An Ethiop Office Rant

I have avoided all interaction with the man down the hall in the past several years since I joined this east coast outfit. The dour self-righteous pre-Madonna’s world view revolves around stale and unsolicited sloganesque rants against Bush, American racism, and organized religion. With the exception of the occasional silly emoticon-filled group e-mails I get from him, our paths generally don't cross each other. The New Englander, like some white liberals I know, loves his causes but not necessarily the people he purportedly defends: talking to black and Latino male coworkers makes him break into a cold sweat.

I overheard his conversation with someone in the hallway not too long ago. I could trace an edge to his nasal timbre. “He doesn’t have the support of the real African-American community right?” Shit. Obviously, Barack Obama. “. . . and minorities (it came out “MNORDYS”) have so much to thank the Clintons, right?” The woman he was talking to is an African-American woman who unfortunately harbors an outward contempt for African- and Caribbean-born immigrants. She kept repeating “that’s right, honey, you got that right!”

WTF?

I resisted the urge to march out of my office to connect my Swingline to Moron 1 and Moron 2’s noggins and instead turned to blogger to start this rant. I have pondered this before in From Kenya with Love: what is it about Bill and Hillary that makes African-Americans believe the fake New Yorkers will deliver them to the Promised Land?

Unfortunately, African-Americans and Africans have borne the brunt of most of President Clinton’s failed policies. Several issues come to mind but let’s look at four: crime, death penalty, immigration, and Rwanda. Turning first to crime, the findings of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice are revealing—at the end of the Clinton presidency,

With two million people behind bars in the U.S., and 4.5 million people on probation and parole, America ends the Clinton-era with at least 8.5 million people who are either under the control of the correctional system or working for the criminal justice system . . . While everyone is affected by the nation's quadrupling of the prison population, the African American community has borne the brunt of the nation's incarceration boom. From 1980 to 1992, the African American incarceration rate increased by an average of 138.4 per 100,000 per year. Still, despite a more than doubling of the African American incarceration rate in the 12 years prior to President Clinton's term in office, the African American incarceration rate continued to increase by an average rate of 100.4 per 100,000 per year. In total, between 1980 and 1999, the incarceration rate for African Americans more than tripled from 1156 per 100,000, to 3,620 per 100,000.

Toni Morrison’s stupid comment that Clinton is America’s “first black president” had very little to do with the fact that the former president’s policies improved the lives of African-Americans. In her own words, it had everything to do with the fact that Clinton "displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

And who can forget Ricky Ray Rector? In 1992, the governor of Arkansas left a heated presidential race to return to his home state to preside over the execution of a severely retarded African-American death row inmate (Rector saved his desert thinking he would return to finish it after his execution) and sent a clear message to America that he was strong on crime. In a 5mg dose of Sodium thiopental, the presidential candidate erased the specter of a Dukakis dilemma. Clinton would be proven ethically, medically, and constitutionally wrong ten years later: in 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court finally did away with the practice of executing the mentally retarded ruling that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

And then there are Bill Clinton’s 1996 immigration laws that allowed for the wanton deportation of thousands of immigrants, including Ethiopian-Americans. We recognize the complexity of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA) (passed along with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) but Clinton signed on to the deportation provisions of the Republican bill in an election year, again, in an attempt to erase any notion of weakness. In an all too familiar Ricky Ray Rector moment,

with the stroke of a pen, then-President Bill Clinton signed two bills that would be remembered notoriously as the 1996 immigration laws. The laws made whole classes of people detainable and deportable. Greencard holders with any contact with the criminal justice system, people fleeing persecution from other countries, undocumented workers earning less than minimum wage, and immigrants detained on secret evidence all became targets of the government, and at risk of permanent exile from the United States. In preparation for deportation, immigrants would be herded off like cattle by Homeland Security (formerly INS) into county jails and prisons around the country, indefinitely. Since 1996 over one million immigrants have been deported.

I’ll end this rant with what is perhaps Clinton’s supposed biggest policy failure of his presidency: the Rwanda genocide. In 2001, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the National Security Archives published a series of declassified U.S. government documents detailing the Clinton administration’s knowledge of the impending Rwanda genocide (the “final solution” to exterminate Tutsis) and did nothing about it. Clinton’s decision to become a bystander to the unfolding events in Rwanda and why he chose that course are detailed here, here, and here. A poignant commentary on the findings of the National Security Archives, as reported in The Nation states:

[t]hroughout the crisis, considerable U.S. resources--diplomatic, intelligence and military--and sizable bureaucracies of the U.S. government were trained on Rwanda. This system collected and analyzed information and sent it up to decision-makers so that all options could be properly considered and 'on the table.' Officials, particularly at the middle levels, sometimes met twice daily, drafting demarches, preparing press statements, meeting or speaking with foreign counterparts and other interlocutors, and briefing higher-ups. Indeed, the story of Rwanda for the U.S. is that officials knew so much, but still decided against taking action or leading other nations to prevent or stop the genocide. Despite Rwanda's low ranking in importance to U.S. interests, Clinton administration officials had tremendous capacity to be informed--and were informed--about the slaughter there.

Relax, Clinton lovers: I’m no Clinton hater. Overall, 42 is possibly one of the most brilliant presidents to occupy the White House. But black love for Hillary based on a bizarre and misplaced black love for Bill is infantile. Even more unfortunate is the African-American rallying behind the fake New Yorker without even listening to a single debate between the top Democratic hopefuls, and this includes John Edwards.

I don’t agree with Obama on every issue. Nor do I believe America is ready for him (yet). But based on what I’ve seen and heard to date, I dig the son of a Kenyan immigrant who is no intellectual lightweight. I also have faith in America: it is, after all, the land of the possible.

As far as the New Englander (and those who sent me links to Hillary Clinton’s campaign website following my last piece on Obama), S P F C C M T. As to Obama’s “blackness,” a recent Guardian article is a must read.

