destroying Republican Party by nominating you as the presumptive nominee to represent it in the coming presidential election. Out of the seventeen Republican Party candidates, you shot out to be the one to represent the disillusioned, fragmented, and bigoted Republican Party through personal insults and putdowns of the rest of the republican field of spineless and confused candidates. You never showed any intelligence of mastery of the issues on economical, foreign, domestic, or social policies and concerns except saying that you make America great in vacuum.  Anybody can say the slogan, “Make America Great”. But the question is how. You never answer the “How” question because you lack the knowledge on the intricacy of running a great country like USA. It is not a casino, golf course, winery, water, steak, tie, airline, university, or building where you can put your name label.  IT IS THE GREATEST COUNTRY CALLED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH which needs a well experienced, smart, fair, empathetic, observant, and tested leader not an incoherent and clueless President wannabe. USA needs a uniting CLEAN TONE not a trumpery one who refers to a tabloid newspaper as a constant source of important information on issues concerning a great nation like ours. It is ridiculous to hear a Presidential candidate citing tabloid magazines and newspapers as reliable and educational. During Republican Primaries, you never presented issue oriented arguments, but you engaged in personal insults and attacks of other candidates. You were acting like a tantrum throwing six graders. I never heard any substantive answers to questions presented to you. You played and are still playing on emotion of your uninformed and vain supporters who cannot separate lies from truth, imposter from real, and fraudster from honest.  I feel sorry for the Greatest Obama-hating Party (GOP) otherwise called Republican Party.

Mr. Trump, we all know how the Republican Party behaved during the last seven and half years of the Presidency of the first black American President.  The racist elements in the Party did not want a black American to be President. But the greatest majority of the American people of our great and blessed nation are generally well-thought and rational. They could see and realize the talent, ability, and capability of Mr. Barack Obama without looking at the color of his skin and voted for him to be the 44th President of the United States of America contrary to the wishes of your corrupt political party.  As the fair majority of citizens of our nation made history by the electing the first black American for the Presidency, I hope and believe that history will be made in this coming November by electing the first woman as the President of the United States of America. The only thing what your party did was: REJECTING EVERYTHING PRESENTED UNDER BARACK’S LEADERSHIP INSTEAD OF COOPERATING to ADVANCE THE NATION.  The Republican Party institutionally hate OBAMA for his CHROMA; in one-word RACISM. Your candidacy absolutely magnified this evil attitude of the GOP machinery in addition to exposing the Republican Party’s incoherence, confusion, and its unexpected backward journey to yesteryears of Jim Crow, McCarthyism, and George Wallace. Its inept handling of political discourse produced your nomination as the presumptive candidate and leader of the party. The continuous subtle and sometimes open racist attack on the first black American President of our nation for the last seven and half years by the wicked Republican Party machinery could bring you, the greatest megalomaniac narcissist, to the throne of the unproductive, Obama-hating Greatest Obstructionist Party. As you know and are part of, your woolly thinking party has been engaged to be an impediment to the progress of our nation in political and social issues because the loser Republican Party hatched the conspiracy to make Mr. Obama a one term President instead of pledging to work for the common good of the American nation during the crisis of economic meltdown of 2008. How on earth do elected officials of a nation work against the welfare of the nation? How on earth do public officials give priority to political rhetoric and advancement of their own political survival when the country was facing a great disastrous economic and political as well as social crisis? But God has mercy, and the first black American President could steer the wheel of the nation to recovery and stability. President Obama with the Democratic Party saved the nation from economic disaster caused by the clueless Republican Party. And that is why the majority of Americans voted him for the second term despite the attempt of the racist Republican Party to obstruct the recovery of the nation. Shame to the Republican Party which always try to represent itself as patriotic party while its action indicates the contrary.

Mr. Trump, I write this open letter to you because it is incumbent on me first to exercise my freedom of speech, and secondly to point out and refute why you should not be the President of the country which accepted, took, and treated me as one of its own more than thirty years ago. As you realize, this great nation belongs first to Native Americans whom you belittle indirectly through your insults directed towards Senator Elizabeth Warren by calling her Pocahontas.  These Natives welcomed the Mayflower’s Pilgrims and accepted them with open arms filled with love and respect. Yes, after the welcome time exhausted, there had been few disagreements and skirmishes between the natives and the newcomers. But they all patched their differences and started life together as one nation. In the process, they collectively built this amazing nation to be hospitable to and accepting all immigrants including your grandfather immigrating from Germany in 1885, your grandmother immigrating from Germany in 1902, your mother immigrating from Scotland in 1930, your first ex-wife Ivana immigrating from Czech Republic in early 1970, and your current wife Melania immigrating from Slovenia to USA in 1996, becoming permanent resident in 2001 and a citizen ten years ago in 2006. It shows that you, the son of an immigrant mother and the husband of a recent immigrant woman, are a disgusting plaster saint. You who married two immigrant women and are born to an immigrant woman have become the torch bearer of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim racism. It is ironic that you want to be the President in the process making a recent immigrant woman the FIRST LADY of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I imagine what you would have said if our current First Lady, Mrs. Michelle Obama, was a recent immigrant woman. You would have kept running your uncontrollable diarrhea of the mouth against her.  I wonder what your race bashing right wingers and KKK affiliated supporters feel about the probability of a recently naturalized woman WITH ACCENT becoming the FIRST LADY of the United States of America. It may not bother them as long as she is Caucasian and from Europe. You may say that you are being falsely accused of being a racist. Your views and rhetoric towards the non-European, non-white, and Muslim immigrants discredit your argument of not having a bone of racism in your body.

Mr. Trump, here are some evidences to show that you are a racist:

1. Birther: Your continuous question about the birth certificate of the first black American President                 indicates that you are a racist. Like the rest of the Republican Party institutional machinery,                            you question his Americanism because he does not look like you hundred percent.
2. In February 2016, you miserably failed to disavow the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) when you got the praise and                 support of the white supremacists. You embraced openly Racism.
3. In 1973 your company (Trump Management Corporation) was sued for discrimination because it refused to rent apartments to blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities. You lied about the allegations and sued the Justice Department for $100 million in damages for defamation. But      two years later you settled the Justice Department lawsuit by promising to not discriminate               because you were caught red handed refusing to rent apartments to minority applicants.
4. It is documented that you disparaged the black employees at your businesses as lazy in discriminatory manner and you hated to see your black accountants counting your money.
5. You want to ban Muslims from entering and immigrating to USA.
6. You want to build a wall between USA and Mexico which will never happen in reality except in your delusional mind.

Do I expect you to be truthful and recognize that you are racist, prejudiced, and bigoted? Not at all because you never believe in the truth unless it benefits you.

Mr. Trump, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS THE COUNTRY OF UNITED SHADES OF AMERICANS. USA is an accepting and accommodating home of diverse ethnicities and religions. It is not a monolithic nation of Native Americans or Whites or Blacks or Asians or Latinos or Christians or Jews or Muslims or atheist as you delusively aspire to be through your political propaganda. Since the founding moment of this multiethnic and multi-religious nation, immigrants from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and Central America, and Middle east flocked to and built together the nation of nations called United States of America to be the desirable and hospitable home for those who run away from oppression and tyranny in search of freedom and liberty. And now you, the son of a Scottish mother and a first generation German American father, want to eliminate the greatest quality, IMMIGRATION, that makes OUR nation GREAT and UNIQUE. Your political positions of preventing Muslim Immigrants from entering USA, putting Muslim Americans under surveillance, and building wall between USA and Mexico show that either you are a racist who lacks real understanding of the American History or a political panderer.  It is an insult to the legacy of Ronald Reagan when you try to emulate him. Ronald Regan did not build a wall but brought down a wall. Please do not belittle the PRESIDENT who made possible for me to immigrate to this great nation by comparing your megalomaniac and narcissist self. YOU ARE NOT, CANNOT, AND WILL NOT BE RONALD REGAN.

Mr. Trump, your candidacy created disbelief among Americans that a reality show host can reach to the extent of knocking the door of the White House. The world is laughing at us how on earth that a person known to put his name on everything to make a buck can manage to become the Presidential nominee of a major party in USA. What the world doesn’t know is that the Republican Party is not a major party anymore but a minor Party catering to white supremacists and their cohorts. It is a party that promotes racial, ethnic, and religious division among Americans. It is a party that tries to put wedge between the police officers and the minorities in the time of crisis than building bridges. Republican Party is the party that tries to control a woman’s womb rather than recognizing that a woman has the same right as any conservative man. Republican Party is a party that blames the people in the poor inner cities for their condition rather than recognizing the economic disparity, inequality, and the lack of opportunity that is rampant in the poor sections of America. Poverty breeds desperation and hopelessness that translates into criminal activities. Republican Party’s mission is to hold the White House by any means necessary by Blaming Obama and Hillary Clinton for the misjudgment and screw up of their party thirteen years ago. Who invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? It is not Democratic Party or Obama or Clinton. It is the Republican Party. Obama and Clinton busted themselves to correct the stupid mistakes of the war mongering Republican Party. Now you and your unrepentant racist Party shamelessly try to blame Clinton and Democratic Party. Give me a break. Don’t blame Clinton and Obama for the Republican Drama. There is no greater liar than you and the Republican Party. You and the Republican Party have become the greatest Dividers of the American people by exploiting human tragedies and crisis for the political gain. You all are liars. They say a leopard can’t change its spots. It seems the same goes for increasingly lying Trump and the Republican Party.

Mr. Trump, it is not my cup of tea to impose my religious belief on others or to judge them for their religiosity. It is between them and their God. But when I see a religious pandering as you do with the Evangelists, it boils my blood. It makes me angry when you lie openly to the true Evangelists as if you are one. You are not a frequent churchgoer and I doubt if you really pray. But you go on the podium and lie about something you do not practice often in order to get a vote. You play with religious emotion of the true Evangelists. A guy who is married three times cannot be trusted on religious issue and being truthful. You are a FAKER.

