Save Lake Koka First Before Saving the Continent of Africa!

By Alemayehu G. Mariam | September 14, 2009
Bluster of the Con Artists
Last week Ethiopia’s arch dictator was in tears, crocodile tears that is, over the unfair and shameful treatment of Africa by the heartless Western imperialists on the issue of global warming and climate change. Frothing at the mouth and brimming with moral indignation, the dictator threatened to go all out Ghandi on the West at the December climate change talks in Copenhagen. With sanctimonious and self-righteous rebuke, he railed:

If need be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threatens to be another rape of the continent… While we reason with everyone to achieve our objective we are not prepared to rubber stamp any agreement by the powers… We will use our numbers to delegitimise any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position… Africa will field a single negotiating team empowered to negotiate on behalf of all member states of the African Union… The key thing for me is that Africa be compensated for the damage caused by global warming. Many institutions have tried to quantify that and they have come up with different figures. The sort of median figure would be in the range of 40 billion USD a year.
The dictator’s sidekick on climate change, African Union chairman Jean Ping, (the longtime and one of the closest advisers of Omar Bongo, Gabon’s 42-year dictator who died recently) took an even harder line:

It is my expectation that such financial resources must be from public funds and must be additional to the usual overseas development assistance… What we are not prepared to live with is global warming above minimum unavoidable levels… We will therefore never accept any global deal that does not limit global warming to the minimum unavoidable level, no matter what levels of compensation and assistance are promised to us.
The Moral Profundity of Tyrants: Hope Springs Eternal!
It is truly refreshing to hear words and phrases that signal latent moral awakening in the “conscience” of tyrants. Use of such phrases and words as “not prepared to rubberstamp” (in contrast to a rubberstamp parliament), “rape of a continent” (in contrast to the rape of Ethiopia), “delegitimise” (in contrast to delgitimizing rigged elections), “walk out of negotiations” (in contrast to walking opposition parties through make-believe negotiations), “compensation for damages” (in contrast to compensation for damages to families of victims of extrajudicial killings, victims of excessive and unreasonable use of deadly force under color of law and victims of illegal arrests and detentions) give new meaning to the expression, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Mahatama Ghandi could not have been more proud of such resolute declarations of profound moral outrage against the wily Westerners who have been exploiting Africa for centuries.

Indeed as Ghandi taught, “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.” Therefore, never cooperate with the malevolent Western overlords on issues of fair play, equity, and certainly environmental justice! That is the essence of the bluster of a “walk out” and “delegitimization” of the Copenhagen climate talks. Ghandi argued that the only way to get the British to abandon their evil ways in South Africa and India was to actively resist their colonial rule through civil disobedience, particularly through a campaign of non-cooperation. He encouraged Indian workers, policemen, soldiers and civil servants to go on strike. He called for massive boycotts of public transportation and English-manufactured goods. Ghandi used the moral weapon of Satyagraha (satya, meaning “truth” and agraha, meaning “holding firm to”) to campaign against the myriad crimes and abuses committed by the British colonial masters. He aim was to use “satyagraha to convert the wrongdoer, to awaken a sense of justice in him, to show him also that without the cooperation direct or indirect of the wronged, the wrongdoer cannot do the wrong intended by him.”

Remarkably and commendably, that is the intrinsic logic of the arch dictator’s outburst of moral outrage. By exposing the hypocritical West on climate change to the light of Truth and by threatening to visit moral condemnation upon them, they could be persuaded to change their evil ways. Indeed, by a resolute act of non-cooperation, the West could be held to account for its reckless abuse of nature and make Africans whole by paying them monetary damages. In short, the West could be named and shamed into doing right by Africa. But is the dictator’s pronouncement of moral outrage sincere and made in good faith? Or is it a veiled threat of naked political extortion?
Blood Money, Carbon Money and the Devil Who Can Cite Scripture
Shakespeare wrote, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek.” Or a villain shedding crocodile tears? The bluster about “walking out” and “delegitimizing” the Copenhagen talks, etc., is nothing more than a cynical and beguiling appeal to lofty moral virtues to guilt-trip and shakedown Western countries into paying billions of dollars every year as “blood money”. That is certainly the conclusion of the Economist Magazine, which in its recent issue stated that the wrath of the African “leaders” is aimed at making the rich world feel guilty about global warming. Mr Meles has made it clear he is seeking blood money—or rather carbon money—that would be quite separate from other aid to the continent.

If the cash were not forthcoming, the African Union (AU) might take a case to a court of arbitration and ask it to judge overall culpability for climate change. In a rare fit of African unity, it was decided at a recent flurry of leaders’ meetings that the United States, the European Union, Japan and others should pay the continent the tidy sum of $67 billion a year, though it was unclear for how long.
In the end, all of the climate change pontification is about African dictators extorting a $67 billion payola (hush money) every year to line their pockets. It has absolutely nothing to do with remedying the environmental degradation of Africa. It has everything to do with Africa’s tin pot dictators striking gold in a modern day El Dorado (also known as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Western donors, etc.,). They know there is a huge pot of glittering gold at the end of the climate change/global warming rainbow. Africa’s dictators are drooling -- literally slobbering at the mouth and licking their chops -- at the prospect of putting their grubby hands on that $67 billion delicious golden pie and sinking their teeth into it.