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The Call for Democracy (Dr. Berhanu calling it here)

Ethiopian democracy continues to be on a standstill: Predictably, the treason and attempted genocide trials have met repeated courtroom delays and the unwillingness (and/or inability) of High Court judges to proceed with deliberations on the underlying alleged offenses signals continued governmental repression. The 2006 U.S. Country Report on Human Rights Practices recounts a laundry list of abuses, including

limitation on citizens' right to change their government during the most recent elections; unlawful killings, and beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees and opposition supporters by security forces; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly those suspected of sympathizing with or being members of the opposition; detention of thousands without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; infringement on citizens' privacy rights and frequent refusal to follow the law regarding search warrants; restrictions on freedom of the press; arrest, detention, and harassment of journalists for publishing articles critical of the government; restrictions on freedom of assembly; limitations on freedom of association; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children; female genital mutilation (FGM); exploitation of children for economic and sexual purposes; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities and religious and ethnic minorities; and government interference in union activities.

The Country Report paints a picture of a country besieged by a leadership unwilling to heed the calls of the governed to be ruled under an open and transparent decision-making process. The people of Ethiopia deserve better. Although a clear vindication by the Court is the best outcome for the imprisoned leaders of the CUDP, we are happy to read about the U.S. Ambassador’s attempts to seek a negotiated release. Given their age and physical condition—especially Engineer Hailu Shawel’s and Professor Mesfin Woldemariam’s—we are hopeful the leaders could, at the very least, fight the false charges while released on bail. Denying them and the other prisoners such a right is cruel, vindictive, and consistent with the pattern and behavior of repressive African regimes. Arguments that they are charged with high crimes or that they would pose a flight risk are laughable and smack of political as opposed to judicial decisions.

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The only good thing that has come out of ET Wonqette’s silence is that I finally managed to browse through her archives to read postings I missed in the past couple of years. Until she returns to blogging, I urge you to take your time to review her archives. Weichegud is as good as blogging gets.

Barack the Vote

Today is a historic day in this nation's history. Senator Barack Obama just clinched the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States.
 

More than a year ago, in February 2007, in From Kenya With Love: Barack Hussein Obama, we believed that Senator Obama's historic candidacy for the Office of the President of United States " . . . would allow registered African-American voters (including Ethiopia-Americans) in the Democratic Party a clear alternative to the carpet-bagging junior senator from our favorite state in the Union. " Before the world was introduced to the monstrously bizarre world of the Clintons, long before a single primary vote was cast, we seethed at the fact that "Hillary Clinton and her arrogant and demeaning posture vis-à-vis African-American voters is back and managing to convince, yet again, many in the African-American community that she, like her husband, is "black" and deserving of their support." 

Our two years of blogging has elicited many e-mails, most supportive of our writing, some hate-filled, particularly from members and supporters of the current ruling party in Ethiopia. Our few departures from our writing on Ethiopia have explored the war in Iraq, US presidential elections, other weighty issues that include race relations, US Congressional elections, and the death penalty. One particular post that elicited the most negative reaction is Ethiop Office Rant, a piece that expressed our bewilderment at the African-American affection for the Clintons. Several e-mails chastised us as right-wing Clinton-haters. 

Fifteen months in politics is two lifetimes. Since Senator Obama's announcement of his candidacy and his shocking victory in the Iowa Caucuses, the world has been able to see Hillary Clinton's deranged narcissism; her sheer hunger to realize her and her husband’s delusional ambition to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. African-American voters (which includes us, Ethiopian-Americans) in particular swallowed a bitter pill – they saw and heard a woman who supposedly built her career helping indigents and the politically unrepresented to claiming that the son of the Kenyan was an elitist when she, just a few weeks earlier, had declared $109 million in income earned. They saw the son of the Kenyan accumulating primary and caucus victories but watched in utter puzzlement as she constantly moved the rules of a game she helped create; how she and her husband attempted to paint the son of the Kenyan into a rewarmed Jesse – a candidate that appeals only to colored folk; they observed a woman who concocted a fictional account of being targeted by snipers, yet survived; they saw a woman who kept up her attack on the Illinois senator for accepting donations from former Weatherman William Ayres yet her husband pardoned two former members of that sinister group; they lived through months of infuriating stump speeches declaring that she is the stronger candidate – code for"America can't possibly vote for this boy."

In her speech today, Senator Clinton did not concede the race to Senator Obama. Hillary Rodham Clinton has become, as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote today, "a hungry hack, a Janus looking both forward and backward and seeming to stand for nothing except winning." 

Barack is now caught between Scylla and Charybdis: whether to add Clinton on his ticket. I considered this issue at much length and my conclusion is no. Hell fucking no. I'll risk a defeat against McCain. My favorite candidate: Chuck Hagel. It's time to turn the page on the deep bipartisan divide in this country. He would also hugely supplement Barack's national security bona fides.

But here’s where we are today: when my sons wake up in the morning, I will be telling them an important story -- that the man who shares their skin color and whom they saw and heard while sitting on their daddy's shoulders several months ago, finally won the nomination. And won it with class.

Consent of the Governed (repost)

We will return with new postings. We repost an earlier piece, The Consent of the Governed.

Our muted puzzlement in December 2005 following the EPRDF’s announcement it would charge the leaders and members of the opposition with the crime of genocide is now turning into a deranged retroactive scream in our heads.

Five months in politics is a lifetime. Since December, Berhanu Nega and his fellow political dissenters now rendered criminal defendants have decided not to fight the EPRDF’s charges in court. By filing incendiary charges impossible to fight in a Third World courtroom, the EPRDF seems bent on sending the nation on a historical collision course. Unfortunately for Ethiopia, an entire people’s outcry—in the country and abroad—has not forced a reckoning in the rank and file of the EPRDF.

