IMF Economist Meles Zenawi : An Expert in Cooking Numbers

IMF , as expected, tried to defend its ridiclous actions in supporting tyrants who destablizing the horn of Africa by saing Ethiopia had been successful in implementing policies to curb inflation and rebuild external reserves as agreed under an ESF-supported programme.

“The approval will enable Ethiopia to draw … about $58.7 million … bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to … about $166.2 million,” IMF said in a statement.

IMF  said it expected Ethiopia’s economy to grow by 7 percent ( a made up number based on fuzzy math)  in 2009/10. It had earlier forecast an output of 7-7.5 percent this fiscal year (July-June), based on an assessment carried out in September.

The rulers who are destabilizing the horn of Africa and committing genocide (Zenawi and his tribal cronies ) have made a  number and  made forecast that  a growth of about 10 percent for 2010.

Does the  US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services knows about this case?

A couple of weeks ago a number of Ethiopian websites published an article entitled Fraud at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington DC.

The article posted by a Aba Chibssa brought a certain staff of the embassy, who worked as a public relations officer, to the attention of the public. The writer argued that the staff in question was a top government official both during the Dergue and the EPRDF regimes. The article says:

After working a couple of months at the embassy around 2000, Mr. Tsehaye Debalkew Tessema stopped working in the embassy and asked for political asylum in the United States, falsely claiming that he is persecuted by the current government of Ethiopia… According to people who saw his application for asylum he has hidden his real personal stories and affiliations with both the previous and the current government. Once Tsehaye got his asylum … he went back to the embassy to begin business as usual – work for the government of Ethiopia as its chief propagandist in North America. He is currently among the top executive in the embassy, where he works as a Public Relations Officer.”

In conclusion, the writer urged both the Ethiopian embassy and the individual be investigated for violating the laws of the United States.

Days after the article was posted, the press officer’s name has been dropped from the list of the staff. Mr Tsehaye may still be in the embassy’s payroll but the name no more. That indeed adds to the suspicion.

Googling the name Tsehaye Debalkew brings in countless articles, the sole purpose of which is glorifying the totalitarian system that is prevailing in the country and condemning those who dared to oppose it. ”It is indeed in the last 2 decades that the inalienable human and democratic rights of its populace were ascertained, protected by the law of the land as enshrined in the country’s ever Constitution written and ratified by the unrestricted participation of the citizenry.” says Mr Tsehaye in an article he calls Telling facts and figures about Ethiopia.

The press officer, of course, is entitled to hold his views and opinions in any matter. There is no problem with that. In a surprising twist, however, the Embassy decided to cross out his name from its page without caring to explain the situation. The act of dropping the name of the staff from its list can be taken as a confirmation of Aba Chibassa’s allegation.

As the Embassy – at least in theory – is a public institution, Ethiopians have a right to know what really is going on. The mere scrapping of the individual’s name from the website without explaining the reason why it is done makes the Ethiopian Embassy rather an accomplice to some dodgy undertaking, not to talk about the individual in question himself.

While the diplomatic immunity may protect the mission from investigation, it won’t shield them from suspicion and mistrust. As an appendix, checkout the two screenshots of the Embassy’s website. One taken on May 13, 2010 and the other May 27, 2010. ”If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” That statement by Google’s CEO Mr Eric Schmidt seems to have finally gotten its niche.

Embassy Staff Directory Before the Scandal was posted on the web:

Embassy Staff Directory After the publication:

Source: Abugida Info 

To inform the US Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services about the Ethiopian Embassy and its staff  involvement about any illegal activities you may vist  the following website.

Contact information: Louisa Dewar

Telephone number: 07549646563

Email address: info@londoncitypr.com

Event: APPG on Third World Solidarity

Subject: Human rights violations in Ethiopia

Venue: House of Commons

Date: 15/03/2010

At a recent meeting of the APPG on Third World Solidarity Obang Metho, Ethiopian human rights activist and director of Solidarity Movement for Ethiopia (SMNE),  told parliamentarians, journalists and other attendees that the British government is propping up the corrupt regime in Ethiopia.

In a passionate and emotional speech, Metho said that the government of Ethiopia was not democratically elected by the people and denies its citizens basic human rights and freedom of speech.

He declared:

“Know this about the Ethiopian government: who they are and what they say are, are totally opposite.

“And guess what, the government of Ethiopia is surviving because of the support they are getting from the West, including the UK.”

The government in Ethiopia is 95% controlled by one ethnic group, he added.

The event, which sparked huge controversy in the media, had an intense and emotional atmosphere as academics, parliamentarians and eyewitnesses shared their opinions.

Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes, who was the head of the EU election observation mission to Ethiopia in 2005, supported Metho’s view.

She was vehement and bold in her condemnation of the Ethiopian government and the 2005 elections, which she claimed were anything but free and fair.

She highlighted the dilemma that she faced at the time: the knowledge that publicly declaring that the elections were corrupt would cause anarchy and bloodshed, and risked tearing apart the second most populist country in Africa.

The MEP expressed her regret at having been too diplomatic about the situation at the time and continued her speech unafraid. She claimed that the Ethiopian government are selling the people’s land and even children to pay for weapons, at which point she received applause from the audience.

The 2010 May elections in Ethiopia will be another farce, Gomes warned. She said that the onus is on the media to draw attention to what is happening and shame the government into bringing change.

Councillor Mushtaq Lasharie, who chaired the event and is well known for his hard work on third world solidarity, pointed out that terrorism receives a hugely disproportionate amount of publicity compared to global poverty.

He said:

 “We know that terrorism kills 50- 100 people a day, but poverty kills more than 10,000 people an hour; we have to fight the poverty before anything else. United we stand, together we fall.”

Members of the audience heckled and interrupted the speakers, unable to contain their anger and emotion over the current situation in Ethiopia.

Saundra Satterlee, a former Financial Times journalist who lived in Etophia, provided the relevant background.

She highlighted that Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa that has never been colonialised. It also has a very mixed record: its economy grew 7% this year, making it the fastest growing economy in Africa, however, it also has one of the lowest per capita incomes in Africa, if not the world.

Notes to editors

1. Press release provided by London City PR. Full-service PR agency.
2. APPG meeting of Third World Solidarity group. Website can be found here www.thirdworldsolidarity.org

You may well remember. That was Live Aid and all that “Let them know it’s Christmas” stuff, a process in which, through the force of Bob’s engaging personality, we were all enjoined — even Duran Duran — to save Ethiopia from starvation by bunging the benighted, corrupt country enormous amounts of our money.

Some people whispered at the time, very quietly, that it might not be quite so simple as that but were very quickly, and rudely, shouted down. If you were a pop star, or royalty, or a politician, or a charity you would not dare stay aloof from the shrill, if well-meant, hysteria; everyone was co-opted, like it or not.

This was the start of the Bono’n’Bob crusade to impose a simplistic vision of Third World poverty on the rest of us, a vision which brooked absolutely no argument and still holds sway today. Exemplified by that peculiar strangulated shriek of Bono’s, remember: “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you!” Just before Keren from Bananarama came in with her bit.

It now transpires that 95% of the $100m raised through Live Aid may have not bought sacks of rice for the starving Ethiopians, but instead guns for terrorist rebels intent on waging (probably justifiable) warfare against the Ethiopian government. These  Tigrean and Eritrean rebels must indeed have believed it was Christmas.

This was the subject of a BBC World Service investigation and it has driven Bob to the verge of apoplexy. He has called for everyone involved to be sacked, including the reporters, the producers and the head of the BBC World Service, Peter Horrocks. He probably wants you sacked too, if you heard the report. And he is promising legal action and demanding an “immediate investigation” into “what went on” — not in the doling out of the money to the terrorists, but in the decision to run the report.

He has been bombarding The Guardian’s online site — the traditional refuge of embittered loons — with scabrous attacks upon the BBC. It seems as if the silicon chip inside his head got switched to overload. Oh lordy, I can feel a song coming on.

Geldof is no fool and nor is there any suggestion (and nor was any such suggestion made in the BBC programme) that the Live Aid operatives were devious or even incompetent. Simply that this is what tends to happen when vast amounts of dosh are deposited within corrupt, impecunious countries.

In the very week Bob was getting all het up, there was another report about United Nations food aid to Somalia that had also ended up in the pockets of jihadi lunatics, bent officials and, uh, local UN workers. But Bob’s reaction is the problem now, just as it was in 1985: that any attempt to criticise this means of alleviating misery in the Third World must be howled down because this form of approach must be the answer and anyone who says it isn’t is a greedy, vacillating, rich western politician who wants to see black people starving and babies covered in flies. And there’s an end to it.

This has been the template for Bono’n’Bob ever since, and all the lesser slebs who have clambered aboard the Third World bandwagon; it is how they are able to get access to presidents, popes, prime ministers — through the threat of public opprobrium if they do not get their way.

So more money is diverted to the Third World, and debts are written off or scaled down, regardless of whether or not this actually benefits the citizens of each failing state. And the notion that bad governance might be primarily to blame and that aid sometimes makes things worse is not allowed a look-in.

But mention all this very quietly, in case Bob is still listening.

