The Phenomenon of Self-Subjugation in the Current Ethiopian Politics

 

by Dubale

Ethiopians from various parts of the country have been fighting to do away the woyane oligarchy who is implementing the hegemony of the Tigre ethnic group. The people of Ethiopia have been fighting for the most basic democratic rights such as having freedom of speech and writing, increasing the limited opportunities in the economy, fighting against social discrimination, having equal access to the legal system, and preventing denial of justice in court rooms.
Neither woyane nor its supporters seem to understand the consequence of ethnic politics. The propaganda woyane is spreading among its supporters wrongly paints Tigre’s hegemony is everlasting by subjugating other ethnic groups through economic and political means. That view is very shortsighted at best and destructive at worst. As one of the minority ethnic groups, Tigres should otherwise be very concerned about ethnic politics in Ethiopia. Whatever economic, social, and political benefit Tigres are enjoying at present is transient and will last only if the balance of power remains heavily tilted to woyane’s side for long.
Two stratagems, in tandem, have been working in favor of woyane. The first one is divide and rule and the second is a growing trend of self-subjugation. Many writers in various forums have addressed the former stratagem but the latter stratagem has not been addressed adequately. For careful observer, self-subjugation in the current Ethiopian politics becomes quiet evident as a sad consequence of the unprecedented oppression the people of Ethiopia and the opposition parties are forced to endure. The opposition parties themselves have unconsciously played an active role of self-subjugation and undermined their own role as a prime fighter against the dictatorial rule of EPRDF and ethnic hegemony.
The current Ethiopia is formed not with ethnic equality but with notions of inequality and discrimination favoring the hegemony of Tigre. The term “ethnic equality” in woyane’s government has turned to the operative term of folly of subconscious disdain fulfilled by a discriminatory action on the work place, interaction among ethnic groups, in courthouses, and higher education institutions. Self-subjugation stems from learned response to these discriminatory actions of government institutions. The subdivisions of Ethiopia to different ethnic kilils have reinforced prejudices and discrimination and produced self-subjugated generation and culture.
After woyane lost the election in 2005, it has recruited over five million people to join EPRDF. All these new recruits are willingly or otherwise joining EPRDF primarily to get access to economic opportunity and get promotion in work place. There is unwritten rule that any of rank and files Tigre have an upper hand over all of other ethnic groups in all of the political apparatus within the organization of EPRDF. The individuals have to demonstrate their loyalty to any Tigre in the structure by subjugating themselves to the perceived higher social rank of Tigres.

As Easter goes on, a historical wedding inside Qaliti prison

 

by Sadik
When the dictators incarcerate valued and exceptional leaders without justice, it is not only to bar them from their followers, but to break their soul in irreversible manner. Today our brave Ethiopians broke the passion of the oppressor by having a wedding inside the notorious Qaliti prison. Even if the bride and groom made their contact behind the miserable fence, they have touched millions on their shiny love story for generations to come. Yes, the participants sang cultural and religious songs! But they were also singing a freedom anthem about their famous leader Abubekir Ahmed while approaching the prison.
Ethiopian Muslims have showed their unwavering struggle to earn their freedom of religion in a peaceful routine. The ruling junta attempted to interrupt this nonviolent routine in several occasions, they have sent cadres to trigger chaos inside demonstrations, they have recruited influential figures and prominent preachers, but they failed miserably.
Ethiopian Muslims have contained the malicious strategy of T.P.L.F in extreme superior custom, by applying patriotic and peaceful ways en route for their freedom. Today’s wedding is a reflection of dominance under the constitution, they are demonstrating by preparing a historical wedding inside the prison, a motorcade was making a parade, a forceful honk streamed throughout Addis Ababa, the youth clapped and sang happily by dreaming tomorrow. There was a chorus among the women, you perhaps take our men to the jail, but we will get married among the innocent prisoners until you fade up arresting our men. The government could brag for having strong military force, but today’s wedding was powerful enough to contain the heart and minds of the military.What a peaceful struggle!