But how does one defend against the charge of genocide? All precedent tells us is that those who commit genocide—the Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots, and Milosovics have never been tried, found guilty, and sentenced in courts set up by their own people. Our very own Mengistu falls in that category. Also, the convictions have always required the United Nations or the Allied Powers after the Second World War to set up monstrous tribunals that have attempted to give some semblance of timely, and non-retributive justice administered to the most responsible mass killers. Immensly perplexing is how in the world could people who are not part of a government’s security apparatus or acting on behalf of such entity be charged of the crime of genocide when they have not committed such act or do not have the means to commit it? The EPRDF has thrown us in a bizarre world where those who have done the killing have charged those whose only crime is to demand an end to tyranny through peaceful means.

The questions were far too circuitous for our linear non-legal minds so we decided to Google around. Dozens of web pages later to be stored in Google’s search caches for posterity and possible review by the U.S. D.O.J. our laymen minds had no option but to reach the indubitable conclusion that the EPRDF’s genocide and treason charges have no basis in logic, precedent, and perhaps most important, love for country. Self-preservation has compelled the EPRDF to create pitiful courtrooms in which university professors, human rights advocates (Professor Mesfin and others), at least four prominent lawyers (Dr. Yacob Hailemariam, Mr. Bertukan Demeksa, Daniel Bekele, and Netsanet Demissie), fourteen independent journalists, elected parliamentarians, and average Ethiopians who dared to voice their political dissent are fighting for their lives. The EPRDF’s courtrooms are sham-filled edifices of tyranny.

We tried to understand genocide and how that crime is adjudicated in domestic and international arenas by looking at ten genocides that have taken place in our lifetime. In all these instances, the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are those in power. The EPRDF’s world, as in many cases, is a parallel world where hype is turned into reason and hyped reason into governance. More than anytime, ethiopundit’s oft-repeated advice to not believe the hype has hit the collective conscious of Carpe Diem Ethiopia like a ton of bricks.

Bear with us.

Germany, Nuremberg Trials (1945-49)

The mother of genocide trials also known as the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, held between 1945 to 1949 in Nuremberg, Germany, tried 24 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany as well as lesser war criminals and medical doctors who participated in Nazi human experimentation. Most were tried and found guilty of war crimes and the crime of genocide(over 6,000,000 just counting the Jewish holocaust). Those charged with the crime of genocide in Nuremberg, Germany, were members of the Nazi government or acting on behalf of the Nazi government.

Cambodia (1975-79) This month, twenty-seven years after the brutal Khmer Rouge was ousted, the current Cambodian government with the collaboration of United Nations is attempting to close the chapter on the Khmer Rouge’s killing spree that left two million Cambodians dead (the most conservative figures put it at 1.7 million) . The gruesome Cambodian story is recounted in a recent Washington Post story story and it seems likely the first defendants from the Pol Pot regime may appear in court as early as 2007. In any case, those who will be charged with the crime of genocide in Cambodia are members of the Cambodian government and/or security agents acting on its behalf.

Ethiopia (1978)

By 1997 the EPRDF managed to file charges of genocide, war crimes, homicide, and willful injury against 5,198 members of the Derg regime (2,952 in absentia). The number of dead Ethiopians during the Derg’s 17-year rule are in the hundreds of thousands but the genocide portion—the Red Terror killings number approximately 10,000. The achievements of the Special Prosecutor's Office are many but it has shown us that justice delayed is justice denied--seriously folks it has been more than 15 years since the demise of the Derg! The delays are starting to become worse than the crimes. In any event, those charged with the crime of genocide by our very own EPRDF were all members of the Derg regime or agents that killed on its behalf.

Rwanda (1994) The extermination of an estimated 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus carried out by two extremist Hutu militia groups, the Interhamwe and the Impuzamugambi during a period of 100 days from April 6 to July 15, 1994 has come to be known as the Rwandan genocide. The Interhamwe (responsible for the majority of the killings—up to 800,000)—were led by Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, the architect of the genocide. His death squads ranged at will across the country, and any church or place of refuge that refused them was simply taken down. In 1994 the Security Council established an international tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania (ICTR) and the trials are still ongoing. Similar trials are being conducted in Rwanda under the modified traditional communal system known as the Gacaca. In total, up to 10,000 villages are expected to hold Gacaca trials by next year to hear the cases of more than 100,000 suspects. More than 200,000 Rwandan citizens have been chosen from local communities to sit on judicial panels that will preside over these trials. In any event, those charged with the crime of genocide were either acting on behalf of the Rwandan military, its security agents, or the forces these two entities unleashed.

Bosnia (2001) Slobodan Milosovic was charged of the crime of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. The charges included one count of genocide, one count of complicity with genocide, and an additional 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The charges are based on Milosevic’s "command responsibility" as President of Serbia and his alleged participation in a joint criminal enterprise. The charges covered the shelling of Sarajevo; the mass murder of thousands of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, both UN-proclaimed "safe areas;" and for the Omarska detention camp. The tribunal charged Milosovic and other Serbian officials for the death of approximately 10,000 Bosnians.

India, Gujarat Trials (2002) In February 2002 government-sponsored massacres led to the deaths of more than 2000 muslims in Gujarat, India. While the outcome of the trials has done little to bring the perpetrators of the crime responsible before an Indian court, Human Rights Watch and Concerned Citizens Tribunal of Gujarat published detailed reports holding a Gujarat provincial minister and his government responsible for the killings. The Asian Legal Resource Center’s written submissions to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights should be read with Ethiopia in mind:

For their part, the authorities in Gujarat have demonstrated how utterly the system can be brutalized to further violate the rights of victims. In Gujarat, the same police force responsible for the atrocities has been charged with investigating the cases going to trial, and the government responsible for what occurred has been appointing the prosecutors. Although the National Human Rights Commission explicitly recommended that the Government of India permit independent agencies to investigate the cases, hear the trials in other states and provide witness protection, these recommendations were unheeded. (Emphasis ours).