Mr. Trump, you always talk and boast about your business acumen and success. Yes, you did well for yourself and your family. You unabashedly highlight your deal making ability wherever there is microphone or camera. Those business success and deal making ability have become your selling points to convince the American people to vote you into the Presidency.  Let me remind you about your business start. You are not from rags to riches as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Mark Cuban, Oprah Winfrey, or Larry Ellison and others who created their respective businesses from scratch to multibillions. You grew up in riches and inherited the money and the connections from your father. So it is laughable when you incessantly talk about your riches and successes. Believe you me that if most of Americans had the inheritance like you, they would be as rich as you if not more. You try to present yourself as a great business builder so that innocent and genial supporters of yours to buy into your hollow slogan of Make America Great Again. How fools they can be about the pointless slogan. You let your corporations file for chapter 11 bankruptcies four times on the expense of taxpaying Americans.  Your great deal making ability is disputing your bills from your contractors you have hired and then force them to negotiate the final figure down on finished products and works.  Your business success is wrangling over prices agreed upon before the end of jobs and squeezing some more money out of your contractors and workers. How many small contractors and businessmen were put out of business because of your greediness? You know very well what a cheater you are. Plainly speaking your success comes by the way of exploiting the legal system and cheating small contractors out of their legitimate payables. Is your plan for Making America Great Again refusing to pay what the nation owes to other countries or squeezing some percentage out of them? So your boastful narrative about your riches and successes becomes a very boring thing indicating how you feel inadequate about yourself. You do not have what it takes to be the President of our great Nation. America needs a leader with respect for others, not puffed up with conceit as you are. America needs a leader who is a Democrat Not Plutocrat.

Mr. Trump, observing your candidacy for the highest elected political position, the Presidency of the United States of America, I could not witness any rational and tangible policy or policies regarding the complicated and complex issues concerning our country except the hollow sounding slogan of yours. Since you embarked on the presidential candidacy’s train, the only whistle that the nation hears is insulting and name-calling your opponents, in addition to promoting your name and your family business. I did not know that the requirement to be a Presidential candidate of this great nation is to be remorseless liar, immoral, obnoxious, loud, rude, insulting, classless, and disrespectful to people. I never expected that the platform of the republican party wanted its Presidential candidate to be anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, misogyny, and racist which you happen to be.  When did the American people avoid issue oriented arguments and embrace the idea of supporting an ignorant, loud mouthed, three times married, tabloid newspaper quoting, and the Pope disrespecting megalomaniac demagogue?

Mr. Trump, since you took the mantle of the presumptive presidential nominee of the Obama -hating Greatest Obstructionist Party (GOP), you continuously call Hilary Clinton names rather arguing on issues that affect the nation.  Mrs. Hillary Clinton always talks on the issues.  She presents solutions for the political, social, and economical problems which keep the nation concerned. Your answers are personal insults and an empty slogan because you do not have the knowledge of the issues and the intellectual acumen to analyze and decipher the complicated and complex national and global issues. Anybody including this writer can say that we will Make America Great Again. Your ten-year-old son can say that. But the elephant in the room is the question “How?” The next President of the United States of America, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, has repeatedly put forward her working plans and solutions for issues presented. Your answers to the problems facing our nation are calling people such as low energy Jeb, little Marco, lying Ted, 1 for 38 Kasich, crooked Hillary, crazy Bernie, goofy Elizabeth Warren, etc.  If you think that talking trash and demeaning your opponents can win you the presidency, you must be the greatest fool and idiotic political candidate. You may say whatever adjective you want now on twitter, interviews, RNC convention and campaigns.  You are for the battle of your life when you face her, the dynamic, knowledgeable, and very smart Hillary Clinton, on the debate podium in front of millions of Americans.  I feel sorry for those who support you. Nothing substantive and reasonable thoughts come out of your mouth except incoherent sentences and phrases just made up of unrelated and meaningless words. These are the testaments for your ignorance on issues, lack of understanding of the causes and effects of issues, and lack of intelligence how to formulate the approach to find solutions for the national and international political and social problems.  Sometimes it seems to me that you think that you are entitled to be President because you are rich and multibillionaire. You may have a day dream that by telling the world repeatedly like a parrot about your wealth and being a multibillionaire will make people vote for you because they may buy into your sale pitch. The sale pitch which resulted in the demise of Trump University, Trump Mortgage, Trump Airline, Trump beverages, Trump The Game, Trump Casinos, Trump Magazine, Trump Steaks, Trump’s Travel site, Trump comms Company, Trump Tower Tampa, and Trump Vodka, will not work on intelligent and thinking Americans. The sale pitch which resulted in four chapter 11 bankruptcies will not convince rational and logical Americans to be victims of your megalomania and narcissism. Running a huge government of the number one nation in the world is not building a high-rise building of steel, concrete, and glass. Administering a single corporation cannot and will not be a path to the Presidency of the United States of America. In fact, those who run corporations are like third world dictators and tyrannical leaders. People who were Presidents and CEOs of Corporations incline to have the mentality and temperament of dictators -I-know-all-and- am-the savior attitude. You can ask your campaign manager, Paul Manafort, how dictators rule. He was the image maker of the Angolan rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi. Your Manager, Paul Manafort, was beneficiary of blood money by lobbying for the worst dictators, fascistic and tyrannical leaders in the world such as Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, Siad Barre of Somalia, Mobutu Sese  Seko of Zaire, and other Human rights abusing nations. He recently worked with the dictator of Ukraine for money in spite of the human rights abuse that Paul Manfort witnessed in Ukraine.  You hired this man with blood in his hand and the blood money in his bank account to get you to the dreamland of the Presidency of the United States of America.  You, little handed, crooked, lying, goofy, crazy, megalomaniac, and narcissistic plutocrat, will never become the President of our great nation.  You can take that to the bank.

Mr. Trump, it is so sad that you ended up to be the Presidential Nominee of the Obama-hating Greatest Obstructive Party (Obama -hating GOP). Your ascendency to the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party demonstrates the self-inflicted wound of the party by catering to the racist wing of the society. As a result, you, an individual 16 years ago who was courting the Reform Party, took advantage of the narratives of the confused and clueless Republican Party to become its candidate and causing damage to its integrity and identity. For that I tip off my hat to you. But you do not deserve a place in the respected White House and History Book of the United States of America.

Mr. Trump, What about the RNC Convention?  It resembles the get together of drunken uncles after the wedding party. What the 2016 RNC showed the whole world is that the Republican Party has become the party of indecency, immorality, liars, and political whores. The republican Party looks like a party just formed by directionless dumb and erratic political screwballs to vilify Mrs. Hillary Clinton as if the election is on the referendum of Mrs. Clinton. The election is on the issues which this miserable party could not grasp to articulate. If you and the racist and misogyny Republican Party think that you will win the mind and heart of the great American majority by name-calling, prosecuting, mocking, and uttering calumnies against Mrs. Hillary Clinton, you should be the most idiotic and moronic candidate who is dragging the Republican Party into oblivion. Rather presenting and focusing on solutions to the issue oriented problems which affect the nation, you and the identity lacking Republican Party has taken the high road of insult, nastiness, and defamation of the highly talented, experienced, knowledgeable, and absolutely ready for the Presidency Democratic candidate. The accusations and character assassinations thrown towards Mrs. Hillary Clinton night after night by your lying and indecent ass-kissing surrogates demonstrate the emptiness and desperation of the Republican Party, and show how you are bankrupt in proposing solutions to the issues. Your formula of winning election is stating lies about Mrs. Clinton, and dehumanizing her because you and the party do not have practical and achievable solutions but empty slogans and fear mongering about immigrants and ISIS. You never presented how you can defeat ISIS except by saying that you will be the president of law and order. The Convention is not making America great but building Trump name and your children future ambition as politicians. It is not about American people but it is about the Trump’s progeny and how to cultivate for the future Trump’s American political dynasty. In search of relevance to your name, you mercilessly damaged the pointless racist and misogyny Republican Party. For the last twenty-five years, the only mission of Republican Party has been to vilify the Democratic Party, the Clintons, and the first Black President and First Lady of the United States of America in addition dividing Americans by race, color, religion, economical status, and locations (cities and rural). The Republican Party thinks that it has the monopoly of American patriotism. United States of America is the United Shades of Americans inclusive of all races, colors, religions, economical status, city and rural Americans. Dividing Americans for personal and political benefits is the worst UNAMERICAN AND IMMORAL THING.

Mr. Trump, you repeatedly showed how inconsistent you are regarding your positions on issues and policies. You are like a fish out of water jumping in all directions being confused of not knowing what direction to go. Your responses to policy questions on a given time are very contradicting and gibberish with excuse of being unpredictable and not telling the enemies what you are going to do. This kind of response is an excuse and cover up for lack of knowledge on national and international affairs. It manifests your lack of readiness for the Presidency. We all know that your close advisors are your children and their spouses. Nobody takes away their business success of your oldest boys and daughter through inheritance from you. But they do not have the knowledge and understanding when it comes to governing a nation. How can you get advice from them on issues important to the nation? What do they know about the plight of the inner city Americans? How do they relate to the poor and middle class Americans? They grew up shielded from homelessness, poverty, hunger, lack of money, and other economic hardships.  Saying that people who grew up [n abundance of wealth with maids serving them and doormen bowing to twenty-four hours a day understand the pain and plights of the regular Americans is preposterous statement. Assuming that people who grew up with silver spoon in their mouth and being chauffeured around all their lives can feel the day to day struggle of ordinary Americans living from pay check to pay check sounds a cruel joke directed at the majority of Americans. It is understandable that no child badmouths her/his parent. It is expected that a child has to make a parent saintlier than the real saints. The Trump children have accomplished their obligation of building their dad as superman and this perfect mythical figure which this earth has ever seen before. It would have been nice if they had made you a human with flaws like the rest of us. But it is politics and understandable because their future political ambitions rely on the success of your candidacy. In all those speeches of your kids, the long term plan of the Trump family is how to pave the rough road of politics and to catapult the Trump children on the political ladder of our country to reach the highest office in order to establish the Trump dynasty. The same goes for the parent too. What kind of experience do they have to advise you how to feel empathy and sympathy to those unfortunate and disenfranchised Americans? It is easy to demagogue and play with emotions of desperate and disillusioned people. Let alone your kids, you, Donald Trump Sr., do not have a clue how to relate to the majority of Americans and find what they feel and want except lying to them for their vote. By hiring Paul Manafort, a corrupt and undignified lobbyist and image consultant of the worst dictators and fascistic leaders in the world, cannot and will not make you a palatable President of USA. Americans deserve thinking CLEAN TONE than barking TRUMPERY ONE.

Mr. Trump, I can go on litigating your political pandering, behavior, demeanor, lack of intelligence, incoherence of your speeches, your continuous insult of the Media pointing out your mental lapses and unforced errors and flaws, opponents, and whomever you disagree with. Your reckless temperament scares the rational people of our nation and those around the world. You are unfit to be the President of this great nation of ours called USA.

Mr. Trump, the following eleven points express you as no good prospect to be the President.

