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Ethiopian PM signals shift over Somalia
- Financial Times - August 27, 2008
Editor's Note: Back in March 2008, way before the drought, famine
and food crisis escalated to the current disastrous levels, Mr. Bulcha
Demeksa, one of the few independent Oromo voices still functioning in
the Ethiopian empire, powerfully challenged the wrong policy of the
ruling/tyrant party on Somalia: "If we can't feed our people, then how come we are maintaining a military presence in Somalia, which is much more costly?"
Thousands of human lives have been lost from both sides at the
war in Somalia at no avail, and countless children have died of
famine/diseases and many people have been displaced because of the focus
on the war on Somalia, instead of the war against famine and the war
against dependency on foreign aid. No one can change that past, but yet, with EPRDF still clinging to power using its gun, the future is on the
blink. Whether EPRDF shifts its position on Somalia or not, one thing
that is clear is that the empire needs to decolonize in order to have
the voices of people like Mr. Demeksa be heard and acted upon
democratically. With EPRDF in power and the Abyssinian System of
Domination in existence, the future will be the same as the past. In
addition, the deployment of Woyane/EPRDF soldiers from Somalia to the
home front signals more human rights abuses coming to Oromia and
elsewhere in the empire.
Ethiopia would be prepared to withdraw its troops from Somalia even if the interim government they were sent in to install 20 months ago were still not stable or functioning, the country's prime minister has said.
Meles Zenawi
told the Financial Times
(click
here for the interview transcript) that Ethiopia was
"not joined at the hip" with the Somali government as frustration in Addis Ababa grows over its perennial in-fighting and the financial cost of the occupation. His comments mark a policy shift because Ethiopia had previously indicated it would stay in Somalia until the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was firmly established and in control.
Read More.
.
UN helps foreigners uprooted by xenophobic violence go home
- UN News - August 27, 2008
The United Nations is assisting foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence which swept South Africa earlier this year to return to their home countries.
The violence - which also targeted asylum-seekers from such places as Zimbabwe, Somalia and Ethiopia, as well as ethnic minorities
- claimed dozens of lives and left tens of thousands more homeless.
Officials in Gauteng province had planned to shut six temporary camps housing 6,000 displaced people this month, but those plans have been put on hold by the country's Constitutional Court.
"Between the uncertainty surrounding the closure of the temporary shelters and the inability or reluctance of refugees to reintegrate into local communities, the preferred solution for a growing number of them is to return to their countries of origin," said Pamela Msizi, a UNHCR protection assistant.
Read More.
.
The tyrant Meles Zenawi,
Prime Minister of the 16th World's Most Failed State, in his own
expression:
"Do Not Hear, Do Not See and Do Not Speak"
the Truth
.
Maids in
Lebanon dying every week - rights group
- Reuters - August 26, 2008
Lebanon
must improve working conditions for migrant domestic workers, who often
commit suicide or die while trying to escape from their employers, a
U.S.-based rights group said on Tuesday.
Human Rights Watch said there were an estimated 200,000 such workers in
Lebanon, including those with illegal status, mostly from Sri Lanka, the
Philippines and Ethiopia.
Out of about 95 foreign housemaids who died in Lebanon since Jan. 2007,
40 deaths were classified by their embassies as suicides and 24 as
workers falling from high buildings, often trying to escape their
employers, it said in a statement. "Domestic workers are dying in
Lebanon at a rate of more than one per week," said Nadim Houry, senior
researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Read More.
.
The need for damage control
- Gubirmans.com - August 26, 2008
By Ibsaa Guutama*
OLF
is a secular political organization. It became a common household name
for all citizens of Oromiyaa because of that policy, a policy
that rallied them to struggle together for their lost honor and dignity.
That is what made it a symbol of hope for liberation and resistance
against injustice. It is to deny this role that anti-Oromummaa
forces have come out with their axes to hack it down.
Whistle blowers pointed cracks appearing within the leadership of OLF
and the looming danger much earlier. Some even went further and
requested the National Council (Shanee) to abandon the height
it has occupied through conspiracy and call for a balanced Congress that
could maintain organizational harmony and unity of purpose and also
redirect the way ahead. But they were not listened to until incompetence
and system infestation by infiltrators led to its total decay. Its
change of strategy from independence to democratization of the empire,
the empire that OLF was supposed to dismantle, further created more
fissures within the nationalist camp. To save the name OLF from being
erased from history, the group took responsibility and tried to uphold
the honor of the fallen heroes and the nation. It declared that there is
no two but only one OLF with the
kaayyoo of liberation and that that was the OLF led by
it. But Shanee clung to the name and even tried to prove its
legitimacy by taking the other to alien court. But now all pretenses of
changing tactics are gone, it is standing bare with its new
anti-independence and anti-Oromo unity strategy.
Read More.
*Ibsaa Guutama is a member of the generation that drew up
the first political program of the OLF.
.
Thousands displaced by floods in Ethiopia
- Reuters - August 26, 2008
Flooding in Ethiopia's western Gambella region has killed
three people, displaced thousands and destroyed crops, an
official said on Monday.
"Flash floods following heavy rains for nearly a week
have caused major rivers in Gambella to burst their banks,
submerging residential areas and farmlands and forcing
18,000 people to be displaced", said Akway Ojulu, head of
emergency assistance in Gambella. "So far we have reports of
the deaths of three people including one child," he told
Reuters by telephone.
Ethiopia faces seasonal flooding between June and
September. Flash floods typically happen in lowland areas of
the country after heavy rains drench the highlands during
the rainy season.
