Ethiopian athletes to attempt distance doubles in Moscow

By Vereso Mwanga

Dibaba won gold in both events at the 2005 World Championships and the 2008 Olympic Games (FILE)

Two of Ethiopia’s renown athletes will attempt a long-distance double at the World athletics Championships to be held in Moscow Russia between the 10th -18th of  August.

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba and double Olympic champion Meseret Defar have both been selected in the 5000m and 10,000m.

Dibaba won gold in both events at the 2005 World Championships and the 2008 Olympic Games.

Defar has attempted distance doubles at the past two World Championships, winning the 5000m bronze on both occasions.

Meanwhile, six of Russia’s nine reigning World champions will defend their titles. In total, 119 athletes, 50 men and 69 women will compete for the hosts.

They include Yuliya Zaripova in the 3000m Steeplechase and Mariya Savinova in the 800m.

Elsewhere, nine reigning World champions and 20 individual Olympic medalists from London will lead the US team at the world event.

Athletes seeking to defend their 2011 World titles include 110m hurdler Jason Richardson, 100m sprinter Carmelita Jeter and 1500m runner Jenny Simpson.

>kbc

Somalia Polio Outbreak Places Ethiopia at Risk

In this May 28, 2013 photo, vaccination workers give an anti-polio drop to a child in Mogadishu, Somalia.

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Gabe Joselow

July 30, 2013

NAIROBI, KENYA — Somalia’s Ministry of Health confirms there are now 94 cases of polio in south-central Somalia and the outbreak is showing no signs of slowing down. New cases of the disease near the border with Ethiopia have also put that country at risk.

The polio outbreak, first identified in May in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, is spreading throughout Somalia, according to Dr. Yassin Nur, head of immunization at Somalia’s Ministry of Health.

He said another case also has been confirmed in the autonomous region of Somaliland, close to Ethiopia, and could easily be transmitted across the border.

“The risk is there,” Nur said. “Not to mention that Ethiopia is having a very long border and porous border with Somalia and it would be very easy to have the outbreak in Ethiopia.”

Before the new outbreak, polio had been nearly eradicated across the world, with active cases reported only in three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

But the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said that in May, a two-year-old girl in Somalia was confirmed to have contracted polio, becoming the first case in the country since 2007.

According to Nur, the population of internally displaced people, who number more than one million in Somalia, are most at risk of contracting the virus that causes polio.

The constant movement of people raises the risk of spreading the disease.

“The problem is this movement between Somalia and Kenya, between Somalia and Ethiopia,” Nur said. “Whether they are IDPs or not, the movement of the people is the one that worries us.

Nur is hopeful a vaccination campaign launched in coordination with U.N. agencies, as well as local and international organizations, will be able to “limit and control” the transmission of the disease.

According to the U.N. almost four million people have received a polio vaccination in Somalia since May.

Children are most at risk of contracting the disease, which has no cure and can paralyze those who are infected.

           

       >voanews

Response to Bewketu Seyoum’s Article

By Tesfaye Kebede*

Not sure what to make out of this gibberish (read here: http://borumeda.blogspot.com/2013/07/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html) from a certain Bewketu Seyoum writing about the ongoing Oromo and Southern cultural revolution; each of his sentence is constructed to deliberately use the rarest Amharic word/phrase possible (even those words used only during ESLCE Amharic exams) – all the energy is wasted to make the sentences flowery, but their meanings remain meaningless. Ya-Qaalaat Daadaataa only. His conclusion is that the ongoing cultural revolution is a sign of backward and stagnant mentality. Not sure why he wasted all these words and phrases, instead of just saying that in point-blank.

Responses Point-by-Point:

1) He refutes the thesis that the Ethiopian state was formed as a result of conflicts among three mainactors: the Oromo, the Amhara and the Tigreans. His thesis is that the Ethiopian state is not a result of conflicts, but of cooperation. By doing this, he negates the major pillar of the Ethiopianist’s argument (his camp’s major pillar) that no country has ever been created without violence. His Ethiopianist colleagues say this to rationalize the genocide perpetrated on the Oromo and the South by Menelik as a virtue whose end, but not means, was justified. Why did Bewketu view the genocide unleashed by Menelik’s Abyssinian/Amhara army on the Oromo and the South as “a peaceful cooperation among the South, the Oromo and Menelik/Amhara to create the Ethiopian state”? There were no signs of cooperation, but conflicts.