Save Lake Koka First Before Saving the Continent of Africa
Let’s face hard facts: Ethiopia is facing an ecological disaster! Not from catastrophic climate change (that is macro-climatic changes resulting from variations in solar radiation, deviations in the Earth’s orbit, changes in greenhouse concentrations, etc.,) but from man-made causes. Ethiopia is facing an ecological catastrophe caused by deforestation, soil erosion, over-grazing, over-population, desertification and loss of biodiversity, and chemical pollution of its rivers and lakes. Hundreds of square miles of forest land and farmland are lost every year. According to the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute1 , “Ethiopia loses up to 200,000 hectares of forest every year and warned that if the trend continues the country would lose all of its forest resources by the year1 2020.” Other data show that “Between 1990 and 2005, Ethiopia lost 14.0% of its forest cover (2,114,000 hectares) and 3.6% of its forest and woodland habitat. If the trend continues, it is expected that Ethiopia could lose all of its forest resources in 11 years, by the year 2020.”2 The wild animal population is disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation and loss of natural habitat, and hundreds of plant and animal species are facing imminent extinction.
Dr Gedion Getahun, Research Scientist at the Environmental Radioanalytical Chemistry in Mainz, Germany writes3,
According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forests are depleted, at present less than three percent of the entire country is covered with trees… In Ethiopia, biodiversity is treated in very awful manner. The destruction of natural habitat as well as a threat to the flora and fauna and other biological resources diminish the economy of the country. This affects the country’s wealth and with it, the existence and the well being of the nation.
The Lake Koka environmental disaster -- a topic of special coverage by the Al Jazeera Network4 -- a few kilometers outside Ethiopia’s capital is only the tip of the iceberg of Ethiopia’s environmental nightmare. As one resident of the Lake Koka community put it5 :
The main problem here is the water. People are getting sick. Everyone around here uses this water. There is no other water. Almost 17,000 people… come from 10 kilometers away and use this water. The water smells even if you boil it; it does not change the color. It is hard to drink it. The people here have great potential and we are losing them, especially the children. I am upset but I don’t have the ability to do anything. I would if I could, but I can’t do anything.
Another local resident lamented the polluted Lake Koka water in apocalyptic terms:
It is better to die thirsty than to drink this [Koka] water. We are drinking a disease. We told the local authorities our cattle and goats died due to this water, but nobody helped. We are tired of complaining.
Nothing has been done to hold criminally accountable the polluters of Lake Koka, or “compensate for damages” the people living in that community for the devastating health problems they continue to face from using the toxic water of the lake.
Almaz Mequanint, who has struggled for years to bring attention to the devastating environmental pollution caused by the Wonji/Shoa and Metehara sugar factories, wrote six years ago:
I feel helpless and in despair when I think of my whole family and the 100,000 voiceless residents who have been living around the sugar factories of Ethiopia…. I now suffer from asthma because of the air pollution at that time. My teeth are decayed and I have knee and other joint problems. My kids are suffering from tooth decay, cavities and staining.”6
Nothing has been done over the past six years to improve the health conditions of the tens of thousands of people who worked in the sugar factories or community residents, nor has any action been taken to “compensate them for the damages” they suffered as a result of industrial pollution of criminal magnitude. Just this past week, a website was set up to call attention to the plight of these victims.7
Africa’s knights in shining armor should take care of business in their own backyards -- lakes, rivers and factories -- before mounting their steeds on a crusade to save Africa from global warming.
What is Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander!
If truth force (Satyagrha) could be used against nasty Western rapists of Africa, there is no reason why it could not be used against the rapists of Ethiopia. Does it not logically follow that Ethiopians should “use their numbers to delegitimise” any regime “that is not consistent with minimal positions” under universally accepted standards of justice and international law such as protection of basic human rights, respect for the rule of law, free elections, free press, etc.? Aren’t Ethiopians entitled to resist anyone who “threatens to (perpetuate) the rape of” their country? Are they not entitled to “field a single negotiating team empowered to negotiate on behalf of all” the people against a one-man, one-party dictatorship? Is it not true that what is good for the goose is good for the gander?
Doesn’t it make more sense to save Lake Koka FIRST before saving the whole continent of Africa?
The writer, Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. For comments, he can be reached at almariam@gmail.com

Ethiopia: A country behind bars

Opinion
By Ethyopian Simbiro


Ethiopia has been behind bars since its start as a state: Its people the prisoners, its rulers as jailers.
First, the feudalist system incarcerated the poor people, kings and nobles notoriously 'owning' peasants whose existence meant nothing but serving these upper echelons with utmost loyalty. Those who had 'the wrong complexion' were sold in the broad daylight to Arab merchants; internal slavery lasted as late as the 20th century, although abolished eventually. (What a contradiction in a sub-Saharan African nation that was supposed to be a symbol of freedom and hope to enslaved black people around the world!)

Second, the so-called 'socialist Ethiopia' brought another round of incarceration with it, though its rulers promised to end the era of exploitation and human indignity at first. But just like any dictators, the rulers failed to deliver what they promised and made the conditions in the country worse beyond imagination.
Perhaps George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' can best describe what happened in Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991. A Soviet-style silencing of dissent reigned in the country, enforcing terror and murder as a daily ritual. During this military era, the number of prisons more than doubled in the country, overflowing with innocent lives, most if not all bullet ridden and thrown in the streets like dogs: Some because they were considered 'anti-Ethiopia' and others 'betrayers of the revolution.'

Myopic army officers and their ill-advised cadres hijacked the poor people's revolution, making it their own to fulfil a short-term goal: Pillaging the country. The unfortunate dissenters died a bitter death at the hands of ruthless security agents who satisfied their ego by castrating men and by raping innocent young women in harsh prison camps, where human life was no more important than a fruit fly; those who had the opportunity left the country to live among strangers, or ran to the jungles to fight back the oppressive system - though themselves to become oppressors later on. In every direction, poor Ethiopia endured chaos.
Third, the former rebels who called the jungle their home, but are today's 'masters', self-ordained 'revolutionary democrats', who won the battle against the military junta, have decided to lock the country behind bars again. They installed a new form of dictatorship, recycling the same old style of oppression.
FROM OPPRESSED TO OPPRESSORS

Yesterday's oppressed have now become today's worst oppressors, invalidating the meaning of fighting for freedom and exacerbating the culture of vengeance, ethnic prejudice, and discrimination. They are also destroying the possibility of a dissenting and freethinking in Ethiopia step by step. They have already let the country down, a country that listened to the wind of change carefully and hoped that a better future would come, free from state-sponsored terror, torture, rape, and murder.

The last 18 years have brought more misery to Ethiopia than what people expected and hoped to see; the minor changes here and there don't really count. Just like in the past, one group still dominates the rest of the population, a one party system deceptively dressed as a multi-party system.