According to the United Nations, more then 100,000 people
were affected by floods in Ethiopia last year and 17 died of
waterborne diseases.
Read More.
.
Kenya, Ethiopia shine for Africa at Olympics
- Reuters - August 25, 2008
Africans again dominated distance running at the Beijing
Olympic Games thanks to Kenya and Ethiopia, but athletes
pleaded for more funding for their poor states.
African athletes won 12 gold, 14 silver and 13 bronze
medals in Beijing, a slight improvement on their effort in
Athens where they picked up nine gold, 13 silver and 13
bronze medals.
Kenya and Ethiopia collected 21 medals between them with
officials saying hardships on the continent had helped
athletes to thrive in long distance running.
Read More.
.
Wallelign
Mekonnen on the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia
American Chronicle - August 24, 2008
To be a "genuine Ethiopian" one has to speak
Amharic, to listen to Amharic music, to accept the Amhara-Tigre
religion, Orthodox Christianity and to wear the Amhara-Tigre Shamma in
international conferences. In some cases to be an "Ethiopian", you will
even have to change your name. In short to be an Ethiopian, you will
have to wear an Amhara mask (to use Fanon's expression). Start asserting
your national identity and you are automatically a tribalist, that is if
you are not blessed to be born an Amhara. According to the constitution
you will need Amharic to go to school, to get a job, to read books
(however few) and even to listen to the news on Radio "Ethiopia" unless
you are a Somali or an Eritrean in Asmara for obvious reasons.
Read More.
.
Bleak prospects await refugees from Ethiopia -
San Francisco Chronicle - August 24, 2008
In Somaliland, Cadre, whose father had been a supporter
of a militant separatist group, expected a respite from a
three-decade civil conflict between Oromo rebels and the
Ethiopian military. Instead, he and an estimated 3,000 other
displaced Oromos deemed rebel sympathizers by Ethiopian
authorities have encountered a new set of daunting
challenges.
Each month, some 200 Oromos arrive in Somaliland,
according to the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), creating increasing tension in a
clan-based state suffering from a 70 percent unemployment
rate. Along the dusty streets of the capital city of
Hargeisa, Oromo children beg for food and spare change,
while their parents toil at such menial jobs as hauling
trash, cleaning toilets and working as domestics. Many
Oromos worry about being kidnapped by Ethiopia's Secret
Service, which has been reported to be active in Somaliland
and paying off corrupt police to avoid deportation.
Read More.
.
Ethiopia's new famine: 'A ticking time bomb' - USA
Today - August 18, 2008
Once, the farmers walked for hours to bring their sorghum
and maize here to market. These days they trod the same
paths, parched grass crunching under foot, to carry their
starving children to a feeding clinic.
Read More.
Editor's Note: This is a total failure of state
management by the Woyane regime. From orchestrating price-gouging through
ruling_party-controlled-quasi-private-companies that are monopolies in many
aspects of the economy to evicting farmers from their food farmlands for
flower mega-farms and for private weekend gate-away for Djibouti first
family to illegally arresting hardworking farmers for showing sympathy
towards opposition groups, such as the OLF & ONLF, to preventing independent
aid groups, such as the Red Cross & MSF, from providing help to the needy --
all of these are the causes of the current food crisis in the Ethiopian
Empire.
.
Understanding democracy versus self-determination -
Sudan Tribune, Sudan - August 20, 2008
Understanding the difference between the concepts of
democracy and
self-determination is important. Conflating the two
concepts together is problematical and that leads to bafflement and
confusion. Some Oromo nationals have already become a victim of this and
unable to differentiate the two concepts, one from the other. To begin
with, self-determination, as historically defined, does not oppose
democracy. That is, though democracy and self-determination are not
conceptually the same, they are not exclusive to each other. It is for
this, John Stuart Mill recognized that democracy can function only where
the nationalist principle that every nation ought to have its own state
is realized. The implication of this is that there cannot be democracy
in an empire where nations and peoples are forced to live together in an
empire. In order not to fall into conceptual trap, one should
distinguish the difference between the concept of self-determination and
democracy. Since 2001, a few elements within Oromo nationals have chosen
to follow a political line of democratization of Ethiopia. Since then,
these elements have been trying to twist, bastardize, and distort the
two concepts in order to fuse the two together as one and the same, so
as to confuse and mislead the public.
Read
More.
.
OGINA - A New Oromo Webzine Hits the Internet -
Ogina - August 2008
Ogina is a web-based (maga)zine
featuring art, literature, interviews, and criticism that
relate, directly or indirectly, to the experiences of Oromo
in Diaspora.
In the first issue of Ogina, each of the
contributions has taken on the task of creating art and
conversation that looks both forward and backward. We look
backward by drawing on the history we know to be painfully
present, and look forward by finding new ways to understand
and think about our situation. Through the interview with
Joe Riemann of Equal Exchange, Steven Thomas' essay on an
Oromo Renaissance, the poetry of Efrata Obsa, Ziyad Kadir,
and Hana Tesfaye, we are teaching each other to discuss
Oromo-ness in new and challenging ways. The visual art of
the Rammy Mohammed and Abdiwak Dawit Yohannes help us to see
our situation in a new light. Siraj K. of Norway has helped
us to navigate the growing complexity of Oromo identity in
an unlikely way - by reprogramming an Iphone in Afan Oromo
and by contributing to the nascent Oromo Wikipedia.
Read More.
World News