1. Disrespecting the Pope
2. Offending Muslims
3. Narcissistic Behavior
4. Abusing Minorities
5. Lying Continuously
6. Disparaging POW and Veterans
7. Threatening Immigrants and Immigration
8. Ridiculing Women
9. Unscrupulousness and being crooked

10.Making fun of Disabled

11.Pandering to People’s emotions

Mr. Trump, go back and listen to your speech accepting presidential nomination. You were blabbering and throwing word vomits which you have been repeating since you jumped into fray of politics. You never presented any plan and policy. By prosecuting President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, you think that you can win election. What a disastrous and incoherent lacking substance filled with hollow slogans speech accepting presidential nomination.

Mr. Trump, in addition to your undignified character and unfit temperament, you absolutely lack the necessary knowledge that can guide you to govern this great nation. You have not presented any tangible and concrete solutions for the political, economic, and social problems facing our nation and the rest of the world. You can throw out rhyming slogans to pander to people emotions. Being a candidate of the Law and Order does not bring law and order. Still you avoid to answer the question “How?”. I know why. You do not want the enemies to know what you plan. What a joke you are. I feel sorry for the people who buy your shtick. You do not have any plan for America, but for yourself and your children’s future political ambitions. Your focus is on Trump and his family and what you can bring to benefit the Trump brand, not America and Americans. So the perception you created as businessman to fool average Americans is the work of a snake oil salesman, and AMERICANS DO NOT WANT SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AS THEIR PRESIDENT. AMERICA NEEDS CLEAN TONE NOT TRUMPERY ONE.

God Bless America.

ESAT Ethiopian News Washington DC July, 22, 2016

It is very promising to see that the people of Ethiopia finally coming to common sense of terms as to how to deal with a dictatorial regime which seems only listen to the people by losing rather than soothing. For the last 25 years, TPLF/EPRDF had been enjoying the disconnection of the people of Ethiopia by TPLF’s rhetoric of deception, false promissory note to the poor, and flip flopping to stay in power term after term in every election season.

It is a factual conclusion that TPLF/EPRDF comes to power after a long civil war,  which the Ethiopian people get frustrated with  fighting Eritrean rebel force (EPLF) in Eritrea, hopping that anyone who comes to power after the Military ruler will provide the Ethiopian people at least basic freedoms, rights and economic justice. For the last 25 years, the TPLF regime had been robbing tremendous resources from the Ethiopian people to impose its economic power, under the pretext of reconstruction which at times many Ethiopians did not dear to oppose, not because of the fact that the party (TPLF) has come to power by choice, rather by the fact that TPLF contributed a lion share in toppling Mengistu.

Many of the spectators who supported the regime in every means necessary to hold its feet to the ground had been also closely watching if the model of ethnic Federalism really works or fails. If it succeeds, to export the model to other countries for implementation, and if it fails to immediately control and minimize the negative outcome. The country had been literarily became a virtual lab of Ethnic federalism.  Unfortunately, its success and practicality is not proven mainly because of the following major reasons:

1. The temptation of the TPLF to control regional states economic resources by limitless interference into affairs of regional governments make the Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia untested. Because most strategic decision for regional governments are made at the center by Federal government and not by regional governments, which clearly show no power sharing.
2. Absence of historical democratic political culture that motivates citizens to react aggressively to change undisciplined government in unisons.
3. Complications emerged in regional politics which makes outside political actors to look for dictators that can be used as a shield of fear politics, rather than standing firm in support of democracy, which of course the outcome is witnessed to be unintended consequence.
4. The failure of the opposition political parties, until recently, before the emergence of MEDRK, to choose meaningful leadership space to unify the Ethiopian people to act in unison and create alternative political force to challenge government, most political groups tag themselves with ethnic politics, the very survival political platform (model) introduced by the TPLF regime itself to prolong its survival and defuse public cohesion among citizens.

Signs of despair:

The TPLF regime is swallowed in cloud of fear, and biting every innocent citizen, in an attempt to foil public anger and frustration. It is trying to use every means possible to detract public attention from mounting pressure and anger to confront the regime, by sending its old political prostitutes in and out to test the move. Although so many things can be said about the regime that keeps the basic rights of 90 Million people hostage, the opposition camp and the people of Ethiopia need to look back onto its past and fix weaknesses, rather than wasting time on blaming the brutality of the regime, which could have been demolished long time ago had Ethiopians acted in unisons and common sense politics of inclusion.  The regime lost sense of government as a responsible institution and acting like a child that cries without reasonable cause, poising itself like a gang losing a battle. Most wise leaders know best times moving out than moving in.

The regime is fueling violence in neighboring countries, and becoming a major make of State terror headquarter, to show its importance over other counties, which are playing meaningful peace keeping missions across Africa. This can be clearly evidenced by the current systemic and calculated ambush happened to the Kenyan battalion in Somalia, to systematically evict Kenyan solders from Somalia, and to manifest Ethiopian Army as the absolute alternative to the international donors to siphon international dollars for troops funding, and to divert attention of the international community from the current human rights abuses at home. The regime is the making and fuelling crisis, to keep itself in lucrative crisis business, and instigating unnecessary clashes to keep itself in business, rather than accomplishing its job as a responsible state institution, mandated working towards lasting peace. This same tactic is applied in South Sudan, where the rebel groups and the Government of south Sudan had been negotiating in the capital Addis Ababa, for over a month, which incurred close to a Million dollar hotel bill, which could have been a two years budget for the country.

Urgent Actions Needed and Opportunities:

It is evident that the TPLF government is involved in outrageous abuse of human right, and the act of atrocity is evidenced by international community, and media out lets. As a principle of pre-screening deployment for any solder/s, for any peace keeping mission, the United Nation (UN) body has the primary responsibility to ensure that any solder or solders that deployed for the peace keeping mission is free of such historical record of abuses. As evidenced by the current atrocity, and blatant unreserved human right abuse and violation of basic freedoms in its own county, and on its own citizens, no Nation should admit any such solders, which lacks proper basic training to respect human right to get deployed for such level of honorable mission, which needs the highest standard of discipline. Therefore, the United Nations, must take a though investigation into this matter, and send investigative team to Ethiopia, to explore genocide currently unfolding in the country. The unholy silence of International Community and its inaction to make meaningful reasonable remedial intervention to resolve a crisis of such large scale, while well informed, is below standard and manifestation of unprofessionalism, which draws reasonable suspicions on all Ethiopians, as to the impartiality, and integrity of the UN body that meant to act as a watch dog of basic freedoms. The worst failure of responsibility is to desperately attempt to use irresponsibles.   

“Oromo Protests” in line with National Quest for freedom and basic rights of All Ethiopians:

Our Nation is witnessing a greatest move in defending basic freedoms and sizeable opportunities, recently and at the same time opportunity to work on the rest of the assignments overlooked to get things done together. There is no movement in our Nation’s history that symbolizes people’s quest for basic freedoms, and rights than the Oromo Protests, just simply because it is initiated by the very victim- The Oromo people itself, and other Nations and Nationalities in Ethiopia. This is the great opportunity for both stake holders- the Oromo people, who is demanding and in defense of their basic rights and freedoms on the one hand, and other citizens of Ethiopia, who need to maintain and build a much better union on the other hand. Active participation of all citizens in the process is not only the remedial action to change the current status quo, but also an opportunity to create a strong Ethiopia, and better future to change our political culture and create a better perfect union. No citizens spared of death, abuse and humiliation by the current Ethiopian regime and it must end by concerted effort of all Ethiopians. A change is good change if all finds themselves in the process and build reasonable confidence in the future. Therefore Ethiopians should and must act in unisons to put an end to injustice by common and concerted actions, and show utmost level of determination to put this call into actions.

Conclusion:

Our political leadership should not be gauged by how deep we dig the grave of history, rather how strong we build the future of our country. All the ethnic and non-ethnic political parties in the country should be and must be willing to work together by eliciting innovative leadership models, by coming together and engage in politics of compromise and act in unisons to demolish the long lasted era of robbery in our nation’s history, and should foil systemic distancing of regional parties from the central power, by miss characterizing their political agendas and limiting their demands to regional levels.

Opposition political groups have to form unifying political campaign coordination committee to pull the public opinion together, and act in the domain of public interest, to woo their electorates, manifest capable leadership, and show their alternative position, and rebuild public confidence. This action will be an excellent lesson for the ruling body not to use any preemptive actions on political parties regardless of their strength or weakness of the. Those political groups who are shying away from engaging themselves in centric politics, because of their past historical political stance should and need to turn the page, because the ruling party is trying to use the euphoria of these groups as an opportunity to miss characterize their intention and political obsolescence, and wants to show itself as the best alternative, by playing a game of fear politics. If we do all we do together, the Ethiopian people will shrink the power space of the TPLF/EPRDF in much faster speed than the regime anticipated. Let us be leaders who defeat the past and win the future.

Winners are those who judged by the people!

OFC-ISG, June 10, 2016

Voice of meret Ethio- Israel weekly news july 24 2016

By Amanuel Biedemariam,

Washington is a key ally and number one supporter of the minority regime ruling Ethiopia with brute force.

Following the death of the late dictator Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the Obama administration was intent on ensuring continuity by giving full support to Hailemariam Desalegn. On April 24, 2012, President Barack Obama called Desalegn personally to advertise his unequivocal support, to assure world leaders that Washington is confident and to ward-off internal challenges.

Meles Zenawi was the perfect agent that funnelled their agendas. His death was personal for US officials as he was close confidant and faithful agent. A New York Times op-ed described Susan Rice’s eulogy at Zenawi’s funeral as follows,

“ON Sept. 2, Ambassador Susan E. Rice delivered a eulogy for a man she called “a true friend to me.” Before thousands of mourners and more than 20 African heads of state in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ms. Rice, the United States’ representative to the United Nations, lauded the country’s late prime minister, Meles Zenawi, She called him “brilliant” — “a son of Ethiopia and a father to its rebirth.”

The opinion further articulates,

“Few eulogies give a nuanced account of the decedent’s life, but the speech was part of a disturbingpattern for an official who could become President Obama’s next secretary of state. During her career, she has shown a surprising and unsettling sympathy for Africa’s despots.’’

The New York Times is being kind to Rice. Susan Rice’s hand is soaked with blood in Rwanda, Eritrea – Ethiopia war and Libya to mention some.

Certain that Susan Rice cannot pass congressional scrutiny to succeed Secretary Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State, President Obama appointed Rice to his National Security team and gave her prominence and unhindered access.

