ዘረኝነትን፣ ጎሰኝነትን እናምክን፤ ለዜግነት ክብር እንታገል

ጥቅምት 15፣ 2012 ዓ ም

ባለፉት ጥቂት ቀናት በሀገራችን፣ በተለይም በኦሮምያ ክልል የተፈጠረው ሥርዓተ አልበኝነት እስከ 67 የሚሆኑ ወገኖቻችንን ሕይወት ቀጥፏል፣ ከ 300 ያላነሱ ቆስለዋል፣ በመቶ የሚቆጠሩ ቤቶች ተቃጥለዋል፣ ግምቱ ያልታወቀ ንብረት በየከተማው ወድሟል፤ ቤተ ክርስቲያን ከአደጋው ለመጠለል የገቡ ተሳደው በቦምብ ሕይወታቸውን እንዲያጡ ሆነዋል፤ ወደ ሆስፒታል ሕይወታቸውን ከደረሰባቸው ጉዳት ለማትረፍ ሲወሰዱ እንዳይሄዱ ታግደው ባሉበት እንዲገደሉ ተደርገዋል። ድርጅታችን “ኢትዮያዊነት: የዜጎች መብት ማስከበርያ ጉባዔ” የጥቃቱ ሰለባ ለሆኑ ቤተሰቦችና ለመላው የኢትዮጵያ ህዝብ ሀዘኑን ይገልፃል።

ዝርዝሩን ለማንበብ ይህን ይጫኑ

Letter to His Excellency Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed

Read the letter

ግልፅ ደብዳቤ፤ ይድረስ ለኢትዮጵያ ሕዝብና መንግሥት፣ 03/15/2019

ይህን ለኢትዮጵያ የተላለፈ ጥሪ ያንብቡ

ኢትዮጵያዊነት የድርጅቱን እንቅስቃሴ ወደ ሀገር ቤት አዛወረ

ዝርዝር መግለጫዉን ያንብቡ

Urgent Call for Action on the alarming and Overwhelming Crisis in Ethiopia!

Urgent Call for Action on the alarming and Overwhelming Crisis in Ethiopia!

Appeal for Calm on the Alarming Developments in Eastern & Southern Ethiopia

Ethiopiawinnet Press Release

September 16, 2017

We in Ethiopiawinnet are alarmed by recent reports of “border” disputes between Oromo and Ethiopian-Somali regions that degenerated to internecine killings, forced mass displacements, imprisonment and expulsions, affecting thousands of peaceful citizens. In particular, the conflict has resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives on both sides and loss of public and private properties.

The root cause for this conflict is the experimental “ethnic” policy, religiously followed by the TPLF/EPDRF regime for more than a quarter of a century. Nine regions were created in a top-down approach, mostly based on the ethno-linguistic population make up criteria. Each region came up with a regional constitution that defined regional identity & rights to emanate from belonging to the main ethnic group of the region, not citizenship and residence in the region, as in other federal states around the world. Unlike any democracy in the world, the Ethiopian experiment created mine & yours mentalities, relegating residents into first & second class citizens, even triggering repeated expulsions, as was the case to Amaras in Arba Gugu, Bedeno, Water, and others, since 1991.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that border disputes arose between Oromo and Ethiopian Somali regions, as it happened in other parts of the country. A referendum was conducted in 420 Kebeles located in 12 different Woredas across five zones of the Somali Killil in Oct. 2004, to resolve contentions since establishment of Ethnic Federation. Close to 80% of the disputed areas were reported to have voted to be under the administration of the Oromia Killil. Yet ethnic conflicts persisted. More than 80,000 people have been displaced since 2004.

Such are the results of ethnic politics that could potentially affect all “ethnic” groups and can quickly reach its ugliest forms of ethnic cleansing. Politics based on ethnicity is toxic and that is why it is banned in all countries of the world, except in Ethiopia since 1991.  Even the failed experiment in the Soviet Union hadn’t allowed ethno-linguistic federation, in spite of the rhetoric for the rights of nationalities.

