By Alemayehu G. Mariam Our (Home) land on Fire sale A while back, the capo di tutti capi (the “boss of bosses”) of the dictatorship in Ethiopia rebuked Congressman Donald Payne for pushing H.R. 2003 (“Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act”). He quipped with his signature sarcasm, “Ethiopia, this government and this country, are incapable, unwilling…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Human Rights and Fairy Tales For the past several weeks, the noise machine of the dictatorship in Ethiopia has been in overdrive reacting to human rights findings made against it in the February 29, 2009 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report. The official spokesmen of the dictatorship angrily denounced the alleged inaccuracies…
Alemayehu G. Mariam The Culture of Impunity David Dadge, Director of the Vienna-based International Press Institute, the oldest press freedom organization in the world, recently wrote a compelling commentary in The Guardian which should be of special interest to all Ethiopian human rights advocates.[1] He suggested that the current dictatorship in Ethiopia operates in an…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Barking Up the Wrong Tree This past week, the attack dogs of the dictatorship in Ethiopia were unleashed against Amnesty International (AI) because that organization had requested publication of the names of suspects arrested for allegedly conspiring to assassinate high officials and blow up government buildings. Ermiyas Legesse, a “State Minister of…
Alemayehu G. Mariam (In memory of those Ethiopians massacred and maimed by the dictatorship in power following the May 15, 2005 elections.) Reflections on a Democracy Unplugged “When the people fear the government, you have tyranny. When the government fears the people, you have freedom,” said Thomas Paine, one of the inspiring figures of the…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam Patriots and Tyrants Dr. Hailu Araya: Ethiopian patriot. Political prisoner. Educator. Poet. I am not writing to talk about Dr. Hailu, the Ethiopian patriot, the man who gave the brutal former military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam a passionate six-minute discourse on democracy, freedom and human rights 18 years ago to the…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam “We Shall Overcome…” In 1965, in a commencement address at Oberlin College, Ohio, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke about the ultimate victory of good over evil, justice over injustice, right over might, truth over lies and human rights over government wrongs. “We shall overcome,” he said “because the arc…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Pax Obama President Obama made a historic speech to Turkish lawmakers last week, but his message was global in scope and contained nuggets of his foreign policy yet to unfold. The first chords of Pax Obama (Obama’s offer of peace to the world) restore not only much needed sanity to U.S. foreign…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam The Sky is Falling! British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants the G-20 (or Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the world’s largest economies) to help cash-strapped African countries manage their balance of payments (money going from one country to all others) as their incomes from foreign investments…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam Cry Me a River, Cry Me a Lake Amina was crying her eyes out. You could see the tear tracks on her tormented face. She is a victim of unimaginable tragedy. Her entire family has nearly been wiped out. She is heartbroken. Sobbing uncontrollably, she covers her downcast eyes with her…