Due to her past engagement with Africa, Rice can act as expert and influence African matters particularly Ethiopia based on her narrow outlook that has been deadly to Africa for decades.

The Obama administration was and remains the primary supporter of a regime that claimed to have won 100% of votes and won the 2015 election. The people of Ethiopia were enraged when Susan Rice laughed at Ethiopia’s regime 100% election victory claim and called it ‘democratic‘.

This clearly demonstrates that Washington policy for the region has been directed through the prism of the Ethiopian regime at the expense the people.

The problem is that the Ethiopian regime worked against the interest of the people of Ethiopia and the region. As a result, the people of Ethiopia have been campaigning and lobbying Washington to change its approach, denounce the atrocities, urge the regime to be accountable to the people and hold the regime accountable for its actions to no avail. Instead, Washington kept parroting the regime’s false claims of progress, stability and democratic advances to the detriment of the future of Ethiopia and the region

Ethiopia in Danger of Civil War

Where is Ethiopia today? Ethiopia is on a verge of civil war and ready to collapse. And the template for the breakup of the country was set by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). When TPLF took power in 1991, the first major objective was to write a constitution that divided Ethiopia based on ethnicity. The constitution, Article 39, goes further to give rights to any of the ethnic groups the right to ‘Self-Determination’ to the point of independence.

The complications arose when the minority regime from Tigray (region that represent 6% of the entire Ethiopian population) asserted control over the rest of Ethiopia’s 90 million people for it created unsustainable imbalance to the detriment of the future of the country.

The Tigrayan dominated minority regime controls the military, the economy, the political power backed with full diplomatic support from the US and EU. The US and EU promote and protect the regime from international scrutiny for its human rights abuses.

The TPLF and its surrogates are the number one investors inside Ethiopia. Ill-gotten aid money, Ethiopia’s revenue streams and international development assistance are diverted to benefit the regime and use the moneys and resources to control the nation. Few from the clique control the vast riches of the country and the regime has investments in Oromia, Gambela, Ogaden, Afar, Amhara and all over Ethiopia.

They control Ethiopia with brutality that is uncharacteristic of the cultures in the region. They have committed genocides in Gambela, Ogaden, Amhara, Benishangul and other places. They are committing atrocities with impunity while Washington officials and EU were being made aware every step of the way. Ethiopians have been campaigning to draw attention with demonstrations and other campaigns for over 20 years.

Hence, and after 25 years of oppression the people of Ethiopia came to the conclusion that the regime is not in any way representative of the people and, concluded that the regime is the enemy of the people. They also concluded that there is no nation that will come to their aid.

After successive rigged elections, after countless peaceful demonstrations that were met with brute force with the regime’s forces directly shooting at innocent unarmed demonstrators, after thousands of decenters and opposition leaders got jailed and no one stood for them; they gave up on the international community. As a result Ethiopians are taking up arms everywhere to defend their lives and livelihood.

Furthermore, the federal arrangement that the minority regime created based on ethnicity has become the fault-line for the breakup of the nation. Today every ethnic group is fighting the TPLF regime separately. They are fighting for their rights, fighting for land the TPLF forcefully took, fighting for their identity and some are fighting forindependence. Above all they are fighting for their life.

There are several groups fighting the regime. While Arbegnoch-Ginbot 7 (AG7) is fighting without ethnic banner for united approach; the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the Afar People’s Liberation Movement (APLM) and the Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM) are fighting separately to defeat the regime. That means absent of a united approach Ethiopia can and will implode.

The last five months the Oromia region was in revolt and over the last three weeks the people of Gondar in theAmhara region started to resist. These are locals arming and organizing as militias to protect themselves from the regime’s brute forces.

In “Julius Caesar”, Shakespeare speaking in the character of Mark Antony warned about the looming civil war that is likely to paralyze Italy following the death of Caesar:

… And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
…

Blowhard Trump blew his dog whistle loudly as he accepted his coronation to become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate:

I am your voice.

I have a message for all of you:

The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life.

The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.

The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total of 2015.

[Illegal immigrants] are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.

Our trade deficit is $800 hundred billion dollars. Think of that. $800 billion last year alone. We will fix that.

The budget is no better. President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing.

Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in third world condition.

In Libya, our consulate, the symbol of American prestige around the globe was brought down in flames.

America is far less safe and the world is far less stable than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.

This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: Death, destruction and terrorism and weakness.

“I am your voice,” bellowed Trump.

Vox Trump, vox Dei, vox populi! (The voice of Trump is the voice of God is the voice of the people!)

In his convention speech in Cleveland, Trump declared his war of words on the on the truth and facts, on the  American Constitution, on decency even in dirty politics and on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Trump declared a virtual civil war.

The battle cry at the Republican convention was lynch Hillary Clinton.

“Build the wall!” growled, howled and moaned the Trumpistas.

It was Apocalypse Now at the Republican Convention.

A Trump  advisor  and a New Hampshire state representative cried Havoc! and issued a death warrant to lynch “Hillary Clinton [who] should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.” He later  added  “As far as I’m concerned, it is treason and the penalty for treason is the firing squad ― or maybe it’s the electric chair now.”

“Brother” Ben Carson (a/k/a Dr. Clueless-‘bout-politics, the same guy who said, “Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to our country since slavery.”) came unhinged as he literally demonized Hillary  Clinton.

Carson proclaimed Hillary is a follower of Saul Alinsky, the author of “a book called Rules for Radicals. On the dedication page, it acknowledges Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom. So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model someone who acknowledges Lucifer?”  (No! I don’t know on which planet in the Andromeda Galaxy Carson spends most of his time when he is not dabbling in voodoo Republican politics.)

Saul Alinsky is the legendary community organizer who in the post-WW II period worked to improve  conditions in the African-American ghettos and poor communities from Chicago  to N.Y. City to Los Angeles.

Alinsky’s path breaking book “Rules for Radicals” is regarded as the “bible for community organizing”.

The late conservative intellectual icon William Buckley (the man singularly responsible for laying groundwork for the new American conservatism) once described  Alinsky as “twice formidable, and very close to being an organizational genius.”

Obviously, Carson was trying in his cluelessly inimitable way to characterize Hillary Clinton as a she-devil, a radical American  Jezebel.

The list of Republican “leaders” (I did not say repub-lunatics)  calling for the tarring and feathering of Hillary included the gourmand N.J. governor Chris Christie who frothed at the mouth criminalizing, dehumanizing and demonizing Hillary Clinton on behalf of the “law and order candidate”.

Christie belched out, “In Syria and Libya: guilty. In China and Syria: guilty. And here at home for risking America’s secrets to keep her own.”

The Trump-aryans at the Convention were frothing at the mouth bow-wowing  “Havoc!”:  “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!”

Iowa Republican representative Steve King waxed eloquent on white supremacy and the singular contribution of white people to human civilization to the exclusion of all others: “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about, where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization [than white people]?”

Truth be told, Trump’s vilification victims were not merely foes from the other party and sundry minorities. Trump did not spare his republican brethren who refused to endorse or publicly support him. Trump berated Ohio Governor John Kasich and other  party leaders, senators and governors who were no-shows at the Convention and the “dump Trump” delegates. After the Convention, Trump regretted not having the delegates  “rip” Cruz “off  the stage.”

Was the 2016 Republican Convention Trump’s call to arms for a second American civil war?

Is Trump trying to provoke an ethnio-religious and race war with his inflammatory lies about “taking  our country back” from African  Americans, Muslima,  Jews, immigrants, women, labor unions and other Untermenschen in his presidential bid?

Trump’s dog whistles[1] were about an apocalyptic America that is in the process of total self-destruction.

From the day Trump declared his candidacy, he has been talking about death and destruction in America:

We got $18 trillion in debt. We got nothing but problems … We’re dying. We’re dying. We need money … We have losers. We have people that don’t have it. We have people that are morally corrupt. We have people that are selling this country down the drain … The American dream is dead.

For months, Trump has been plying his dog whistle politics but he is only the latest presidential candidate to do so.

For over four decades, the Republican Party has been played dog whistle politics. They have been promising to enforce “law and order” (code for crackdown on African Americans).   They have been pledging to “dismantle the new deal state” (code for significantly cutting back Medicare, Medicaid,  Social Security and eliminating Obama Care) and “cut taxes” (code for using government to enrich the already fabulously rich).  They have ranted and raved against “illegal aliens” (code for immigrants, especially Latinos, as criminals) and more recently vowed to fight against “Sharia law” (code to arouse fear of Muslim people spreading terrorism).

Ronald Reagan used the imagery of the “welfare queen” to depict poor black women sucking the social welfare system dry.

In 1986, George H. W. Bush used the Willie Horton dog whistle (a black convict serving life for murder on furlough) tying Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis to the “revolving door” of the criminal justice system.

The Republican push for “voter identification” laws over the past few years has been all about keeping poor African Americans and Hispanics from voting. Just this past week Republicans in Virginia sued Democrat Governor Terry McCauliffe for exercising his “clemency power en masse” restoring to  former felons the right to vote.

There is little difference between the Republican dog whistles of yesteryears and Trump’s.  The only difference is Trump’s dog whistle has been heard and apparently embraced by a certain segment of the Republican Party which voted to make his the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump was precisely the charlatan demagogue H.L. Mencken warned us about in his book Notes on Democracy (1926) [an absolute must read for anyone interested in taking a hard look at American democracy]. Mencken warned Americans against the kind of empty-headed snake oil politician who would preach pseudo-patriotism “Make America Great Again!”

Nearly one hundred years ago, Mencken saw the trajectory of American presidential politics.

Mencken (the “sage of Baltimore”, the “Voltaire of America”) did not think much about American politicians or voters for that matter. He thought the American political process was populated in the main with quacks and charlatans. He believed American voters were easy prey for the demagogue “who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” Mencken observed that demagogues “not only know how to arouse the fears of the mob; they also know how to awaken its envy, its dislike of privilege, its hatred of its betters.”

Mencken had a cynical view of the American voter whom he believed had little interest in liberty and  “is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. He longs for the warm, reassuring smell of the herd, and is willing to take the herdsman with it.” Consequently, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

In prophetic language Mencken observed, “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

One cannot imagine a greater moron than Donald Trump, a creature of make-believe reality television telling actors they are fired, potentially adorning the White House.

Donald Trump’s demagoguery of fear and smear, racism, xenophobia, misogyny and bold-faced lies in his acceptance speech confirm Mencken’s warning about the advent of the moron American president.