Reports about the Liyu Police force triggering the conflict aren’t new. As reported by Addis Standard, a number of incursions were made by the force in Eastern Harerge, Bale and Moyale areas, displacing, raping, kidnapping, imprisoning, killing and plundering citizens in Chinhakson, Mieso, Deder, Gursum, Moyale, Liben, Gumii Edelo, Sewena, Meda-Wolabu, since March 2017. Peaceful attempts to resolve the conflict has been ongoing, spearheaded by traditional leaders on both sides. Regional representatives had been in Addis to appeal their case as well, but things got out of hand before central authorities acted.

Things have turned ugly particularly in the past three days, following the killing of Selama Mohammed, Gursum Woreda Administrator, and Tajudin Jamal, a Policeman from Harer, after their arrest in Jijiga, on Sept 11, and at least 12 Somali residents of Aweday on Sept. 12. Tens of Oromos were killed in Jijiga and thousands were forcedly expelled. It is reprehensible that many were killed in retaliatory attacks. Many of the murdered Ethiopians were life time residents in each region. Yet, that didn’t save them.

Ethiopians are world renowned for their culture of tolerance, mutual respect, positive outlook, and helpfulness. Triggering internecine conflict is now part of a political & security strategy by a section of the Ethiopian government to frustrate an emerging national consensus, to demand democratic reforms, by enticing inter-ethnic tensions among our people, on regional and national levels. National patterns are clearly visible: Oromo vs Somali, Amara vs Quemant, Amara vs Tigray, etc.

If not managed responsibly by peaceful means with utmost civility and national responsibility, there is no guarantee it won’t morph itself to mass ethnic cleansings. God forbid, it may even be encouraged for replication elsewhere in Ethiopia in the coming months and years. Ethiopiawinnet; Council for the Defense of Citizens’ Rights, appeals to all our citizens in general to our brothers and sisters from the Oromo and Somali communities in particular, to exercise restraint and resolve the problem by using traditional and time tested conflict resolution means. It is understandable to get angry over the state of affairs in our country and regions. More than ever, we need to tap the wisdom of our forefathers for mutual understanding & tolerance. We should continue to struggle for justice but not at the expense of the life & wellbeing of another Ethiopian.  Hopefully incidents of the past few days remain isolated cases. Your heroic history of struggle for justice shouldn’t have any dent. We appeal to you to keep frustrating forces of division and focus only on the struggle for peace, justice and equality, even if it costs you in the short term.

Let us all strive for a united and democratic Ethiopia!

Email: Ethiopiawinnet@gmail.com

Website: Ethiopiawin.net

Twitter: Ethiopia@Ethiopiawinnet

Open Letter to the Ethiopian People and International Stakeholders

We in Ethiopiawinnet, a rights-based global civic organization committed to a united and democratic Ethiopia, would once again like to bring to your attention the extremely grave crisis currently unfolding in the Gonder and Gojam regions of some 20 million people. In the Amhara Regional State in northwestern Ethiopia, the situation is fast turning from one of state-led crime against humanity to one of genocide. Following nearly a year of defiant protests in several parts of the Oromia Regional State in southwestern and southeastern Ethiopia as well as in the capital city of Addis Ababa itself, and exemplar nationwide public protests against government interference in the religious affairs of Ethiopian Muslims earlier, the civil disobedience campaign against a tyrannical minority regime has moved north presently engulfing some two-thirds of the 100 million people of Ethiopia.

In some localities, the resistance is rapidly assuming the disturbing form of a popular insurrection by ordinary citizens who have overcome their fear of terror in the hands a murderous tribal militia, called Agazi, for the past 25 years. As we write, the regime is mobilizing the national army and air force, and even requisitioning the commercial Ethiopian Airlines to transfer shock troops after the Prime Minister vowed to liquidate protestors by any means necessary. We lift our voice now to express our alarm at the prospects of a bloody civil war that is likely to make Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Rwanda child’s play.