Those charged with the crime of genocide in Gujarat, India, were members of the Indian government.

Sudan, Darfur (2003- ) In February 2003 two rebel groups attacked Sudanese government forces and installations and the government retaliated by recruiting and arming an Arab militia (the Janjawit) to do its dirty work. The government launched an aerial bombardment campaign to support the ground attacks by the Janjawit. The conflict has resulted in the mass killing and displacement of non-Arab villagers in the Darfur region of Western Sahara and the United Nations estimates that 180,000 people have died in the fighting and two million others have been displaced (although a recent British Parliamentary Report estimates that over 300,000 people have already died.) Fast forward to January 2005 and the Security Council’s International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur found that the Government of Sudan and the Janjawit are responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law accounting to crimes under international law but that the government had not pursued a policy of genocide in Darfur. It nevertheless identified 51 individuals responsible for human rights violations and recommended an immediate trial at the International Criminal Court. Possible indictments will be handed upon members of the Sudanese military and other agents of the Sudanese government. Note: the tragedy in Darfur is reaching historic proportions. This site provides daily updates on the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Congo (2004) In Congo, fifteen senior army and police officials stood a genocide trial in 2004 for their suspected role in the disappearance six years ago at Brazzaville's river port of hundreds of refugees who were returning from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo where they had fled the previous year due to the civil war in Congo. The Congolese court found the 15 defendants were not individually responsible for committing war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity in relation to the events in 1999. But the court ordered the Congolese government to pay 10 million CFA francs (15,000 euros, 18,500 dollars) to the relatives of 86 of the missing refugees. The court dismissed the damages claims of the families of another 102 of the missing refugees. The decision left the families of the dead bitterly disappointed but on its face, the court tried to reach a somewhat Solomonic decision. But let’s not get too far off the topic—again, the refugees were killed by the Congolese government or by agents acting on its behalf.

Liberia (2006) As if the havoc he unleashed in Cote d’Ivoire before seizing the Presidency in Liberia was not enough, during his tenure as President from 1997 to 2003, Boston jail house escape artist Charles Taylor managed to commit several heinous acts including arming and training rebels (the Revolutionary United Front—RUF) in Sierra Leone. More than 50,000 people were killed and in 2003, a United Nations justice tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest charging him of war crimes in Sierra Leone. The charges against the former despot include killings, rape, and all sorts of violence against women and children. Taylor is now facing tthe music in a Sierra Leone courtroom. The killings were all carried out by members of the Liberian government and/or its agents.

Iraq (2006) The butcher of Bagdad finally got what was coming to him when Iraq’s authorities charged Saddam Hussein of committing genocide against 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. Saddam’s savage Operation Anfal against the Kurds in 1988 included the use of mustard gas and nerve agents which killed and maimed rural villagers and drove them out of their homes en masse. Kurds were subjected to forced displacement and illegal detention involving thousands of civilians where homes and houses of worshippers were leveled without reason or military necessity. Those who exterminated the Kurds were members of the Iraqi government.

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You get where we’re headed. So let’s go there and try to draw some conclusions:

Ethiopia (2005-2006)

In May 2005, Ethiopia conducted its third parliamentarian elections. A few days after the polls closed, the opposition had won an unprecedented number of seats in the federal legislature and had also swept the Addis elections. Then the process unraveled. It soon became clear the EPRDF was not going to give up its power. The electorate, aware that the election was rigged and its votes stolen in broad daylight, did what every electorate does: it voiced its protest. In June and November 2005 government security forces whose identity is shrouded with utmost secrecy shot at random and their bullets found the youngest and even non-protesting folks on the street. In its wake, the EPRDF left more than 80 dead in Addis Ababa alone. The numbers in the rural areas are unknown. Crackdowns led to massive roundups and detentions at Dedessa and Kaliti. Insanity has reigned in the country and charges have been finally been brought forth--but in the parallel world of the EPRDF, genocide and murder charges will be brought against . . . the victims!

The questions we must ask and answer:

Are those charged of committing genocide in 2005 members of the Ethiopian government or its agents? NO! What is the number of Ethiopians killed by the CUDP: ZERO!

When Bereket Simon compared the Ethiopian democratic movement with the Interhamwe, no one knew the metaphor was intended to plant seeds in Ethiopia and abroad to subsequently justify possible post-election crackdowns. The oft-repeated EPRDF reference to the Rwandan experience is deceptively erroneous: the Interhamwe was a government-sponsored mob and was not a civilian campaign that rolled out of control—it was, as Human Rights Watch described, a campain in which the early organiziers were military and administrative officials. The Rwanda genocide was a state-sponsored killing and the EPRDF's disengenous analogy was designed to create fear among the governed to ultimately justify bogus genocide and treason charges.

When asked for the immediate and unconditional release of the Kaliti detainees, Meles Zenawi, in sardonic pretense that fails the giggle test says he respects the independence of Ethiopia’s judiciary and that the judicial process is out of his hands. Foreign observers take this statement at face value, say hi to Ato Hailu Shawel in jail and depart from Addis. Meanwhile, the prisoners of conscience are rotting away in jail charged with crimes they never committed.

The day a judge convicts any of the 84 prisoners of conscious will be a day that will live in infamy for Ethiopia and Ethiopians. The EPRDF can end the eternal condemnation of a people it claims to lead. The solution is in its hands: end the sham trials poste-haste and let Ato Hailu Shawel, Dr. Berhanu Nega, W/o Bertukan Demksa, Drs. Yacob and Mesfin, Daniel and Netsanet, and all prisoners of conscience spend Fasika with their families as free men and women. Then give the leaders of the CUDP the option to take their seats in Parliament and City Hall. If they refuse to do so, respect their choice, and call for immediate or early parliamentary elections.

