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 heard of the story of Chicken Little? One day Chicken Little was scratching around the yard when something fell on her head. “Oh,” screeched Chicken Little,…
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 Amharas from southern Ethiopia and zapped his critics for their irresponsibility in reporting and publicizing it. Zenawi denied any expulsion had taken place, but explained…
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 e from the southern part of Ethiopia. According to the report, numerous Amhara farming families from the town of Gura Ferda were ordered by local…
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 and opponetns. The gulags were used effectively to weed out and neutralize opposition to the Soviet state. They were the quintessential tools of Soviet state…
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 an “Arab Spring” followed by an increasingly hot “Arab Summer” and deeply troubled “Arab Fall”. Bashir al-Assad continues to massacre his people by the dozens…
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, Robert Guest, business editor for The Economist, in his book The Shackled Continent (2004), declares that “Africans are poor because they are poorly governed.” He argues that…
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 the town of Tarcha located in Dawro Zone in Southern Ethiopia. He died three days later from his injuries. In an interview with the Voice of…
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, former Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Vicky Huddleston warned: “It is time to stop hating Ethiopia.” In November 2007, in a N.Y. Times op-ed piece, Huddleston…
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? Perhaps that is a distinction without a difference. But Meles Zenawi, the dictator in Ethiopia and Omar Bashir, the dictator of Sudan seemed to be…
Alemayehu G. Mariam On December 21, 1987, Time Magazine on its cover page featured a downcast and crestfallen young Ethiopian mother as a symbol of famine victims in that country. Time asked two timeless questions: “Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?”…