We assure you that we are not being overly alarmist, and only ask you to seriously ponder the following facts:

1. The Tigrean People Liberation Front (TPLF) regime, which claims to represent some 5% of ethnic Tigreans, has deliberately created ethnic Bantustans and fomented inter-ethnic and inter-communal hatred, albeit with some success;

2. The TPLF regime, which claims to have won 100% of the seats in Parliament last year, is considered illegitimate and roundly despised by at least 95% of the population as the nationwide call for a new government would attest;

3. The totalitarian TPLF regime, which controls all state agencies, the commanding heights of the private sector, and has turned the security services into a glorified TPLF militia, has a long history of state-sponsored mass murder and terror in such places as Addis Ababa, the Ogaden region, and the Gambella region; and

4. The currently imploding TPLF regime has been acting with impunity knowing full well that its Western backers, which have provided ample support in the form of lethal aid and development assistance, will continue to shamelessly look away in the vainglorious hope of stamping international terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

To the Ethiopian People:

• With admiration and respect, we support your gallant and peaceful struggle for a united country under the rule of law and an accountable government.
• We wish to note the exemplary way protestors in Gonder and Gojam expressed their empathy with those in Oromia, Gambella, and elsewhere in the country thereby turning defeating the divide-and-rule strategy of the tribalist regime and its odious apartheid policy.
• We urge you to intensify your exemplary and historic struggle for freedom by employing a multitude of tactics (such as boycotting regime-owned businesses) which would minimize the risk to human life while upholding the core values of Ethiopiawinnet.
• We encourage you, the youth of Ethiopia, toward the immediate promise a transitional government which will soon be formed in a manner that is inclusive of all stakeholders to finally burry totalitarianism--of the Left or the Right.

To the TPLF Regime:

• We would like to remind you that the government you captured by force will be taken away from you soon. Your will to continue to forcibly impose yourself on a proud people is visibly wilting as millions overcome their fear of a mirage—your tiresomely choreographed propaganda of invincibility.
• Having taken to heart that you are unequivocally rejected by every sector of society, you will do well to minimize the damage to the country, not to mention to learn from the Derg and ensure your future as ordinary citizens, by standing aside as a transitional government is formed. Humvees and mercenary sharpshooters aiming at unarmed citizens will not save you from the wrath of an enraged citizenry, and must instead prepare to submit to the merciful judgment of a Peace, Truth, and Reconciliation process under an inclusive transitional government of national unity or under politically-neutral technocrats.

To Donors, Allies, and Neighboring Governments:

• Ethiopia is undeniably the anchor state of a region of uniformly failed states, and has historically played a responsible role in stabilizing the turbulent region. No one will benefit from its fragility by destabilizing it.

• The shocking contempt for the Ethiopian people over the past twenty-five years by governments of powerful states in North America and the European Community, despite the self-serving charity that is state-to-state aid, is yet another sordid example of the failure of Western foreign policy toward the Middle East and Africa. As an expression of your displeasure with the disastrous performance of this client regime, please suspend all lethal aid and all non- emergency financial aid--as was temporarily done after the 2005 electoral debacle.

• The regime with a stranglehold of Ethiopia must be told, in no uncertain terms, that it has to suspend its martial law and immediately remove tanks, gunships, and stockpiles of weaponized chemicals from the streets. It must be told to stop criminalizing legitimate dissent, release all political prisoners, and consent to a transitional arrangement.

• The Security Council of the United Nations must take decisive and timely action, including enforcing the demand of the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights to allow international observers to investigate the killings which have now exceed 600 which are widely expected to rise dramatically as things escalate. The TPLF regime should in fact be suspended from being a member of the UN Security Council in view of its gross abuse of human rights and its impending genocide on the Ethiopian people.

  To Ethiopians in the Diaspora:

• We urge you to continue exercising your advocacy rights and obligations in your adopted countries to galvanize support for the struggle for freedom from well- meaning people, to demand that your political representatives raise the plight of the Ethiopian people with the foreign policy establishment as well as with the international donor agencies.

• We plead with you to focus on the common good by reaching out to all Ethiopians to exploit this window of opportunity to end tyranny for good, and also to provide financial support for the victims of state violence. You must also support various initiatives underway to bring together civic organizations, political organizations, and notable compatriots to craft a national agenda for a post-TPLF transitional government.

