Eritrean Regime Sanctioned

Last week the UN Security Council passed a resolution which imposed targeted sanctions on Eritrea for its destabilizing role in Somalia and for refusing to withdraw its troops from Djibouti. The sanctions include an arms embargo and travel restrictions on and a freeze on the assets of the political and military leaders of the regime. These sanctions are tied to two other previous UN resolutions (resolutions 751 and 1267) and seem to have some teeth, which explains the regime's freakish reaction to the resolution. You can read the full text of the resolution here.

This is a welcome development for the Horn of Africa region; the sanctions are balanced and appropriate for the offence commited. However, punishing the Eritrean regime alone will not bring peace to Somalia or stability to the Horn region. That would require a comprehensive carrot and stick approach towards all the regimes in the region and a real support to human rights and democracy advocates in the region. On this score, the Obama Administration has so far proven itself to be as worthless as the administration it replaced.

Christmas Cheers!

Here is a cheerful Christian song by Asfaw Melese. The setting is Hossana, which happens to be Asfaw's hometown, and also mine. The audio is not great, but the energy is infectious. Watching the kids enjoy themselves made me wish that I was a teenager again. Enjoy!

Copenhagen Blues

The Telegraph wrote a headline today which read "world leaders miss best chance" in describing how the Copenhagen climate change summit ended in disappointment for the global apocalypse faithful. It went on to conclude:

They have agreed to meet again early next year to agree targets for 2020. But no one was denying that making further progress will be hard, as will regenerating the momentum that was lost so recklessly over the last days.

I am not sure what recklessness the Telegraph was talking about. But, thanks to Climategate, it is now clear to any rational mind that the parties that were reckless are the group of scientists who tried to sell to the world a half-baked science as settled science and their leftist allies from all around the world who can't seem to miss a chance to alarm the world about the catastrophe that global warming has purportedly caused and will cause in the future.

Now that the collusion between these two groups has been exposed for the sham that it is, those scientists with any sense of descency left in them should return to their labs and ponder on alternative and dissenting views on climate-change science, like the one suggested in this WSJ article and many others, and come up with research that is transparent and invites scientific scrutiny. And, what about their political allies? They should re-direct their energy towards environmental issues that have broad-based support and can be implemented in a financially sound way.

As to the actual agreement(s) that were made in Copenhagen, the Obama Accord or any of its variants, they are as worthless as the papers they are printed on. And, if any one out there believes that the African nations will ever get the 100s of billions of dollars they extorted from the rich nations, regardless of whom the extorter-in-chief was, then I have a magic pill that will cure your Copenhagen Blues and any other ailments you might think of here.

A Model Nation for Religious Persecution?

The BBC reported yesterday that 30 elderly women have been arrested in Eritrea while praying together. This report is just the latest in a long series of persecution for adherents of various Protestant Christian denominations, Jehovah Witnesses and other faiths that are not granted an official stamp of approval by the Eritrean regime since 2002.

One of the well known cases of this ongoing persecution is that of gospel singer Helen Berhane who was tortured and detained without charge for two years before she was released in 2007 and was granted asylum in Denmark. As you can see in the video below, Helen has a difficult time walking as a result of the torture she was subjected to during her incarceration. Obviously, the tortures did not brake her. As is often the case, persecution of religious people never accomplishes its intended objective.



I fail to understand what Isaias Afeworki and his henchmen want to achieve by such inhumane treatment of their own people! Trying to become a model nation for religious persecution? Here is a graphic description of what happens to the Christians and others from an Eritrean witness who was a prison guard:

I was doing my national service in Sawa Military training during the period 1999- 2001. During the two years period of my stay in Sawa, I witnessed an enormous amount of beating and torture to individuals who happened to be followers of Jehovah's Witness and Pentecostal (commonly known as "Pente") religions. I was, on many occasions, a prison guard to these people. The Jehovas are detained for refusing, according to their faith, to take the military training. But the "Pentes" are usually simply detained for reading bibles, praying in a group, singing gospels etc during the free time, even though they are good soldiers. Once they are detained their head is shaven, like the other criminals in the prison. 20-30 of them are detained in a 3x4 metal-house. They were allowed to go out only for 30 minutes in whole day. The perfect relaxation time for the detainees were when they were taken to load and unloads cement, food etc from trucks. They all prefer this work than to be locked in the container even though it is physically exhausting for them. But the worst time for all of them was during 'questioning' time. They were badly beaten to the
extent that noses are broken, feet bleed. After the beating comes the notorious 'helicopter' torture in which your two legs are tied with your hands on your back. You are thrown in the sun and milk is poured on your body to attract the flies. It was the most inhuman treatment I have ever witnessed

Amanuel, Cape Town, South Africa

Africa and Climategate

Much hoopla surrounds COP15, the Climate Change Conference that is set to open in Denmark in a couple of days. While the industrialized nations are still haggling about the extent to which carbon emissions should be cut by the great carbon pollutors of the world, the African countries, represented by an Ethiopian despot named Meles Zenawi, are sullivating to extort large sums of money from the industrialized nations for their "carbon sins" (see Africa will not reveal its climate compensation demands).

