By Alemayehu G. Mariam It has been said that Africa’s natural resources — oil, diamonds, minerals — have often proven to be sources of woe, suffering and misery than wealth,…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Last week, in a piece reporting on the eerie silence of Western diplomats in Addis Abeba on Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian…
Alemayehu G. Mariam It is really great to be young; but for those who are not, the next best thing is to be at a Teddy Afro concert and jam…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Last week, there was a great deal of teeth-gnashing, knuckle-cracking and gut-wrenching by Ethiopia’s dictators over Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2010 report. The dictators belched out much…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Since the dawn of African independence from colonialism in the early 1960s, African liberation leaders and founding fathers qua dictators, military junta and “new breed” leaders have…
Alemayheu G. Mariam Reinventing Ethiopian Politics Aristotle wrote that “man is a political animal” to suggest that the defining characteristic of human beings is involvement in the civic life of…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam “Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet. Is there “famine” in Ethiopia,…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Looking Through the Glass, Brightly “Ethiopia is the country of the future,” Birtukan Midekssa would often say epigrammatically. Ethiopia’s No. 1 political prisoner is always preoccupied with…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam Birtukan Midekssa condemned to life in prison by a vengeful dictator, but unconquered. Birtukan thrown into the dungeon of wrath and tears, but defiant. Birtukan beaten,…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam It was a remarkable display of raw machismo: “My way or the highway… or jail!” It was a one-man political theatre, a monologue about absolute power,…