• We call on all Ethiopians in the diaspora who currently transfer well over five billion US$ to members of their Ethiopian relatives and friends thereby providing much needed foreign currency to the TPLF regime to change their methods of transferring the money to one which would deny the regime any access to the foreign exchange.

• Ethiopiawinnet stands ready to work with other civic groups to spearhead such effort immediately. We need to save our beloved country by forging consensus toward an all-party conference.

  Thank you, and God bless Ethiopia and her united people. 

Virginia Declaration

TPLF’s Atfto-Metfat Faces the Day of Reckoning 

After issuing so many press releases urging respect for the internationally-recognized human rights of political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, Muslim protestors, Amara victims of ethnic cleansing, Ethiopian immigrants in the Middle East, and the border giveaway, we are impelled to issue yet another one. But this time, the stakes are much higher. It is no less than the impending demise of the totalitarian TPLF/EPRDF regime—arguably the only rabidly anti-Ethiopian regime to hold state power in our long historical memory. A sober assessment and a bold declaration is, therefore, in order.

The facts have been crystal clear for some time now. Ethnic-based faux federalism has by design proved politically polarizing. It has recklessly endangered the social fabric of a resilient and special country which, until very recently, has gone further than most African countries toward establishing a meritocratic civil service and a professional military. Ethnocentrism in its retrograde forms has instead facilitated minority rule under a Tigrean supremacist dictatorship. Its myopic divide-and-rule nature has also facilitated capture by the TPLF and its satellites of the upper echelons of the civil, military and security services, the modern economy, the state enterprises, valuable urban and rural real estate, and much of the urban- based private sector.

The deeply insecure, narrowly-based, and widely despised regime has been answering the demand for “voice” by citizens, petitioned peacefully through the legally-sanctioned process, with unmitigated and unprovoked violence. As many international and national human rights organizations have meticulously documented, any attempt to exercise the basic freedoms of speech, assembly, petition, voting, religion, and the like has been answered by a dictatorship claiming 100 percent of the parliamentary seats accompanied with unprovoked killings, targeted evictions, and mass incarceration—the most recent examples come from Addis Ababa, Ogaden, Gambella, Bahir-Dar, Konso, Oromia, and Gondar.

We are compelled to underscore the point that proper diagnosis of the predicament Ethiopia currently faces is essential for proper action. Ardent supporters of the ruling party try mightily to hoodwink us into thinking that the regime is eminently reformable: ethnic federalism and revolutionary democracy are what the country needs to stem disintegration; and that what is wanting is the faithful implementation of the tenets of the Constitution and the so-called development and transformation programs. Ethnic federalism is not reformable. It has to go. For all its hyperbole about ‘rights’ and ‘equality,’ the defective Constitution that was callously imposed on the country does not, in both theory and practice, recognize Ethiopians as sovereign citizens or embrace our broadly-shared national unity. It cannot, therefore, serve as a foundation for a democratic Ethiopia. 

Ethiopiawinnet: Council for the Defense of Citizen Rights, on the other hand, proudly upholds two fundamental tenets: (a) an all-embracing Ethiopian nationalism and (b) full respect for internationally-recognized human, civil, and political rights. As we spelt out in our non-partisan Citizens Charter for a Democratic Ethiopia (http://www.ethiopiawin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Citizens-Charter.English- 2012.pdf), we believe in certain core principles that are the foundations of a democratic order and will enshrine citizen rights. They are: unconditional respect for Ethiopian unity and territorial integrity, the primacy of the constitutional rights of the individual citizen over group rights, the right to life and food security, at least one national or official language, a non-sectarian devolution of state power, an inclusionary security and civil services, a full- fledged market economy, freedom for civic and political organizations, and checks and balances among the organs of the state.