Meanwhile, a big scandal is brewing in climate change science itself, dubbed Climategate by some, that is threatening to derail the Copenhagen conference. In case you have not been paying attention in the last couple of weeks, the nerve center of climate change study, University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit in the United Kingdom, was hacked and that has brought to public view email communications among scientists which revealed the unscientific nature of climate change science.

What these email exchanges between climate scientists reveal is that much of the science that was used to declare "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" was tainted by ideologically driven politics. I suppose these revelations may probably mean that not much concrete progress is likely come out of Copenhagen.

What about the Africans? Well, Climategate could also dash their hope of collecting a handout in the name of global warming. The same scientists who were caught cooking the books in climate change science are the ones who supplied the "scientific" basis for the Africans' claim. Here are a couple of articles that discuss the effects of global warming which the Africans are using in making their case:

Alarming health effects of global warming
Health toll of climate change seen as ethical crisis

Climategate has given scientists a bad name and it has underscored the need for scientists to decouple themselves from the political debates that touch upon their scientific research area. One of the climate scientists who was involved in the aforementioned email exchanges put this maxim best in a WSJ Op-Ed article titled "The Science and Politics of Climate Change":

Climate scientists, knowingly or not, become proxies for political battles. The consequence is that science, as a form of open and critical enquiry, deteriorates while the more appropriate forums for ideological battles are ignored...

Science never writes closed textbooks. It does not offer us a holy scripture, infallible and complete. This is especially the case with the science of climate, a complex system of enormous scale, at every turn influenced by human contingencies. Yes, science has clearly revealed that humans are influencing global climate and will continue to do so, but we don't know the full scale of the risks involved, nor how rapidly they will evolve, nor indeed—with clear insight—the relative roles of all the forcing agents involved at different scales.

Your (US) Tax Dollars At Work

This is a quote from a letter from Amare Mammo, a former official with the Ethiopian Agricultural and Food Organization, to Dr. Seid Hassan of Murray State University. For most Ethiopians, myself included, the content of the letter may not come as a surprise, but only very few of us can actually substantiate allegations of government corruption and voter intimidation with such detail and first hand witness account. Thanks to Mr. Amare for the eye-opening letter and to Dr. Seid for sharing with the rest of us. Hello US State Department!

A Rejuvenated UDJ?

The news of Negasso Gidada and Seye Ahraha, former high officials of the Woyane regime, joining the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party a few days ago was pleasantly surprising. It was surprising because it came on the heels of a UDJ internal turmoil and the mysterious departure of Yacob Hailemariam from his UDJ leadership position. It is a pleasant news because these two gentlmen are seasoned politicians who have the potential to add a significant number of supporters to the fledgling UDJ from key constituencies.

However, with all the disappointments Ethiopians have had to go through with the recent Kinijit debacle, not to mention many of the other false starts, it would be prudent to take a wait-and-see attitude regarding this news. We will all find out before too long whether or not the Negasso-Seye move can rejuvenate the UDJ, perhaps in a matter of weeks. If the energy I witnessed among the participants of the vigil for Birtukan at the White House earlier tonight can be taken as an indication of the UDJ's future, then we may be in for more pleasant surprises in the near future. In any case, the UDJ is lucky to have these two gentlemen on its side, and good luck to all of them!

Milton Friedman

Interview with Richard Heffner on The Open Mind (December 1975)

Nominate Birtukan

Milton Friedman was probably the most influential economist of the 20th century. But he will most likely be remembered in history as one of the greatest champions of freedom and limited government. Birtukan deserves the 2010 Milton Friedman Prize. Please nominate her here. Please also send the post card prepared by Amnesty International to the European Commissioner for Humanitarian and Development Aid. Thanks.

Wycoff this!

I just read a news item that said the US is concerned about the restriction on Ethiopian opposition groups ahead of elections in May of 2010. The AFP quotes Karl Wycoff, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East African Affairs, as saying:

The US is concerned by what we see as reduction in political space and the ability of opposition parties to operate and do what opposition parties should do.