In the end, the only thing that matters is the consent of the governed.

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In addition to Ethiomedia's and Ethiopian Review's standing vigils, the advocacy sites below are must reads:

Save Nega.org, Free Yacob, Advocacy Ethiopia, Daniel Bekele's Freedom Blog, E-Law.org

History lessons via EAL

A postscript: Yager lij of Redeem Ethiopia was kind enough to apprise me of an amazing website dedicated to Negadras Tessema Eshete and his son Ato Yidnekachew. Please check the site for photographs, poetry, and documents mentioned in the posting below, and much more--including the first Ethiopian 78rpm recording made by Tessema Esheta himself. Thanks again YL.

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A recent plea to my pops to send me books on Ethiopian history resulted in a package he was kind enough to dispatch via an EAL flight. It included five books, three of which I have been able to read. They shed significant light on several periods in Ethiopian history and I thought to share them with Ethiopian history aficionados.

Semena Worqu Tessema Eshete (Tessema Eshete)

Chronicling Negadras Tessema Eshete’s literary work, this book was published posthumously in 1992 by Ato Tadele Yidnekachew, the Negadras's grandson. Negadras Tessema Eshete’s long career in the courts of Emperor Menelik, Lij Eyasu, Empress Zewditu, and Negus Teferi Mekonnen has never been written and this book provides hundreds of Sem ena Worq (Wax and Gold) stanzas authored by the little known but immensely influential figure. Most of us know the Negadras’s son—Ato Yidnekachew Tessema (1921-1987) who played an extraordinary role in developing and popularizing sports not only in Ethiopia but also in Africa.

(Yidnekachew Tessema’s contributions include his pioneering efforts in opening the first Ethiopian sports federation in 1943, his work in establishing the African Soccer Federation (CAF) in 1964 (he served as its deputy president between 1964-72, and as its president between 1972-87). More on Yidnekachew can be read at Ethiosports and in a recent tribute by our own Ethiopian Politics.)

Written in Amharic, Semena Worqu Tessema Eshete includes letters and communiqués written by Ethiopia’s monarchs as well as dozens of memorable photographs of the unsung poet. A few of these photographs are taken with the Negadras’s friend, Lij Eyasu, a compelling figure in Ethiopian history. (See Angelfire for an excellent summary of the young monarch's life and reign). I must admit to having struggled with some of the Sem ena Worq but most are accessible and immaculate.

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Kassa and Kassa (Institute of Ethiopian Studies)

Published in June 1990 by the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Kassa and Kassa’s printing was preceded by two conferences in Addis Ababa in 1988-89 to commemorate two historic events: (1) the Battle of Meqdela and the death of Emperor Tewodros (April 13, 1868), and (2) the Battle of Metama and the death of Emperor Yohannes IV (March 9, 1889). The title Kassa and Kassa indicates the birth names of Emperors Tewodros and Yohannes—Kassa Hailu and Kassa Mersha respectively.

The collection is edited by Taddese Beyene, Richard Pankhurst and Shiferaw Bekele. AAU alums should be familiar with the two Ethiopian historians and with Richard Pankhurst, the three scholars edited this resourceful treatise that features writings by the editors themselves as well as by other scholars and commentators including Sven Rubenson, Amsalu Aklilu, Seyoum Weldu, Tadesse Tamrat, Taye Assefa, Joanna Mantel-Niecko, Amanuel Sahle, Girma Kinde, Rita Pankhurst, Stephen Bell, Adhane Mengisteab, and Tesemma Ta’a.

The writings, in both Amharic and English, illustrate the roles the two Ethiopian leaders played in the formation and continuation of Ethiopia’s unification and the significance of the battles of Meqdela and Metema in Ethiopian history. Tewodros features prominently in the book which should not be a surprise given his pioneering of Ethiopia’s unification, modernization, and reform. The writings also give credit to Yohannes’s heroic fight to preserve Ethiopia’s independence against foreign invaders, including Egyptians, Mahdists, and Italian colonial incursions. Both emperors lost their lives in battle while defending their country against foreign incursions. This collection of papers is an incredible read and at times offers challenges to basic assumptions and interpretations of 19^th Century Ethiopian history.

The conference on Emperor Tewodros was opened by Blaten Geta Tsegaye Gebre Medhin who spoke extempore on his famous play Tewodros and was concluded by the poet laureate’s recitation of the Emperor’s Farewell Speech from Meqdela in Tewodros. Ay Blaten Geta! What haven't you done?

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Of What I Saw and Heard (Merse Hazen Wolde Qirqos, 2004)

This book took me by complete surprise (more on the surprise later). These are the memoirs of Blaten Merse Hazen Wolde Qirqos, another fascinating figure in Ethiopian history. Blaten Merse Hazen, at the age of twenty became a renown Ge’ez scholar and was appointed to serve as editor of works on Biblical exegesis as well as a member of Berhanena Selam’s editorial board. He subsequently authored the official Amharic grammar before he became a court historian and high ranking government official during the reign of Haile Selassie I.

I first read about Blaten Merse Hazen in a recent book I read by Ambassador Zewde Reta, Teferi Mekonnen, Rejimu Yeseltan Guzo beMinilik, beIyassu ena beZewditu Zemen (1884-1922) (Tafari Makonnen: The Long Journey to Power during the Reigns of Menelik, Eyasu and Zewditu, 1884-1922) who quotes extensively from Merse Hazen’s memoirs. Of What I Saw and Heard recounts events that took place when the author was barely fourteen years old while he lived in Emperor Menelik’s and Lij Eyasu's courts. The entries provide a fascinating account of the young boy’s observation of several events including the arrival of the steam roller in 1903 (and Menelik’s observation of the test drive and subsequent ride in it), the building of the Entoto road, the construction of Entoto Mariam Church; the planting of eucalyptus trees in Addis Ababa, Ras Mekonnen’s death, the opening of a language school, the appointment of judges, the emperor’s illness, his proclamation of Eyasu’s rule, “the conspiracy of the mehal sefari” (against Empress Taitu), the transition of power to Eyasu, the secrecy surrounding Menelik’s death, the coronation of Negus Michael as King, the start of the European war (WWI), Eyasu’s support of the German policy, Teferi Mekonnen’s arrival, his near drowning in Lake Haremaya, the rumors about Eyasu’s alleged efforts to convert Ethiopia to Islam, and the conspiracy and subsequent coup.