Source: Times Online

People of Ethiopia:

You are hereby warned; you are being given notice of your eviction from the country. You are no longer welcome here. Find a new place to live. We do not care where. All we want is your land, water and resources. They are no longer yours; but now are ours. If you resist, you will suffer the consequences. On the other hand, if you are willing to become part of a neo-slave labor force or to silently give up any claims to anything, you may stay as long as you are useful and compliant. We and our partners stand to make millions, if not billions, from this new economic investment and we will tolerate NO interference from you!

Truly not yours,

The Anti-Ethiopian TPLF/EPRDF government of the few elite and entitled

The grabbing of fertile land going on in Ethiopia is not just rhetoric, fear mongering or in one’s imagination; but instead, it is real and happening at a ferocious pace all over the country. It will change Ethiopia forever and the major damage may be done by the end of 2010. We in the SMNE covered some of ways it has already impacted Ethiopians in our New Year’s article, Reflection Brings Questions.

Since then, we have seen additional alarming reports in the media and received new information from the ground. What we conclude is unless Ethiopians act quickly to stop this, we will no longer have a country to call our own.

Why in the world would a government sell off its land and natural resources, much of which will be exported, especially being a beggar nation that feeds many of its people with food grown in foreign countries? It defies common sense, which makes it all the more dangerous. In the SMNE, we cannot be silent during this abusive exploitation and move towards making Ethiopia a slave state. Our family members have been displaced while foreigners are thriving. One can see that what this government wants is the land and resources but not the people.

Ethiopians, whose ancestors have lived for centuries on the same land, are discovering that they no longer have any rights to it. Ethiopians, especially the most marginalized, are at risk of being evicted from their ancestral lands as it is being leased for almost nothing—and for many decades—to Ethiopian-owned and foreign-owned multi-national corporations, countries, banks and wealthy individuals. Businesses or investments owned by the ruling party, their family members and their supporting friends, both Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians, are capitalizing on this new opportunity to exploit new money-making schemes, only available to political and financial supporters of the Marxist-Leninist leaning Ethiopian government that still prohibits its own citizens from owning land.

This betrayal of the Ethiopian people is being carried out by a greedy group at the top, willing to exercise its military brute strength to get its way; on the other hand, the way it is being executed reveals the desperation of a tottering government, willing to go to any means to get the necessary hard currency needed to better shore up their loosening control of the country. This is a legitimate concern on their part due to the increasing anger of the people; yet, these actions are simply fueling more anger that will require more force and money to contain.

From the reaction we are seeing to this newest wave of shocking violations of the peoples’ rights, the Ethiopian Constitution, international human rights laws and God-given universal moral laws, it is only increasing the inevitability that this regime will eventually be ousted.

The objections of the Ethiopian people are not about economic growth and development, foreign and private investment or capitalism in general if these were undergirded by appropriate legal protections and procedures. Instead, their objections are about the exploitation of the people, many of the most vulnerable, who are being robbed of all they own while the government threatens them into submission; sometimes literally holding a gun to their heads. This is happening all over the country.

Look at these few pictures from Gambella, showing some of the 200 agricultural caterpillars which have recently arrived in Gambella town, purchased by Mohammed Ali Al-Amoudi’s company, Saudi Star Agricultural Company, which now leases 10,000 hectares of land—just a start since he supposedly wants some 250,000 hc in total. Five hundred trucks are said to be arriving in February, just a portion of an additional 1500 to 2000 trucks said to be in the plans.

In the Abobo area of the Gambella region, Al-Amoudi has already started clearing the ground. The location he is now clearing was land held by the Federal government as a natural reserve for wild life. The local people have been told to not speak to outsiders. We also have reports that Al-Amoudi had a meeting with the governor, Omod Obang Olom, where he told him he wanted the Anuak in the Diaspora to be silenced; saying he was willing to hire (bribe) people from the Diaspora who could counter any claims of exploitation with claims that this was going to benefit the people.

Al-Amoudi is now also destroying forests in the Mazengir area, located in the area of Gomerra on the border between Gambella and the Southern Nations.   In Ilea, 35 K east of Gambella town, where the East Indian company, Karuturi Global, is clearing thousands of hectares of some of the most fertile Anuak indigenous land, he is in the process, cutting down the valuable Shea trees, which are a rich source of high quality cooking oil, lotions and food.    Gambella is one of the few remaining areas where Shea trees can still be found in Africa, trees that take twenty years to reach maturity. These trees were the focus of study at Addis Ababa University, where researchers recommended that this area become a protected reserve, but now Karuturi has fourteen tractors working daily to destroy this precious and endangered natural resource.

Even more upsetting to the Anuak is the clearing and destruction of Anuak burial ground. However, they are afraid to speak up in protest because if they do, the government will arrest them. The company has joined with the government in also warning the people to not talk about all of this at risk of being arrested and losing their jobs. Instead, they have been told,  if a reporter approached them with such questions as to whether they would be receiving any compensation for their land, they were to say that the company was planning to do something in the future. However, no contracts or agreements have been signed and no details given.

The Meles government has now requested 90,000 hectares of land close to Gambella town, for their own use. In fact, what they are doing is claiming this land for EPRDF government supporters. Now, people from anywhere in the country, as well as those living in the Diaspora, can go to the Ethiopian Embassy, pay $500 and receive a yellow identification card, giving him or her, the right to invest in Ethiopia.

Now, many of these people are coming into Gambella and making formal requests for this land. In other words, someone from the EPRDF can say they want a certain amount of land, but do not have to pay for it. Instead, they are given a certificate that they now own this land, giving them “the capital” to now borrow money from the Ethiopian bank to pay off the land loan and even invest in another business.

At the same time, the indigenous people of Gambella are being displaced from their land, get no compensation for it and no opportunity to obtain such loans; particularly if they are not EPRDF members—members who will of course, later be expected to vote for the ruling party in the upcoming election!

While this is all going on, for the first time in memory, the self-sufficient people of Gambella are experiencing a drought and many are threatened with hunger and starvation just as their lands are being taken over by outsiders. Meles alleges that the Gambella regional government gave him the green light to assume control over the leasing of the land because the people of Gambella are too uneducated to do it. However, when you ask the people, even those in some positions of authority in Gambella, they will tell you that the government simply took over the land without ever consulting them.

But by now, you know, everything done by the government of Ethiopia is based on deceit. When Meles calls the people of Gambella uneducated, he fails to mention the fact that there is not a single university or college in the entire region; despite the building of many universities in his own Tigrean region and other regions since he came to power twenty years ago. He also fails to explain why his government troops targeted the most educated leaders in the Anuak massacre of December 13-15, 2003. Marginalization of the people in coveted sections of the country can mean “exploitive opportunity” for shrewdly manipulative leaders like Meles; yet, it leaves the silenced people, victims of an apartheid system, similar to South Africa.

The people of Gambella will say that this land was not given to us by Meles, by Meles’ father or by his mother, but by God.  As one Anuak summed it up, “Our pain is internal. We are bleeding from the inside from everything we see around us daily. How long before it explodes, I don’t know, but when it does, I don’t know what price any of us will pay—we the owners of the land or those who are exploiting us. Time will tell.”

This discrimination is immoral and shameful and only creates more simmering tensions among the people that could erupt someday. We have heard that the same thing has been going on for even longer in Welkayit Tegede, a very fertile part of the Amhara region. Victims of these land grabs are forced to stand by while their ancestral land is given away and their children pushed aside. Now, in the Welkayit Tegede area, formerly the Amhara region, but in the process of being acquired by the Tigrean region, everyone, for the first time, is required to speak Tigrean. If they refuse or are unable to comply, they are told to leave the area and go to the Amhara region. Most of the people in Welkayit Tegede have already lost their ancestral land this way.

In the southeastern part of Ethiopia, a recent conflict erupted between civilians and militias, loyal to the ruling party. It occurred in the Ogadeni province of Shiniile following a protest over the government’s confiscation of 60,000 hectares of the most fertile land, allegedly sold—or leased—to a Chinese consortium or to highlanders, migrating to the region.

These are just a few reports, but the same thing is going on in the Afar region, in Beninshangul-Gumuz, in Oromia, in Southern Nations and wherever there is desirable land or resources. Reports have included allegations by the new Ethiopian laborers that they are not being treated with respect.

I was told about a man working on a farm in Bako outside of Addis Ababa who demanded better treatment for the local people from their East Indian company, Karuturi Global, employer. The East Indian man accused him of having an attitude and asked him about what tribe he belonged to, accusing him of being an Amhara. He said, “We were told that the Amhara are the stubborn, control-freaks and that this is not your time.” He fired the man. Who told this man such prejudicial opinions about the ethnicity of Ethiopians?

Ethiopia—the land, the water, the resources and the people—are now being sold to the highest bidder by none other than their own government under the dictatorial leadership of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi—a “neo-slave trader” of the 21st century. Human beings have been sold since the beginning of time; often by those closest to them, but as a society, most of us hoped this was in the past.

Jesus was betrayed by Judas who “turned on him” for thirty pieces of silver. Joseph, one of the patriarchs of the Bible, respected by Jews, Muslims and Christians, was sold by his own brothers for twenty shekels of silver to slave traders going to Egypt.