But Trump is a dangerous demagogic moron. He clothes his racism with “populism”. But he is quintessentially a neo-fascist. He talks about an America in crises and decline, a dystopia ridden by crime, violence and poverty. He wants to convince Americans  that America is Apocalypse Now.

Trump reverberates neo-fascist propaganda in his bogus and exaggerated claims of an America  humiliated on the international scene, his glorification of American imperial power and violent domination of the world, his promised crackdown on racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants and contempt for constitutional government. Trump wants to channel racial, ethnic and religious hatred into a political campaign and program in his efforts to ascend to the presidency.

Trump’s solution to an apocalyptic America is to issue a proclamation and promise “to all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns: “We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again!”

To advance his neo-fascist campaign, Trump has followed Joseph Goebbels’ prescription to the letter:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

The big question now is whether a real live moron will adorn the White House in 2016.

The big question now is whether a 229-year old constitutional government can weather threat of a neo-fascist moron adorning the White House.

Mencken had a ready answer for that:

No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.

In other words, “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

Mencken explained, “The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.”

Who can save the American people from the Trump Folly?

Hillary Clinton, of course!

Save the last great hope of humanity from Trumpinsanity!

[1] Dog whistle political messaging involves the use of “coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.”

A volunteer from East Barnet has rubbed shoulders with government ministers from around the world in helping shape the future of girls’ education.

Adey Muchie, 28, from Linden Road, East Barnet, spent three months in India where she led a team of volunteers in a project to educate people about better hygiene and sanitation

And as a result of her experience and knowledge, she was chosen to attend he British Government’s first ever Girls’ Education Forum – along with former Australian Prime Julia Gillard, and Justine Greening, the new education secretary (then in post as International Development Secretary).

Adey said: “When I was in India I saw first-hand how difficult it can be for girls to get a good education. Girls were often encouraged to marry young, and this took priority over education. Education is costly and so sometimes parents see it as a more worthwhile investment to pay for their sons’ education. This was largely down to the crippling effects of poverty.

“The world will only improve when women are afforded fair treatment, education, access to health and have full understanding of their human rights.”

Adey took part in workshops and round table discussions about how governments can improve girls’ access to education and ensure all girls are empowered to achieve their full potential.

The forum, held in London last week, also involved ministers from countries including Tanzania and Afghanistan.

It was staged by the government’s Department for International Development, in partnership with the Global Citizen community, The Chime for Change campaign and the international development charity VSO.

Source- www.pottersbar-today.co.uk

Michelle Obama’s stunning convention speech: ‘When they go low, we go high’

Video 1

Video 2

‘We shall not be ruled by Woyane’ protesters in Oromia, Ethiopia

By Nardos Yoseph

Uncollected garbage litters many of Addis Abeba’s streets , such as on Kenya St, as waste disposal issues grapple the Administration

Addis Abeba’s solid waste has now been piling-up across neighbourhoods in the city for the past 10 days, after the Sanitation Administration Agency failed to pick up the capital’s trash.

Farmers in Berke Wereda, Oromia Special Zone, where Sendafa Landfill, the new waste disposal and recycling centre of the city, is located, refuse to allow garbage to be dumped in the area.

Sendafa Landfill, which was built by VINCI Grands Projets, a French construction company, with over 337 million Br, rests on 137ha of land. It is designed to provide waste management services for over 3.5 million residents of the capital and 195,255 residents of the Oromia special zones, particularly – Sululta, Lege Tafo, Burayu, Sebeta and Gelan.

On average, a person in Addis Abeba generates 2.1 cubic metres of trash a day. The city’s government plans to collect over 3.1 million cubic metres a year.

Back in 2014, when the municipality had just completed the feasibility study, the Solid Waste Recycling and Disposal project Office’s (RDPO) communications head, Tsegaye Hailu, told Fortune that the farmers were relocated from the area after being paid 25 million Br in compensation, taking into consideration the 10-year potential output of their farms.

However, farmers who live nearby the landfill are blocking the disposal of any trash collected from the city, according to the Agency.

Sendafa was chosen as a replacement for the 50-year-old Rappi dumping ground – a 25ha landfill commonly known as Koshe. This former landfill was deemed by the Addis Abeba City Solid Waste Management system as no longer viable, eluding to the lack of fence, odour or vector control, weigh bridge and daily cover of soil. The site had up to 300 waste pickers a day, while having the high potential for nuisance and health hazard for people living nearby.

The new landfill, which has a life expectancy of three decades, has a fence, 9.5km of asphalt road, a weigh bridge and four transformation sites: Reppi, Akaki, Filidero and Bole Arabsa. These areas are now being considered by the Agency as alternative sites for the city’s garbage.

The Agency’s 610 small primary garbage collecting micro and small enterprises, with a total of 6,500 members, have not been providing their usual door-to-door services to over 500,000 households in the city. The other disposal method offered by the Agency, garbage dumpsters, had over a thousand completely full with more trash thrown all around them.

“It has been two weeks since any garbage collector enterprise reached our doors; we pay 400Br for two days for garbage collectors who we do not know,” said Kassahun Fekad, manager of the Abesha Bar & Restaurant located on Debrezeit Road – a place commonly known as Adey Abeba.

A janitor who works in a hotel on Gabon St also had concerns about the city’s garbage collection.

“The price of these unknown garbage collectors is overrated and God knows where they will be dumping all that trash they take from our gates,” he said. “That is of course if you are lucky enough to get one of them to turn up.”

Though the Sandafa Landfill was reported to recycle 1,200 tonnes of solid waste every day, 70pc of the city’s garbage goes to the dump. The Agency’s report during the current fiscal year stated that 60pc of solid waste is biodegradable, while the rest cannot be recycled.

Another resident of the city, Worknesh Melkamu, a housewife in her early 50s, told Fortune that the situation is really disturbing.

“The hospitals and clinics all over the city are teaching people to stay sanitary to avoid Cholera, while the city is unable to collect its garbage,” She said firmly. “I am afraid to let my grandchildren go out and play, since there is no clean place.”

Households make up 82pc of the total 3,028 tonnes of solid waste generated in Addis Abeba.

General Tsadkan Gebre Tensay

By Publius aethiopicus

A commentary on Lt. General Tsadkan Gebre Tensay’s article in Amharic.BY: Publius aethiopicus. Ethiopia under the Tigray People’s Liberation Front/Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front-TPLF/EPRDF regime has come to a cross roads, in fact a dead end. Either a change of course towards a genuine constitutional democracy or a nightmarish scenario of the implosion of Ethiopia are the alternatives, as Lt. General Tsadkan Gebre Tensay asserts. The lengthy article published on Horn Affairs by Lt. General Tsadkan G. Tensay, former member of the top leadership of the TPLF and former Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian Armed Forces for almost a decade, is a very interesting development. In recent years the TPLF/EPRDF regime is embroiled in one crisis or another, unable to handle the multiple fault lines and facing total loss of support by the populace in all four corners of Ethiopia. One should recall that the regime declared itself as the sole winner of all 547 parliamentary seats in the May 2015 election.

In dissecting the all-around crisis the regime is mired in, the General does not mince words and shy away from being very frank about the pervasive crises of state, crisis of confidence, crisis of legitimacy. General Tsadkan addresses the all-around crisis – political, economic, massive and pervasive corruption including by The Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC) a quasi-military-industrial complex run by TPLF generals. He also admits and comments on the pervasive hatred and resentment harbored by the majority towards Tigrayans. This salient feature is among the most worrying trends and in fact warning signs in today’s Ethiopia under the minority TPLF regime, and its potential to turn into a tragic course.

General Tsadkan also throws powerful salvos and trenchant criticisms of the existing dictatorial political and suffocating economic oligarchy instituted by the TPLF/EPRDF.  He states, point blank, the dead end reached by the minority regime. He indicates, unless there is a fundamental change, a potentially tragic, indeed, epochal nightmarish, scenario of Ethiopia imploding as a multi-ethnic nation. A multi ethnic nation with historic continuity since antiquity, albeit, checkered by expansions and contractions for millennia.

What makes General Tsadkan’s assessment of current conditions in Ethiopia pertinent, and somewhat unique? Such a perspective about the nation’s tragic condition under the current dictatorial regime is coming, perhaps for the first time, in a radical and bold fashion, from one of the top leaders of the TPLF and a one-time Chief of Staff of the armed forces from 1991- 2001 before being ousted by Meles Zenawi after TPLF’s  split. His recommendations for a way forward and solutions therefore has gone beyond what critics of the regime, the likes of General Abebe Tekle Haimnot, a former Airforce Commander, ousted by Meles during the TPLF’s  split as well,  and many others have talked about and written in recent months in regard to the multi-faceted crisis boiling in Ethiopia and overwhelming the readily weak regime of the TPLF/EPRDF rocked with internal contradictions and fissures both  within the dominant TPLF and the satellite ANDM and OPDO parties that constitute the so-called EPRDF.

As well known, many scholars and analysts alike have commented about the instability of the current track pursued assiduously by the minority regime of the TPLF/EPRDF. The fault lines are expanding, the contradictions are visible and there is a widening gulf separating the regime and the people. A wide chasm exists between the corrupt and inept army’s Tigrean top brass and the majority non-Tigrean rank and file line officers. There is massive discontent and widespread perception by the overwhelming majority of non-Tigreans that Tigreans have become enablers and apologists for a Kleptocratic, ethnocratic and brutal minority regime. These views have been  given credence during the Oromo protest  that  rocked the Oromo region and beyond, proving the fallacy of the regime’s  25 year narrative that  Ethiopia, as a democratic and federal state, for the first time in its history,  has brought about the equality of the nations and nationalities that constitute it.

Under this false  narrative, Ethiopia, under the current minority TPLF/EPRDF regime,  has granted and upheld the equality of all nations and nationalities, including devolution and decentralization of power to the regions  to govern their respective regions. This narrative, however, has been busted as a result of the many identity conflicts and popular demands for genuine self-governance in zonal and regional affairs that have been popping up throughout Ethiopia, in particular, the massive and widespread Oromo protest that was triggered by the Addis Ababa Master Plan. The Oromo protest is still continuing despite the ruthless massacre of over 500 Oromos by the regime’s special forces and the arrest of tens of thousands in Oromia region in the past nine months, a development that has gotten a wide coverage by the media and attention by International Human Rights organizations, US Senators and the European Parliament.