He simply cites the support Yohannes IV received from the Rayya/Wollo Oromo and the Afar against the Khedivate of Egypt as an example, but he deliberately misinterprets this coalition among neighbors with equal sovereigns (i.e. the Tigray-led Abyssinian state, the Rayya/Wollo Oromo state and the Afar Sultanate) as if it had been done under one sovereign kingdom, the Abyssinian state. Is it not true that the Afar Sultanate exists even today (with limited power due to the Abyssinian state’s takeover of the Afar sovereignty)? And, what about the Rayya/Wollo Oromo sovereignty? Wasn’t it Yohannes IV who crushed the Rayya/Wollo Oromo sovereignty and placed it under the Abyssinian state domination – guess at which place? … Boru-Meda! – the very name of Bewketu’s blog. Isn’t this what having affection for words/phrases without knowing their true meaning do to you? In addition to taking over the sovereignty of the Rayya/Wollo Oromo state, Yohannes IV also forced Wollo Oromo leaders (Imam Mohammed Ali and Imam Amade Liben) to be converted to Christianity with names, Ras Mikael (with his Godfather being Yohannes IV), and Ras Hayla-Maryam (with his Godfather being Menelik), respectively. There were no signs of cooperation, but conflicts.

2) A note to squash his “word borrowing as integration” – thesis. It’s said that some 30% of the English words are from the French language originally. However, neither the English/British nor the French claim that they have created an “integrated nation” out of this borrowing of words/phrases between the two languages. Citing that some Afan Oromo words (however many they may be) have been borrowed into Amharic, and to conclude that an “integrated Ethiopian nation” of the Oromo and the Amhara has been created is a wrong conclusion. The Ethiopian nation, if it even exists, is still the replica of the Amhara/Habesha culture, language and Orthodox worldview. By the way, Amharic has borrowed words from Arabic also – is Bewketu going to claim that the “Ethiopian national identity” also represents the Arabs? Keldun Tewew.

3) On the Oromo worldview: Bewketu fails to really see the essence of the Oromo Ateete while calling it“Zar” and “Wukabi” – understanding the Oromo worldview as an Amhara is not easy. Ateete is neither“Zar” nor “Wukabi,” but those with no understanding of the Oromo worldview are prone to misinterpret it. Saying the Oromo gave the culture of “Zar” and “Wukabi” to the Amhara is rather insulting the Oromo culture and worldview. There are many scholarly articles available online on Ateete to learn about it from the Oromo itself, instead of referring to a racist and bigoted view of Ateete from Debtera Desta Teklewold.

4) Bewketu on Oromo land: he says, “ኦሮሞ በረጅም ዘመን፣ በሠፊ ምድር፣ ሰፍሮ የመኖሩን ያክል” – here, the keyword is“ሰፍሮ” – this is another Oromo-phobic view of the Ethiopianist camp. They still have to acknowledge the Oromo-land (Biyyaa Oromoo) as the Oromo people’s country. To conveniently throw the poisonous word, “ሰፍሮ,” is only done to alienate the Oromo people from their land. ESAT also uses this term to support their thesis that the “Oromo invaded Ethiopia from the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, … and so on.”

5) Bewketu’s view on the ongoing cultural revolution in Oromia and the South. Yesterday, the fashion of the day among the Habesha elites was to insult the Oromo and the South as “culture”-less, “history”-less and “language”-less peoples. Today, he’s criticizing the Oromo and Southern peoples for embracing their identities by reviving their lost cultures, histories and languages. To show his phobia for this cultural revolution, he insults themiskin Gabi saying “Gabi can’t be pride.” … Gabi melbesem endezi anadotal ende! Gud bel, Borena.