During the years of African slavery, it was usually not the western slave traders who captured the Africans to be sold; but instead, it was opportunistic Africans who preyed on other “tribes” they devalued or with whom they competed, making profitable deals for themselves at the expense of these other human lives. We know the rest of that tragic story that only came to an end when people of moral and political will stood up against this structural evil.

During the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini’s Italy in 1934-1941, there were Ethiopians who took bribes from the Italians and betrayed Ethiopia for a price. None of this is new, but unfortunately, we now have new turncoats and slavers in our midst and it is the EPRDF government of Meles. The inherent reason for government is to protect its people and to enhance their well being; however, in Ethiopia, the opposite is true.  The people need protection from this oppressive government that uses force, lies and a perversion of justice to confiscate anything they want. If the people get in the way, they are expendable.

If we, the people of Ethiopia do not quickly take action, Ethiopians living on their ancestral land will soon be considered trespassing and the laws of a corrupted land will evict them. Ethiopia will no longer be owned by Ethiopians, but will be under the control of outsiders and a handful of elite. We will either have to leave the country or become the neo-slaves of the 21st century. This is intolerable and unacceptable. What would possess a leader of a country to do this?

Everything he is doing is a contradiction between talk and action. A month ago Meles was in Copenhagen begging for billions of dollars to protect the African forests, but here he is in Ethiopia, destroying our forests and giving the land away for nothing rather than feeding Ethiopians. It is immoral. It is time for all Ethiopians to stand together to stop this craziness. This should unify all, including the many people fighting in liberation fronts: the Gambella Liberation Front, Ogaden National Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Front, the Afar Liberation Front, the Sidamo Liberation Front and the Benishangul Liberation Front. If we do not act together now, you may not have a region to liberate for by the time you do, it may already have been sold to the Chinese, India, Saudi Arabia or some other country.

This is the time for all of us to come together and to stand up as one people to save the country. Let us save our people from being sold into slavery. The land belongs to all of us and is where our ancestors are buried. This should unify us.

This savage attitude of Meles must be stopped so for those who are in liberation fronts and for those who are not; let us liberate our thinking from tribalism and free the country! Fighting alone is what gives Meles the green light to do what may quickly become irreversible damage.

We do not have the luxury of remaining separate anymore for if we do, we will be finished. Then we will share in defeat. Instead, let us reconcile and stand together as one nation of people who will value each other, passing on a blessing rather than a curse to our descendents. May God help us and save Ethiopia from destruction!

The writer can be reached at Obang@solidaritymovement.org

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) annual report said Ethiopia jails opposition members and has passed laws that outlaw most human rights organisations.

“Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in 2010,” the report said.

The report also indicate the  “Broad patterns of the Tigrai vampires repression have prevented the emergence of organized opposition in most of the country,” it added.

HRW also condemned the jailing of opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa. She was imprisoned in 2005 and released in a 2007 pardon deal but was rearrested in December 2009 after she said she had never asked for a pardon.

The Tigrai Bandits servant  Shimeles Kemal (one of the Aderae  slaves)  rejected the findings, telling Reuters: “Most of this report is based on fabrications from the Medrek (opposition party) and the ONLF rebel group, said silly boy Shimeles Kemal.

“There is no policy of suppressing opposition. But nobody is above the Tigrai Bandits rule  in Ethiopia, including myself,  whether members of the opposition or not.”

The sham elections in 2010 will be the first since a disputed 2005 poll ended in violence when about thousands of  opposition protesters were killed by the Tigrai Bandits who are controlling Ethiopia .

The Chief Bandit  Meles Zenawi said they had been marching on state buildings to oust him.

The Tigrai Bandits Chief, Meles Zenawi , in January passed a law to control  the activities of charities and other non-Tigrean governmental organisations (NGOs) in the country.

Foreign organisations and local groups with more than 10 percent foreign funding were banned from working on human rights and governance.

“WEST IS SILENT”

The HRW report said Western countries were silent on repression in Ethiopia in order to protect multi-million-dollar aid projects and singled out the U.S and Britain for criticism.

Ethiopia is one of the world’s biggest recipients of foreign aid and received more than $2 billion in 2009, HRW said.

“The UK has been at the forefront of advocacy on a range of human rights issues in Ethiopia, including Birtukan Mideksa’s imprisonment and allegations of the politicisation of aid,” British Ambassador to Ethiopia Normal Ling told Reuters.

Opposition coalition Medrek in November said the government was blocking its members from getting food aid to force them to join the ruling party.

More than 13 million of the country’s 80 million people need aid this year. Analysts say Meles’s TPLF ( Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front)  will easily win the sham elections.

NGOs and civil society groupings are reacting with anger and disappointment to a joint appeal by France and “Ethiopia, representing Africa” for a so-called ‘Copenhagen Accord’ to result from the current COP15 negotiations being held in the Danish capital. The French / the Tigrai Tyrant Ruler proposal appeared on the French Presidency’s website today.

The proposed accord, which would be binding on all parties immediately on signature and lead to a ‘legal international instrument’ to be agreed ‘as early as possible in 2010’ ignores the latest science, fails to put forward greenhouse gas concentration targets that will be sufficient to prevent dangerous global warming, and makes a mockery of calls for sufficient funding for climate adaptation and mitigation.

In what looks more like conspiracy than coincidence, the announcement by President Sarkozy and Tyrant Zenawi  comes on the same day the White House is reporting that President Obama called the Tyrant  Zenawi to discuss matters related to the summit later this week in Copenhagen.

“The ugly and overt pressure on developing countries to sign an agreement that will put their very survival in jeopardy has begun,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben. “It’s very tough to stand up to the Americans, especially Barack Obama. But even the U.S. president can’t protect nations against rising waters, withering droughts, and dried-up glaciers. This is the moment for Africa, for island nations, for the developing world to insist on a future.”

By calling for an upper limit of temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius, the Tyrant Zenawi and Sarkozy proposal ignores the threat that this level represents to Africa: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report says that should the average temperature of the globe rise by 2 degrees C, Africa’s “median temperature increase would be between 3°C and 4°C, roughly 1.5 times the global mean response” – an extremely dangerous rise.  (Source: Contribution of Working Group I to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Chapter 11, Regional Climate Projections, at page 866-867)

“The IPCC science is clear – 2 degrees is 3.5 degrees in Africa – this is death to millions of Africans” said Mithika Mwenda of Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance.

The proposal also makes a mockery of calls for sufficient funding for climate adaptation and mitigation to flow form rich to poor countries. The proposed “fast start” fund, which would pay out $10 billion over the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, is wholly insufficient to address the needs of African countries, many of whom are already suffering massive losses due to climate change. Although it calls for larger and more sustained financing to flow to climate-vulnerable countries from 2013 onwards (paid for by a possible tax on financial transactions and sea and air transport) this call will not be a binding part of the French / tyrant Meles zenawi’s  proposal. If details do emerge on the finance piece of the deal, there could be a silver lining to this announcement, but as of yet,we aren’t seeing or hearing any real figures. One can only hope that Zenawi is still pushing hard for a real financial commitment from developed countries.

“If  the tyrant  Meles wants to sell out the lives and hopes of Africans for a pittance – he is welcome to – but that is not Africa’s position” Mithika Mwenda.

“Every other African country has committed to policy based on the science. That means at least 45% cuts by rich countries by 2020 and it means $400 billion fast-track finance not $10 billion” said Augustine Njamnshi of Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance. “You cannot say you are proposing a ’solution’ to climate change if your solution will see millions of Africans die and if the poor not the polluters keep paying for climate change.”

Contact Jamie Henn in Copenhagen for interviews with PACJA spokespeople or more information: +45 52 68 47 65

The Tigrai Liberators who were “masterminds” behind the false-gold scandal at the Ethiopian central bank might not have gotten caught if they’d used Theo Gray’s formula or had paid lobbysts  like  the DLA piper.

On Wednesday, the BBC reported about the millions of dollars in gold at the Tigrai Liberators controlled central bank of Ethiopia which owned by the Meles Zenawi has turned out to be fake! What were supposed to be bars of solid gold turned out to be nothing more than gold-plated steel. The TPLF thgus lead by Meles Zenawi and his cronies tried and badly failed to sell the stuff to South Africa and it was sent back when the South Africans noticed this little problem.

The problem with making good-quality fake gold is that gold is remarkably dense. It’s almost twice the density of lead, and two-and-a-half times more dense than steel. You don’t usually notice this because small gold rings and the like don’t weigh enough to make it obvious, but if you’ve ever held a larger bar of gold, it’s absolutely unmistakable: The stuff is very, very heavy. This fact was not in the mind of the arrogant Tyrant and his followers from Adowa. 

The standard gold bar for bank-to-bank trade, known as a “London good delivery bar” weighs 400 troy ounces (over thirty-three pounds), yet is no bigger than a paperback novel. A bar of steel the same size would weigh only thirteen and a half pounds.According to the news, the authorities have arrested pretty much everyone involved, from the people who sold the bank the gold, to bank officials, to the chemists responsible for testing and approving it on receipt.