Just like in Oromia, years of pent up grievances , injustice, inequality, and lack of basic rights to protect and assert ethnic identities, despite the regime’s narrative  to the contrary, have  been simmering in many parts of Ethiopia. Just a few weeks ago it came to the open, in Northern Gondar, Amhara region, where the historically Amhara region of Wolkayit, Tegedeand Telemt along the border of formerly, Gondar and Tigray provinces was forcibly annexed and made part of Tigray by the TPLF. Along with the unilateral decision to annex the sub region to Tigray, the Amhara inhabitants were forced to change their identity for the past 25 years. Now the Amharas of Wolkayit, Tegede and Telemt, after trying all legal and peaceful avenues to lodge their demands, have resorted to armed rebellion and civil disobedience to resist an unjust act that has been imposed on their very existence as a people of Amhara ethnic origin, separate from Tigray and Tigrayan ethnic stock. These are just few of the major fault lines besetting the TPL/EPRDF minority regime that has used brutal force to suppress all forms of demands coming from many sectors of the populace throughout Ethiopia during the past 25 years of its tenure on state power.

In his thoughtful and analytic assessment recognizing the crisis and the all-around faultiness that are prevalent in Ethiopia, General Tsadkan concludes that the status quo is not sustainable – that Ethiopia must democratize. The current one party dictatorship of the TPLF/EPRDF needs to give way to a genuine multiparty democracy with a level playing field for all political forces, there has to be an orderly and peaceful transition, and that a genuinely free, fair and transparent election monitored by the international community has to be held during the next election cycle. Absent such fundamental change, Ethiopia as a multiethnic polity, may be heading towards an implosion and chaos.

On the other hand, it is time to ponder about what is going in the minds of the TPLF leaders, in the minds of their few henchmen in the rest of the so called EPRDF top leadership such as Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) as well as the majority of Tigrean elites allied with the ruling TPLF/EPRDF.  Do they have the mindset to heed such a clarion call for a radical change made by the likes of General Tsadkan? Do they really think far beyond the expedient lure of glitters of temporal power and other vested interests that unchecked power brings to its holders? Are they going to think beyond themselves, in fact for the good of themselves too, for the sake of all Ethiopians, including Tigrean people they claim to represent and that of posterity to live and prosper with a leveled playing field in a just, democratic, and free Ethiopia?

Given past track records and their patterns of behavior by these elements of Ethiopia’s political elite, that timeless adage of Lord Acton, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” comes to mind. Not only does absolute power corrupts the body politic of the state and its machineries, but also the mind and spirit of those at the helm and their cronies. They become stupid due to affliction of   mental ossification and dissonance from actual reality which absolute power has a tendency to nurture, however, nurture in retrograde.  Hence a very doubtful scenario, whether those at the helm of the TPLF/EPRDF dictatorial regime, have both the political will and the wisdom to change course, and change radically before it is too late.   The crossroads options remains to be seen.

Foreign and security policy circles of Western governments, especially the US and UK, allied to the minority TPLF/EPRDF regime, have been in denial about the prevailing and unsustainable conditions in Ethiopia.  Due to their primary reason for supporting the regime, as an ally in the war against terrorism and extremism in the Horn of Africa, these governments   continue to act like the proverbial ostrich that buried its head in the sand. However, sober and  objective assessment of Ethiopia by foreign analysts and leaders of credible international rights organizations have come to recognize the all-around crisis situation in Ethiopia and the widening fault lines in the society as result of the regime’s dictatorial actions and measures and are recommending fundamental change in Ethiopia.

On July 12, 2016 House Foreign Relations Committee hearing convened by Chairman Ed Royce, Ambassador Mark Lagon, President of Freedoms House, in his testimony, stated that “… In November 2015, the EPRDF decided to expand the boundaries of the capital at the expense of farmers and communities living in the surrounding areas of the Oromia region. This decision was made without adequate consultation with affected communities and sparked widespread protests resulting in the arrests of tens of thousands, including students, teachers, musicians, opposition politicians, health workers, and people who provided assistance or shelter to fleeing students. At least 400 have been killed by Ethiopian security forces; an unknown number remain in detention; and torture continues to be reported. Protests like these break out because citizens have no other ways to engage in the political system or express discontent, which increases instability….”

During the same testimony, Ambassador Lagon added “… there cannot be peace and stability if the government restricts political space and suppresses legitimate dissent with force. And without peace, there can be no reliable access to food or health care or education. A country cannot free itself from dependence on foreign aid without strong and accountable governance. U.S. tax dollars will be wasted as long as Ethiopia lacks rule of law, pluralism, and respect in practice of the pluralism, and respect in practice of the rights of all. The United States would be far wiser to fund a more comprehensive approach to development. We should work to strengthen human rights in Ethiopia to enable a truly peaceful, prosperous, and more reliable security partner….”

In May of 2016, Mr.  Adotei Akewi, Managing Director of Government Relations of Amnesty International (AI) USA also wrote an article titled Wrong Way: The Ever Closing Political Space in Ethiopia. In that article, he advised those concerned, allies of the TPLF/ERPDF regime that “…supporting an oppressive regime for the sake of regional security will only further destabilize a region already ravaged by conflict, unclear borders, poverty and lack of respect for the rule of law, all in the pursuit of short term stability. The Ethiopian people deserve better than that…”

Does the international community in general, and the donor countries in particular understand the depth of the crisis facing Ethiopia under the minority regime? Do they know and understand the high stakes and ramifications of the current trajectory of the deepening ethnic and other faultiness in Ethiopia for the Horn of Africa and global security?    Ethiopia may implode, as General Tsadkan argues and predicts, unless there is a radical change towards a fundamental reconfiguration of the state towards a genuine constitutional democracy governed by rule of law, and respect for fundamental liberties that are absent under the current TPLF/EPRDF regime.  The current regime they whole-heartedly support with diplomatic, political, and military assistance is  leading Ethiopia towards a downwards trajectory of instability, possibly civil war, or even worse case scenarios as Dawit Giorgis, Executive Director  of African Strategic  and Security Studies , wrote under the heading “Rwanda Genocide: Lessons for Ethiopians. “

The narrative that Ethiopia, as a stable and reliable partner, under a minority dictatorship is losing its cache. It is time for the International community and all national stakeholders to come to a sober acceptance of the brutal truth and face the glaring reality in Ethiopia.   It is neither acceptable nor sustainable to do nothing when all the writings are on the wall. Ethiopia is in grave danger. Too little, too late statements, after potential tragic scenarios unfold become nightmarish reality, is a recipe of cynics, bordering criminals. It is time for a radical change in order to avert the current slide towards instability and chaos that the current regime appear to be leading Ethiopia.

Highlights from an article written in Amharic by Lt. General Tsadkan G. Tensay, former Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian Armed Forces

Lt. General Tsadkan G. Tensay, former Chief of Staff has written a bold article calling for the regime to undertake fundamental political changes to spare the country from implosion and turmoil. Here are some of the highlights from the rather lengthy, albeit, bold proposition from a man who once was a member of the ruling clique till his dismissal by the late dictator and mastermind, Meles Zenawi.

• Human and democratic rights that were enshrined in the constitution are not fully respected. Even worse, the political space has become too narrow to be accommodative to the opposition. The quagmire that the government finds itself now was the result of the absolute monopolization of political and economic power by the ruling party and its leaders.
• Once assuming political power and the political upper hand, the EPRDF has gradually become antidemocratic. Many cases could be cited here, but will only mention the three salient cases and the undemocratic means that the EPRDF used to resolve them:

• The way the EPRDF handled the issue with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF)
• The way the TPLF handled the crises within the Front itself [refers to the 2001 split within the Front]
• The 2005 elections and the way the Front dealt with the situation in its aftermath.

• The oppressive and undemocratic rule by the regime has become unbearable to the masses. On top of that, the standard of living has become too expensive and unemployment too high. The people do not see any hope that the regime would resolve their problems soon. All these factors have forced the people to protest and revolt against the government soon after it declared 100% victory in the 2015 elections. The government was also forced to admit that there are real problems that it cannot shy away from.
• Based on the current situations in the country, there are three scenarios that could unfold:

Scenario 1) due to the ongoing popular uprising and political demand and the added pressure from foreign forces, the country could plunge into total chaos that the government could not control. The odds that this scenario could happen seem little, but not zero. It could happen and the government should be ready. The protest in Oromo region has put strain on the government, especially on the regional government. The uprising was halted by the intervention of the federal forces. If the protest kept its momentum and was joined by other popular protests, it is easy to predict what it could do to the central government.

Scenario 2) to continue with the status quo of crises. The regime would try to buy time and stay in power by making few changes here and there, and sacking some officials to appease the populace. This scenario would be the best preferred by the regime in power. This scenario could extend the crises but would not resolve it. It would prevent a peaceful resolution of the crises and hence would create a fertile ground for those who try to resolve the crises through the use of force. This scenario could cost the country a great deal.

Scenario 3) to begin a peaceful and orderly transition. This requires the acknowledgement that there is a crises in the country; and begin the process of transition with the participation of all political forces and the general public. This scenario also prevents the previous destructive scenarios from happening. It is therefore incumbent on those of us who worry about the future of the country to work for the realization of this scenario.

• What should be the role of the people of Tigray in resolving the current crises in the country? Should the role of the people of Tigray be to protect and defend the regime that is ruling with the help of its security forces and the military, and alienated and hated by the people? What is the political stand taken by the people of Tigray in the current political crisis in the country?
• The people of Tigray, together with the rest of the Ethiopian people need to work for the full implementation of the Constitution. The fact that few Tigrean elites hold political power is not a guarantee for the people of Tigray.
• I don’t understand why the country’s industrialization is being led by army generals. METEC has been tasked with the production of electric power, sugar production and building rails. It is ideal that those projects be done by local manufacturing. But why are they under the complete control of army generals? If the army had the technical capacity and know how, it should rather focus on maintaining and even building tanks, war planes, vehicles and communication equipment.
• The relationship among the legislative, the judiciary and the executive must be clearly defined. There should be check and balance. The reality we have now in the country is that the executive controls the politics and also the economy of the country, which resulted in the current political quagmire.
• The executive is engaged in promulgating restrictive laws to inhibit any movement by the opposition.
• A party that cannot resolve its internal contradictions in a democratic manner cannot be a vanguard of democracy.
• The EPRDF had come up with several laws that restrict the human and political rights promulgated in the constitution. It uses the security and military to hang on to power. The EPRDF should remove all obstacles that limit the activities of opposition political parties.
• The role of the military should be that of defending the sovereignty of the country and the constitution; it should not be a major player in the politics and economy of the country, as we see in Ethiopia today.
• The EPRDF is not willing to fight mal administration, corruption and abuse of power as it fears genuine action against these problems would lead to its disintegration and down fall.
• Those in political power also control the economy. The executive is also the one that steers the wheel of economy. The executive is the owner of major projects and also the main employer.
• Since the executive controls the economy, cronies and benefactors are engaged, under the guise of party membership, in rent seeking corrupt practices.
• The people should have the power to put the executive in check; not the other way around.
• In order to come out of the current crises, human and political rights enshrined in the constitution should be fully implemented; and we need to pave the way for all political forces to participate in a peaceful political engagement and fair competition without any interference.
• All political parties should come together and establish a pillar institution that would facilitate a smooth political transition which would culminate in the next election that the country is slated to hold.
• Details for a peaceful political transition could be decided by consultations and negotiations among the various political parties, including the ruling party, with the aim of fully realizing the rights protected in the constitution.

