Behold the rider of the Black Horse (famine) eyeing Ethiopia once again Last week, NBC News aired an investigative report by Martin Geissler on the creeping famine in Ethiopia : [Ethiopia] is the face of the world food crises. In a village in Southern Ethiopia, mothers cue with their malnourished children for emergency rations of food. They can’t…
I am getting a little jittery over the repeated delays, postponements and all the backpedalling talk about “false evidence” and “lying witnesses” in the Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta International Criminal court trial. I don’t want to say I smell a rat but I feel like I am getting a whiff. Is the stage being set to let…
The Sinner-Saint who never stopped trying Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela finally finished his long walk to freedom in the last month of the Year 2013. The sun cast its last rays on the man who lifted South Africa from the darkness of apartheid. Nelson Mandela’s shadow is all we have left. We must now look to that…
“Government announces temporary ban on traveling abroad for work” Last week the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs” of the ruling regime in Ethiopia announced: In an effort to curb the rising tide of abuse and exploitation of Ethiopian migrants, [there will be] a temporary freeze on citizens traveling abroad for employment. The temporary ban has been…
The Shame of a Nation In my seventh commentary on corruption in Ethiopia this year, I focus on the mining sector. For other commentaries on the subject, visit my blog site at “Al Mariam’s Commentaries”. I continue to offer commentaries on corruption in Ethiopia to keep public attention sharply focused on the structural nature of…
The trashing of constitutional rights The Ethiopian Constitution guarantees, “Persons arrested have the right to remain silent. Persons arrested shall not be compelled to make confessions or admissions which could be used in evidence against them. Any evidence obtained under coercion shall not be admissible.” (Article 19(2)(5).) In reality, this guarantee is not worth…
Charge of the light brigade The African Union’s threatened “mass treaty-cide” (a phrase I am compelled to coin to describe the bizarre threatened walkout on the Rome Statute) fizzled out. Those who predicted the “extraordinary summit” on the “AU’s relation with the International Criminal Court” (ICC) would end in a big bang were pleasantly…
OCTOBER 10, 2013 11:21PM On October 11-12, 2013, the African Union (AU) will gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to formally withdraw from the Rome Statute in supremely dramatic form. The world for the first time will witness a choreographed denunciation (announcement of termination) of an international treaty by an entire continent. This act of collective…
For the past one-half decade, Ethiopia has been awash with talk of renaissance. There has been a lot of windbagging about a “Renaissance Dam” over the Blue Nile. Our ears nearly fell off listening to the endless gab about an “economic renaissance” with “11 percent” plus annual growth. There has also been much talk of…
In my commentary last week, “Interpreting and Living MLK’s Dream”, I discussed, among other things, Dr. Martin Luther King’s (MLK) philosophy of nonviolent social change. MLK argued that the “crucial political and moral question of our time” is the “need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.” I believe…