The problem is, anyone who so much as picked up one of these bars should have known immediately that they were fake, no fancy test required. The weight alone is an instant dead giveaway. Even a forklift operator lifting a palette full of them should have noticed that his machine wasn’t working hard enough. I think they must have been swapped out while in storage: Someone walked in each day with a new fake gold bar and walked out with a real one. If they were fake on arrival then everyone who handled them in any way must have either had no experience with gold or been in on the scam.

Now, for me the more interesting question is, how do you make a fake gold bar that at least passes the pick-it-up test? The problem is that there are very few metals that are as dense as gold, and with only two exceptions they all cost as much or more than gold.

The first exception is depleted uranium, which is cheap if you’re a government, but hard for individuals to get. It’s also radioactive, which could be a bit of an issue.

The second exception is a real winner: tungsten. Tungsten is vastly cheaper than gold (maybe $30 dollars a pound compared to $12,000 a pound for gold right now). And remarkably, it has exactly the same density as gold, to three decimal places. The main differences are that it’s the wrong color, and that it’s much, much harder than gold. (Very pure gold is quite soft, you can dent it with a fingernail.)

A top-of-the-line fake gold bar should match the color, surface hardness, density, chemical, and nuclear properties of gold perfectly. To do this, you could could start with a tungsten slug about 1/8-inch smaller in each dimension than the gold bar you want, then cast a 1/16-inch layer of real pure gold all around it. This bar would feel right in the hand, it would have a dead ring when knocked as gold should, it would test right chemically, it would weigh *exactly* the right amount, and though I don’t know this for sure, I think it would also pass an x-ray fluorescence scan, the 1/16″ layer of pure gold being enough to stop the x-rays from reaching any tungsten. You’d pretty much have to drill it to find out it’s fake. (Unless, of course, central bank gold inspectors are wise to this trick and have developed a test for it: Something involving speed of sound say, or more powerful x-rays, or perhaps neutron activation analysis. If bars like this are actually a common problem, you certainly could devise a quick, non-destructive test for them, and for all I know, they have. Except, apparently, in Ethiopia.)

Such a top-quality fake London good delivery bar would cost about $50,000 to produce because it’s got a lot of real gold in it, but you’d still make a nice profit considering that a real one is worth closer to $400,000. A lower budget version could be made by using the same under-sized tungsten slug but casting lead-antimony alloy around it (to match the hardness, sound, and feel of gold), then electroplating on a heavy coating of gold. Such a bar would still feel and sound right and be only very slightly underweight, while costing less than $500 to produce in quantity. It would not pass x-ray fluorescence, and whether it passes a chemical test would depend on how thick the electroplating is.

The TPLF gangsters who are known to sell any thing

* modified

ጤና ይስጥልኝ ዶ/ር ስይድ።

ኢትዮጵያን እያሽመደመደ የሚገኘውን ሙስና በሚመለከት ትኩረት ሰጥተው በመያዘዎ አመሰግናለሁ። በድጎማ መልክ ለገበሬው የሚሰጠውን ገንዘብ በሚሚለከት ግንዛቤ እንዲኖረዎትና፤ መረጃ እንዲሆንዎት የግሌን ለማበርከት/ለመወጣት ይህችን ደብድዳቤ ጽፌአለሁ። ስለ እኔ ትንሽ ለማለት ያህል፤ ወደ አሜርካ ከመጣሁ ይኸውና ሁለተኛ አመቴ ነው። በግብርና እና የምግብ ድርጅት የገበሬዎች የእርሻ አማከሪ ሆኘ በተለያዩ የደቡብ ኢትዮጵያ ወረዳዎች ሠርቻለሁ።

ከላይ በተገለፀው አርዕስት ያለውን ሁኔታ ከመግለፄ በፊት፤ ከ1997 ዓ/ም ምርጫ በኋል፤ የገጠሩ ሕዝብ ኢሕአደግን የመረጠው ለማስመስልና ከተሜውን ለማሸበር ይነገሩ በነበሩት ግጥሞች መካክል ልጀምር፤

To read the entire article on PDF, please Click here.

A Testimonial Letter from Amare Mammo – a former cadre of the EPRDF who used to work for the Ethiopian Agricultural and Food Organization

Letter addressed to: Dr. Seid Hassan – Murray State University.

Zenawi and his cronies got caught stealing US tax payers

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) – Beyene Petros criticized a U.S. aid program for helping a textile plant with ties to the country’s ruling dictators win a multimillion dollar contract from an American company.

The program, known as the AGOA Plus project, is designed to help link African manufacturers to American buyers in order to take advantage of preferential tariff treatment under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The so-called AGOA program, started by the U.S. government in 2000, allows about 6,500 products from Africa to enter the U.S. free of duties or quotas.

On Nov. 19, the U.S. Agency for International Development- funded AGOA Plus said it brokered a contract worth as much as $30 million annually between Jackson, Mississippi-based Atlas Manufacturing Group and Almeda Textile. Almeda is part of a group of companies that was founded and is controlled by the gangsters ruling Ethiopia and their cronies.

 “The American government is using public money to support a dictatorial government,”  Beyene Petros, the member of the Forum for Democratic Dialogue, said in a phone interview on Nov. 23. “This is simply crazy. I don’t know who is advising them or why they are doing this.”

As part of the deal, Almeda will produce restaurant uniforms and other garments for Atlas, which specializes in importing textiles to the U.S. from African countries eligible under AGOA. Ethiopian textile exports under AGOA were $18 million in 2008, lagging countries such as Lesotho, which exported $340 million in goods under the trade pact.

Economic Development

Michael Gonzales, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia, said the goal of the project was to foster economic development, not help political parties. In matching U.S. buyers with Ethiopian manufacturers, it didn’t provide American companies with information about the ownership of Ethiopian factories, Gonzales said in a phone interview yesterday.

The U.S. works with the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association, Gonzales said.

“Almeda is a member of this association,” he said. “Almeda is one of relatively few Ethiopian factories with the capacity to fill an order of this volume.”

Razvan Ionele, general manager of Almeda, said in an e- mailed response to questions that the deal would consolidate the image that Ethiopia is a possible sourcing location for producing textiles. He declined to comment on the company’s ties to Ethiopia’s ruling party.

James Langford, chairman of Atlas Manufacturing, declined to comment, when contacted via e-mail yesterday.

Elections

Foreign aid to Ethiopia has emerged as an issue ahead of national elections scheduled for May, which the opposition has warned may not be free and fair. Earlier this month, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue said its members had been denied access to a food aid program funded by the U.S., the U.K. and the World Bank as well as Ethiopian government jobs funded by foreign donors. The government has denied the allegations, and the American and British governments have said they are probing the claims.

Almeda, located in the northern city of Adwa, the birthplace of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, is owned by the sham Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, or Effort, one of Ethiopia’s largest business groups. It comprises more than a dozen companies established by former guerrillas from Meles’s Tigray Peoples Liberation Front that seized power from the Communist Derg government in 1991.  Meles Zenawi and his cronies embezzled the US food aid in the mid-1980s, during one of those terrible famines that have gripped Ethiopia in the past 30 years. Millions of dollars flowed from western donors into the so-called Relief Society of Tigray, which was purportedly the humanitarian wing of the current tribal rulers from Tigray (TPLF).

Now Relief Society of Tigray calls itself EFFORT and it continues to embezzle Foreign aid and loans  to Ethiopia

Effort’s CEO, Abadi Zemu, is a senior official in the TPLF, which has ruled Ethiopia for the past 18-years in an alliance of pro-Meles parties known as the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front. Effort’s deputy chief executive, Azeb Mesfin, is Meles’s wife.

Opaque

Last year, the World Bank’s Ethiopia country director said the finances of Ethiopia’s endowment businesses were opaque and a bank report this year called on policy makers to ensure that endowment firms are managed at arms-length to the ruling thugs.

Effort is using the profit from Almeda and its other businesses for economic development and projects like schools and housing in Ethiopia’s ethnic Tigray region and not for political purposes, said Abadi.

“The initial money of course was from the TPLF,” he said in phone interview yesterday from the northern city of Mekelle. “But since then the ruling party cannot make any claim on its resources.”

Orginal article was written by Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Modified by EthioSun. To read EthioSun’s past report about the inappropriate use of the US Tax Payer’s in the Horn of Africa click here !

Transparency International [TI] (the global coalition against corruption) has just released its 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Once again, Africa has the dubious honor of being Kleptocracy Central, the continental home of the most corrupt governments in the world. Leading the parade of kleptocracies are the regimes in Ethiopia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya and the warlords of Somalia.

The CPI measures “the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world” based on data and analysis provided by such organizations as the African Development Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit, IHS Global Insight, the Institute for Management Development, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. A high index score on the 10 point scale means less perceived corruption.

TI defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. By that definition, the foregoing African countries scored an atrocious 3.0 or less. In certain countries, the corruption trend appears to be irreversible. For instance, in 2002, Ethiopia received a dismal score of 3.5 on the corruption index. In 2009, eight years after the ruling regime had established the “Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission” (FEAC) with great fanfare and after periodic reports of “major accomplishments” in combating corruption, Ethiopia’s score dropped to an abysmal 2.7.

