Jailed: top TPLF warlord Woldesilassie’s kingdom of death and deceit crumbles

 The Horn Times Newsletter

A face tinged with cruelty, wealthy warlord Woldesilssie W.Micael

He was the dead tyrant Meles Zenawi’s alter ego and docile horse for 21 years and the most feared man in the complex TPLF security cluster. He amassed millions through corrupt practices and managed to build his own kingdom in partnership with equally corrupt former first lady Azeb Mesfin and her daughter Semhal Meles, the two queens of his vast empire.
The malevolent warlord was well protected by the Zenawi family for 21 years and well placed in the inner circle of the ruling elite where lack of maturity among the junta often led to political upheavals, quarrelling, divisions, and susceptibility to large-scale thieving.
However, exactly one year after Zenawi’s death, a TPLF splinter group led by the ‘retired’ old codger Sebehat Nega, convinced chief spy Getachew Assefa to capture the vulnerable Woldselassie Woldemicael and throw him into the dark cells of central intelligence prison in Addis Ababa.
He was caught while enjoying the transcendental beauty of one of his flower farms outside Addis Ababa, near Holeta Genet town.
The most violent man who allegedly killed Zenawi’s ideological rival, former minister of communications Ato Ayenew in front of his wife and children and gained more notoriety when he pulled out a machete and barbarically chopped off the head of former palace security boss Tegadalay Zerhu, is now awaiting his fate after being arrested on corruption charges last week.
“Today I reaped a great harvest for the great leader.” The condemned warlord nicknamed by the ruling Tigre coterie “the red Khmer Rouge” reportedly told his commander whose name is known to the Horn Times after the gruesome killing of tegadaly Zerhu.
According to our sources inside the TPLF hierarchy, tegadaly Zerhu sympathizers who were longing for justice since Zenawi’s death are currently preparing to bring additional charges of murder against the jailed super-rich warlord.
“His fatal strategic error was that he remained loyal to Zenawi’s wife even after the tyrant’s death while others quickly switched side and joined the powerful Sibehat Nega clique. The ill-educated Woldesilassie played the loyalty game badly and ended up in jail. I doubt if he ever walks out of that prison alive. The desire to enjoy his corruptly accumulated wealth undisturbed has been lost because of his own terrible miscalculation of circumstances.” A political analyst based in Addis Ababa told the Horn Times.
“No one in the rival camp is safe or able to remain unruffled in the face of such onslaught disguised as anti-corruption drive. Tigray republic president Abbay Woldu, adviser to the Prime Minister Berket Simeon and, more important, mother of corruption Azeb Mesfin are deeply disturbed by the arrest of Woldesilassie whom they regard as their son. The cornered widow of the late ruler even let loose a torrent of swear-words directed at spy boss Getachew Assefa, but mark my words, she is next.” The analyst added.
Moreover, according to other credible reports obtained by the Horn Times, since her removal as CEO of EFFORT few days ago, Azeb Mesfin has been barred from leaving the country until the ongoing investigations into misappropriation of funds; tax evasion, money laundering, and alleged corruption are completed.
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Ethiopia: In Ethiopia, NGOs Promote Family Planning to Cope With Climate Change

