Alemayehu G. Mariam The Sky is Falling! Most of my readers know how much I enjoy “bedtime stories”. Recently, I wrote about my favortie bedtime story of Pinocchio in Africa. Ever…
Alemayehu G Mariam Blaming the Victim Last week, dictator Meles Zenawi hectored his rubberstamp parliament in Ethiopia about the forced expulsion (or as some have described it “ethnic cleansing”) of…
By Alemayehu G Mariam History Keeps Repeating Itself in Ethiopia Last week, the Voice of America Amharic radio program reported on the forced official removal (“displacement”) of a large number of people…
Alemayehu G Mariam The Plight of Andualem Aragie and Other Political Prisoners in Ethiopia The “Gulag” prison system in the old Soviet Union was infamous for warehousing and persecuting dissidents…
Alemayehu G. Mariam Waiting for the Dawn of “Africa’s Spring” in 2012? How about an “Ethiopian Tsedey” in 2012? In 2011, we witnessed the “Winter of Arab” discontent made glorious by…
First, Why is Africa Poor? George Ayittey, the renowned Ghanaian economist and president of the Free Africa Foundation swears that “Africa is poor because she is not free”. Like Ayittey,…
Give me Liberty or Give me Death! On 11/11/11, Yenesew Gebre, a 29 year-old Ethiopian school teacher and human rights activist set himself ablaze outside a public meeting hall in…
Alemayehu G. Mariam “It is time to stop hating Ethiopia.” In November 2006, in her farewell cable to her replacement Donald Yamamoto and the Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Fraser,…
Alemayehu G. Mariam “If I Were the U.S.” The old saying is that there is no honor among thieves. Is it also true that there is no honor among dictators?…
Alemayehu G. Mariam On December 21, 1987, Time Magazine on its cover page featured a downcast and crestfallen young Ethiopian mother as a…