So why the surprise? Apparently, the editors who published this memoir, including Gerard Prunier, Director of the French Center for Ethiopian Studies, are being sued by Blaten Merse Hazen’s son for copyright infringement. The following exerpt from an interview with Prunier was posted on Hararis, a Canadian based Ethiopian website:

Q: What does your centre concentrate on at present?

A: The main thing that we are trying to do is human geography and trying to revive a certain tradition of modern and contemporary history, which used to exist and which is now falling a little bit behind. We have done the memories of Mersae Hazen Wold-Kirkos and now we are being sued by the son of Mersae Hazen Wolde-Kirkos who says that we stole the manuscript that belongs to him. Mersae Hazen wrote a manuscript on his life between the times he was at the palace during the last years of Emperor Menelik till the coronation of Ras Tafari Makonnen (Emperor Haile-Selassie) in 1930. And this was never published. The manuscript of these memories was given to us by Prof. Bahru Zewde when he was director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies for the purpose of translation and publication which we did. And now we are sued by the son of Mersae Hazen who lives in the United States. He says that this theft of intellectual property. But we believe that this is wrong because we found his manuscripts in public libraries. And no copyright has been deposed on them. And secondly, the Ethiopian law is silent about manuscripts. But on published works where there is an automatic copyright, you could say the time limit is fifty years. And this manuscript was written 62 years ago. It was written during World War II. When Mersae Hazen Wolde-Kirkos was living in exile at the convent of the Ethiopian Monks in Jerusalem. And he never published it because he had his difficulties with the Emperor. Later in life, he became the president of the Parliament. But he was very careful with the Emperor, because when he was a young man, he was not among those who supported Ras Tafari Makonnen. And so, he never published his memories. This is why the manuscript has been floating around like this for a long time. We published an English translation of Mersae’s memories. We also published two biographies of two sultan of Afar, Mohammed al-Fareh, who died in 1902 or 1903 and Ali Mirah, who is still alive, a very old man.

Hmm. My brief research on intellectual property law only helped me understand its circuitous complexities but Prunier’s arguments don’t seem to make much sense. Prunier et al., if you published it without authority, pay up. Arguments such as “[w]e found his manuscript in public libraries” and “Ethiopian law is silent about manuscripts” don't seem to hold much water and I am curious to know if anything happened to the copyright claim.

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• Lela Tensae-ETA Moonlight's Mock HR5860 Response Letter from Dennis Hastert is hillarious and brilliantly written (Afrigro is a great term);

• Shadows' A Father's Perspective is brilliant;

• Like the Wonq, we find Tsegasaurus' silence disconcerting;

• Enset's Skepticism and delusion, shunning from reality is AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME. Consider Ephrem's concluding paragraph:

  The key to building a free society lies in creating a durable set of democratic institutions - some public, some private - that encourage "Representative Democracy" as well as economic openness for long periods of time. This historic responsibility is not the task of few people; it is not even a task to be completed by one generation. Our grandfathers/mothers made us proud Africans by breaking the backbone of Italian colonialism. Our fathers/mothers lived in the darkness of the two [feudal, military] consecutive authoritarian regimes, but they educated us and enabled us to perceive the anatomy of evil. Dealing with the forces of evil is the responsibility of this generation. Our children should be left to focus on agriculture, medicine, economics, and engineering. I usually take my son to G. Washington, T. Jefferson, A. Lincoln, and FDR memorials, and take myself back in time to give respect to what these heroes did to their country. Our country Ethiopia needs heroes like Jefferson and Lincoln who burn like a candle to give light to others. When he gets old, I hope, my son takes his children to memorials, but to a different memorial; to a memorial of champion Ethiopians!

NETSANET LE NETSANET

Part I: Netsanet le Netsanet Demissie Belay

July 2004

TC (his initials) heard a calling. Fresh out of a northeastern college, the kid for whom my family and I assumed responsibility after his parents’ passing years ago was ready to change the world. He reminded me of myself twelve years ago, minus the dreads. But the polysi major was ready to spend a few weeks hanging out in Joburg before starting his trek to Ethiopia where he hoped to stay “for about a year or so.” The trekking part sounded interesting—he mentioned Swaziland, Arusha, and the esoteric place of my dreams Zanzibar. I was in no position to pass judgment on TC’s foolishness. I had once embarked on a year long journey of self-rediscovery in Ethiopia. I just hoped the kid with a bleeding heart would be back just in time to send in his applications to grad school.

January 2005

I dragged myself in the direction of the incessant ring. It was a Sunday and I cursed under my breath wondering who the hell would call at 5:00 A.M. Able to sleep through a tsunami, the little creatures we created were snoring soundly, oblivious to the annoying cell phone that rattled on the old depression-era tiles in our tiny Brooklyn apartment. It was either from Ethiopia or just bad news from anywhere. It was TC.

Any hope to expect him on the transatlantic EAL flight was dashed a few seconds into our conversation. He was staying put and was in need of cash. He wanted to stay through two upcoming events he described as “historic” and I wasn’t sure which one was more important to him. Bob Fest or the May 2005 elections.