Addis Ababa — Yeshi Tadesse, a mother of six, seems an unlikely proponent of family planning as a solution to climate change. But the Ethiopian villager in her 30s speaks eloquently of the linkages between the two issues.
Tadesse has witnessed the forests she grew up with being cleared to make room for more agricultural land to feed hungry mouths, leading to soil erosion and environmental degradation.
"I currently have half a hectare of land, which I shall pass on to my six kids - but unless I get good yields as well as control my family size, my children will have to inherit much more hardship," she said.
In her lifetime, she has also observed shifts in the four seasons. Droughts that used to be rare now affect her community periodically, and the rainy season eats into harvest time, spoiling crops and leaving people destitute, she said.
In response, Tadesse is participating in a project run by LEM Ethiopia, one of a consortium of 47 local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) known as PHE, which takes a holistic approach to development. Participating groups aim to tackle challenges of health, population growth and the environment together, to improve people's livelihoods and well-being.
Tadesse uses contraception to keep the size of her family in check at a time when dwindling farm productivity makes providing enough food for a large number of children a challenge.
The PHE consortium believes that with the number of Ethiopia's people nearing 90 million - 45 percent of them under the age of 15 - and 1.2 million joining the national workforce each year, a growing population is one thing the country cannot afford to neglect if it is to meet its green ambitions.
NATIONAL CONTRACEPTION TARGET
PHE Executive Director NegashTeklu noted that Ethiopia's population is increasing by 2.6 percent each year, with an average fertility rate of 4.8 children per family.
In 2011, the prevalence of contraceptive use in Ethiopia was 28.6 percent of the population, which is still a low figure, despite almost doubling since 2005.
Ethiopia's Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy envisions the country achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, and is based on four components: forestry, energy, agriculture and industry.
The strategy foresees that controlled population growth will result in less division of arable land, curbing land degradation and deforestation. At the same time, it will be possible to provide enough employment and to meet the energy needs of most Ethiopians.
The national five-year Growth and Transformation Plan, which supplements the green economy strategy and runs through to 2015, includes a target of increasing contraceptive prevalence to 65 percent. It also promises to enforce the legal age of marriage - 18 years old - to prevent early marriage and pregnancies.
"Ethiopia doesn't have an option of the 'one child policy' like China, but rather (should follow) a rights-based family planning strategy," PHE's Teklu said. His organisation is promoting such an approach in some 40 woreda (district) pilot sites around the country, with a potential reach of millions of people, he added.
PHE's member NGOs are working with relevant government ministries in the areas of health, agriculture, social welfare and the environment. The work is being funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
CONDOMS-TO-TREES
Tadesse's household is one of 600 located in Dire Dayu village in the highlands of Central Ethiopia, an area with a high population density thanks to its abundant water resources, crop-friendly climate and fertile soils.
Here, LEM Ethiopia provides reproductive health assistance, including contraceptive pills and condoms, alongside fuel-efficient cooking stoves, personal hygiene classes, high-yielding seed varieties and help for local people to make organic compost.
Tamirat Selamu, a natural resource manager at LEM Ethiopia, said that as well as offering family planning education, the programme enables local people to grow more lucrative crops like apples, which are flood-resistant and help conserve soil fertility.
LEM also hands out seeds to grow cattle fodder, as well as trees as part of a reforestation effort.
The programme is not without its critics, however - especially when it comes to the use of the much-maligned eucalyptus tree as a means of replanting forests and earning extra income.
Brought to Ethiopia more than a century ago from Australia by Emperor Menelik to combat the drought that was blighting Ethiopia at the time, the eucalyptus has been accused of leeching nutrients from the soil and leaving other vegetation short of water. Fifteen different varieties are currently grown in the Horn of Africa nation.
Selamu said the downsides of eucalyptus have been exaggerated, and there is no other plant like it in the country that brings multiple benefits for farmers.
"Eucalyptus trees are known for being drought-resistant, they rehabilitate highly degraded land, and are easy to use for fuel, perfume, medicinal purposes and construction," he said. Local indigenous trees tend to grow slowly, and so aren't suitable for the urgent problems a community might face, he added.
Ethiopia's Growth and Transformation Plan is in line with the sustainable development efforts of NGOs in the PHE consortium. It aims to distribute 9 million energy saving stoves by 2015, for example, and increase the area of land being rehabilitated to 10.2 million hectares. Another key goal is to cut the number of people receiving social welfare under a national safety net programme from 7.8 million to 1.3 million.
E.G. Woldegebriel is a journalist based in Addis Ababa with an interest in environmental issues.

Ethiopia

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Read the original of this report on AlertNet Climate, the Thomson Reuters Foundation's daily news website on the human impacts of climate change.

Latest Interview with Semayawi pary chairman

More than 100 Semayawi party members and supporters arrested, beaten and transported to local police stations and finally some of them are released.

Terror on The Blue Party of Ethiopia

Saturday August 31, 2013 on the eve of the Blue Party called rally in Addis the Blue Party Head Office was attacked by Western financed and supported thugs of the Ethiopian brutal security forces where more than one hundred members and supporters of the Blue Party was taken to local prisons beaten up savagely according to Eng Yelekal Getenet the party president.

The regime security thugs unleashed similar beating on fellow Ethiopian Muslims on the Eid al-fiter Celebration this month. The regime believes such brutal beating of women, children, elderly and the young will deter people not to join any peaceful protest any where in Ethiopia.
The regime organized rally in Addis Ababa billed as a rally to fight “Extremists” tomorrow is a rally to denounce the Ethiopian Muslims for their more than 18 months old struggle for religious freedom. Another target of this “No Food” if you do not come rally is the Blue Party/Semayawi which is the first party in Ethiopia that stood with the Ethiopian Muslims by taking their call as its call for which it was denounced by Hailemariam Desalegne in public.
The Blue Party of Ethiopia leadership according to the interview Eng. Yelekal Getenet gave on ECADF paltalk room today its party head quarter is now under thugs control and he is not sure if they can ever assemble there.
The hundreds thousands supporters and members of the party we all saw three months ago in Addis should turn the regime rally in to opposition rally tomorrow. The Ethiopian Muslim activist had made it clear that they will be doing that.
The Blue Party leadership is not in any position to contact its supporters before tomorrow’s rally therefore it is up to activists to coordinate a successful counter rally.
“Talaku Rucha”, The Great Run in the past had been used by activists as a protest platform. We should not let the regime “Hode Ader” supporters to endorse the regime killing, Jailing in thousands and beating of Ethiopian Muslims this month alone and today more than one hundred Blue Party members and supporters.
Let Addis Ababeans come out in huge numbers and denounce the regime led by Hailemariam Desalegne for its brutality and terror. The Extremist in Ethiopia is the regime itself. Peaceful opposition like the Blue Party if it is allowed to be destroyed by terror no other peaceful opposition will ever exist in Ethiopia.
Religious establishments who are bought by the regime should be condemned by all of us because they are serving humanely “Gods” not the God of their books. Like fellow Ethiopian Muslims the Christians in Ethiopia should be courageous to say no to the religious cadres in their religious institutions.
The Blue Party/Semayawi of Ethiopia is the peoples party and no matter how many of its members and supporters are beaten up or jailed the struggle will continue until the unelected, corrupt and terrorist regime of Ethiopia is removed from power.