Hallelujah! I guess the US gets it, eh! The Obama Administration seems to be worried that the Ethiopian regime is closing down the political space. But, in all seriousness, isn't this the same administration that gave its stamp of approval for a Zenawi-$hawel deal just three weeks ago while knowing fully well that the Ethiopian regime is not remotely interested in openning up the political space? Who are they trying to fool?

If such a concern had been voiced publicly when foreign minster Seyoum Mesfin visited with Hillary Clinton at the State Department a couple of weeks ago, a case could have been made that the US is serious about its concern. But it was not, and that was done deliberately. Instead, that burden was was left to Karl Wycoff, a mid-level official whose main expertise is counter-terrorism.

It is quite evident that the reason Karl Wycoff was sent to Addis has nothing to do with pressuring the Ethiopian regime into openning up the political space but, rather, it had everything to do with the situation in Somalia and punishing the Eritrean regime for its cynical support of Somali Islamists.

Enough with such nonsense! It is now apparent that there isn't a dime's worth of difference in US foreign policy towards Ethiopia between this administration and its predecessor. Shame on me for believing that a change of political party in Washington could be a harbinger of better days for Ethiopia.

The Dominance of Shoa

Excerpt from "Rebels and Separatists Ethiopia: Regional Resistance to a Marxist Regime" by Paul Henze (December 1985).

Ethnicity had almost nothing to do with the emergence of Shoa as the core of the revitalized Ethiopian state at the end of the nineteenth century. Shoa played as important a role in modern Ethiopian evolution as Prussia did in the development of modern Germany. There are interesting parallels. Shoa was for much of its early history a frontier region, as Prussia was. Its people were a mixture of several ethnic strains, as Prussians were.

The challenge of dealing with frontier problems stimulated in Shoa the emergence of strong leadership and the development of efficient administration and military forces. Among a mixed population, concern with ethnic exclusiveness brought no advantage to those competing for leadership. Attitudes prevailing in Shoa created a favorable climate for the intensified and successful effort Haile Selassie made to overcome regionalism and build the governmental framework of a modern state.

To characterize Haile Selassie's Ethiopia as Amhara dominance, as many Western journalists and exile separatists have done, is to apply facile preconceptions rather than to analyze how the system worked. In the pre-Shoan era, the core of senior officials in the Ethiopian government came from Tigre or from the central Amhara provinces: Begemder, Gojjam, and Wollo. During the reign of Menelik II, the representation of these areas in the central government fell sharply.

The northern Amhara regions were severely disadvantaged during Haile Selassie's reign not only by lack of representation at upper levels of government, but as development accelerated after World War II, by lack of a proportionate share of investment and developmental priority. Table [below] gives the number of high-ranking officials (ministers, ministers of state, and vice ministers) in the central government from various regions over a 24-year period.


Shoan dominance of the central government intensified during Haile Selassie's long reign, with Eritreans coming to play a strong secondary role. If data were available on Eritrean participation in other ranks of the civil service and in key technical and professional positions (telecommunications, air transport, teaching, law, and commerce), they would show a higher proportion than Shoans in some fields; the northern Amhara provinces would account for only a minor fraction of such personnel.

Shoa's position can be exaggerated. I stress it here only to dispose of the facile characterization that, in its extreme form, depicts Ethiopia as a conspiracy of the Amhara against all its other inhabitants. The predominance of Shoa has an exact parallel in the preeminence of Paris and the surrounding region in France, of London and the home counties in England, and of Athens in modern Greece. Patterns vary. Rome and Latium dominated Italy for hundreds of years during the Roman republic and empire but have not gained the same position in modern Italy. Prussia, of course, no longer exists.

Ethiopia has survived long periods when power was diffused among regions. Until early modern times, the imperial court moved seasonally from one part of the country to another. But when Menelik II chose Addis Ababa as his capital in 1886, it quickly became the hub around which Ethiopian politics rotated, and the surrounding region, the old kingdom of Shoa, took on a central role in Ethiopian life which it has never lost. Addis Ababa and Shoa do dominate Ethiopia. They are the melting pot of the country's ethnic strains. The revolution has changed nothing in this respect.

No Famine Here

If you scan all the news outlets from Ethiopia in the last month, both govenment-owned and private, you would not know that the country is on the brink of famine. The reason is because the government is too busy doing all it can to discourge any talk of the impending famine.

In an article published two days ago, Toronto's Globe and Mail reports on the attempt to hide the famine in this way:

On the 25th anniversary of the famine that killed nearly a million Ethiopians in 1984, any talk of drought and hunger is still a highly sensitive issue in this impoverished country, subject to draconian controls by the government. Two regimes were toppled in the 1970s and 1990s because of discontent over famines, and the current regime is determined to avoid their fate.