Ten years ago, I would’ve probably been in Addis to attend the Africa Unite festival to celebrate Bob Marley’s 60th birthday anniversary. The elections were another issue. In January, I believed, the elections were nothing but pomp and circumstance, an elaborate show for both the governed and international community. Nothing told me the EPRDF was prepared to relinquish power. But by April 2005, I would be caught up in the fervor and excitement the opposition had unleashed in Ethiopian politics and like millions, I had hoped against hope. I promised to send TC what I could. By the end of the day, he had hit every relative and friend in the U.S.

The fresh supply of Benjamins allowed TC to embark on the historic Lalibela-Bahr-Dar-Gonder-Axum route, and subsequently, to hang out with his buddies at the Sheraton and Hilton hotels where he rubbed shoulders with the city’s who’s who—essentially its businessmen, the country’s rulers, the wealthy members of the opposition (mainly the old school), but most important, foreign election monitors and observers.

At the Hilton, he managed to sneak into a meeting between the members of the Carter Center and a bunch of Ethiopian suits. Reading his e-mails regarding his observation of the foreign monitors were (and are) fascinating: he found the members of the Carter Center impressive—they had a seasoned look about them; seemed as if they’d done this type of work before; and in typical gregarious American bearing, had ease communicating with Ethiopians. Ana Gomez’s team didn’t mingle easily with the locals; its members were young, seemed to have a perfunctory knowledge of Ethiopian history, but had a penchant for statistical accuracy that kept them glued to internet connections the Hilton, Sheraton, and the UN complex offered.

TC heard about Netsanet Demissie sometime in February 2005. Not from State’s Disinformation Organs ETV and Fana but from mind you, a drunk-ass West African diplomat who slung Green Labels to the back of his drunk-ass throat at the Sheraton, and who, in his drunk-ass stupor announced to anyone who could hear that if it were up to him, he would kick out every foreign observer in the country and give the responsibility of monitoring the elections to Netsanet Demissie and his organization. Why, he asked, does Ethiopia need the validation of white people when Ethiopia had “thousands” of observers at home? An excellent question to anyone who would give the High Calls a break. But TC’s curiosity was piqued, and so was mine. Until then, I had never considered the possibility there were Ethiopian observers.

I made my calls. My inquiries led me to Mr. A, a good friend, currently a resident of the city on the hill AA. Mr. A was kind enough to share the following with Carpe Diem Ethiopia, months before CDE was born and has allowed this blog to share only the fact he is “affiliated with the university.”

March 2005

Netsanet is a graduate of the Addis Ababa University Faculty of Law. Following graduation from law school, he worked as a lecturer at the university and later, as federal judge, before founding and becoming Executive Director of Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE), a civil society organization with a mission to "nurture social justice, democracy and good governance by addressing the denial and violations of basic rights of the poor and [ ] marginalized." With his friend Daniel Bekele, Netsanet also worked as coordinator for G-CAP—Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

By the time the election season arrived, OSJE undertook a historically significant responsibility—that of election monitoring. It became an umbrella organization for 35 or so Ethiopian civil society organizations (CSOs) with approximately 3,000 members who expressed a desire and readiness to observe the May 2005 elections. However, the CSOs soon found themselves constrained from fulfilling their objectives by various rules issued by the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) that kept changing the country’s election rules. More on this later. Its late-day rule change prevented more than two-thirds of the organizations the ability to obtain accreditation.

Mr. A, who ventured unannounced to the offices of the OSJE in the Kasanchis-Aware gave an interesting description of his one time visit in early February 2005. No guard or attendant was present at the entrance to the modern four-story building. The CSO occupies the second or the third floor of the building and consisted of a few rooms where no more than ten young Ethiopians with illuminated faces sat typing away in front of glowing monitors.

Mr. A and others who have spoken with Netsanet speak of his voice as kind, gentle, and reserved. He speaks English without a trace of an accent; he sounds like an American and once could swear he’s lived his entire life abroad. The EPRDF and its followers frequently extrapolate the OSJE’s challenge to the NEBE as biased against the ruling party. Nothing could be far from the truth. Netsanet strongly believed the 2005 elections were a watershed moment in the country’s history and was deeply convinced a fair election was an important step toward democracy and representative government.

Mr. A’s brief exploratory visit to the offices of the OSJE left him disheartened. In telephone conversations, he wondered why the European Union, the Carter Center, the African Union, India, China, Turkey, the Arab League and other international governmental and non-governmental actors were getting all the coverage when Ethiopia was able to produce outstanding organizations like the OSJE and individuals the likes of Netsanet. A few months before the elections, the work and efforts of domestic observers were completely unreported, their efforts hampered by a government that viewed any administrative and judicial challenge unconstitutional and treacherous. Their work was completely eclipsed by the presence in Addis Ababa of a colorful Portuguese parliamentarian and a colorless ex-Prez out of Georgia.

April 2005

Then, just like that, one month before the May 15 election, Netsanet arrived on the electoral scene with a bang and in the process did what most Ethiopian human rights advocates rarely managed to do: get a federal High Court to agree with him, in a precedent-setting decision, that the nation’s election rules were violative of the Ethiopian Constitution.

The background is important because the OSJE’s legal filings before the High Court propelled Netsanet and the importance of Ethiopian CSOs into the international arena. On April 20, 2005, the OSJE, on behalf of the 35 organizations brought a lawsuit before the federal High Court claiming the NEBE’s new rules were violative of the letter and spirit of the country’s election laws. Under the NEBE’s new rules, domestic organizations that intended to monitor the elections were required to meet two criteria: first, they must have registered with the government as election observers when they were originally founded, and second, they must also prove they are independent. Netsanet argued the NEBE's new rules would exclude no less than two-thirds of Ethiopia’s domestic observers.