Corruption in Africa can no longer be viewed as a simple criminal matter of prosecuting a few dozen petty government officials and others for bribery, extortion, fraud and embezzlement, as FEAC seems to believe in its reports . As Peter Eigen, founder and chairman of TI argues, “[C]orruption leads to a violation of human rights in at least three respects: corruption perpetuates discrimination, corruption prevents the full realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and corruption leads to the infringement of numerous civil and political rights.” Beyond that, corruption undermines the very essence of the rule of law and destroys citizens’ trust in political leaders, public officials and political institutions.

The poor and powerless bear the brunt of corruption in Africa. The devastating impact of corruption on the continent’s poor becomes self-evident as political leaders and public officials siphon off resources from critical school, hospital, road and other public works and community projects to line their pockets. For instance, reports of widespread corruption in Ethiopia in the form of outright theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, abuse of public authority and position to exact corrupt payments and gain are commonplace. The anecdotal stories of corruption in Ethiopia are shocking to the conscience. Doctors are unable to treat patients at the public hospitals because medicine and supplies are diverted for private gain. Tariffs are imposed on medicine and medical supplies brought into the country for public charity. Businessmen complain that they are unable to get permits and licenses without paying huge bribes or taking officials as silent partners.

Publicly-owned assets are acquired by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Banks loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. Businessmen must pay huge bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement. Those involved in the import/export business complain of shakedowns by corrupt customs officials. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation as evidenced in the various high profile political prosecutions. Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. Two months ago, Ethiopia’s former president Dr. Negasso Gidada offered substantial evidence of systemic political corruption by documenting the misuse and abuse of political power for partisan electoral advantage. Last week, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley stated that the U.S. is investigating allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party.”

Over the past two years, high profile corruption cases have been reported in the media. According to FEAC, in one case it was established that “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the bank. FEAC described the heist as a “huge scandal that took place in the Country’s National Bank and took many Ethiopians by surprise [in which] corruptors dared to steal lots of pure gold bars that belonged to the Ethiopian people replacing them with gilded irons… Some employees of the Bank, business people, managers and other government employees were allegedly involved in this disastrous and disgracing scandal.”

In another case involving a telecommunications deal with the Chinese, a high level regime official was secretly tape recorded trying to extort kickbacks for himself and other regime officials. FEAC reported that “there was another big corruption case at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation that took many Ethiopians by surprise” which involved the “competitive tendering for the supply of telecommunication equipment.” After an investigation, FEAC “found out that nearly 200 million USD has been lost to corruption through the entire fraudulent and corrupt process.”

Many corrupt African regimes have sought to play an anti-corruption shell game to hoodwink their international donors and the multilateral lending institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ethiopia. The regime established FEAC in 2001 with the aim of ferreting out and evangelizing against corruption. As of 2005, FEAC claims to have offered ethics and anti-corruption education to more than 15,000 people and provided advisory services for 267 ethics officers on how they should fight corruption. The Prosecution Department “filed charges against 79 alleged corruption offences and obtained convictions in 28 cases.”

In 2007/08, FEAC trained 325 individuals in corruption prevention strategies and “reviewed the practices and procedures” of 34 public offices and enterprises and 110 procurement, licensing, finance, human resources, health, education, media and other entities. It investigated 296 corruption suspects for claims of “undue advantage obtained/losses caused on government” in the astounding amount of Ethiopian Birr 2,180,311,361. Among the 296 cases, the largest percentage of suspects were investigated for abuse of power (43%) followed by forgery/fraud (30%), mal-administration/ betrayal of trust (13%); embezzlement (8%); bribery (2%) and other (4%). FEAC reported that “the Court ruled on 79 preparatory hearings. Verdicts on 66 cases were passed through trial proper. Some 31 of those verdicts were given in favour of the FEACC. During the budget year, the Court rendered rulings on 48 files, out of which suspects in 43 files were found guilty.” Many of the convicted defendants were sentenced to low prison terms with nominal fines.

It is obvious that the whole “anti-corruption” drama of the ruling regime in Ethiopia is intended as political theatre for the international donors and multilateral lending institutions. It is nothing more than window dressing. No high level official in good standing with the regime has ever been investigated or prosecuted for corruption. No convincing reason has been given to explain the delay in the trial of the alleged “gold scammers” and telecom bandits given the massive, serious and unprecedented nature of the crimes. In sum, by prosecuting low level officials and others for corruption, the regime aims to divert attention from itself.

Interestingly, by doing a little “reverse engineering” on the “anti-corruption” Commission’s reports, one can accurately reconstruct with precise detail the scope and magnitude of the public corruption problem in Ethiopia in each sector, and demonstrate the gross incompetence of the various public agencies. Suffice it to say that the evidence shows that the highest incidence of corruption today occurs in the area of “abuse of power”, which points to the absence of the rule of law and substantial lack of procedures, rules and regulations that ensure individual and institutional accountability. The corrupt use of power always results in the abuse of power.

Corruption persists in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa because the people who cling to power benefit from it enormously. Having FEAC investigate the architects and beneficiaries of corruption in Ethiopia is like having Tweedle Dee investigate Tweedle Dum. It is an exercise in futility and absurdity. FEAC’s claims of saving or thwarting the loss of billions of public birr by vigilant corruption detection and prosecution are laughable cock and bull stories. Most Ethiopians do not find corruption a laughing matter; but they do feel powerless and resigned to it. They view the whole anti-corruption effort with a jaded eye. At best, corruption control in Ethiopia today is a matter of triage: Does one start investigating corruption at the very top of the regime leadership, survey the bureaucratic middle and selectively prosecute, or focus on the petty local official and the street cop for dramatic effect?

One can not reasonably expect to root out corruption by setting up a toothless and feckless anti-corruption commission, or by paying lip-service to the cause of corruption eradication to impress international donors. Corruption in Ethiopia and many parts of Africa is the principal business of the State. Effective anti-corruption efforts require an active democratic culture based on the rule of law and a vigilant citizenry empowered to confront and fight corruption in daily life. In India, for instance, they have successfully organized local “vigilance commissions” against corruption. In Brazil, they counter corruption by engaging citizens in “participatory budgeting.” In Botswana, regarded to be the least corrupt country in Africa, it is said that they have a big welcoming poster adorning the Gaborone Airport with an unusual message to incoming travelers: “Botswana has ZERO tolerance for corruption. It is illegal to offer or ask for a bribe.”

FEAC says the major sources of corruption in Ethiopia are “poor governance, lack of accountability and transparency, low level of democratic culture and tradition, lack of citizen participation, lack of clear regulations and authorization, low level of institutional control, extreme poverty and inequity, harmful cultural practices and centralization of authority.” Not quite. Poor governance, lack of accountability and transparency and the absence of the rule of law are the root causes of extreme poverty, inequity…

[1] http://www.feac.gov.et/web_collection/Com_report_english.htm#int2.3

By Del Quentin Wilber

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 20, 2009

The former head of the D.C. taxi commission participated in a long-running bribery scheme that sought his influence to obtain lucrative taxi licenses, federal authorities allege in recently unsealed court papers.

The accusations appear in an FBI affidavit seeking permission to search the home of Causton Toney, chairman of the D.C. Taxicab Commission from 2005 through early 2007.

Toney, 55, has not been charged with a crime, and his attorney said the former official has done nothing wrong.

The court papers and another recently unsealed court document provide the most detailed look yet into a two-year investigation that has resulted in 39 arrests of people in the taxi industry. A D.C. official, Ted G. Loza, the former chief of staff to a D.C. Council member, also has been charged.

The documents reveal that the investigation started in 2007, when the newly appointed chairman of the taxi commission, Leon J. Swain Jr., was approached by Yitbarek Syume, a powerful figure in the taxi industry.

Syume wanted Swain to approve licenses for new taxi companies and offered the commissioner $20,000, an FBI agent alleges in an affidavit seeking approval from a judge to search Toney’s home.

Swain, a former D.C. police officer, reported the meeting to authorities and soon was working as an undercover informant.

Syume and two other men were indicted on charges of giving Swain more than $200,000 to obtain taxi company licenses during the undercover operation. The men hoped to obtain as many licenses as possible in anticipation of a moratorium on issuing licenses, prosecutors have said.

Authorities have not indicated why they raided Toney’s house Oct. 2. He does business with Syume but is not named in the indictment. In the newly unsealed court papers, an FBI agent says that wiretaps and other recorded conversations link the former taxi commissioner to the conspiracy.

In November 2007, Toney told Syume in a phone call that he had talked to Swain and that Swain had told him that he “wants us to keep pushing ahead . . . to get this thing done so — I’m going to do that,” the affidavit says. The agent wrote that Toney’s comments are a “possible reference to completing their scheme.”

By this year, Swain had given Syume and the others numerous licenses, the FBI said, but the taxi commissioner had not officially activated them.

The conspirators wanted him to put the names of at least some of the companies on the D.C. government Web site to give them a veneer of legitimacy, the FBI agent wrote.

“If they don’t see something that they thought they were investing in, they think they’ve been robbed,” Toney told Swain during a meeting in May, according to the affidavit.