6) Bewketu’s remark from Ato Afework Gebreyesus is encouraging only if he can discern its true meaning: – “A generation that cannot be better than its predecessors should be considered unborn.” That’s why this generation of the Oromo, the QubeeGeneration, is upholding the Oromo identity and cultural heritage much better than its predecessors since the occupation of Oromiyaa. Like the Sankofabird, this generation is reclaiming the past for the future. Oromo’s past was violently deleted from the history books by the successive Abyssinian regimes, it is the task of this generation to reclaim the past and chart the future based on the findings.

7) By his own admission, Bewketu began his article saying the “Ethiopian state” was a result of the cooperation among the major actors, the Oromo, the Amhara and the Tigreans. Here, the keyword is “cooperation.” And, he concludes his article without telling us what will happen to this “Ethiopian state” in a situation where its “founding principle of cooperation” among the major actors no longer exists – as it’s evident today. Instead, he raises his left arm to shout a familiar slogan, “Andinet Weyim Mot” – that’s the summarizing notion of his last paragraph. Bewketu, “Andinet Weyim Mot” yalut, yet deresu?

* Tesfaye Kebede can be reached at TesfayeKebedeLives@gmail.com

>gadaa

The Ethiopian Civil Rights Movement: Promising Developments

by Alemu Tafesse

The Ethiopian Muslims’ movement, an activism that took too many an observer by surprise when it started, is getting even more promising day by day. It has kept amazing some for its unmatched persistence, size, and visibility. It has startled others for forcefully injecting into the otherwise dormant Ethiopian politics an aura of democratic culture and oppositional dynamism despite authoritarian brutality. As I once argued, it has also become perhaps the only massive and persistent location of democracy in current Ethiopia. Needless to say, it has, finally, inaugurated in the country a new era of non-violent anti-dictatorial struggle. Simply put, the civil rights movement has already left an indelible mark in Ethiopia’s present and future politics.

The most recent developments have been conspicuously remarkable, and are demonstrating the starker successes this movement is registering, and also its constructive transformations. The first and most obvious development is that it has generally gotten sturdier over time (despite some fluctuations now and then). However much the government wished it to fade away with the passage of time, the movement has gone increasing in size and the protesters have gone betraying stronger dedication to the cause. Starting from the few weeks leading up to the Holy Month of Ramadan, and right into the third week of the month, the Merkato and Piassa streets of Addis Ababa have aired perhaps the loudest ever public outcry and accommodated the largest ever gatherings.

The government indeed realized/anticipated the amount of opposition building against it, and has taken measures to deflect it.  This time around, it has refined, magnified, and expanded on the murder of a Sheikh in Dessie. The incident has been given phenomenal attention to the extent that the ruling party issued an official statement on it, brought out people condemning it, and endlessly propagandized about it on the state media.  The immediate extraction of multiple cards from the murder alone requires close attention in order to understand the government’s reactions to the growing opposition. But we can even go further to seriously doubt the government’s claim that the Sheikh was killed by “networked terrorists”. It is by now a matter of consensus among the huge Muslim crowd protesting every Friday as well as many other Ethiopians of diverse backgrounds that the murder was a work of the government itself that aimed at stepping up the crackdown on Muslim activists and limiting the expected contagious effects of the movement by mobilizing the “Sufis” against a so-called “wahhabi” threat.  Given a number of factors that deal with the circumstances of the killing and the track record of the ruling party, this is an argument not at all difficult to wholeheartedly accept as valid. But the important point here is the one that deals with the way, and the end to which, the killing was put to use by the government, which we have already seen.

Whether such a strategy succeeds remains to be seen as both the anti-government and government projects are now strongly underway, but it is getting clear that the Muslims movement is now been taken to a whole new level with the introduction of yet advanced forms of protest.

Two are worth-mentioning. The first is graffiti. In a dozen of places in Addis and the regions, walls have been found covered with writings that depict some of the demands of the protesters.  Through these writings, the demands of the Muslim activists are carried on to days other than Friday; are given an alternative visual form of expression; and  are singled out individually and magnified—all  for ensuring deep public re-consideration.