Needless to say, deeply-rooted and pressing national problems require thoughtfully bold solutions. Neither polarizing primordialism nor minority rule can serve as viable bases for freedom and lasting prosperity for all. Neither are fuzzy programs, imported ideologies, or empty populist rhetoric. Given the complexity of the country’s problems and the need for Ethiopia-based solutions, Ethiopiawinnet has been organizing a series of research-based symposia on what a post-EPRDF national agenda and transition process should look like.

Ethiopiawinnet has so far organized two symposia with papers by 12 Ethiopian scholars and a number of discussants and commentators. The 2015 Symposium was devoted to the case for a new constitution and a new economic strategy, and identification of the major stakeholders and the modalities of the transition process to a post-EPRDF Ethiopia. The lead papers were published in the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies (Fall 2015), and the opening remarks are available from our website and from YouTube. The just-concluded 2016 Symposium focused on the historical origins and contemporary significance of our national identity of Ethiopiawinnet, three options for restructuring the system of government in Ethiopia, and the lessons from previous models of regional administrative systems for redesigning territorial self-administrative units in a post-Killil Ethiopia.

With a shared understanding of the alarming developments in and longstanding predicaments of Ethiopia along with the credible alternatives, we will know better than to simply continue to make the naïve call for free and fair elections, or the removal of the odious anti-terrorism laws and the draconian charities laws. It should be clear to all by now that the irredeemable TPLF/EPRDF is patently incapable of honoring these calls without endangering the foundations its “occupation” and merciless plunder of the country. Radical but appropriate change in the political order which is called for.

The Ethiopian people are now making the clarion calls of Kitet and Beqa—enough is enough to tyrannical minority rule! In 2016, there are unmistakable signs that people in various parts of the country, from Gondar to Harrar and Gambella, are finally overcoming their fears and defiantly engaged in a remarkable civic engagement of disobedience (Embitegnet). There is now a collective appreciation of the fact that democracy and rights cannot handed down to the people; they must be grabbed with the long reach of united and self-assertive citizens. 

Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators have already been gunned down in the streets by the Agazi sharpshooters and more are likely to be martyred in this final phase of the struggle for freedom.

We, therefore, humbly urge all Ethiopians of good will to support the people’s struggle with great care and understanding. The regime will go soon either through implosion or popular uprising. Our task is to do all we can to minimize the fallout to our national unity, and to offer well-considered ideas for a concerted resistance and for the new political and economic order. How we struggle against totalitarianism is as important as what we struggle for.

Ethiopiawinnet hereby recommends that:

1. The Citizens Charter for a Democratic Ethiopia and the outcomes of the two symposia (as well as those of similar efforts by others) be widely shared and promoted to help forge a common national agenda for meaningful change.

2. Political and civic organizations as well as patriotic individuals must relegate their partisan agenda to fully respond to the mantra of “Zare Tibibir, Nege Wudidir.”

3. Diaspora Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia should engage the political processes in their host countries in order to mount effective advocacy on behalf of our common and just cause.

4. The various Ethiopian movements in Ethiopia and abroad must strive to transcend local perspectives and lock hands with other compatriots in an all-party coalition in order to solidify the united national struggle on the basis of a “national agenda.”

Ethiopiawinnet also calls on the U.S., Canada, the European Union, and China:

1. to unequivocally refrain from the tiresome practice of turning a blind eye to this odious ethnocratic system in the myopic hope of advancing the war on terrorism or making quick profit.

2. to immediately suspend providing lethal aid to a nationally rejected regime which is deploying it to terrorize innocent citizens whose only “crime” is to ask for respect of their constitutional rights. The Horn of Africa does not need yet another failed state, and the voices of 100 million people are worthy of due attention by the rest of the world.

Unity shall triumph over division!
Ethiopia’s cries for freedom shall be heard across the world! Ethiopia’s freedom-loving people will surely be victorious! 

The Battle Adwa Day 2016

(የአድዋ ድል መታሰቢያ ቀን)  

March 1, 1896 — March 1, 2016 

120th ANNIVERSARY OF A WORLD-CLASS

VICTORY BY MENELIK’S ETHIOPIA OVER ITALIAN COLONIALISM

Memorable quotes from Raymond Jonas, The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011):

“Adwa reminds us that the only freedom we truly possess is the freedom we are able to defend. Only on the scale of Ethiopia itself could resistance have succeeded.  