Toney, a lawyer, did not return a phone message seeking comment. His attorney, Brian Lederer, said his client “is not linked to any criminal conspiracy in any way, shape or form.” He said Toney is cooperating with authorities.

“He wasn’t involved in it,” Lederer said, calling the search warrant a reasonable request to look for evidence.

By July, Toney, Swain and Syume had agreed to post the names of six companies on the D.C. Web site.

Toney and the others “have been involved in attempting to illegally obtain and subsequently legitimize company licenses from Mr. Swain,” the agent wrote.

But the transcripts also raise questions about the extent of Toney’s participation. In 2007, the affidavit alleges, Swain complained to Toney that he wasn’t getting his payments from Syume on time.

“Okay,” Toney responded, according to the affidavit. “I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t even know that was going on at all. Okay. I’ll just tell him to get his act together.”

Other newly unsealed search warrants indicate that the FBI first came across Loza, the council staffer, in 2007 when agents intercepted conversations between him and another member of the taxi conspiracy, Abdulaziz Kamus.

In a November 2007 phone call, Loza asked Kamus whether he could “raise a little money for us to go on this trip” to El Salvador. The next day, Kamus handed Loza $500 for the trip, the FBI alleged.

By the next year, the FBI said, Kamus had arranged for Loza to accept about $3,500 for a trip to Ethiopia from an undercover FBI agent posing as a taxi investor, the court papers say.

Kamus became an FBI informant in June, the court papers say. He gave Loza $1,500 during two meetings, federal prosecutors have said. Kamus wanted help pushing legislation that was beneficial to him and others in the taxi industry, prosecutors have said.

Loza’s boss, council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), is chairman of the committee that handles the issue.

Loza’s attorney, Pleasant Brodnax, declined to comment Thursday.

In the court papers, an agent wrote that a District-based advertising firm, Prisma Communications, paid for Graham to fly to El Salvador last year.

Graham said that he knew a company had financed the trip but that it had no business with the city. He has denied any wrongdoing. “I am not a target of this investigation,” he said Thursday.

According to information obtained from Jason McLure’s report , Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Guna Trading House Plc, owned by gangsters ruling Ethiopia, said it plans to become one of the nation’s biggest coffee exporters. Guna is among at least four other companies  (that include Eleni Gebrmedhins ECX) owned by the  gang leader Meles Zenawi and his wife .Reportedly, the Guna began shipping the beans in July and aims to export at least 12,000 metric tons of coffee in the year through June.

“The Tigrai Tribal owners state that they intend  to export to Europe, the U.S. and China.  Ethiopia, where arabica coffee originated, is Africa’s biggest producer of the crop, which accounts for 26 percent of the nation’s export revenue that is being used to finance the gagsters destablizing the horn of Africa and blood sucking millions of Ethiopians including those in Tigrai. The gangsters admitted there company shipped 133,993 tons of beans worth $375.8 million last year.

Only three exporters shipped more than 10,000 tons in the fiscal year ending July 7, 2008, according to data from the Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association. Those three, who together accounted for more than a third of the nation’s shipments, were closed in March after the Eleni Gebremedhin and her masters accused them of illegally stockpiling coffee.

In April, the the Tigrai tribal gangsters -run Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise began operating a coffee-export business. Earlier this month, the company said it would purchase about 10,000 tons of beans in the current year, according to the tribalists mouth piece Walta Information Center.

Eleni Zaude Gebremedhin getting order from Tribal Gangsters?

Guna is owned by the the ruling tribal gagsters under Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, or EFFORT, a group of at least a dozen companies founded by former rebels from Meles’ ethnic Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the 1980s and 1990s.

The gang leader or EFFORTS’s chief  is Abadi Zemu.  The  deputy gang leader  is Azeb Mesfin, who is the wife of the gang leader Meles Zenawi and who consider herself  a representative of  Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

An agricultural development company owned by Saudi billionaire to use as much as 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of land in Ethiopia over the next two decades for sugar, edible oil and grain production.

To date, the cash strapped Tigrai bandits sold to the Saudi TPLF member 10,000 hectares in western Ethiopia near the town of Gambella. Ethiopia’s rulers   has vowed to transfer 2.7 million hectares of land to commercial agriculture to blood sucking investors hoping to get some foreign exchange.

Kamus may have been An FBI Informant

More than two dozen people have been indicted in the rapidly expanding federal bribery investigation into the D.C. taxi industry, the Post’s Del Quentin Wilber is reporting. That’s a whole lotta people. So who, besides Ted Loza, are they? They’re “cab drivers or others with financial ties to the industry,” most of whom will probably be arrested today, according to anonymous sources. Keep your eye out for handcuffed cab drivers this afternoon!

And here’s the first answer we’ve seen to the big question of just who tipped off the feds to this bribery ring in the first place: Wilber writes that a member of the D.C. Taxicab Commission was the individual who first alerted authorities and ended up wearing a wire. No word on which of the eight members of the commission this was.

Also crucial is confirmation that “Individual #1″ in the Loza indictment, Abdulaziz Kamus, was indeed reportedly working as an FBI informant.

Source:  http://dcist.com

Click to C the Names on Indictment!

Yitbarek Seyume

Click to Read Names !

27 individuals have been arrested in connection with the growing taxicab bribery scandal. Moments ago, two indictments were unsealed. You can read them here and here. Nearly 30 individuals have been indicted in federal court.

One indictment concerns three individuals: Yitbarek Syume, Berhane Leghese, and Amanuel Ghirmazion. They have been charged with bribing and conspiring to bribe the chairperson of the taxicab commission—Leon Swain Jr., who then cooperated with authorities. If convicted, the three each face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. These three individuals are alleged to have:

knowingly and willfully conspired and agreed together and with each other, and with other persons both known and unknown to the grand jury, to commit the following offenses against the United States: that is to directly and indirectly, corruptly give, offer, and promise things of value to the Chairperson, with intent to influence official acts….[they] agreed to give approximately $220,000 in cash to the Chairperson in return for the Chairperson’s agreement to issue numerous multi-vehicle taxicab company licenses.

According to the indictment, they agreed to pay the Chairperson approximately $10,000 per license for multi-vehicle taxicab companies.

The indictment states:

The principal role of Ghirmazion was to raise money for the scheme; the principal role of Leghese was to prepare documents associated with the corruptly obtained multi-vehicle taxicab company licenses; and the principal role of Syume was to arrange for and make a series of bribe payments to the Chairperson.

The indictment goes on to state:

It was further part of the conspiracy that attempts were made to obtain corruptly large numbers of licenses for multi-vehicle taxicab companies from the Chairperson.

It was further part of the conspiracy that the DEFENDANTS intended to sell some of the licenses for multi-vehicle taxicab companies that they had corruptly obtained to finance their scheme, and to hold the balance of the licenses in anticipation of the licenses becoming more valuable.

*The bribery began in September 2007 with Syume giving the Chairperson a list of seven cab companies which he requested “licensing without proper authorization.” That same day—Sept. 5, 2007—Syume gave $14,000 in cash in exchange for the requested licences.

*On Sept. 6, according to the indictment, Syume gave two more envelopes of cash to the chairperson totaling about $8,000.

*On Sept. 25, Syume received the licenses from the chairperson.

Syume continued to give the chairperson thousands of dollars in cash through October. For example:

On or about October 17, 2007, Syume again put a folded newspaper containing approximately $3,000 in cash into the Chairperson’s automobile as partial payment for multi-vehicle taxicab company licenses.

On Nov. 8, 2007, Syume and Leghese, the indictment states, discussed via phone selling the licenses at $150,000 a piece. Less than a week later, Syume “gave a shopping bag containing approximately $59,880 in cash.”

The bribes continued into the spring of 2008. The indictment ends in July 2008. But not before producing this chilling entry into the court record:

On or about July 5, 2008, Syume and Leghese spoke by telephone, at which time they discussed their concerns about the Chairperson; Leghese stated: ‘We have to be careful that [the Chairperson] will not play any games, do you understand?’

The second indictment contains a whopping 37 defendants. It appears that much of their allegedly illegal activities are of a more recent vintage—last month:

From between Sept. 3 to Sept. 28, 2009, the defendants allegedly conspired to “directly and indirectly, corruptly give, offer, and promise things of value to the Chairperson, with intent to influence official acts, that is the DEFENDANTS agreed to give cash in various amounts to the Chairperson in return for his agreement to issue taxicab operator licenses to the DEFENDANTS.

Let’s just say, the indictment paints a picture of a very well organized crew. The taxicab industry has failed to influence the public and, say, Mayor Fenty on meters. But they had this bribery thing down:

On or about September 3, 3009, Yitbarek Syume and Suraphel Ayalew met the Chairperson, at which time they discussed the method by which they would obtain corruptly taxicab operator licenses, including the preparation of applications, the location for meetings, and the amount of the bribes to be paid to the Chairperson.

On Sept. 11, a huge number of the defendants met the chairperson “at which time they paid cash to him for taxicab operator licenses that they were attempting to obtain corruptly.”

A week later, Syume handed over $51,000 in cash to the chairperson. That same day, Syume and others received licenses. They repeated this several more times.