The other—and more– significant development is the internationally held shows of protest and solidarity with the cause. Ethiopian Muslims in the diaspora have been quite active in showing their solidarity with the struggle inside the country. But on the last days of July, the remarkable coordination among activists in different countries over various continents has given the movement a more solid, more organized and truly global face. It has, more than other things, proved to the world the potent organizational capacity of and the strong unity of purpose that resides in, this civil rights movement. It demonstrated not only the great potential of the movement in effectively challenging the EPRDF dictatorship but also the consistent rise in the maturity of the Ethiopian Muslim activism. The protest in Addis Ababa was especially extraordinary. It was simply so huge, so loud and so visible that even the state media was forced not to ignore it, but give it a “meaning” in accordance with its “terror” rhetoric. July 26 is yet another unforgettable day in the history of indefatigable and free expression of anti-EPRDF public fury.

The last, but the politically most important, development is the contribution of this struggle to the revivalism of a serious oppositional politics in the country. This point, I believe, is so significant that the ultimate measurement of the success of this movement is the degree to which it helps bring about serious and sustainable political dynamism that has the potential to eventually create a democratic political environment at the state level. The movement has already played a prominent role in this regard, which I want to touch upon in the following lines.

Two opposition political parties have successfully organized public rallies in different regions of Ethiopia. These rallies have been recorded as the first of their kind since the 2005 elections. While there could be multiple reasons that were behind the decisions on the part of the parties to take such a bold step, the fact that the Muslim movement was of phenomenal significance is absolutely undeniable. The movement might have contributed to the revitalization of the will of the opposition parties to call for protests in three major ways: first, it might have sparked in the minds of party leaders the very imagination of the display of opposition outside the realm of press conference and press release. Such an imagination had been virtually extinguished among many anti-EPRDF politicians after the 2005 debacle. Secondly, for some other politicians, it was not actually imagining public protest that was lacking but the daring will put to use this form of opposition for political purpose. They had been waiting for a precedent that would mitigate the perceived costs of organizing protests. In this regard, the Muslim movement, not because of government leniency, but because of the protesters astounding flexibility and persistence in waging the non-violent struggle, posited this latter option as a feasible, and not necessarily so costly, form of resistance. This was a very important lesson for opposition parties that had once lost vitality having put between a rock and a hard place–forced to choose between submissiveness and armed struggle. A third path, peaceful protest, was gradually getting its admirers in some circles, but the still fresh obnoxious memory of the 2005 incidents couldn’t let the opposition transcend the dilemma it was facing. The Muslim movement paved the way for re-gaining confidence and re-empowering pro-liberation and anti-government spirits.

Thirdly, the Muslim movement boosted the confidence of the parties in yet another way: the immensely disgruntled Muslim population gave an assurance to the parties that if they touch the right cord, an enormous crowd can positively respond to their call for attending rallies. Echoing the demands of the Muslims can be a sufficient reason to get thousands of people on the streets, let alone invoking, in addition, other sources of frustration in the society like the ethnically motivated dislocations, economic downturn and the detention of journalists and politicians. The parties were adept enough to mobilize people based on all of these causes—and, expectedly, with notable success.
Thus, the Muslim struggle not only bred emancipatory sparks of thoughts, but also generated a good deal of will power among opposition circles. It, too, offered dependable promise that such thoughts and will at the level of party leadership would be positively received by significant sections of the population that could also be characterized as disgruntled and audacious. In short, the Ethiopian Muslim civil rights movement gave guidance and also revitalized the rather confused, gloomy, and defeatist oppositional politics in the country.

The new political dynamism that was kicked off to a large extent by the Muslim activism is now gaining momentum. Parties have gotten back their lives and the population has started to vent out its deep and multifarious frustrations. Such a show of people’s power needs to go unabated—actually increasing forcefully—until the core of the state gets disciplined. This is a long way forward, and certainly too many obstacles are ahead of us. But the path to democracy is not cushy, and all who push for it are bound to know this fact very well.