The Adwa campaign spanned five months and 580 miles.  It was rivaled among nineteenth century military campaigns only by Napoleon’s Russian campaign, which took three months and logged 490 miles. Unlike Napoleon’s Russian campaign, the Adwa campaign ended in victory.  This is greatness.  

Finally, Adwa was a victory not only for Ethiopia but also for Africa and for people everywhere who stood athwart the presumed path of history.”

Human Rights Day 2015

Human Rights Day (HRD) is observed every year on December 10 as a commemoration of the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 2015 HRD is being marked in honor of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who first pronounced the four freedoms in his justly famous January 6, 1941 State of the Union speech.

HRD is devoted this year to the launch of a year-long campaign for the 50th anniversary of the two International Covenants on Human Rights: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The two major human rights Covenants, together with the four freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, form the International Bill of Human Rights.

These international covenants and freedoms constitute an invaluable toolkit in the drawn out struggles of billions of people who live under the twin tyrannies of oppressive regimes and abject poverty. The International Bill of Human Rights are in fact consistent with the conceptualization of development in countries like Ethiopia as “freedom” for all citizens. These freedoms (human, social, civil, political, and economic) are embedded in globally recognized “rights.” These freedoms and liberties are ultimately justified not simply by virtue of the modern value of free citizenship but primarily by one’s birthright.

Ethiopiawinnet, as a rights-based civic organization, upholds the modern idea of free citizenship for all Ethiopians. We believe that rights come with responsibilities because rights are earned. Our own bill of rights, The Citizens Charter for a Democratic Ethiopia, embraces the universality, equality, and absoluteness with which rights are affirmed as a global norm by the covenants, articles, and protocols enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights.

We invite all to remember the tens of thousands victims of human rights violations in Ethiopia and elsewhere, and commit to seeing that all rights be respected in practice rather than on paper. We honor all brave defenders of the oppressed, and wish everyone a soberly reflective Human Rights Day! 

The 2015-16 Ethiopian Famine: Yet Another Avoidable Tragedy is Underway

Just as the world’s leading development agencies are vowing to finally make poverty history in the four corners of the globe and they are heaping praises on the Ethiopian Government for its “double- digit” economic growth rates and self-serving rhetoric about “transformation,” Ethiopia is once again under the grips of what appears to be yet another famine of “biblical proportion.” The World Food Program of the United Nations and the Government itself have announced that over 8 million Ethiopians are at the risk of death by starvation. Chronically food-deficit areas have been hit by El Nino-related failures of both the small and the big rainy seasons this year.

We must underscore two things at the outset. First, predictable weather-related or pest-related shocks to the food system should not result in mass starvation or high mortality in the presence of an accountable government with a capacity to feed its people. Drought may be an act of God but famine is surely a political act of man. Second, The Citizens Charter for a Democratic Ethiopia embraces the greatest of all human rights—the right to life. Basic food security for all is, therefore, the most fundamental right to which all Ethiopians are entitled. This is why eliminating famine is the litmus test for all who profess commitment to human rights and democratic accountability.

The world has made a remarkable progress over the past 25 years. Millions of Ethiopians are among the one billion people lifted out of debilitating poverty. National and regional famines that claimed the lives of millions in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are thankfully a thing of the past, save the most an unpredictable natural catastrophe. To understand why Ethiopia remains so vulnerable to chronic hunger even in normal years, one needs to keep the following facts in mind:

 One out ten rural Ethiopian (or 8 million out of 80 million) suffer chronic hunger (under- nutrition and malnutrition), especially during the hunger season between May and September. This is because the lack of adequate land, water, and income diversification has hopelessly eroded the livelihoods of so many. Entire districts have thereby been rendered highly vulnerable to even moderate shocks let alone a total failure of the rains or significant food-price inflation (which also hits the urban poor hard). In this respect, it is quite telling that about half of the $1 billion U.S. annual aid to Ethiopia is food aid— mostly going to the food-for-work program that alleviates food insecurity rather than eradicating it for good. 

