Ethiopia: The prison house of nations: The prison is breaking up June 29, 2020

The Prison is breaking up: It is said tall sorghums are either for birds or for slings. Pioneers of liberation struggle rose at a time when majority of the oppressed were not aware of their capabilities to challenge the oppressors. They paid in their lives to bring the masses to today’s level of political awakening. Now prisoners of the Ethiopian empire have started to break the prisons in unprecedented numbers after more than a hundred years. Those for whom oppressing is normal order of life are now running up and down making sounds of fury and empty threats to stop them but in vain. It is too late, to stop Wala’ita, Kaficho, Hadiyyaa, Silxee, Guraagee, Kambaataa, Gedi’o, Konsoo, and their Nilotic neighbors etc. from determining own destiny. Nafxanyaa system empire is crumbling. They have to know that the name Ethiopia should not be used to blackmail others by a group in particular oppressor group. What is important is not the name but the love and interest peoples show to live together. One oppressor group accepted the federal system confident it could disable and do whatever it likes with it. But the oppressed grabbed it and adopted it as their own dismissing the authoritarian selfish group. They are the peoples; it is their time; no force can stand against them. All have to come around a table and negotiate.
Though declaring their independence is a right, these peoples are offering continuing to live together in a democratic union of equals refraining from such declarations. Not understanding this, those with crooked decadent outlook are trying to reinstitute the defunct Nafxanyaa unitary system. On the other hand, nations and nationalities are holding hands for federal system to be realized. No more South, no more cluster but a federal republic coming to existence by will of the free and the equal. No more language, no more culture, no more symbols, no more authority of one is superior to the others. All present cacophony and diversions are only bubbles and dust that will blow away soon leaving sovereignty and rights of each and all peoples intact. In their last kick the reactionaries may harm the oppressed but people will always survive to judge. Together nations, nationalities and peoples will recommit themselves to principles of the federal constitution and safeguard their national sovereignty and federal interests without fail. A time wheel that no power can stop is in motion. Thanks to the tall sorghums, lusher and more yielding ones have sprouted irrigated by their blood. Oromiyaan haa jiraattu!

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Geneva Press Club: Kello Media: An Ethiopian Dilemma: Political Transition, Human Rights and Constitutional Crisis June 18, 2020

Kello Media: Tarsiimoo Mootummaan Itoopiyaa Oromoofi Oromummaa irratti qabu. June 17, 2020

Tarsiimoo Mootummaan Itoopiyaa Oromoofi Oromummaa irratti qabu.

Democracy imperiled in Africa by ‘reformers’ turned dictators, Washington Examiner June 13, 2020

Democracy imperiled in Africa by ‘reformers’ turned dictators

by Michael Rubin, Washington Examiner| June 11, 2020 

It is often forgotten that the worst dictators are often, early in their careers, lauded as reformers. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was initially embraced as a “pragmatist” by diplomats and journalists alike. In 1991, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi the Nobel Peace Prize; only in subsequent decades would she expose herself as an apologist for ethnic cleansing. Of course, she is not the only figure to sully the preeminent peace prize’s legacy.

In Africa, the trend of reformists becoming dictators has been especially acute.

In April 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared that the United States supported black rule in Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe. He was cautious about Soviet and Cuban inroads among certain liberation movements. President Jimmy Carter, however, had no such caution. He drew parallels between Robert Mugabe’s Marxist Zimbabwe African National Union and the civil rights fight in the U.S. South. Mugabe was, therefore, a reformer and a social justice warrior. Many officials likewise greeted Isaias Afwerki as a democrat and reformer when he became Eritrea’s first president upon its 1993 independence. Indeed, Bill Clinton congratulated his Eritrean counterpart on “Eritrea’s good start on the road to democracy and free markets” when, in 1995, they met in the Oval Office. Diplomats likewise once praised Rwandan leader Paul Kagame for his progressive attitudes toward women and liberal approach to the economy, but most human rights groups today criticize him for intolerance to dissent and human rights abuses.

Now, it appears, another Nobel laureate, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, may be heading down the same path. Perhaps buoyed by the praise he receives on his frequent post-Nobel trips abroad, Abiy on Wednesday announced that he would remain in office beyond the end of his term. For all of Abiy’s enthusiastic and, at times, naive peacemaking abroad, his tenure has exacerbated ethnic tensions at home. Reelection was no certainty, but his decision to seek to hold power extra-constitutionally could precipitate conflict in Africa’s second-most populous country.