Finally, I would like to pause on one challenge that the Muslim activism has been facing in recent times. Some Ethiopians tended to mistake the movement for some individuals that support it and, based on this false conclusion, dared to question the very motive of it. This, as Maru Zeleke rightly notes[1], is a dangerous move—for Ethiopian politics, above all. It is tantamount to willfully attempting to derail a historic and exemplary struggle against authoritarianism. As a social movement that hinges on religious freedom and secularism, people from diverse walks of life and political thought, but who share some of the basic liberationist principles the Muslim struggle stands on, have supported it. Many of the ardent supporters had been well-known for their political positions well before the emergence of the movement, and they have happened to stand by it without necessarily jettisoning those positions of theirs. While they decided to do so, they knew, as all the Muslim activists back home did, that they had no representational role whatsoever in the movement. The only representatives of this civil rights movement, as has been widely and consistently agreed upon, are its incarcerated leaders and those endorsed by them and by the Muslim activists back home. It is, hence, an egregious mistake to associate their non-political struggle with the political position or line of thought of any supporter in the Diaspora[2].

It is immensely important that we realize the great potential of this struggle, attentively learn from it, and selflessly build on it in order to bring it to an all-satisfactory conclusion for all freedom-wishing Ethiopians. And the first step to do this is to keep our ideological fights far from it while still fully reaping its wide-ranging benefits towards the betterment of our politics. We should shun all unfounded suspicions about it, and let it rise above all political fault lines but still gain the unreserved support of all our political groupings.

>gulelepost

What we Oromo’s can learn from the South Sudan People’s liberation struggle

By Bakalcho Barii | July 29, 2013

Over one point five millions South Sudanese died in the long and protracted civil war with their Northern Arab rulers and millions more were displaced and made refugee around the globe before they finally freed themselves as an independent nation in July of 2011, and stood tall among the one hundred and ninety six independent nations of the world.

One might argue that South Sudanese achieved their independence with all round supports rendered to them by Western countries, particularly the United States and Britain. Many would also argue that Britain provided them material, diplomatic and other needed logistics to compensate for their wrong doing by merging the Southern Sudanese, who have little or no connections with their Northern counter parts during their occupation of the Sudan.

On the other hand, many regional and international political observers of the region argue that  the United States, provided an all-round support to the Southern Sudanese liberation movements to get un-feted access to the huge oil wealth discovered in the south plus to weaken the Northern Arabs, who for a long time harboured Islamist extremisms (Osama Bin Laden used to have a base in Northern Sudan in the 90s), and to weaken the anti-Israel Palestinians Organizations such as Hamas and other pan-Arab movements, who were supported and trained by the Northern Arab Sudanese.

On the contrary, the three regional powers, namely Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea supported both South Sudan Liberation Organization and the central Sudanese state for their own strategic goals. For example, the Egyptians supported their then central Sudanese state for fear of dealing alone or with little support in any future deals with the sources of the Nile river countries of the region. The Ethiopians and the Eritreans, on the other hand, gave tacit support to the South Sudanese movements while maintaining some form of good relationship with the North to weaken and eliminate their opponents both in the South and Northern Sudan.

However, the discovery of oil and the geo-politics of the region alone did not bolstered the South Sudanese liberation movements, but their unity, determinations and sustained guerrilla war under the umbrella organization of the South Sudan Liberation Organization changed the power shift in their favour and gain sympathy and support from the International community.

Here, what is incredibly important for the people of the South of the Ethiopian empire, including the Oromo’s is, despite their many tribal differences (more than fifty six tribes exist in current South Sudan), the South Sudanese  put these differences aside and fought as one people against their common enemy, the Northern Sudanese Arabs, who viewed them as sub-human.

We could also mention the case of the Eritrean’s liberation struggle against Ethiopian colonialism, where the Central Tigre speaking Christians stood together with their northern Muslims, the Kunama, and the Afar speaking groups in the South, all of them together viewed Ethiopian colonialism as their strategic enemy that must be defeated and became an independent nation in 1993 by a popular referendum.