The final bit of action listed in the indictment took place on Sept. 28, 2009:  “Yitbarek Syume met the Chairperson at which time he discussed the logistics for the receipt of taxicab operator licenses by himself and the other co-conspirators.”

The defendants have been charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, aiding and abetting, and “Causing an Act to be Done.” If convicted, each of these defendants face up to five years in prison and a five of up to $250,000.

“The allegations contained in these indictments are serious–describing alleged corrupt activities at the heart of our taxicab industry–and reflect our determination to root out corruption in our government,” stated Acting U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips in a press release. “Working closely with the FBI, we will continue to investigate this matter fully.”

Twenty-seven defendants have been arrested so far. Five search warrants have been executed as well

Click to Read the  Indictment

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The corruption probe involving the D.C. Taxicab industry widened considerably Friday with the indictment of 37 people– most of them cab drivers– all charged with conspiracy to commit bribery.

The FBI also raided the home of a former chairman of the D.C. Taxicab commission, searching it for several hours. It’s all connected to the arrest last week of D.C. City Councilman Jim Graham’s chief of staff.

According to the indictment, people in the taxicab industry filled shopping bags with cash and gave it to the current chairman of the D.C. Taxicab Commission– all of it in return for fraudulent taxicab licenses.

Around mid-morning Friday, FBI agents raided the home of Causten Toney, the former chairman of the commission. Agents spent more than three hours inside, leaving with several boxes.
Toney, a lawyer, is not named in the indictments and he was not taken into custody. No one answered the door in the minutes after the agents left.

By mid-day Friday, the FBI had in custody 27 of the 37 people under indictment.
Most of them are cabbies accused of conspiracy to commit bribery, handing over as much as $330,000 in cash to the current chairman of the Taxicab Commission, Leon Swain, who the government says was cooperating with the FBI, working undercover, accepting money in exchange for fraudulent licenses.

Click to Read the  Indictment

According to the indictment:

“On or about September 18, 2009, Yitbarek Syume gave the Chairperson approximately $51,000 in cash as partial payment for taxicab operator licenses that he and the other co-conspirators were attempting to obtain corruptly.”

Then,

“On or about September 21, 2009, Yitbarek Syume gave the Chairperson approximately $40,000 in cash as partial payment for taxicab operator licenses that he and the other co-conspirators were attempting to obtain corruptly.”

The probe went public last week when the chief of staff for Ward One Councilman Jim Graham was arrested and charged with accepting a bribe. Teddy Loza is accused of taking $1,500 in exchange for assistance in shaping taxicab legislation.

Late Friday afternoon, Jim Graham confirmed two of his staffers have received subpoenas to testify before the Grand Jury. FOX 5 asked Graham several questions about his involvement in the investigation.

FOX 5: “Have you been offered a bribe?”

Graham: “I have not received a bribe of any kind, I have not done anything illegal or unethical.”

FOX 5: “Have you been offered a bribe?”

Graham: “I am not the subject of any investigation.”

FOX 5: “Have you been offered a bribe?”

Graham: “That’s all I’m gonna say.”

FOX 5: “You won’t answer that question?”

Graham: “That’s all I’m going to say for now if you don’t mind.”

Jim Graham also would not say whether or not he has been recorded by the FBI on video or audio surveillance. The Ward One Councilman says he is not a target of the investigation.

According to the indictment, the Chairman of the Taxicab Commission has been cooperating with the government and accepting shopping bags filled with cash since 2007.

Why the FBI searched the home of the former chairman, Causten Toney, is still unclear.

The Economist magazine describes the Ethiopian government as “one of the most economically illiterate in the modern world.” This portrayal, albeit contentious, is not without truth. But, the government’s recent meddling in the coffee trade has to do more with the government’s socialist-inspired economic policies than economics per se. As if to prove this, Venezuela’s Chavez, another diehard socialist, just took actions similar to what Prime Minister Meles Zenawi did earlier this year. Last week, President Hugo Chavez accused the country’s largest coffee producers, Fama de America and Cafe Madrid, of smuggling coffee out of Venezuela to circumvent government coffee controls and vowed to nationalize they refuse to heed. Chavez was quoted as saying “if they give me an excuse, I’ll nationalize them.” 

This must be why some critics questioned the viability of a free commodity exchange in Ethiopia. But, technically, commodity exchanges can exist as viable institutions even under tyrannical governments. In fact, the only successful cash commodity exchange with spot delivery in Africa was the one in Zimbabwe. Studies show, Zimbabwe Agricultural Commodity Exchange (ZACE) was a viable exchange, until it closed in 2003 due to monetary instability, and operated successfully with its total costs covered by member subscriptions of brokers. The former coffee auction system in Ethiopia is another example. So, what went wrong with the USAID funded Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX)? 

Mr's Change: Eleni G/Medhin (ethnicity= all African and American too)

Dr. Eleni Gebre-Medhin, CEO says the exchange is a response to the paradox of “bumper harvest one year and severe shortages the next, or surpluses in one region and famine in another.” If so, what’s coffee got to do with famine? Is ECX delivering on its promises?

The bumper harvest-famine paradigm

Ethiopians who watched the state owned Ethiopian Television programs in years 1995 through 1997 vividly recall the infomercials about Sasakawa Global 2000 (SG2000) and the video clips of Meles Zenawi and the former US President, Jimmy Carter visiting certain corn fields.

SG 2000, a joint program of Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) and the Carter Center’s Global 2000, is an agricultural growth program that promotes the potential of improved food crop technologies through field demonstration. SG2000′s success stories in other countries were so appealing that the government adopted it right away. Increasing food production was a top priority for the government, so it was anxious to see SG2000 do its magic. The massive campaign to convince farmers to use fertilizers and improved seeds paid off pretty quickly and many farmers were provided with the inputs on a credit basis to be repaid at the first harvest. During the following season (1996/97), food growing regions saw a record high production due to the favorable rains and use of improved farm inputs. But, the excitement lasted for barely a few weeks as prices plummeted with supply surpassing domestic demand. Many farmers, deep in debt, defaulted on their credits. On the other hand, the rest of the country was in dire need of food and millions of people starved during the same year.

It turns out, ones bumper harvest won’t mean food to the other if the people cannot afford to pay for it. In Ethiopia, millions die of hunger not because they didn’t know where to buy food, but because they didn’t have the means to buy with. In any case, these are the historical events that Dr. Eleni talks about when selling the idea of a commodity exchange.

According to her, ECX will help eradicate famine by facilitating the distribution of commodities in an efficient manner. She argues, event at times like during 1996/1997, grain traders are unwilling to transport stocks to drought stricken regions because of lack of price information and/or the inherent high risk of doing so; those traders who braved to defy all the odds have realized net losses. In brief, by reducing marketing risks and providing merchants with real time price information, ECX can help facilitate ease of transaction and enhance competition. By so doing, commodities can be distributed across regions, reaching a larger consumer base at competitive prices. Further, says Dr. Eleni, ECX can double the value of the domestic market over five years assuming it captures 40% of the domestic market that is estimated at $l billion in value and adds a mere 25% value to it.

ECX came into existence in May, 2008 with able experts in the field and an aim to trade more than 25 agricultural commodities, mainly grain and pulse. The exchange was off to a rough start, as its commencement coincided with an unexpected sharp rise in domestic and global prices for commodities. There was a shortage of grains flowing through the exchange. The shortage persists to date.

After a series of interesting events, in December 2008, ECX evolved into a coffee exchange, no explanation given. Today, the most traded commodity at ECX is coffee, not grain. ECX has replaced the old coffee auction center, not to conduct a forward trade which would have been an improvement, but to do the same old spot auction with an electronic warehouse receipt system.

ECX, there’s a slave in my coffee bag!

With ECX taking over the coffee auction, the government emerged out as the main player in the market for the first time in the history of the coffee sector. All of the successive governments (the imperial, the military regime, and the current one) depended on coffee for export but only the current government dared to control the marketing system for coffee. This arbitrary move exposes the dark side of coffee trade in Ethiopia and ECX’s role as a facilitator.

For so long, the government has been oblivious to the fact that coffee farmers are hurting because of the mandatory export. In Ethiopia, it is illegal to sell export grade coffee beans in local markets; only second and third grade coffees are sold locally. Global prices for export grade coffee are determined at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and are generally less than domestic prices. For example, last week (Sept 19), a pound of coffee was sold at Merkato Buna Tera, the central coffee market in Addis Ababa, for 27 Birr or roughly $2.20 whereas the same volume of export grade coffee was traded at ECX for an average of 18 Birr or roughly $1.47. Coffee farmers and traders would better off selling their coffee stocks in domestic markets. The difference between local and export prices (in the above example, a difference of 15 Birr or $.73 per pound) is an obligatory duty imposed on participants. The governments (past and present) have never felt obliged to compensate farmers or traders for the benefit they forgo due to this export regulation.