The 8th day of hunger strike by leaders of OFC at killinto prison

Messay Kebede is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton in in Ohio

I read with great attention and interest a recently posted article [see –http://www.satenaw.com/a-radical-change-of-course-for-ethiopia-or-chaos-and-implosion/  in which Lt. General Tsadkan Gebre Tensay analyzes with a sharp critical eye the ruling government and party of present-day Ethiopia and gives us a blueprint of the various scenarios awaiting the country. Let me begin by admitting my surprise and admiration to see a top member of the leadership of the ruling party and a former Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian Armed Forces undertake such a critical review of a regime that he had served for a long time. One cannot but wonder how deep the level of the deterioration of the political edifice has become for a top veteran and servant of the regime to feel the need to speak up openly in so alarming terms. Be that as it may, my review has two parts: in the first one, I present the undeniable virtues of the article and, in the second part, I proceed to some critical remarks, the objective of which is to encourage Gen. Tsadkan to go further in the critical assessment so as to get to the root of the problem bogging down the TPLF itself.

Without doubt, the article gives a candid, almost thorough and straight criticism of the regime. Almost nothing of what is detestable and faulty is left out: the absolute control of all the branches of government, the calamitous identification of the government with the ruling party, the heavy-handed involvement of government in the economy, the proliferation of corruption and clientelism, etc., are severely denounced. Gen. Tsadkan is not even nice to his former colleagues: he is highly disparaging of the involvement of army generals in the running of key sectors of the economy instead of focusing on their true job, which is to protect the integrity and sovereignty of the country. In a word, the entire regime is put on trial and condemned without any reservation. One admires the courage and honesty of Gen. Tsadkan, given that his position will certainly ostracize him, perhaps even arouse the animosity of the leaders of the ruling party.

This much is undeniable: Gen. Tsadkan wants genuine solutions for the numerous and serious problems besieging Ethiopia. For him, the stake is none other than the survival of Ethiopia so that the solutions must be far-reaching enough to stop the dangerous trends toward which the country is moving. His proposal is clear and simple: the implementation of democracy and the rise of a political system based on the verdict of the people are the only means to tackle the deep problems of the country. The use of force repeats the mistakes of previous regimes and can only yield the same outcomes, but this time in a context that is much more explosive. Clearly, the author is genuinely concerned about the fate of Ethiopia. True, he does not hide his high concern for the people of Tigray and the TPLF, but one of the virtues of the article is that it understands that the fate of the TPLF is tied up with good things happening in Ethiopia.

According to Gen. Tsadkan, the regime has come to the point of recognizing the seriousness of the problems facing Ethiopia and is looking for a solution. Unfortunately, says Gen. Tsadkan, it is looking for easy and self-serving solutions, which are all doomed to failure because they all miss, deliberately or not, the core of the problem, which is the restriction of democracy and democratic rights. The restriction is all the more inexcusable as it violates the constitution, the very constitution that the TPLF and all its allies have sworn to respect and serve. All the problems of Ethiopia have one, and only one, source, namely, illegality, transgression of the constitution.

One admires the author for admitting that the case of Kinijit was not well handled in the 2005 election disputes. A similar mistake was committed earlier when a conflict broke out with the OLF. In both cases, force was used to settle disputes instead of the democratic means made available by the constitution. Similarly, I commend the author for spelling out the true interest of the Tigrean people, which is to work in concert with other people of Ethiopia to protect and advance democracy, as opposed to some leaders who orchestrate the scenario of Tigray versus the rest of Ethiopia. Last but not least, I applaud Gen. Tsadkan for being the first top member of the TPLF (to my knowledge) to acknowledge that the Ethiopians who fought under the leadership of the Derg lost, not because they were coward and Tigreans distinctly brave, but because their leaders betrayed the cause for which they were fighting and used them for a totalitarian and self-serving purpose.

Granted this positive side of the article, there remains the question of knowing whether Gen. Tsadkan’s explanation of the causes of the derailment of the regime away from the democratic path are equally pertinent. The analyses of the paper rest on one major premise, namely, the contention that the TPLF had a solid, deeply-engrained tradition of democratic methods prior to the seizure of state power, a tradition that was also free of secessionist agenda and the pursuit of ethnic hegemony. This is so true that Gen. Tsadkan ascribes the alleged derailment of the TPLF to the war against Eritrea whose major consequence was a deep split within the party and the rise of a non-democratic clique led by Meles who, by the way, is mentioned only once.

Without denying the importance of the split, one fails to understand how a party based on such solid and embedded democratic commitment and practices would go suddenly so off course as to empower Meles and his openly undemocratic clique. Is it not fair to say that the split and the outcome prove that democracy was just a façade, a hidden device of manipulation, something similar to the “democracy” that existed in the Soviet camp or, for that matter, in Ethiopia under the Derg? I can easily explain the rise of Meles to dictatorial power if I see it as a consolidation of a trend already existing in the party. By contrast, his rise becomes a complete mystery if I base my analysis on the assumption that the TPLF had a long tradition of democratic workings.

In vain does one look for the numerous blunders committed by the TPLF from the very start. For instance, the paper does not mention the momentous decision to land-lock Ethiopia. Nor does it denounce the ill-founded justification to disband the Ethiopian army––which resulted in many soldiers becoming beggars––as though it were a mercenary army, all the more so as Gen. Tsadkan, as already mentioned, recognizes that the army as a whole was not against any people. Gen. Tsadkan never questions the prevailing assumption of the ruling circle according to which the foundation of the Ethiopian state is sound and that many good things have been accomplished, even though he does not mention them. In so thinking, he turns the problems into an implementation issue, and so fail to see them as the step-by-step unfolding of a design that was originally very flawed.

As a matter of policy, Gen. Tsadkan opts for the developmental state as opposed to neo-liberal policy. The paper does not present strong arguments in favor of developmental state; nor does it indicate why the developmental state is expected to achieve better results in Ethiopia than liberal policy. Still less does the paper pose the problem of knowing whether the ideological and political setups of ethnic federalism go hand in hand with the requirements of the developmental state. Moreover, as stated previously, Gen. Tsadkan strongly favors democracy in the precise sense of multipartism, respect of human rights, including the rights of free assembly and free speech. Yet, this type of democracy does not square with the notion of developmental state, which precisely advocates the postponement of democratic rights to bring about faster economic growth. Equally noticeable is that the paper does not see that the dismal condition of education in Ethiopia, mostly due to politicization and the preference of quantity over quality, goes against a major requirement of the developmental state, namely, the production of a highly trained and nationalist technocratic and bureaucratic elite.

One key issue is that the author expects the appropriate solutions to come from and be implemented by the ruling party, since one need not look further than the already approved constitution to find the right answers. In Gen. Tsadkan’s view, the remedy lies in the restoration of the suppressed rights and in the development of a mindset approaching opposition parties with a spirit of dialogue and common interests. Not only does such an expectation look utterly utopian, but it is also contradictory. After having made this severe criticism, how does Gen. Tsadkan expect reforms and a change of attitude from such a rotten party? Is it not too late? Is not the party beyond redemption?

The danger of calling for an extremely unlikely change of attitude is that it lends itself to the interpretation that the paper is nothing but an attempt to prolong the life of the TPLF by reviving an already rejected hope. What is more, since the author admits that the difficulties are serious enough to rise to the level of structural impediments, is it not obvious that they require nothing less than structural changes? Evidently, change under the leadership of the ruling party will significantly fall short of being structural. In short, what is necessary in the face of failures of such magnitude is regime change.

As already noted, a leitmotif in the paper is the belief that the constitution provides the appropriate solutions to all the problems of the country. We just have to restore its democratic provisions and respect them. As a matter of fact, the paper criticizes everything, except the constitution and the ideological and democratic credentials of the TPLF prior to the capture of state power. Because of the reluctance of the author to critically examine the constitution, no attempt is made to connect some of the problems to its shortcomings.

For instance, there is no any reconsideration of the infamous article 39 affirming the “unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession,” a provision that an organization like MEDREK has rightly questioned as it carries the threat of the fragmentation of the country. Likewise, no prospect is envisaged for the privatization of land ownership through the removal of the stipulation that “ownership of rural and urban land, as well as of all natural resources, is exclusively vested in the State and in the peoples of Ethiopia,” even though the dictatorial tendency of the regime can be traced back to the exclusive control of land by the state.

To be fair, Gen. Tsadkan does not reject the right to alter the constitution provided that it emanates from the democratic decision of the peoples of Ethiopia. The trouble, however, is that the respect of the constitution is presented as a sine qua non of all dialogue with opposition forces. A repeated injunction is that everybody must work under the provisions stipulated by the constitution. The condition excludes by definition any structural change to the system. Unless the opposition is given the right to organize and mobilize the people with the official intent of changing the constitution, I do not see how the stated condition does not amount to a serious restriction of democratic rights.

I cannot push aside the impression I have of a certain naivety on the part of Gen. Tsadkan. Indeed, for him all the problems of Ethiopia originate from a defective implementation of the constitution. The foundation and the principles of government are good, but they have not been properly implemented. May I remind that dictatorial regimes tend to write constitutions that are perfect? Their problem is in the application, not because they fail to apply them properly, but because they do not intend to apply them in the first place. They are written for two purposes: firstly, for external consumption to fool donor countries, and secondly, to manipulate their own people. Their constitutions are just ideological tools for make-believe, for the purpose of misleading by giving an ideal picture of their regime. What defines them is not the failure of implementation; it is the deliberate gap between stated principles and actual practice. One thing is sure: the leaders of the TPLF who drafted the constitution perfectly knew that the democratic provisions were not meant to be applied.