Major opposition groups and their supporters, pro-democracy leader Judge Birtukan Mideksa, many innocents who got caught in the wrong place (some targeted because of their ethnic background and some lost without trace), and all who disagree with the current regime have been thrown to infamous jails such as Kaliti. The concept of free press barely exists. The rule of law remains a joke. Human rights? Nobody cares! 'You are either with us or against us!'-That is pretty much how things work in Ethiopia today.
Disguised as 'revolutionary democrats', it seems that the current rulers are carefully imitating the Communist Party of China (CPC) as their prime example. The way they aggressively recruit members, deal with dissent, and monopolise the economy, has so much similarity with CPC's tactics. CPC is globally known as a notorious party that does not welcome opposition from either inside or outside the country. Limiting and banning local media, violating human rights, jamming and blocking foreign media, using intimidation and force to control dissent, spreading hysteria, pretending pro-democracy, and centralising the economy, characterise the nature of CPC's dictatorship.
Ethiopia's current rulers lecture their audiences that 'revolutionary democracy will eventually wither away, replacing itself with liberalism,' openly accepting that they are truly dictators who have not yet renounced Marxism-Leninism and who will do anything to stay in power.
So what is the solution to the cycle of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, and vice versa? Who will eventually free the country from its confinement? Do we have a guarantee that the next will be better? Will power be eventually returned to the people or will there be another era of dictatorship once more, favouring one's group over another (or better to say: Pretending to favour one's group to further advance one's self-interest)?
DEMOCRATIC FEDERALISM IS THE WAY FORWARD
The way forward: Democratic federalism for a new, liberated, Ethiopia.
Although I have very little knowledge on such complicated issue, I believe that all opposition groups based inside or outside Ethiopia, despite their multitude of differences, have to find a common ground to successfully challenge the current dictatorship, which has done its homework very well to control the 80 million people, using smear campaigns and ethnic federalism as its formidable weapons, and changing its tactics from time to time just like the CPC.
A democratic system that prioritises group and individual rights must replace and end the current system, which applies authoritarianism to enforce its presence. The will of the opposition parties, left or right, determines the success of democratising Ethiopia. The opposition groups have not set a good example yet to be followed.
Many young people, including myself, have nowhere to go. The organisational vacuum that is so obvious in almost all opposition parties disillusions the young. Party chairmen seem more concerned about keeping their chairmanship. The factionalism, the infighting, and the uncompromising behaviours that have been going on within the various parties, make one wonder if a real and meaningful change is really going to come any time soon.
Whatever the future holds for Ethiopia, I believe that democratic federalism is the way forward, where a constitution that every citizen respects and agrees with becomes the supreme law of the land; where present and past injustices are properly acknowledged and never to be repeated; where people are the boss, and leaders just employees who can be fired or replaced; where religious or ethnic tolerance prevails; where democratic institutions flourish, granting the various groups equal political and economic opportunities; where one region can act independently of the other without implementing discriminatory regional policies, allowing the free flow of people and goods, the celebration of one's language, culture, and identity freely - under a central government, which is comprised of the various stakeholders in the country, unlike the present or the past, and which intervenes in regional affairs as stated in the constitution; and, where compassion replaces vengeance. Such and other approaches may finally set Ethiopia free from years of incarceration.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, 'First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.' The poor people of Ethiopia will surely win one day after centuries of bad governance and exploitation.
Etyopian Simbiro is an Ethiopian student based in the US.
Yesterday's oppressed have now become today's worst oppressors, invalidating the meaning of fighting for freedom and exacerbating the culture of vengeance, ethnic prejudice, and discrimination. They are also destroying the possibility of a dissenting and freethinking in Ethiopia step by step. They have already let the country down, a country that listened to the wind of change carefully and hoped that a better future would come, free from state-sponsored terror, torture, rape, and murder.
The last 18 years have brought more misery to Ethiopia than what people expected and hoped to see; the minor changes here and there don't really count. Just like in the past, one group still dominates the rest of the population, a one party system deceptively dressed as a multi-party system.
Major opposition groups and their supporters, pro-democracy leader Judge Birtukan Mideksa, many innocents who got caught in the wrong place (some targeted because of their ethnic background and some lost without trace), and all who disagree with the current regime have been thrown to infamous jails such as Kaliti. The concept of free press barely exists. The rule of law remains a joke. Human rights? Nobody cares! 'You are either with us or against us!'-That is pretty much how things work in Ethiopia today.
Disguised as 'revolutionary democrats', it seems that the current rulers are carefully imitating the Communist Party of China (CPC) as their prime example. The way they aggressively recruit members, deal with dissent, and monopolise the economy, has so much similarity with CPC's tactics. CPC is globally known as a notorious party that does not welcome opposition from either inside or outside the country. Limiting and banning local media, violating human rights, jamming and blocking foreign media, using intimidation and force to control dissent, spreading hysteria, pretending pro-democracy, and centralising the economy, characterise the nature of CPC's dictatorship.
Ethiopia's current rulers lecture their audiences that 'revolutionary democracy will eventually wither away, replacing itself with liberalism,' openly accepting that they are truly dictators who have not yet renounced Marxism-Leninism and who will do anything to stay in power.
So what is the solution to the cycle of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, and vice versa? Who will eventually free the country from its confinement? Do we have a guarantee that the next will be better? Will power be eventually returned to the people or will there be another era of dictatorship once more, favouring one's group over another (or better to say: Pretending to favour one's group to further advance one's self-interest)?
DEMOCRATIC FEDERALISM IS THE WAY FORWARD
The way forward: Democratic federalism for a new, liberated, Ethiopia.
Although I have very little knowledge on such complicated issue, I believe that all opposition groups based inside or outside Ethiopia, despite their multitude of differences, have to find a common ground to successfully challenge the current dictatorship, which has done its homework very well to control the 80 million people, using smear campaigns and ethnic federalism as its formidable weapons, and changing its tactics from time to time just like the CPC.
A democratic system that prioritises group and individual rights must replace and end the current system, which applies authoritarianism to enforce its presence. The will of the opposition parties, left or right, determines the success of democratising Ethiopia. The opposition groups have not set a good example yet to be followed.
Many young people, including myself, have nowhere to go. The organisational vacuum that is so obvious in almost all opposition parties disillusions the young. Party chairmen seem more concerned about keeping their chairmanship. The factionalism, the infighting, and the uncompromising behaviours that have been going on within the various parties, make one wonder if a real and meaningful change is really going to come any time soon.
Whatever the future holds for Ethiopia, I believe that democratic federalism is the way forward, where a constitution that every citizen respects and agrees with becomes the supreme law of the land; where present and past injustices are properly acknowledged and never to be repeated; where people are the boss, and leaders just employees who can be fired or replaced; where religious or ethnic tolerance prevails; where democratic institutions flourish, granting the various groups equal political and economic opportunities; where one region can act independently of the other without implementing discriminatory regional policies, allowing the free flow of people and goods, the celebration of one's language, culture, and identity freely - under a central government, which is comprised of the various stakeholders in the country, unlike the present or the past, and which intervenes in regional affairs as stated in the constitution; and, where compassion replaces vengeance. Such and other approaches may finally set Ethiopia free from years of incarceration.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, 'First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.' The poor people of Ethiopia will surely win one day after centuries of bad governance and exploitation.
Etyopian Simbiro is an Ethiopian student based in the US.

Thugs Gone Wild in Kilil-istan! - Alemayehu G. Mariam

In a recent piece entitled “Mob Disrupts Political Meeting in Adama,” former Ethiopian President Dr. Negasso Gidada described how “an organized mob disturbed a public political meeting of the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) in Adama, Oromia, and forced the discontinuation of the meeting.” Dr. Negasso explained:

Around 50 people started to disturb the meeting while Eng. Gizachew Shiferraw, Vice Chairperson of the UDJ was addressing the meeting. The disturbers were shouting, clutching and whistling from the rear of the hall. This mob came up running to the front and damaged a microphone while trying to grab it. They continued to shout: ‘This is Oromia’, ‘Oromo is our Language’, ‘You have to start the meeting by a blessing ceremony in accordance with Oromo culture’, ‘You can hold the meeting in Oromo language’, ‘If you do not speak in Oromo language, and you can not hold meetings in our country’. Several people tried to cool down the mob by promising that what is said would be translated in Oromo. But the mob would not heed the appeal. It even threatened to beat us up. Eng. Gizachew could not continue his speech. He was forced to announce that the meeting is adjourned because of the disturbance… The mob was not a spontaneous disturbing group. There were some OPDO/EPRDF cadres among the mob. I myself could recognize at least two OPDO cadres with whom I worked in the organization before I resigned from it in June 2001. It is obvious that the disturbance was an organized one.