• Many more millions live just above this precarious subsistence line even in years of normal rainfall. Drought, pest invasion or civil strife swell the ranks of the starving in short order, with the negative effects persisting for at least a decade. It is no surprise then that Ethiopia faced regional famines in 1965/66, 2000/01, and 2011/12; and regime-destabilizing national famines in 1972-73 and 1974-85.

•   The 2015-16 famine underway bears the telltale signs a national tragedy and must be averted with decisive action. The current is already being compared in its potential devastation, by the survivors, to the infamous 1984 famine of Live Aid (which claimed over 1 million lives). A good indicator of this impending disaster is its national scope: the chronically food-deficit areas of southeastern Tigray, northeastern Wollo, all of Afar and parts of Somali, the southern lowlands of Sidamo and Bale, and the Enset-dependent areas southwestern Ethiopia.

•   In the fine tradition of unaccountable governments torn between publicly revealing the extent of the famine (terrified by the political fallouts) and their strong incentive to tap into international assistance (the donor practice of feeding the greedy to reach the needy), the Ethiopian Government is currently denying the patently obvious mounting loss of livestock and the rising mortality of the most enfeebled (as attested by BBC TV) while claiming to have allocated half of the relief supplies required from its own resources. While we are encouraged by the improved early warning system and the allocation of domestic funds, we are unimpressed by their inadequacy relative to the needs and to what is being spent on white elephant projects. We are also offended by the shameful insinuation of high government officials that it is ultimately the responsibility of the international community to save the most vulnerable in Ethiopia.

  Ethiopiawinnet is compelled to implore:

1. The Ethiopian Government to own up to its sole responsibility to spare all its citizens from starvation and death by devoting all the resources necessary to tide them over to the next harvest. In the medium run, it should reform its land policy by granting ownership rights to farmers and pastoralists, invest in food production for domestic use instead of only exports, fostering off-farm employment opportunities, scrapping the current ethnic homeland system of regional administration that has hamstrung the traditional coping mechanism of seasonal inter-regional migration to work, and accelerating industrial development.
2. Theinternationalcommunitytoonceagainprovidegenerousandtimelyreliefaidtoavert large losses of lives instead of waiting for large-scale deaths as “proof of need.” We also implore donors to insist on sensible food security policies that would make such recurrent dependency on food aid unnecessary for a country that has a great potential to feed itself.
3. AllEthiopiansandfriendsofEthiopiaintheDiasporatoputpoliticsasidefornowandextend a generous helping hand through famine relief organizations with a proven record. Thank you.

Ethiopiawinnet, a rights-based CSO, believes that:

•  Famine is a political act of transgression on the mother of all human rights-the right to live.
•  Drought may be unavoidable, but famine certainly is. In the twenty-first century, this abomination belongs nowhere else but in the dustbin of history! 

Obama Administration’s Ethiopia Policy: Double-talking Democracy while Conniving with Tyranny

On a recent visit to Ethiopia, Wendy Sherman, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, publicly made the following bold declaration: “Ethiopia is a democracy that is moving forward in an election that we expect to be free, fair, credible and open and inclusive. In ways that (sic) Ethiopia has moved forward in strengthening its democracy. Every time there is an election, it gets better and better.”

Ethiopians and Freedom House, among others, are flabbergasted by this blatant hypocrisy about the ideals of U.S. foreign policy and the implicit contempt for the Ethiopian people. Ms. Sherman must surely have read at the very least her own State Department’s annual reports on the human rights situation in Ethiopia, including the frank account of the rigged 2005 elections, the draconian methods used to cede just one seat in parliament are controlled by the ruling party in 2010, and the ongoing witch hunt against the opposition just weeks before the May 2015 parliamentary elections which will surely produce an electoral outcome that would shame any “elected” dictatorship.