Aid agencies that dare to speak out publicly, or even to allow a photo of a malnourished child at a feeding centre, can be punished or expelled from the country. Visas or work permits are often denied, projects can be delayed, and import approvals for vital equipment can be buried. Most relief agencies are prohibited from allowing visits by journalists or foreigners, except under strict government control.

An article by René Lefort in March of this year titled "Ethiopia's famine: deny and delay" correctly pointed out the government's approach to handling news of the drought that has gripped the nation since 2007. But the regime was quick to lambast Mr. Lefort's article as "full of exaggerations and in some cases downright inventions." I am pretty sure they will come after Geoffrey York, the reporter for the Globe and Mail article, with the same gusto!

Aradaw $hawel

"We are slaves. I can't see how we can reconcile if the guy in power can't reconcile." Hailu $hawel, July 2007

"This time we really negotiated hard, we really came to an understanding, we've even come to a trust, that is a big jump, I believe that is a change from 2005." Hailu $hawel, October 2009

Ethiopia will be a Battleground for Sectarian Violence by 2025

Continuing on the theme of religion and politics from the last post, please consider the quote below from "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World", a November 2008 report by the US National Intelligence Council (NIC). Regarding religion-based identity politics and the intolerance that might result from it, the authors of the report note the following:

Although inherited and chosen layers of identity will be as "authentic" as conventional categories of citizenship and nationality, one category possibly will continue to stand out. Islam will remain a robust identity. Sectarian and other differences within Islam will be a source of tension or worse. The challenge of Islamic activism could produce a more intense backlash of Christian activism. Nigeria, Ethiopia, and other places in Africa will remain battlegrounds in this sectarian struggle.

Well, we are 15 years away from 2025, but Nigeria is already in the midst of a sectarian struggle since 1999 when Sharia was imposed in 12 northern states. There have been some instances of sectarian violence in Ethiopia since 2006 but, thankfully, none on a scale witnessed in Nigeria. Is it possible that Ethiopia can experience a large scale sectarian violence like Nigeria? Sure, it is possible.

What was intriguing to me about the NIC quote was that one of its authors, Johnnie Carson, would later become the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, a position that is largely responsible for most of the US policy towards sub-Saharan Africa. Ambassador Carson was the main Africa expert at NIC at the time the report was published.

I am inclined to think that this quote gives a clue as to how the US policy towards Ethiopia might evolve in the Obama Administration under Carson's guidance. The clue, I think, is this: the Obama Administration could conclude that the causes of the main political problems in Ethiopia are ethnic and sectarian related and, therefore, may determine that the US foregn policy making apparatus should not be used in sorting out "internal" issues.

If this comes to fruition, then I think that the Obama Administration will have made a serious error in judgment and would leave Ethiopian human rights and democracy advocates out in the cold just like its predecessors did.

Here below is Ambassador Carson being interviewed by VOA's Tizita Belachew in the Spring shortly after talking office. His lackluster answer to Tizita's pointed question about a revision of American policy towards Ethiopia is telling.

Mahmoud Muhammad Taha

Mahmoud Muhammad Taha (1909-1985) was a Sudanese engineer turned spiritual leader who was executed by the regime of Jaafar al-Nimeiri. I came to learn about him through his association with another Sudanese intellectual named Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naim, a professor of law at Emory University, whom, in turn, I came across with while cruising through Sudanese blogs a few days ago.

I read a fascinating three-year-old lengthy article about Taha titled "The Moderate Martyr: A radically peaceful vision of Islam" on The New Yorker magazine, which is well worth your time to read if you care about human rights and the role of religion, Islam in particular, in politics. Here is a quote from the article:

Naim’s quandary over Islam was an intensely personal conflict--he called it a "deadlock." What he heard at Taha’s lecture resolved it. Taha said that the Sudanese constitution needed to be reformed, in order to reconcile "the individual’s need for absolute freedom with the community’s need for total social justice." This political ideal, he argued, could be best achieved not through Marxism or liberalism but through Islam--that is, Islam in its original, uncorrupted form, in which women and people of other faiths were accorded equal status.

The Islamists of the Sudan led by Hasan al-Turabi may have killed Taha, but they have failed terribly at killing his idea. Naim is the most visible proponent of Taha's idea. You can get a sample of his views from this recent interview at Georgetown University where he asserted that "As a Muslim, I need the state to be secular." Below is Taha's unwavering statement at his kangaroo court trial. Long live Taha!