In a separate Amharic piece on the subject, Seeye Abraha (the former defense minister and currently a member of Medrek (Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Ethiopia) who attended the Adama town hall meeting pointed to a discernable emerging pattern in the use of thugs and hooligans by the “EPDRF” to disrupt opposition meetings. He identified two other similar disruptions a few weeks earlier, one at a UDJ meeting in Debre Markos and another at an Arena Tigray meeting in Mekele. Seeye suggested that a dual strategy is being used to prevent opposition elements from having public meetings: 1) Deny meeting permits on the basis of absurd excuses; or 2) Issue permits but disrupt the meetings using hired thugs and hooligans. Seeye declared that opposition elements will not be intimidated by thugs and “vigilantes” and their outreach efforts to the people will continue. He also put the dictators and the Ethiopian people on notice that should they be victims of thug violence at such meetings, the “EPDRF” should be held responsible.

Thugs and the Triumph of Kilil-istan Chavinism (Tribal-based Ethnic Federalism)

“This is Oromia… Oromo is our Language… You have to start the meeting by a blessing ceremony in accordance with Oromo culture… You can hold the meeting in Oromo language… If you do not speak in Oromo language, and you can not hold meetings in our country….”

The sounds of such atavistic lyrics of ethnic chauvinism must make sweet music to the ears of Ethiopia’s dictators. It must bring them everlasting joy and ecstasy to have these divisive and truculent words become part of the lexicon of Kilil-istan chauvinism, which is the highest stage of ethnic federalism. No doubt, these words represent the purest expression of the capo dictator’s dream: An Ethiopia blinded, deafened and muted by ethnic, linguistic, tribal and cultural chauvinism. BRAVO!

For nearly two decades, the dictators in Ethiopia toiled ceaselessly to shred the very fabric of that ancient civilization and society, and sculpt a landscape balkanized into tribal, ethnic, linguistic and regional enclaves to establish their own version of a Thousand Year Reich (Reign). They crafted a constitution based entirely on ethnicity and tribal affiliation as the basis for political organization. Article 46 (2) of their constitution provides: “States shall be structured on the basis of settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the people.” In other words, “states”, (and the people who live in them) shall be organized as homogenous tribal homelands in much the same way as the 10 Bantustans (black homelands) of apartheid South Africa were organized to create ethnically homogeneous and “autonomous” nation states for South Africa’s different black ethnic groups, effectively wiping out their South African national citizenship.

The tribal homelands in Ethiopia are officially called “kilils” (enclaves or distinct enclosed and effectively isolated geographic areas within a seemingly integrated national territory). Like the Bantustans, the Killilistans represent territory set aside for the purpose of concentrating members of designated ethnic/tribal/linguistic/cultural groups in nominally autonomous geographic areas. Ethiopia’s dictators have used a completely fictitious and ridiculous theory of “ethnic (tribal) federalism)”, unknown in the annals of political science or political theory, to justify and glorify these Kililistans, impose their atrocious policy of divide and rule against 80 million people and scrub out any meaningful notion of Ethiopian citizenship.

Big Thugs, Small Thugs and the Rule of Law

Article 9 of the dictators’ constitution provides that the “Constitution is the supreme law of the land…. All citizens, state organs, political organizations, other associations and their officials, have the duty to comply with this Constitution and abide by it.” Article 29 of this “supreme law” guarantees that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression without interference. This right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers,…” Article 30 further ensures, “Everyone shall have the freedom, in association with others, to peaceably assemble without arms, engage in public demonstration and the right to petition.”

In Thugland, no one seems to be particularly concerned about constitutional rights. Dr. Negasso, Ato Seeye, UDJ members and the other community attendees were peaceably assembled at an authorized meeting to engage in important political discussions. They have an absolute right to conduct their meeting peaceably without being molested by thugs, hooligans, criminals, gangsters, hoodlums, delinquents and hustlers. It is the supreme and solemn duty of those in authority to guarantee that the constitutional rights of those peaceably assembled is protected from “interference” by anyone. To be sure, the authorities had a legal duty to arrest the disruptive thugs and “vigilantes” and prosecute them for their egregious violation of the constitutional rights of all those in attendance at the town hall meeting. But as we have seen time and time again, the “supreme law” of the land does not apply to thugs because thugs are above the law of the land; indeed, thugs are the law of the land!

Thugs Here, Thugs There, Thugs Everywhere!

Paraphrasing Mark Twain, one could wonder out loud: “Suppose you were a thug. And suppose you were a member of a dictatorship. But I repeat myself.” The use of rented thugs to disrupt public meetings is the oldest trick in the Book of Dictators and Corrupt Politicians. Not long ago, Robert Mugabe’s (ZANU - Patriotic Front) thugs in Zimbabwe disrupted the Constitutional All-Stakeholders’ Conference (organized to write a new constitution) at the Harare International Conference Centre by lambasting and unleashing a torrent of profanity and vulgarity against the Speaker of Parliament. They also attacked delegates and officials with plastic water bottles. In the early 1990s, organized thugs, galvanized by the political ideology of “Majimboism”, (a Kiswahili concept for “ethnic regionalism”, or “ethno-federalism”) instigated ethnic hatred against the Kikuyu. Recently, Prof. Maurice Iwu, Nigeria’s Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, reported to the Nigeria House of Representatives that the “sporadic outbreak of violence in several parts of the country [in the last election] was a fall-out of political thuggery.” The ultimate African thugs are represented by a militia known as the “Janjawid” – bloodthirsty packs of roving criminals armed and supported by the Sudanese government that have caused widespread atrocities including village destruction, massacres and rapes in the Darfur region.

Thugging it Out!

Seeye Abraha has noticed the Ethiopian people that should they be victims of thug violence, the “EPDRF” is to be held responsible. It may be overly optimistic to expect reason and respect for the law from thugs. The fact of the matter is that thugs will always be thugs; but law abiding citizens can fight back — thug it out, so to speak — by doing the right thing: Always tell the people the truth, and speak truth to thugs. Unite the people where thugs try to put them asunder. Promote harmony wherever thugs sow hatred, division and enmity. Fight to win the hearts and minds of the people wherever thugs seek to crush their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Never lower yourself to the gutter world of thugs, but capture, preserve, protect and defend the moral high ground. Never, never, never abandon the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights in Ethiopia. Always do the right thing, the fair thing, the just thing. As Churchill said, “Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Never yield to thugs! Never forget the truth that if we don’t stand up for the Land of Thirteen Months of Sunshine, thugs will gladly transform it into the Land of Eternal Darkness.