This is to say that failure in practice does not explain a regime like the one established by the TPLF. Instead, the real intent of the TPLF, as opposed to the fake one, must be given primacy.  All what we know about the TPLF points to one overriding intent, to wit, the absolute control of state power to empower a furiously ethnicized elite by excluding other elites or by turning them into clients. Only some such approach makes everything clear: the rampant corruption, the dictatorial methods, the policy of divide and rule, the absolute control of all the branches of government are all means to empower a regional elite and sustain that empowerment through the complete ascendancy over the economic, political, and ideological apparatuses of the country. To paraphrase a famous sentence, in the analysis of Gen. Tsadkan, the TPLF “is standing on its head. It must be inverted, in order to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.”

BY ADOTEI AKWEI

On June 29, 2016 Ethiopia secured a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC) (see the full report here). The position requires that countries garner at least a two-thirds vote to win the position, and Ethiopia ran without competition, resulting in a win of 183 out of 195 necessary votes.

This is Ethiopia’s third stint on the UNSC and in a congratulatory message, Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Tedros Adhanom, said the election is a clear indication that the country has won the respect and trust of the world. However, critics are concerned for what Ethiopia’s ascent into the UNSC (while already part of the UN Human Rights Council) could mean for human rights and justice in the region. Human Rights Watch publication.

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 19: Members of the United Nations Security Council hold a meeting on the situation concerning Iraq on September 19, 2014 at UN headquarters in New York City. Secretary Kerry attended the Council for supporting the new Iraqi government and the Iraqi people. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)

The ruling government in Ethiopia has a persistent history of violent repression of independent media, civil society organizations and political opposition. The government enacted many restrictive laws that have led to the dismantling of civil society, and through the misuse of the counter-terrorism law, has stifled peaceful dissent. At the same time, human rights organizations have documented arbitrary arrests, torture, injuries to thousands and the deaths of over 400 people as a result of the government’s crackdown in the Oromia region going back to 2014.

In response, the international community, including both the European Union Parliament  as well as U.S. Congress, have issued statements of concern. The Senate is considering a resolution condemning the violence provoked by the Ethiopian government against the Oromo protesters and on the deteriorating human rights context, and the House of Representatives is expected to follow suite. As such, the election of Ethiopia to the UNSC has resurfaced serious concerns and will put the government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in the global spotlight regarding the actions it takes at the United Nations as well its performance at home.

Protesters call on the Ethiopian government to respect human rights, Washington DC, 
The banner says: Respect human rights in Ethiopia

It is probably naiveté to expect countries with poor human rights records to be barred from being elected to the UNSC or call for them to be removed  once elected. Many countries under the rule of authoritarian regimes have been voted non-permanent member of the UN Security Council: one example is Spain under General Franco won a seat from 1969-1971. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) under Mobutu was elected and served twice (1982 – 1983, 1990 – 1991).

Ethiopia’s election to the UNSC also represents an opportunity:while the current Ethiopian regime and its predecessor under the late Meles Zenawi have been authoritarian at home and often have not listened to their own people, they have also had a record of participation in multilateral activities. The country’s role in sending peacekeepers in collaboration with the African Union and the United Nations can be mentioned as a prominent example. The country also chairs the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and has played a central role in mediating conflicts throughout the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia has the opportunity to demonstrate that “African solutions for African problems” really is a promise that can deliver in the field of peace and security policy.A case can be made that by admitting countries that are systematically committing human rights abuses without any preconditions, the United Nations is eroding the values and mission for which it was established. Today in Ethiopia journalists are languishing in jail for exercising their rights, while peaceful protestors are getting killed for exercising theirs. Another concern that has been raised is that by becoming a member of the UNSC, the Ethiopian government has the opportunity to lobby countries to refrain from criticizing the country for its poor human rights records as opposed to improving it.

To be effective, however, the government must be a consistent leader on key human rights issues throughout Africa — something which will first require widespread and meaningful human rights reforms at home. Specifically, Ethiopia must cooperate fully with UN special mechanisms, especially the rapporteurs on peaceful assembly and torture, to further investigate the human rights abuses occurring domestically, and beyond that, to take concrete steps to reform and end practices that have eroded human rights in the country.

This past week the Ethiopian government temporarily shut down Internet access and subsequently banned the use of all social media sites amidst fears that the national exam would be leaked. Ironically this action follows an announcement made last week by the UN Human Rights Council that it is a “violation of international human rights law” for a government to intentionally withhold access to the Internet. Ethiopia is a member of this Council, and its actions thus far expose the excessive measures which the government will take to maintain unequivocal control over communication in the region — a clear violation of freedom of expression.

As Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie said to the UN in 1963, “The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man”, yet “these, too, are only words; their value depends wholly on our will to observe and honor them and give them content and meaning.” With these words in mind, how the current Ethiopian government may choose to fulfill the aspirations of the UN Charter will best be demonstrated by its actions in the coming years.

amnestyusa.or

From Members of US Congress, Counties and Cities in California

The 92^nd Birthday of His Grace Abune Melketsedek was celebrated in California on July 19, 2016 by his Children in God, his Associates and his Admirers. The Archbishop of the State of California Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Secretary of the Legitimate Ethiopian Holy Synod in exile is still vibrant at the age of 92, with the Grace of God. He continues making relentless efforts in strengthening and expanding the Church based in true beliefs and traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Abune Melketsedek Bishop of Ethiopia Orthodox Church

It is amazing to reckon that, Abune Melketsedek who was born on July 19, 1924, became a deacon when he was eleven years of age, and that makes his service to the Church a solid eighty one years. Members of US Congress and a number of California Bay Area County & City government officials paid respect to the commendable service in Christ of the Archbishop by attending the celebration of his 92^nd Birthday, and bestowing up on him certificates of recognition and proclaiming July 19, 2016 to be ‘Abune Melketsedek day’. The following are excerpts from the respective commendations to Abune Melketsedek:

1. Resolution by the United States Congressman Michael M. Honda dated 19th July, 2016 in City of Santa Clara and Alameda Counties:

WHEREAS, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh became a deacon at age 11 and a monk at 15, he was sent by the Emperor of Ethiopia, His Imperial Emperor Haile Selassie I, to study at Istanbul University where he became the first Ethiopian to earn a Degree in Theology

WHEREAS, throughout his tenure, he has championed human rights, published 19 books, increased the involvement of women in the Church, and has taught countless people

WHEREAS, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh’s commitment to improvising the lives of persons in the United States as well as Ethiopia has provided valuable insight and leadership for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church … recognized and commended for his dedication and service to the Ethiopian Community.

1. Resolution by the United States Congresswoman Barbara Lee 13^th Congressional district dated 16th July, 2016:

WHEREAS, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh, in 1991 there was regime change, forcing the hierarch of the Church to change. Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh and several Bishops moved from Ethiopia to the United States.

WHEREAS, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh, established Legitimate Holy Synod in exile here in the United States, and later the Medhanealem Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Bay Area , expanding to four Cities

Therefore, be is resolved that we celebrate the extraordinary life of Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh on his 92^nd birthday. May his contributions to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Bay Area and continue to impact the lives of others.

• Certificate of Recognition by California Legislature Assembly dated 17th July, 2016 “presented in recognition of his lifelong dedication as a spiritual leader and human rights advocate”.

1. City and County of San Francisco Proclamation dated 19^th July , 2016 signed by the Mayor Edwin M Lee

WHEREAS, the City and County of San Francisco traditionally recognizes those who have made a positive difference in our communities and City, and the dedicated work of Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh has represented San Francisco values at their best

WHEREAS, Archbishop Melketsedek established many Ethiopian Orthodox churches across the United States that have served as places for Ethiopians to congregate and support each other while teaching youth the language and culture of Ethiopia…. Therefore be it resolved and resolved July 19, 2016 as Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh day in San Francisco.

1. Office of the Mayor Proclamation of Oakland California dated 19^th July 26, 2016 signed by the Mayor Libby Schaaf:

WHEREAS, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh continues to exemplify an outstanding member of the Ethiopian Orthodox and Oakland Communities with a commitment to the church as a teacher, mentor, preacher, leader and peacemaker. At the age of 92, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh still participates in all aspects of the church services and is still a focal point of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He is still a big proponent of human rights, by speaking out against injustices especially against Ethiopians across the world; now ,therefore be it PROCLAIMED that Tuesday July 19, 2016 is Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh Day.

1. City of San Jose Commendation dated 19^th July 26, 2016 signed by the Mayor, two council members and the City Clerk:

WHEREAS Archbishop led to the establishment of many Ethiopian Orthodox Churches across the world, including four Churches in the Bay Area, two in San Jose, which has brought together the Ethiopian Community.

Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh on being a big proponent of human right, teacher, mentor and preacher and peacemaker.

• City of Berkley Proclamation dated 19^th July 26, 2016 signed by the Mayor Tom Bates:

WHEREAS Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh was the former head of religious affairs of Ethiopia in the Emperor Haile Selassie’s Cabinet ,where he expanded the reaches of Christianity by increasing the involvement of women, establishing more than nine schools , and developing other forms of religious media;

WHEREAS Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh has been a staple of the Ethiopian Community in the Bay Area , and he played a big role to establish the first Ethiopian Church in the Bay Area, Medhan Alem Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Berkley

WHEREAS At the age of 92, Archbishop Melketsedek Workneh still participates in all aspects of church services and is still a big proponent of human rights, speaking out against injustices especially against Ethiopians across the world … honored because his work and diligence brought so much to so many people.

• The letter of recognition for City of Santa Clara dated 1 July 26, 2016 signed by the Mayor Lisa M Gillmor:

“During your time in the Emperor’s Cabinet in Ethiopia, you published monthly magazines and religious teachings, increased the involvement of women in the church including having women sing in the choir for the first time, established more than nine different primary and secondary schools across the country, built a factory for monks to generate their own income, and established a radio station for the teaching of the Bible.. Your continued dedication for human rights and for speaking out against injustices across the world is admired and appreciated”

All that being expressed by our American Brothers and Sisters, let us join all these remarkable accolades of recognition, commendation, proclamation and Birthday wishes on the 92^nd Birthday of His Grace Archbishop Abune Melketsedek not only as our Father in Christ, but also as a true and hardworking senior citizen still serving at this old age as a voice or as an advocate to all Ethiopians around the world, regardless of our diverse religious backgrounds.

Reiterating his own words, let everything that happened as magnificent as it is serve only as Glory to our Father in Heaven, our God.

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me” Philippians

Public Relations, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church Legitimate Synod in a exile.