This has compelled us to release a letter we sent in October 2014 regretting the convenient omission of human rights abuses in Ethiopia in Mr. Obama’s effusive praise of the Ethiopian regime for its record on economic growth and the fight against terrorism. Accompanying our letter is the generic recent response of empty rhetoric we received from the White House.

We remain unimpressed and deeply disappointed. The Ethiopian Diaspora must redouble its efforts to press the cause of the desperate Ethiopian youth at home and in the treacherous journeys of exile. 

Attachments:

Letter to the President
Response by White House
Press Statement by the Undersecretary of State 

Ethiopiawinnet Deplores the Plight of Ethiopians in Africa and the Middle East

We are outraged by the savagery of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) extremists in the cold- blooded murder or mass displacement of Christians and non-Sunni Muslims to achieve the delusionary project a global Caliphate. On the heel of the massacre of Coptic Christians, 30 Europe- bound transit migrants were shot or beheaded this week for being “members of the enemy Ethiopian Church.” We are outraged by the murder, in the beaches and UN shelters in Yemen, of dozens of Ethiopian survivors of the perilous Red Sea voyage in rickety boats, by vigilantes, handlers, and indiscriminate Saudi bombings. We are saddened by the recurring news of Ethiopians being burned alive and robbed blind by degenerate thugs in the cities of South Africa. We have been made helpless with endless news of Ethiopian, Eritrean, and West African migrants who have drowned in large numbers in the Mediterranean Sea, or murdered in the middle of the Sahara and Gaza so that their organs can be harvested. These are only the more dramatic cases of the abuse of young Ethiopians which include mass expulsions from Saudi Arabia, a disturbing number of sexual abuses and desperate suicides in Beirut and other Middle Eastern cities, and expropriations of their compensation and property by lawless employers.

We must note here that the genesis of the problem lies in Ethiopia itself. Until the Red Terror of the late 1970s, Ethiopians were known for having one of the lowest emigration rates and the highest return rates in the world. However, the past 35 years have witnessed unremitting oppression of the youth whose aspirations for gainful employment and respect for their human rights have now dissipated. The despondent youth of Ethiopia and Eritrea, egged on by their economically distressed families as well as by the two parasitic governments dependent on remittances, have desperately braved booby-trapped desert passages and dangerous sea voyages even with knowledge of the high risks involved.

We are further saddened by the predictably cynical reaction of the Ethiopian Government and its embassies to these realities. No self-respecting government would dither in the face of unlawful and egregious abuse of its citizens by idle talk of illegals in Saudi Arabia, need to verify the identity of victims in Libya and South Africa, mounting self-serving propaganda about non-existing good job prospects at home, and cynical politicization of the public mourning of the victims. Terrified by the unprecedented solidarity of Christian as well as Muslim youth in defense of human and Ethiopian dignity, the regime has once again betrayed its paranoia by lashing out at any shadow of dissent. It has just arrested over 500 young people on the wake of the large anti-ISIS demonstrations in Addis Ababa this week by concocting tiresome allegations of intent to incite violence on behalf of the leading opposition party—Semayawi Party.

We, therefore, call upon:

• The Ethiopian Government to stop being too clever in abdicating its responsibility

  and to come to the aid of all Ethiopians regardless of affiliation.

• The Ethiopian Government to release the thousands of political prisoners in its jails and to desist from suppressing legitimate political expression and peaceful political

  engagement.

•  The governments of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Libya, and Yemen to honor

  international conventions on refugees and migrants, and to compensate the migrants

  and their families for the loss of life and property.

•  The European Community and the United States to accept their responsibility for the

  upsurge in distress migrants and refugees by their wanton destabilization of fragile states (of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen) without due consideration of the ramifications as well as by their myopic underwriting of repressive client regimes. It is high time for the big powers to address the problem of state failure at its roots, and to treat its innocent victims humanely rather than resorting to futile containment.

•  The UNHCR to provide the full measure of protection of Ethiopian refugees in Yemen and Libya, or transfer them to a safer location without delay.

  Ultimately, it is the duty of Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia to intensify their commendable solidarity with victims of political abuse and provide all forms of assistance—publicity, financial, and diplomatic. Thank you.