Inherit the Wind

In Proverbs 11 is written, “He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only wind.” Those who have wrought trouble on the Ethiopian family for the last two decades will in the end inherit a tornadic wind. That is foreordained! Their wicked efforts to destroy, dismember, deface and disfigure Ethiopia through the politics of hate and ethnic division will fail just as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow. Their diabolical plan will amount to nothing! Like East Germany, ethnic federalism will be there one day and the next day it will be gone forever. Ethiopia’s best days are yet to come because her destiny rests securely in the palms of her bright, patriotic, industrious, conscientious, humble, forward-looking and God-fearing young people.

Is it not ironic that those of us who profess to champion the cause of justice, truth and morality far outnumber those engaged in the practice of evil, yet the few evil doers seem to outdo us nearly every time. As Dr. Negasso pleaded following his confrontation with the Adama thugs: “I call on all those who stand for the respect of democratic and human rights, for peace and stability of this country and for economic development of this country do something TODAY and not TOMORROW!!” That is why we should take to heart the aphorism, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil (thugs) is that good Ethiopian men and women do nothing” TODAY.

ETHIOPIA - LET US BE LIKE THE MARKET~

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

COMMENT
ELLENI AS AN ETHIOPIAN I AM PROUD OF YOU, I HOPE THIS GOVERNMENT WILL ALLOW YOU TO DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO HELP OUR COUNTRY. SOMETIMES I AM WORRIED ABOUT YOUR SAFTY THOSE SHIFTAS THEY DON’T LIKE PROGRESSIVE AND EDUCATED PEOPLE LIKE YOU, REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT TIGERI, THERE IS GOING TO BE AWAYS A CONFLICT THERE. EITHER YOU HAVE TO BE THE CORRUPT “YES WOMAN” OR YOU RISK YOUR LIFE.

AT THE SAME TIME, I BELIEVE YOUR GREAT EXPERIENCE ON THIS CRUCIAL ETHIOPIAN ISSUE ULTIMATELY WILL PREPARE YOU TO BE THE NEXT ETHIOPIAN PRIME MINISTER OR LEADER.
I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST KEEP THE GOOD WORK


By Eleni Zaude Gabre-Madhin, PhD

Special to nazret.com

Much has recently been made of my ethnic identity although this is a matter of no relevance whatsoever to a reasoned discourse on the existence of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. However, when the unnecessary gets in the way of the important, however unpleasant it may be, it must be faced. I am Ethiopian, as truly and wonderfully as that is, and no one has the right to define, reduce, or otherwise dismiss my identity. I do not apologize for or defend who I am, as each one of us, whoever we are, has a God-given set of circumstances that uniquely defines us.

My reality is that, born in Addis Ababa, I first left Ethiopia with my family at the age of four to live in New York city, accompanying my father, Zaude Gabre-Madhin, who was a senior United Nations official, prior to which he served in the Imperial government. Upon returning a few years later, my family then left Ethiopia again, escaping the chaos of the new Dergue regime, this time to Rwanda and later Togo, Malawi, and Kenya. I thus grew up in six different countries, going to school in French as well as English, and learning Swahili along the way. Throughout this time, my parents, to whom I owe everything, instilled in me and my sisters the deepest love and pride for our country Ethiopia. As I grew up in different cultures, grappling to understand my adolescent identity, I drew on the stories my parents told me of my heritage and of those who came before me.

My mother, Bizuwork Bekele, who never missed a chance to boast about her beloved Harar, shared stories of my incredible great-grandmother, Imahoy Saba Yifat, from Menz and Gondar by origin, who lived in rural Hararghe as a widow after the Italian invasion and was one of the few women fighters of her time standing up to the invaders to defend the land and her six children. I heard about her son, my grandfather, Ato Bekele Haile, a respected magistrate serving as a judge in Harar town, himself of Gurage and Amhara ancestry, and of my mother’s birth in the historical site today known as the House of Rimbaud. As a young child, I loved to sit for hours with my maternal grandmother, Imahoy Beletshachew Habte-Giorgis, a witty, intelligent,and extremely strong-willed woman who would often exclaim in Afan Oromo which she and her children, including my mother, spoke fluently, as she laughed recalling how she managed her coffee farms in the areas around Jijiga, Fedis, and Deder, where many of my relatives still live today.

My father, for his part, mostly to amuse his daughters, named the water tank in our UN provided house in Kigali, Rwanda, “Bulga Springs” to recall his father’s birthplace in northern Shewa. He would proudly speak of my grandfather, Fitawrari Gebremedhin, a noble and highly disciplined official in Emperor Menelik’s time, who later settled in Wolaita Soddo in the late nineteenth century, marrying my grandmother, Woizero Ayalech Alaye, niece of the great Wolaita King Tona. At the age of seven, I remember visiting Soddo where my father was born and where many of my relatives still live, to spend time in his last years with my grandfather who was then nearly a century old. A tall, dignified, and handsome man, deeply religious, my grandfather showed me and my sister his coffee farm and I remember him speaking of my much loved late grandmother, and of his childhood and the family still in Bulga, and his laughing politely, not understanding, as I chattered to him in English with children’s jokes I had learned in New York.

Thus I grew, within and outside Ethiopia, celebrating all the different identities and cultures that are woven beautifully into the tapestry of my identity as an Ethiopian. To my parents, always , we were Ethiopian and that was something to be deeply proud of, recognizing and cherishing all of our different ethnic strands. I never knew until much later, nor did it matter, which particular ethnic group I should claim. In my extended family, my aunt married a man from Wollega and my uncle married a woman from Asmara, my great aunt married into the Abba Jifar clan in Jimma, and the list goes on. So the Ethiopia I knew growing up with my cousins was a kaleidoscope of identities bound together in one Ethiopia.

This is my Ethiopian story, and it is unique to me, as each Ethiopian would similarly have. It is the story of my Ethiopia, the Ethiopia for which I have enduring love and to which I have returned after thirty years to contribute in the best way I know how. This is my Ethiopia to which I bring all the global experiences which have shaped me, as I have lived my adult years in Mali, Switzerland, and the United States, trained and worked in some of the best institutions, and traveled and explored dozens of countries around the world. This is my Ethiopia that represents all of my heritage, the strong and courageous women and men in my family through the ages whose blood flows in me. This is my Ethiopia for which I am willing to work, fight, and believe all things are possible. This is my Ethiopia to which I have brought my US-born sons, to instill in them the pride and love of all that we are as Ethiopians. I would like to teach them that in our increasingly inter-connected world, they are Ethiopians but also global citizens.