In one of her interview on Voice of America’s Amharic Service, Dr. Eleni said, a market is deemed free if people can sell their produce whenever, where ever, and to whomever they want at whatever price they please. In that sense, she said, the coffee trade in Ethiopia is free. If so, since it is now known that the government is actually dictating the coffee trade, shouldn’t it compensate exporters and farmers for the money they lost due to the mandatory export? That is exactly what the governments of Colombia and Brazil did in 2007 . These governments subsidized coffee growers for the price differential when the rally in the local currency eroded export profits. After all, why should citizens be responsible for the government’s inability to create favorable sources of foreign exchange or limit its needs for it? This legal exploitation of poor farmers is exacerbated by ECX’s new system because the system eliminates direct trade – the only system that pays farmers extra pennies for their hard work – and gives the government more power and means to control the value chain.

In recent years, the increased demand for Specialty coffee opened up opportunities for farmers that grow the finest coffees. Importers sourcing single origin coffee often pay farmers premium prices over NYMEX prices for the highest quality. Specialty coffee importers make direct contacts with growers to ensure the highest possible level of quality and integrity for the coffee beans they want to buy. The introduction of ECX’s hasty coffee trade system, however all but eliminates this direct trade between importers and farmers. The only farmers that are allowed to bypass the exchange are cooperatives and commercial farms. Since only less than 10% of the farmers are organized in cooperatives, the new system subjects the individual farmers to adverse competition. These farmers are now allowed to sell their produce at the NYMEX commodity prices only.

On top of this, the government commands the majority sit in ECX’s Board of Directors. Currently, only 18% (2 out of 11) of the directors are private business owners; the rest represent government interests. The parastatals, Guna Trading and Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise are now the most influential forces in the market as they enjoy preferential policy treatment over their competitors. Granted, these parastatals will use their leverage to lower their purchasing prices in order to maximize their profits.

Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see how ECX maintains synergy and serve as a fair and free marketplace to all.

Commodity exchange for coffee

The former coffee auction system has been functioning very well and successfully operated in three successive governments. It would have been wise to enhance the existing system rather than starting one from the scratch. For that matter, the auction was prepared to make gradual upgrades to an electronic warehouse receipt system and eventually to a forward trade. The decision to replace the auction by ECX was completely political and not in the best interest of the sector. The government’s allegation that some of the suppliers and exporters had diverted coffee beans meant for export to local markets or that they hoarded coffee stocks in search of better prices is an excuse. Smuggling will continue to be a problem as long as there exists price disparity between local and export markets. Replacing the auction centers by ECX won’t solve the root causes of the problem.

In countries where coffee is traded in a commodity exchange, coffee trade is conducted separate from other agricultural commodities. In Uganda, the operation of electronic warehouse receipt system and coffee exchange are supported by a two independent institutions: the Uganda Commodity Exchange (UCE) and Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA). These institutions work together to promote a fair and transparent exchange. In Kenya, the coffee exchange is an independent operation that is managed by an association of direct stakeholders. The Kenya Coffee Producers and Traders Association (KCPTA) owns and manages the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE). Another unique feature of the NCE is that it has a separate and smooth direct sale operation for Specialty coffee where marketing agents directly negotiate with foreign buyers. This system, also known as the “Second Window” is separate from bulk commodity trading.

To fix the problems with ECX, first, the coffee exchange needs to be separated from ECX’s broader functions as an agricultural commodity exchange and it should allow full participation of the stakeholders (from farmers to exporters.) Second, to take advantage of the price differential for Specialty coffees, and until most of the farmers are organized in cooperatives, the exchange ought to allow individual farmers to transact freely and directly with ultimate buyers who will enter into agreements with farmers and limit ECX’s role as a third-party certifier to coffee stocks that are not associated with such a direct buyer. Lastly, to do away with the problems associated with coffee smuggling and to encourage the production of high quality coffee, the government ban on domestic trade that requires selling export grade coffee at a loss should be lifted or accompanied by monetary incentives from the government.

Beyoncé Knowles, the  famous R&B singer and Hollywood actress, may  not be coming soon  to perform in Addis Abeba .

The performer  had agreed to come to Addis for her second performance scheduled for October 31, 2009. It was meant to be part of her third world tour, including to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), where she was scheduled to come from.

The deal to bring her to Addis was negotiated between the singer’s management company, run by her father, Matthew Knowles and New Way Inc., a Virginia based company owned by Mohammeds welfare children in DC, Dereje Yesuwork (Jambi) and his partner Endalkachew Tekeste.

Dereje is one of  Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali Al-Amoudi welfare pigs  who would have paid one million dollars for her performance in Addis Abeba, and an additional 150,000 dollars to charter an aircraft for close to 90 members of her team, reliable sources disclosed.

The concert was planned to be held inside the Millennium Hall on African Avenue (Bole Road), and organized locally by Addis Parks Management Plc, a subsidiary of MIDROC Ethiopia. Addis Park promotes such events and sells tickets to the public.

However, negotiations to Feed the Starving Tigrean Children Beyoncé Knowles’s Dance have  fallen apart following a disagreement over live broadcasting rights of the concert, said these sources.

Beyonce’s manager has agreed to let live broadcastings of only five songs from two-hour performance, according to sources. Compared to the one song broadcasted live during her dazzling first performance in Addis in October 2007, where she was paid 1.75 million dollars by Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali Al-Amoudi who loves to feed the starving Tigrean children Beyonce’s music and dance.

According Mohammed’s welfare-children who live in DC metro, the Sheikh loves Beyoncé’s dance and therefore he may reconsider paying here even more.

The starving childrenof  Tigrai should remain patient…..!

The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), led by its chairman and prime

minister, Meles Zenawi, has radically reformed Ethiopia’s political system. The regime transformed the hitherto centralised state into the Federal Democratic Republic and also redefined citizenship, politics and identity on ethnic grounds. The intent was to create a more prosperous, just and representative state for all its people. Yet, despite continued economic growth and promised democratisation, there is growing discontent with the EPRDF’s ethnically defined state and rigid grip on power and fears of continued inter-ethnic conflict. The international community should take Ethiopia’s governance problems much more seriously and adopt a more principled position towards the government. Without genuine multi-party democracy, the tensions and pressures in Ethiopia’s polities will only grow, greatly increasing the possibility of a violent eruption that would destabilise the country and region.

The endeavour to transform Ethiopia into a federal state is led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has dominated the coalition of ethno-nationalist parties that is the EPRDF since the removal in 1991 of the Derg, the security services committee that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. The EPRDF quickly institutionalised the TPLF’s policy of people’s rights to self-determination and self-rule. The federal constitution ratified in 1994 defined the country’s structure as a multicultural federation based on ethno-national representation.

The government has created nine ethnic-based regional states and two federally administered city-states. The result is an asymmetrical federation that combines populous regional states like Oromiya and Amhara in the central highlands with sparsely populated and underdeveloped ones like Gambella and Somali. Although the constitution vests all powers not attributed to the federal government in them, the regional states are in fact weak.

The constitution was applauded for its commitment to liberal democracy and respect for political freedoms and human rights. But while the EPRDF promises democracy, it has not accepted that the opposition is qualified to take power via the ballot box and tends to regard the expression of differing views and interests as a form of betrayal. Before 2005, its electoral superiority was ensured by the limited national appeal and outreach of the predominantly ethnically based opposition parties. Divided and disorganised, the reach of those parties rarely went beyond Addis Ababa. When the opposition was able to challenge at local, regional or federal levels, it faced threats, harassment and arrest. With the opportunity in 2005 to take over the Addis Ababa city council in what would have been the first democratic change of a major administration in the country’s history, the opposition withdrew from the political process to protest flaws in the overall election.

The EPRDF did not feel threatened until the 2005 federal and regional elections. The crackdown that year on the opposition demonstrated the extent to which the regime is willing to ignore popular protest and foreign criticism to hold on to power. The 2008 local and by-elections went much more smoothly, in large part because the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) was absorbed with internal and legal squabbles, and several other parties withdrew after their candidates experienced severe registration problems. The next federal and regional elections, scheduled for June 2010, most probably will be much more contentious, as numerous opposition parties are preparing to challenge the EPRDF, which is likely to continue to use its political machine to retain its position.

Despite the EPRDF’s authoritarianism and reluctance to accept genuine multi-party competition, political positions and parties have proliferated in recent years. This process, however, is not driven by democratisation or the inclusion of opposition parties in representative institutions. Rather it is the result of a continuous polarisation of national politics that has sharpened tensions between and within parties and ethnic groups since the mid-1990s. The EPRDF’s ethnic federalism has not dampened conflict, but rather increased competition among groups that vie over land and natural resources, as well as administrative boundaries and government budgets.

Furthermore, ethnic federalism has failed to resolve the “national question”. The EPRDF’s ethnic policy has empowered some groups but has not been accompanied by dialogue and reconciliation. For Amhara and national elites, ethnic federalism impedes a strong, unitary nation-state. For ethno-national rebel groups like the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front; Somalis in the Oga­den) and OLF (Oromo Liberation Front; the Oromo), ethnic federalism remains artificial. While the concept has failed to accommodate grievances, it has powerfully promoted ethnic self-awareness among all groups. The international community has ignored or downplayed all these problems. Some donors appear to consider food security more important than democracy in Ethiopia, but they neglect the increased ethnic awareness and tensions created by the regionalisation policy and their potentially explosive consequences.

Click here to view the full report as a PDF file in A4 format.