As Oromo’s, it is high time to learn from the experiences of the South Sudanese and many nations, and put their minor differences aside for the common good of their nation and  confront and defeat the common enemy, the Abyssinian colonialism, which is doing anything to undermine and destroy the Oromo people and its natural resources.

The Southern Sudanese armed struggle was headed by those who served in the then Central Sudanese army, who attempted to change their people’s livelihood and acceptance as a citizen within one Sudan but realized that such change or acceptance will never happen within the socio-political, economic and power  structure on which the former Sudan was established. The realization of this reality convinced the likes of John Garang and many high and low ranking military officers in the national army to defect and establish a guerrilla army to fight the injustices against their people. Though, at the out-set scattered and uncoordinated due to tribal fault-lines that exists among the many South Sudanese, it did not take them long to come to a conclusion that their common enemy can only be defeated in union than  alone.

There were tens of thousands of intelligent Oromo military officers and civil servants in the Ethiopian empire state, who attempted to tackle the state sanctioned injustices against their nation by successive Abyssinian regimes hoping the Ethiopian empire, will democratize and treats its subjects in the South and the Oromo’s as citizens. The peaceful demands of these Oromo intellectuals and military officers for the equal treatments of their people within the empire made them traitors and enemy of the state, and as a consequence were sent to the gallows.

The fate of many brave and innocent Oromo’s who served the empire with much distinction and dedications were to suffer in the hands of the Abyssinians, who felt threatened by these Oromo’s, their only crime being raising the mistreatment and exploitation of their people. Here, we can mention a few such as, the likes of Mamo Mezemer (who many claim the birth father of Oromo struggle), General Tadesse Biru, who until the Abysinians discovered his Oromo blood and imprisoned him and finally killed, Haile Fida and Senai Liki, who were the intellectual power house of their generations, and many more perished in the hands of Abyssinian rulers.

The Oromo struggle for liberation is at critical juncture. The empire is on its last leg and last breadth. As a result, there are many voices from within and external forces whispering to our ears to abandon our God given rights to be free but rather opt to remain within the Ethiopian empire state. These forces even go as far as trying to convince us that remaining within the union is more beneficial to Oromo’s than separation. When asked how? These forces can not substantiate how living within the Ethiopian empire state favours the Oromo’s. Ethiopian empire is and has been the living hell for Oromo’s over the last on hundred years. Abyssinians never cared or care for the rights of the Oromo’s and the southern peoples but rather they care how much they can exploit their resources.

My message to my Oromo compatriots and those who advocate union with an empire (internal and external), is this; there is no single empire in the history of nations that was democratized and lived in peace with its subjects. The opposite is true in human history, meaning when the subjects were free, the empire itself was also set free from its own shackles.

Oromo’s have to look to their neighbours, which includes the likes of South Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti as an example. Eritrea and Djibouti with different nationalities have had opted for independence rather than living with the Ethiopian empire.

For example, the population of Djibouti is closer to half a million and that of Eritrea is four million. The Oromo people, on the other hand, coupled with abundant natural resources and with the population size of over 40 million with common history, geography, language, culture, deserve to be free from their Abyssinian colonizers  and live in peace with all its neighbours and practice their democratic Gada system to govern themselves.

In conclusion, like the Southern Sudanese inside and in the diasporas who spoke the freedom of their nation with one voice to the International Community, and to their enemies, Oromo’s inside Oromia and in the diasporas must speak loudly with one voice more than ever and demand the total independence of Oromia and the freedom of their people. Always remember that famous quotes “Power Never Gives up by its own Will but need to be confronted with determination and defeated”.

Finally, Jawar Mohammed, a regional political analyst recently put it in the following way in his recent radio interview, quote “writing or having beautiful political programme will not liberate oneself or a nation but standing together in unity and deeds and speaking with one clear and loud voice to one’s enemy will strengthen and transform a nation’s struggle for peace, democracy and justices”” in that part of East Africa, where Oromia belongs.

May Waqa Bless those who died for the diginity, respect and freedom the Oromo Nation.

Bakalcho Barii can be contacted for comments or suggestions at bakalchobarii@gmail.com

>ayyaantuu