Ethiopia is ours, to claim, to build and to restore. Rather than engage in destructive ethnic bigotry, far better to embrace all of what we are and to build together a better future for our children. My personal identity is irrelevant to my choice or ability to lead an initiative to bring a better marketing system for all Ethiopians, regardless of their ethnic roots or which corner of the country they claim. A market is above all a connection between humans, an exchange of goods and money that links two sides. The market is neutral as to who is on either side, it is the connection that counts. I have alwaysfound traders to be the most pragmatic people in the world. Let us too live by this market principle: we are far richer and far stronger if we build on our connectivity to each other in meaningful ways, and that much weaker if we seek isolation and succumb to narrow divisiveness. Let us be like the market. I believe it is our only hope.

The Dangerous Hype behind the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange

It is our hope that many Ethiopians have watched the PBS/WNET documentary film - The Market Maker/Wide Angle - which was broadcast beginning on July 23, 2009. This documentary followed the Ethiopian economist, Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, who is the CEO of the relatively newly established Ethiopian Commodity Exchange. Many of us were waiting for the documentary to show us how the ECX could “… transform the Ethiopian economy by becoming a global commodity market of choice,” as claimed in the ECX’s main web page. That was not to be.

We were disappointed (but not surprised) by the failure of the documentary film which failed to show us the difficulties that the ECX has and would face, let alone Dr. Eleni’s failure to explain to us how the ECX could “transform the Ethiopian economy.” The anchor of the documentary, a renowned journalist, Mr. Aaron Brown, opened the discussion by asking a question HOW the commodity exchange would lift the millions of Ethiopian poor farmers out of poverty. We were anxiously expecting Dr. Eleni to explain to us how many millions of non-literate peasants would read the coded commodity prices and use them to their advantage; how the ECX could function and survive in a country where free markets are non-existent; explain to us the mechanisms whereby the peasants would be able to obtain the necessary information about markets in a country where the independent media is slammed shut by the government authorities, a country where the limited media outlets (one of the poorest and lowest penetration rates in the world), such as the telephone, Internet, radio, TV, newspapers are totally controlled by the government. For those who don’t know the Ethiopian situation, we would like to inform them that even those who have access to the limited electronic and print media are so fed up with the government’s endless lies and false propaganda that they only pay attention to those foreign-owned and operated media outlets such as the BBC, VOA, Deutsche Welle, al-jezeera and the Eritrean TV.

Moreover, those of us of Ethiopian origin were expecting the documentary to show us the difficulties and lack of coordination between market participants. In particular, we were expecting the producers of the documentary to have gone deep into the rural areas of Ethiopia and show us the daily lives of the peasants, their unbearable poverty, the meager outputs they produce, and how they “dump”, which is true to this day, their small products to any price they could fetch during harvest times, how they would be able to know what the ECX is (let alone their lack of understanding how it works). It was not to be.

As Thomas Paul who had watched the documentary aptly put it, the documentary failed to show the criteria for success, the market inefficiencies before the implementation of the ECX, how one could measure the benefits of an efficient trading system. The same observer also noted that Dr. Eleni failed to show any raw data supporting the ripple effects of market efficiencies that she talked about, the impacts of the price variances, the challenges, and implementation strategies. Most importantly, both the documentary and Dr. Eleni failed to show us what kind of regulatory schemes exist to build trust, which is a paramount currency in a (newly formed) commodity exchange system. The initiative is a start, assuming that all the necessary ingredients are in place (which is not the case), but it is far from the success story the documentary tried to portray. The same astute observer also noted: “The benefits and theoretical advantages of making trading easy, is a function of trust which in turn is a function of independence from the hands of the government. … “[W]hat was glaringly evident was that the system has so far failed to win the trust of stakeholders, as evidenced by the government's abrupt shutdown of an efficient auction system by which coffee was traded previously. As soon as stakeholders, farmers and merchants alike, were forced to transact through the ECX, they went underground. Some were accused of ‘hoarding’ and thrown in jail…” [Taken from a message posted on Ethiopian Email Exchange Network, posted on July 23, 2009.]

Let us briefly delve into some of the characteristics of a commodity exchange system and relate those characteristics to the ECX. In this particular article (our first installment on the issue), we show that the ECX is neither a Free Market based transparency and a level-playing field, nor it is intended to be, at least from the government’s stand point.

Since its establishment, which began its operation in April of 2008, the ECX has never been a free exchange market. The description “free commodity exchange market” was and still is just a PR stunt and a pretext to hoodwink donors and unsuspecting public. We know free markets galvanize private resources by bringing those who are willing and able to buy and sell when they try to maximize their own individual utility. We also know and understand that commodity exchange mechanisms could play vital roles provided that they are set up properly and allowed to function with minimal interference by the authorities. By the same taken, the ECX could alleviate, but not transform, some of the problems that the Ethiopian economy is in, again, provided that all the necessary conditions that will make a “free” commodity exchange to function properly. But there are a number of both conceptual and practical problems with the EXC.

A. Transparency: For more than a year, we have been looking for the identity of the officers and regulators of the ECX. As everyone knows, such a disclosure of the identity, background and financial interest of the individuals and the businesses involved in the exchange is paramount to the well-functioning and transparency of any commodity and financial exchange institution. We are happy to see, after more than a year of not doing so, the ECX putting out the identity of the officers, the regulators and trading members on the official website, but a detailed public record of those individuals and companies is necessary.

B. Market Information (lack of): The ECX on its only official website claims information being delivered all over the country through Radio, Television, and SMS. But it failed to inform us that there is no privately owned media infrastructure in the country. It failed to honestly inform the reader and the observer that not only the government owned and operated media outlets are biased but their usefulness to market participants is almost non-existent (for example, the internet penetration rates as compared to the rest of the world is only 0.02%!) The claim that market information is transmitted all over the country is, therefore, misleading and false.

C. Credit: Transparency of financing is a critical component of commodity trade. However, in addition to the listing of some of the ‘private’ banks, it is important to fully disclose the role of the government and the involvement of the ruling party owned credit establishments, particularly their relations to the private banks.

D. Storage: As a government agency, the ECX owns and operates the largest storage facilities. In so doing, it enjoys complete dominance in the storage of commodities throughout the country, thereby making this same government agency the price-maker. Everyone involved knows that impartiality to the private traders does not exist and the government is crowding out private storage operators. Moreover, another government agency, the Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE), which is the largest grain purchaser in the country, is a member-trader of the exchange, owns major storage, transportation facilities throughout the country and directly competes against private traders. It has been recently disclosed that the EGTE destabilized the commodity market, due to its market dominance and the preference it gets from the government, and yet, no mention of this fact is made by the CEO of the ECX.

