Last April, I wrote a “Special Tribute to My Personal Hero Eskinder Nega”. In that tribute, I groped for words as I tried to describe this common Ethiopian man of uncommon valor, an ordinary journalist of extraordinary integrity and audacity. Frankly, what could be said of a simple man of humility possessed of indomitable dignity?…
Alemayehu G Mariam It is time to bury the hatchet and move forward in Ethiopia! Nelson Mandela taught that “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” I would add that your enemy also becomes your friend and your ally. Historically, when…
Alemayehu G. Mariam In February 2011, at the onset of the Libyan Revolution, Moamar Gadhaffi trumpeted to the world, “They love me. All my people with me, they love me. They will die to protect me, my people.” He called the rebels fighting to oust him from power “rats and…
The Flood This Time “Karuturi’s First Corn Crop in Ethiopia Destroyed,” announced the headline. Karuturi Global Ltd., is the Indian multinational agro company that has been gobbling up large chunks of Ethiopia over the past few years. This time, Mother Nature gobbled up Karuturi. The company reported last week that its 30,000 acre corn crop in Gambella…
Originally appeared in the Huffington Post on 12/27/2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopian-groundhog-year_b_801384.html Groundhog Year in Prison Nation In December 2008, I wrote a weekly column entitled “Groundhog Year in Prison Nation” summarizing some of my weekly columns for that year. I used the “groundhog year” analogy following the title of the motion picture “Groundhog Day” in which a…
Originally appeared in the Huffington Post on 11/07/2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-remember-the-sla_b_779996.html Cruel November November is a cruel month. Bleak, woeful, and grim is the month of November in the melancholy verse of Thomas Hood: No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member– No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits,…
Originally appeared in the Huffington Post on 10/25/2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-feed-them-and-bl_b_773201.html Western Donors as Accessories to “Democricide” in Ethiopia The helping hand that feeds Ethiopians is the same hand that helps bleed Ethiopia. Every year, the U.S., U.K, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Japan and other Western countries hand out billions of dollars in “humanitarian” and “economic” aid…
By Alemayehu G. Mariam “Lies, lies and implausible lies,” blasted Meles Zenawi, the enfant terrible of Ethiopia, in describing the March 11, 2010 U.S. State Department’s “Reports on Human Rights Practices” on Ethiopia. Apparently, the U.S. State Department is not worth a damn when it comes to lying: “The least one could expect from this report, even if…
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 history and Ethiopia’s # 1 political prisoner, Xan Rice, a reporter for the Guardian wrote: That foreign embassies, including Britain’s, which have been refused permission…