Ethiopia Courts BRICS for Rail Projects to Spur Economic Growth

By William Davison, Bloomberg
May 3, 2013
Ethiopia is negotiating with Brazil, Russia and India to finance and build rail links after agreeing terms last year with Chinese and Turkish companies for other routes, the head of the state rail company said. Russia’s government may fund a 587-kilometer (365-mile) southern line that will eventually connect with a proposed port at Lamu on Kenya’s northeastern coast, Ethiopian Railways Corp. General Manager Getachew Betru said in an April 26 interview. Brazilian companies could build a 439-kilometer section of a route to oil-rich South Sudan and India is considering export financing for a line to a port in Djibouti, he said.
“They want to come and invest in Ethiopia and get their return,” Getachew said in the capital, Addis Ababa. Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, is building 4,744 kilometers of electrified railway lines at a cost of 110.8 billion birr ($5.9 billion) as it seeks to reduce road-transport costs constraining the continent’s fastest growing non-oil producing economy over the past decade. Growth may slow to 6.5 percent this year and next, compared with average growth of 8.7 percent over the past five years, according to International Monetary Fund data.Ethiopian Railways plans to lay more than 2,000 kilometers of standard-gauge track during a five-year national growth plan that runs until mid-2015. China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. and China Railway Group Ltd. (390) are working on sections costing more than $1 billion each along Ethiopia’s main 656- kilometer trade route from Addis Ababa to Djibouti.
Manufacturing Zone Huajian Group, a Chinese shoemaker, said last year it plans to invest $2 billion over a decade building a new manufacturing zone on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. The China-Africa Development Fund has invested in Ethiopia Hansom International Glass factory and China-Africa Overseas Leather Products, a $27- million tannery, near the capital. “Ethiopia is land-locked and Chinese factories near Addis say that transport from Djibouti is one of their biggest headaches,” said Deborah Brautigam, director of the international development program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Baltimore, Maryland. Freight costs can be as much as three times cheaper by rail than road along the Djibouti route, Getachew said. The link may carry goods worth $1.3 billion a year and “break even” after 5 years of operation, he said. China Communications Construction Co. (1800) and China Railway 18th Bureau Group International Co. are working on other connections in the northeast of the country that has deposits of the fertilizer potash, he said. Middle Income Ethiopia operates a state-led economy and is prioritizing investment in infrastructure as it seeks to transform one of the world’s least developed countries into a middle-income nation by 2025. The decision to use electric trains is because Ethiopia, which has the continent’s second-biggest hydropower potential, generates cheap electricity and spends all of its estimated $3 billion annual export earnings on importing fuel, Getachew said. “If we are investing in renewable energy it’s possible to use this for other bottlenecks in development like the transport sector,” he said. Brazil, China, Russia and India are part of the emerging BRICS group of nations, which have combined foreign-currency reserves of $4.4 trillion. Ethiopia has been able to attract investment from those countries because of the “political will” of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, according to Getachew. Meles’s Vision “The BRICS see in Ethiopia a government that continues to move forward with a vision for its development, despite the death of Meles, widely regarded as the chief architect of this vision,” Brautigam said in an April 29 e-mailed response to questions. Meles died in August after 21 years in power. Last year, Yapi Merkezi Insaat VE Sanayi AS, the Turkish construction company, signed a $1.7 billion deal to build a railway from the town of Awash, which is on the Djibouti route, to Hara Gebeya. A $600-million steel mill at Kombolcha town being built by Saudi billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi’s company lies along the route. Ethiopia will borrow from Turk Eximbank for the project that will take 42 months, said Yapi’s General Manager Murat Hasim Koksal. Under export-import bank terms, contractors have to come from the creditor nation and a large proportion of material has to be sourced there. Foreign investors are granted contracts on condition that 60 percent of the funding is provided by their countries “policy banks” in foreign exchange, Getachew said. Under Chinese and Indian export-import bank terms, contractors have to come from the creditor nation and at least half of the project’s inputs should be sourced there, according to their websites. Major obstacles have been obtaining land concessions for tracks, designing routes through mountainous terrain, and the lack of qualified local professionals, Getachew said. To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa at wdavison3@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