The NEBE’s chairman, Kemal Bedri, himself a lawyer and the presiding judge of the High Court (but who, recused, did not hear or decide the case), arguing for the NEBE’s new laws stated: “you just can’t welcome anybody in to pass judgment on a very sensitive matter . . . accreditation cannot be automatic.” Comparing the work of domestic observers against that of international observers, Kemal also forwarded the claim he would later eat in the face of the EU Preliminary Report: unlike international observers for whom “it doesn’t matter who won the elections,” domestic organizations have a stake in the outcome of the elections. Kemal Bedri all but argued that Ethiopians are innately incapable of impartiality.

Two weeks before the election: enter Judge Berhanu

On May 3, 2005, barely two weeks before the elections, the High Court threw out Kemal Bedri’s distasteful arguments and the NEBE’s eleventh-hour edicts. In a seminal decision, High Court Judge Berhanu Teshome found the rules “contravened” the laws of the country and overturned the NEBE’s rules.

In our book, Judge Berhanu’s decision came down in the country’s relatively brief judicial history as the Ethiopian John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and whose decision in Marbury v. Madison paved the way for judicial review of executive acts. Teshome Berhanu must belong in any Ethiopian government textbook.

But that would be in a sane world. The federal judge’s decision was a loud bark without a bite much less a lick. The NEBE immediately appealed the decision and the OSJE had only a few days to prepare, train, and deploy observers in the country. It takes months to prepare election observers; months to acclimate them to the environment and the players involved; months to observe local traditions, rules, and region-specific electoral constraints. The under-funded civil society and its members had to accomplish in a few days what international observers were able to do in months and months of preparation, with high paid consultants and professionals working with the most current technology at their disposal, while being courted by the nation’s most powerful, staying in posh five-star hotels, and eating the best dishes Ethiopian chefs could throw together.

Fraud, blood, and tears

Ah, the elections of May 15, 2005! That day and its aftermath are now indexed in the annals of Ethiopian history, leaving in their wake a trail of blood and tears. In all of the post-election drama, the real losers became the people of Ethiopia. Killed with Ethiopian kids in June and November 2005, thousands detained in Kaliti and other detention centers, and a free press effectively shut down is civil society and the important role it plays in a burgeoning democracy. Carter and Gomez issued their findings and we entered the post-election observer debate. The contributions of the OSJE, Netsanet Demissie’s and those of the 35 domestic observer organizations are almost never mentioned except from the mouths of prosecutors who lance the fiery spears of treason and genocide againt them. We do not know what the findings of Ethiopia’s domestic observers are, but whatever they are, the CSOs operated under-funded and in a climate of hostility and antagonism, their existence barely recognized by their own government.

The EPRDF’s use of the NEBE’s powers to suppress the role of Ethiopia’s CSOs did permanent damage to the elections of 2005. Ethiopia missed a golden opportunity to elevate the importance of the Ethiopian judiciary and its ability to undo unconstitutional parliamentary laws of the Peoples House of Representatives. What should’ve happened following the High Court’s monumental ruling was a complete review of the country’s electoral laws, and if necessary, a delay of the elections to ensure constitutional issues relating to electoral laws were completely vetted by the judiciary, CSOs, and interested parties. It goes without saying that the EPRDF’s muzzling of Ethiopia’s CSOs did the most disservice to the establishment of the rule of law in Ethiopia.

A few days after the guns blazed in June, a shocked TC got the hell out. I welcomed a much changed TC at Newark. Our drive to the city was significant for the constant use of holly shits and holly, holly shits. I remembered our initial drive to the airport more than a year ago: then, TC was full of hope and bubbling anticipation whereas I had been wary and concerned. Lighting one Rothman after another, his face displayed a sad and almost despondent affect. This time around, I was the one who was full of anticipation to hear news of Ethiopia, the June bloodshed, the taxi boycott in AA, and the ongoing Troika-led discussions between the CUD and the EPRDF. But it was soon clear to us that I was the one with the news—he just left a land where the free press was already on its way to indefinite extinction.

And as the kids lay dying in November, TC called me at the office. Since his return from Ethiopia, he had moved uptown with his buddies from college. He said he was receiving minute-by-minute updates of the situation in AA. What he said about Netsanet made my heart skip a beat. The government had issued an all-points-bulletin on Netsanet. I could tell from his faltering voice he was affected by the rapidly deteriorating situation in Addis. He had made lots of friendships and acquaintances in AA and was dialing every number he knew.

“I’m sure he will hand himself to the bastards . . . he’s got nothing to hide . . . he hasn’t done anything . . . they’ll kill him!” He went on. Unbeknownst to us, Netsanet had already gone to the police the minute he found out about the APB. He has been behind bars since then, denied bail, and charged with treason. The language of the charges are enough to make you shudder in disbelief: “insurrection for incidents that happened on 8 June 2005 and November 2005.” You can review the ensuing in and out of court drama here.

Final thoughts on Netsanet

Both Ethiopians and foreigners who know Netsanet talk about his absolute belief in the justice system; that he believes electoral irregularity to be endemic to the exercise of universal suffrage, and that if left unchecked, would take advantage of holes in the electoral system. His solution was simple: setting up independent Ethiopian watchdogs that observe the conduct of the parties and their constituents. But he never banked on monitoring alone: the independence and strength of the judiciary was paramount, after all, only the courts would be the ultimate arbiters of disputes that were sure to arise. Everyone who knew and met Netsanet speak of his political independence and the importance he accorded to impartiality.

TC went to Ethiopia hoping to reconnect with his people and himself, but in the process, came to hate what his own people are capable of doing to each other. His trans-African trip made him accept another sad reality—that the Ethiopian government was not much different from other African regimes: it gives a much higher value to the judgment of westerners. The irrebuttable fact remains that on the eve of the May 2005 elections, Netsanet Demissie was as competent and impartial as Ana Gomez and Jimmy Carter; the OSJE far more credible and effective than the Arab League or the African Union.

Netsanet encapsulates everything that is right about Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Silencing him is silencing a voice of reason so crucial to Ethiopia.

Additional information about Netsanet Demissie can be found at Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-Law).