E. Transportation: As mentioned earlier, the dominance of the Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise and the ruling party owned transportation operators are equally mentioned as private operators but they actually dominate its control. Such unequal relationship and favoritism is not only contrary to the normal operations of a market but the lack of disclosure their dominance, favoritism party owned parastatals, and their unfettered access to government regulators exacerbates the lack of trust on the part of the ECX.

F. Regulation: The government officials who are listed as regulators, including the Prime Minister’s involvement in the ECX’s affairs are the major causes of market destabilization and the failure of the exchange as a market institution. In addition, the ruling party affiliated traders, financers, transporters, and exporters should have been banned from the exchange. The Prime Minster as the leader of his party must disclosed his party owned enterprises and their financial interests to the public before they are permitted in the exchange. Moreover, the ECX should have disclosed the names of the donor countries and international institutions that are financing the establishment of the exchange, including their financial interests and how they would be accountable for any improprieties that either their agents or those whom they support could commit. They should have demanded the disclosure of the financial interests of the officers as well. Unfortunately, none of the above disclosures are made so far, thereby creating an appearance of conflict of interest.

We conclude, therefore, based on the problems we listed above and other issues, there is a lack of market information, lack of contract enforcement, and a lack of trust on the ECX. In particular, the asymmetric information (those who are close to the government possessing all the information and outright favoritism) has been damaging to the ECX and will continue to be so.

Furthermore, let it be known that no commodity exchange will work (let alone function and assist the 82 million Ethiopians) without transparency and accountability. Let it be known that there are no commodity exchange markets that have flourished under repressive, parasitic, nepotistic and oligarchic regimes as it exists in Ethiopia. Let it be known that there is no “free commodity exchange” where repression is the order of the day, where the Ethiopian people are so petrified by the repression of Meles Zenawi’s regime that they are leaving their country in drones. We believe there are better ways to feed starving Ethiopians, currently over ten million of them being dependent international food aid.
An Ethiopian mom waits for aid with her malnourished children

Let it be known that a commodity exchange, no matter how glittery it may seem, will not work in a malaise economy and with people under increasingly grinding poverty.

Let it be known that there is no true commodity exchange in a country where group of people who claim to represent a minority ethnic group, who have illegally transferred the means of production to themselves and the parastatals they fully control. Let it be known that the ECX adventure has been an exercise in futility, in part because the circumstances for a true commodity exchange system to function do not exist and in part because, as it became evident by Meles Zenawi’s “cutting of the hands” of the Ethiopian coffee exporters, the entire exercise is designed to have full control of the commanding heights of the Ethiopian economy.

It is also about time for those renowned journalists to speak on behalf of their colleagues, members of the Ethiopian independent media whose businesses have been closed, who have languished in the prisons of Meles Zenawi with concocted up charges and who have been forced into exile. There is no and cannot be a free commodity exchange market under such repressive circumstances.

It is about time to recognize that millions of Ethiopians get hurt with such gimmickry and uncalled for hypes. … Let it be known that the ECX is another well orchestrated gimmick, one of those government set up mega projects which are designed to control both the outputs and prices of the Ethiopian farmers, particularly the commodities which are the source of foreign exchange. Let be known that, as the saying goes: “all that glitters is not really gold!”

Let there be no more hypes, no more deceptions. Most importantly, it is time for those enablers of Meles’s greedy and kleptocratic regime that the creation of hypes real consequences. As a gimmickry mega project, the ECX has been and will be used to both squander the meager resources of the country and as means of controlling the outputs of the Ethiopian peasants. Let it be known that those who are a part of this process, including those at the helm of the ECX will be accountable for what they have done to Ethiopia and its people.

---
The author and his collaborators could be reached at Seid.hassan@murraystate.edu

Ethiopia: Politics & Faith

By Yohannes Y
"Do Ethiopian politician believe in God?"

That is the most fundamental of all questions: God.

The spirit of humanity, both in society and the individual, is found in how we respond to that question. If we believe in God, it will make a difference in how we live and learn. It should be asked on a daily basis as we contemplate a decision, face a crisis, undergo a temptation. Our answer forces us to trust God and to give way to his way of life. And best of all, God confirms our hearts that he is, indeed, in control.

However denying his omnipotent power makes our lives miserable and defenseless; the people who see us see nothing more than mere human beings who are fighting the omnipotent power and spiritually fragile who could not understand simple facts that God indeed in control.

What is missing in Ethiopian politician’s life is that they could not be able to persuade people around them all what they do is just fight each other and they prolong the suffering of the Ethiopian people. Most of the time peoples supported them because we think anything is better than the present government. Did they prove to us that they are better?

However since politicians are essentially competing with God – to control the fate of the people and decide their future and take care of their need then I can comfortably say that God is indeed the master of politician but the politicians defies the master’s decision. But the master literally rejected them because they have no selfless motives to help the people in need. Even the most dictatorial regime gets a favor of God, because they did a lot of work that contribute for the well being of the people of Ethiopia.

So what is missing in Ethiopian politicians life styles? (Luke 10:41)

You are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed… what is needed right now is, to sit and listen to the master, and the Ethiopian politicians unable to listen to each other, let alone to listen for their master who control their life.

But reject him on his face because their life style is self-centered which is rejected by God. Because there is no blessing, they will fight each other and they will never change anything for the poor people of Ethiopia. How can we trust these people?

End Tyranny Now

End Tyranny Now!

Now is the Time to End Tyranny! - Alemayehu G. Mariam
“No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery.
That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.” Thus spoke President Barack Obama last week to Africa’s tin-pot dictators using the Ghanaian parliament as a sounding board.
During the presidential campaign and over the past seven months, many Ethiopians had expressed uncertainty and apprehension about the future direction of U.S. foreign policy in Ethiopia. Some thought President Obama would continue the knee-jerk terror-centric policies of George Bush; other believed it would be the dawn of a new day in U.S. policy. We offered analyses which foretold the orientation of U.S. foreign policy in Ethiopia and Africa under an Obama administration.

The President’s speech in Accra was both a diagnosis of what ails Africa, particularly Ethiopia, and a set of remedial prescriptions. President Obama spoke disapprovingly of the divisive and outdated politics of tribalism and ethnicity which continues to poison the African body politics. He urged Africans to reconcile around their common humanity and Africanity. He spoke of the corrosive effects of corruption on the soul of Africa and urged good governance to restore hope in the spirit of the African people. He declared Africa’s future is up to Africans, but challenged Africa’s youth to mold and shape it.
The Poison of Tribalism and Ethnic Politics

President Obama blasted identity politics as a canker in the African body politics:
We all have many identities - of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century…. In my father’s life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many….