Ethiopia: Terrorism Law Decimates Media

By Human Rights Watch
May 3, 2013

Woubshet Taye and Reeyot Alemu behind bars as terrorists (Graphics: Ethiomedia)
        The Ethiopian government should mark World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, 2013, by immediately releasing all journalists jailed under the country’s deeply flawed anti-terrorism law, Human Rights Watch said today. On May 2, 2013, the Supreme Court upheld an 18-year sentence under the anti-terrorism law for Eskinder Nega Fenta, a journalist and blogger who received the 2012 PEN Freedom to Write Award.Eleven journalists have been convicted and sentenced since 2011 under Ethiopia’s repressive anti-terrorism law, including six in absentia. Three of the eleven are currently in prison. Two other journalists are currently on trial under the anti-terrorism law. Another journalist, Temesgen Desalegn, the editor of the now defunct independent magazine Feteh, is on trial for three offenses under the criminal code.
“Ethiopia’s journalists shouldn’t be spending World Press Freedom Day in jail on trumped-up terrorism charges,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Freeing these journalists would be an important step toward improving Ethiopia’s deteriorating record on press freedom.”Since Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law was adopted in 2009, the independent media have been decimated by politically motivated prosecutions under the law. The government has systematically thwarted attempts by journalists to establish new publications. Blogs and Internet pages critical of the government are regularly blocked, and in 2012 printing houses came under threat for printing publications that criticized the authorities. Mastewal Birhanu, the manager of Mastewal Publishing, for example, was charged under the criminal code for printing the editions of Feteh that were the basis for the charges against Temesgen.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly raised concerns about the anti-terrorism law’s overly broad definition of “terrorist acts.” The law’s provisions on support for terrorism contain a vague prohibition on “moral support” under which only journalists have been convicted.One of the three journalists sentenced under the law who remain in prison is Eskinder Nega Fenta, a veteran Ethiopian journalist. He had been detained numerous times, and was sentenced in July 2012 to 18 years in prison for conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, as well as participation in a terrorist organization. Eskinder’s sentence was upheld on appeal on May 2, 2013. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a panel of independent experts, concluded in November that Eskinder’s imprisonment was arbitrary and “a result of his peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression.”Woubshet Taye Abebe, who is serving a 14-year sentence under the anti-terrorism law, was a winner of the 2012 Hellman-Hammett Award, administered by Human Rights Watch. Woubshet was the deputy editor of the Awramba Times prior to his arrest in 2011. He alleged in court that he was tortured in pretrial detention, as have other defendants detained on terrorism charges. The court did not investigate his complaint.Reeyot Alemu Gobebo, a journalist for Feteh, was convicted on three counts under the terrorism law for her writings. Her sentence was reduced from 14 years to 5 years on appeal, and she remains in prison. Reeyot was recently awarded the prestigious 2013 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. She will miss the May 3 award ceremony in Costa Rica.Members of the international media have also been charged under the anti-terrorism law. In December 2009, two Swedish journalists, Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson, were convicted for “rendering support to terrorism” and entering the country illegally “to commit an act that is a threat to the well-being of the people of Ethiopia.” They had entered the country without a visa and were arrested while investigating the situation in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region, site of a longstanding insurgency. They were pardoned and released in September 2012 after more than a year in prison.“The journalists who have been detained and convicted have one thing in common – they were all exercising their right to freedom of expression, a right guaranteed by the Ethiopian constitution and international law,” Lefkow said.In 2012 Hailemariam Desalegn became Ethiopia’s prime minister following the death of Meles Zenawi, under whose leadership the country experienced a sharp decline in civil and political rights – including freedom of expression. Hopes that Hailemariam’s government would improve Ethiopia’s record on free expression have been dashed by ongoing arbitrary arrests and detentions of journalists and others.Since January 2012, members of Ethiopia’s Muslim community have held regular protests in the capital, Addis Ababa, and other towns over alleged government interference in religious affairs. The government has harassed and detained journalists who have reported on these protests. Yusuf Getachew, former editor of the now-defunct Islamic magazine Yemuslimoch Guday, was charged under the anti-terrorism law and is on trial, though the trial is closed to the public. Solomon Kebede, Getachew’s successor at the magazine, was arrested on January 17 and has also been charged under the anti-terrorism law. Prior to charges being bought, Solomon spent more than two months in pre-trial detention at Maekelawi prison in Addis Ababa, which is notorious for torture, without access to legal counsel.The right to freedom of expression is guaranteed in the Ethiopian constitution, and in numerous African and international conventions, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Ethiopia has ratified. In November, Ethiopia was appointed to the United Nations Human Rights Council and as such has made a commitment to uphold “the highest standards of human rights as enshrined in the constitution of the country and in the international and regional human rights treaties that Ethiopia has ratified” – including rights to freedom of expression.“As a recently appointed member of the UN’s Human Rights Council, Ethiopia should take swift steps to improve the media environment in the country,” Lefkow said. “These include immediately releasing all journalists imprisoned under the anti-terrorism law, amending the law’s worst provisions, and ending the harassment of what little independent media remains in the country.”

The Phenomenon of Self-Subjugation in the Current Ethiopian Politics

 

by Dubale

Ethiopians from various parts of the country have been fighting to do away the woyane oligarchy who is implementing the hegemony of the Tigre ethnic group. The people of Ethiopia have been fighting for the most basic democratic rights such as having freedom of speech and writing, increasing the limited opportunities in the economy, fighting against social discrimination, having equal access to the legal system, and preventing denial of justice in court rooms.
Neither woyane nor its supporters seem to understand the consequence of ethnic politics. The propaganda woyane is spreading among its supporters wrongly paints Tigre’s hegemony is everlasting by subjugating other ethnic groups through economic and political means. That view is very shortsighted at best and destructive at worst. As one of the minority ethnic groups, Tigres should otherwise be very concerned about ethnic politics in Ethiopia. Whatever economic, social, and political benefit Tigres are enjoying at present is transient and will last only if the balance of power remains heavily tilted to woyane’s side for long.
Two stratagems, in tandem, have been working in favor of woyane. The first one is divide and rule and the second is a growing trend of self-subjugation. Many writers in various forums have addressed the former stratagem but the latter stratagem has not been addressed adequately. For careful observer, self-subjugation in the current Ethiopian politics becomes quiet evident as a sad consequence of the unprecedented oppression the people of Ethiopia and the opposition parties are forced to endure. The opposition parties themselves have unconsciously played an active role of self-subjugation and undermined their own role as a prime fighter against the dictatorial rule of EPRDF and ethnic hegemony.
The current Ethiopia is formed not with ethnic equality but with notions of inequality and discrimination favoring the hegemony of Tigre. The term “ethnic equality” in woyane’s government has turned to the operative term of folly of subconscious disdain fulfilled by a discriminatory action on the work place, interaction among ethnic groups, in courthouses, and higher education institutions. Self-subjugation stems from learned response to these discriminatory actions of government institutions. The subdivisions of Ethiopia to different ethnic kilils have reinforced prejudices and discrimination and produced self-subjugated generation and culture.
After woyane lost the election in 2005, it has recruited over five million people to join EPRDF. All these new recruits are willingly or otherwise joining EPRDF primarily to get access to economic