Lemma Senbet Interview

You may have already seen this three year old interview of Professor Lemma Senbet on Ethiopian Talk Show or some other website. I have posted it on YouTube in three parts. In this interview Dr. Senbet discusses his college and professonal career from his student days at Haile Selassie I University to his current position at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD).

There is a story that Dr. Senbet tells about doing well in school which I particularly find inspirational and, I am sure, you will do, too. If you know of a college-age person who needs a little motivation to excel, please do him/her a favor by passing the link to this page. Dr. Senbet is one of the world's foremost scholars on corporate finance and is currently the director of UMD's newly created Center for Financial Policy. Enjoy!

The Man from Wollonkomi

If you had not pay much attention to the news over the summer months, you may have missed the most important Ethiopia-related news of the year so far in my view. The news I am referring to is the naming of Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, a Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University and a native of Ethiopia, as the 2009 World Food Prize Laureate.

Among Dr. Ejeta's major accomplishments, according to World Food Prize, is "his research to conquer the greatest biological impediment to food production in Africa -- the deadly parasitic weed Striga, known commonly as witchweed, which devastates yields of crops including maize, rice, pearl millet, sugarcane, and sorghum, thus severely limiting food availability." The picture below illustrates this point best.

After he was named a recipient of the World Food Prize, Dr. Ejeta travelled to Wollonkomi, the village of his birth, and other places in Ethiopia where he spent his formative years along with Tom Campbell, a managing editor of a Purdue publication. Mr. Campbell wrote a daily journal while he was in Ethiopia which is well worth your time to read. Here below is a poignant picture of Dr. Ejeta from the journal in front of a worn-out blackboard at his old elementary school.

Dr. Ejeta will present Iowa State University's annual Norman Borlaug Lecture on October 12 on the Ames campus and he will receive the $250,000 World Food Prize on October 15 at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa.

Beggars of Addis Ababa

I just watched a 45 minute gut-wrenching documentary titled "The Beggars in Addis Ababa" courtesy of Ethiomedia. The documentary was made in 2008 by a Danish film-maker Jakob Gottschau who followed two women beggars from a village called Kajima in north Wollo region. Begging is nothing new in Addis Ababa or Ethiopia, but there is no mistaking that the beggar population of Addis Ababa has skyrocketed in the last two decades. Next to the astounding population explosion of the country, I would have to say that this beggar phenomenon is one thing that struck me the most on my trip to Ethiopia in 2003. I just do not remember seeing able-bodied people, like these two women in this documentary, begging in the streets of Addis Ababa back in the 80's. Back then, the beggars were folks who had some kind of physical ailment that made them "untouchable" or an outcast in their own villages such as lepers, blind people, etc. Would it be fair to blame this sad reality on the incumbent regime of Ethiopia that has ruled the country for more than 18 years? Sure, it is.

Dereje Kebede, Volume 9

By Fikru Helebo

After a hiatus of more than a decade, Dr. Dereje Kebede, the preeminent Ethiopian Christian singer/songwriter of our time, has put out his long awaited latest album Ye-Aadnaquote Qen Le-Egziabhare (A Day of Praise to God) this past summer. The album contains 11 tracks with thought provoking lyrics. Two of the tracks are a timely and necessary admonishment to materialistic church leaders who abuse their trust. With the exception of one track, I do think that all the songs in this album have original sound and their melody is infectious. Here is a sample of my favorite track from this CD which is titled Egziabhare Yetaal Lemin Tilegnaleh (Why do You Say There is No God?):



If you are not familiar with Dereje's songs, give him a try. I am sure you will enjoy his songs. Here is a track from his last album (vol. 8) titled Yibeqanaal Mezenatelu (Enough with Tearing One Another Apart) where Dereje exhorts about the ills of ethnic division:



You can find the lyrics for his latest album by clicking on the album cover picture at the top. You can also find my two previous postings on Dereje's songs here and here. Enjoy!

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"Anatomy" of a Molecule

Perhaps you've heard about nanotechnology, but you are not sure what it is. Well, below is an image that can help you better understand what it is. We need to be familiar with nanotechnology because it has already began to play a significant role in our lives through its application in medicine and electronics and will be more prevalent in the future.

For the first time, scientists achieved a resolution that revealed the chemical structure of a molecule. IBM scientists in Zurich, Switzerland announced last month that they captured the image of a pentacene molecule with an atomic force microscope.

Above is a ball-and-stick model of the pentacene molecule showing the arrangement of the atoms and the bonds in between. Twenty-two carbon atoms (gray balls) form five interconnected hexagonal rings. Fourteen hydrogen atoms (white balls) bind to the carbon atoms. The molecule itself measures 1.4 nanometers in length. More pictures here.