Few countries in Africa today are more afflicted and conflicted by the artificially engineered ethno-tribal virus than Ethiopia. Using a completely phony theory of “ethnic (tribal) federalism”, the dictators in Ethiopia have created what amounts to apartheid-style Bantustans or tribal homelands. They have segregated the Ethiopian people by ethno-tribal classification in grotesque regional political units called “kilils”. This sinister perversion of the concept of federalism has enabled a few cunning dictators to oppress, divide and rule some 80 million people for nearly two decades.

We have called them out on their divide-and-rule politics. We have repeatedly called upon them to tear down of the walls of tribalism and ethnicity. Our humanity, we asserted, is more important than our ethnicity, nationality, sovereignty or Africanity! We are not prisoners to be kept behind tribal walls, but free men and women who are captains of our future in one unwalled Ethiopia that belongs to all of us equally. We echo President Obama, and President Reagan from another era, when we call upon those who built the tribal walls to tear them down once again: “Zenawi, tear down the kilil tribal walls behind which you have kept our people locked up! Let them go before you go!”

The Fundamental Truth: Development Depends on Good Governance
President Obama said,

We must first recognize a fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long…

The dictators in Ethiopia have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are clueless about good governance; and their idea of development is ripping off the people to enrich their relatives and friends. “Concentrat[ion] of wealth in the hands of the few [that] leaves people too vulnerable to downturns” is not development.

Good governance is based on a set of objective measures. We subscribe to the 8 benchmark parameters of good governance set by the U.N.: Participation (men and women participate equally in political and civil society institutions); rule of law (an independent judiciary and impartial law enforcement agencies administer the justice system with strict adherence to the law of the land); transparency (public decisions are made and implemented according to established rules and regulations); responsiveness (public needs are met in a timely manner); consensus-building (the different interests of groups in society are harmonized in formulating policy); equity and inclusiveness (individuals and groups feel they have a stake in society and do not feel excluded); effectiveness and efficiency (scarce resources are used for maximum public benefit and service); accountability (leaders and institutions are accountable to the public and under law). In sum, good governance is to development as water is to a bountiful harvest. No water, no harvest!

Good Governance is Sustained by Respect for Human Rights
Just as development is based good governance, we believe respect for human rights is the sustaining force for good governance. Human rights principles provide a set of values to anchor and guide leaders, institutions and processes in serving the common good. Political action and reforms guided by principles enumerated in international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and conventions dealing with the rights of the child, elimination of discrimination based on gender and religion, and protection of economic, social and cultural rights and others, are central to the development of a fair and just society in Ethiopia.
The New Pillar of American Foreign Policy in Africa

President Obama announced that his administration’s policy in Africa will be guided by a simple principle: The U.S will provide support for the establishment of strong democratic governments, enhanced protections for human rights and assistance to victims of human rights violations, and efforts aimed at rooting out corruption in Africa. He said the U.S. will “sanction and stop those who” violate human rights:
First, we must support strong and sustainable democratic governments. Governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable and more successful than governments that do not. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves… In the 21st century, capable, reliable and transparent institutions are the key to success - strong parliaments and honest police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private sector and civil society. Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in peoples’ lives….

In Moscow, I spoke of the need for an international system where the universal rights of human beings are respected, and violations of those rights are opposed. That must include a commitment to support those who resolve conflicts peacefully, to sanction and stop those who don’t, and to help those who have suffered.
The President made it clear that democracy is about outcomes such as “strong parliaments and honest police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private sector and civil society.” He disagrees with those who claim that “democracy is about process, it’s not about outcome… If the process is clean and you get zero, tough luck.”

“Brutality and bribery” are the engines of tyranny, the President asserted. Economic chaos packaged as a litany of “ten percent annual growth” is not development; and American taxpayers will not provide aid to support such “development”. In short, American support to African regimes will be contingent on the implementation of “concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting, automating services, strengthening hot lines and protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability, peaceful transfers of power, ending brutal repression, growth of civil society institutions, expansion of political space for civic participation and youth involvement.”

Africa’s Salvation Will Come Through Its Youth
President Obama knows that talking to African tin pot dictators is like pouring water on a slab of granite. There will be no penetration. The dictators will probably sit around in their echo chambers and lament the fact that the President is naïve about African politics and its complexities. The fact is that he is not only well informed on Africa, he is also fully prepared to deal with African dictators. After all, he cut his teeth on Chicago politics. In his eloquent and artful way, the President told the African dictators that they are not only decidedly on the wrong side of history, but also that they are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things:

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

We have learned that it will not be giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta who will determine Africa’s future. Instead, it will be you - the men and women in Ghana’s Parliament, and the people you represent. Above all, it will be the young people - brimming with talent and energy and hope…

And I am particularly speaking to the young people. In places like Ghana, you make up over half of the population. Here is what you must know: the world will be what you make of it. You have the power to hold your leaders accountable and to build institutions that serve the people. You can serve in your communities and harness your energy and education to create new wealth and build new connections to the world. You can conquer disease, end conflicts and make change from the bottom up. You can do that. Yes you can.”

The role of youth in Ethiopia’s future deserves special attention. It is manifest that the dictators today have little interest in developing Ethiopia’s youth to “hold leaders accountable and build institutions that serve the people.” The dictators aim to mobilize, ideologize and “harness the energy of Ethiopian youth” to create armies of androids that will serve them obsequiously. They understand Hitler’s maxim: “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” For this reason, it is instructive to watch the video of the recently stage-managed youth conference of the dictators available on ethiotube.net.

While the dictators abuse the youth, the opposition and the older generation has largely ignored them. Truth be told, we have done a poor job of preparing Ethiopian youth for their historic role in rebuilding and reorganizing the new Ethiopian society. We have become less than inspiring role models by our inability to set good examples of tolerance, harmony and collaboration. We have done little to teach the youth of our mistakes so that they will not repeat them. We have offered them little clarity to remove their confusion and uncertainties. We have failed to empower them in defending human rights. The dictators hold “conferences” to steal the souls of Ethiopian youth. What have we done to harness their idealism to serve their country and people? What have we done to inspire their minds, free their spirits and fortify their hearts in the historic task of reconstructing a new Ethiopia unburdened by tribalism, sectarianism, sexism and corruption?

The president is absolutely right. Africa’s, and Ethiopia’s, future will be shaped by its youth. The sooner we, who profess our faith in freedom, democracy and human rights, realize and own up to this irrefutable fact and begin helping them, the sooner will come Africa’s salvation. Young Ethiopians need good role models. Let each one of us strive to be one, for in the end the future belongs to them.

We should not expect quick results from the President’s speech. We must understand that the Obama administration does not have all of its Africa hands on deck; and the President is preoccupied with many domestic issues. Suffice it to say to African dictators that Barack Obama is not George Bush.