Not to be outdone, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has also signaled he seeks to delay elections and remain in power. Farmajo’s tenure has already seen a backsliding of democracy and resurgence of the al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabab terror group. If the deeply unpopular Farmajo tries to hold onto power, he will return Somalia into full-blown civil war.

The U.S., in recent years, may have diminished presence on the world stage, but the cards the White House and State Department have still matter. From a realist standpoint, Abiy and Farmajo are both weaker than they themselves admit or realize. Abiy may seek to become the new Mugabe, and Farmajo the new Siad Barre, but their respective peoples will not stand for it. Unbridled ambition will lead to civil war in their respective states. This is in no one’s interest. Rather than promote silly photo-ops with regional presidential summits, like that which the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs plans for this coming week in Djibouti, the U.S. government should signal both to Abiy and Farmajo that they risk pariah status if they continue their undemocratic tendencies.

Central to President Trump’s international philosophy is the idea of restraint: The U.S. should not deploy its forces across the globe in pursuit of agendas that do not directly impact the security of the American homeland. In these troubled economic times, that makes sense, but it requires effective diplomacy now to avoid scenarios where state failure mandates far more expensive responses. The best way to promote regional security is to continue to cultivate democracy and provide a peaceful mechanism for ordinary citizens to hold ineffective leaders and would-be dictators to account.

Ethiopia’s Speaker of the House of Federation (HoF), Keria Ibirahim resigned from her position warning the danger and the unconstitutional move of the Abiy Ahmed’s government June 8, 2020

Ethiopia’s Speaker of the House of Federation (HoF), Keria Ibirahim resigned from her position by warning dire and the unconstitutional move of the Abiy Ahmed’s government

Ibsa Af-yaa’iin Mana Maree Federeeshinii Itoophiyaa aadde Keeriyaa Ibiraahim aangoo isaanii gadhiisu ilaalchisanii kenan as gadii caqasaa:-

Speaker of Ethiopia’s Upper House Resigns After Polls Postponed ( The New York Times)

By Reuters, June 8, 2020

ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia’s upper house speaker resigned on Monday in apparent protest at the postponement of planned elections in the Horn of Africa country over the coronavirus, a sign of growing tension between her party and the government.

The speaker Keria Ibrahim is also a top official in Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), one of the country’s major political parties and which has opposed the poll postponement.

The parliamentary and regional elections had been planned for August ahead of the end of incumbent Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s term in September. No new date has yet been set.

In a televised speech, Keria accused Abiy’s government of taking away Ethiopians’ sovereign rights, without elaborating.

She was widely understood to refer to the government’s decision to postpone the elections which effectively allowed Abiy to continue ruling beyond the expiry of his term.

“I can’t be an accomplice when the constitution is being violated and a dictatorial government is being formed,” she said. “I have resigned not to be collaborator (with) such a historical mistake.”

Last month TPLF, which is also the governing party for the country’s Tigray region, threatened to organise polls for the area in defiance of the postponement, potentially setting the region on a collision course with the federal government.

Keria’s resignation underscored the deteriorating relationship between Abiy and his ruling Prosperity Party and the TPLF, said Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of peace and conflict studies at Bjørknes University in Oslo.

“If the process is left unabated, it may lead to an open confrontation,” he said.

Abiy took power in Africa’s second most populous country in 2018 and went on to roll out a series of reforms allowing greater freedoms in what had long been one of the continent’s most repressive states.

But the reforms have made it possible for long-held grievances against the government’s decades of harsh rule to resurface, and emboldened regional power-brokers such as the TPLF to seek more power for their ethnic groups.

Ethiopia: The pandemic appears to be closing a political space that had only just started opening, Ethiopia Insight June 2, 2020

‘The pandemic has become another litmus test for Prime Minister Abiy, who was already  grappling with the challenges of what has been a rough and sloppy transition since 2018, much of it of his own making. That said, some of the problems are deeply entrenched in a century-long inter-ethnic group divisions, a polarized political culture, and the imbalanced economy that the Prime Minister inherited from his predecessors.But the new ruling party’s leanings towards unitarist sentiments is cutting him off from the Oromo and other groups with strong adherence to multinational federalism; and the lack of any clear transition roadmap over the last two years has created uncertainties about the democratization that most would like to see. The result is serious questions about the legitimacy of the government and its leadership.’ Click here to read the full article at Ethiopia Insight