Addis Neger

But the report even goes beyond the cases of discrimination and details instances of after-the-fact punishment – denying aid to those who opposed the government in the past. For an Ethiopian farmer who lives in extreme poverty, denying these services basically means destroying her livelihood, deliberately and systematically starving her. Let me apply here the Abraham Lincoln moral heuristic. “If slavery is not wrong,” Lincoln said, “nothing is wrong.” If this is not repression, Mr Ambassador, nothing is.

It strikes me as preposterously self-serving that the by-laws and 501(c) are invoked to justify a decision whose roots can be traced to, yes, money. Honoring a politician with an impeccable pedigree of human rights activism does not change a non-profit association into a politically-affiliated group. It is not an endorsement of the political group to which the honored politician belongs.

“…Thirty-six protestors were killed, scores more injured, and thousands of young people across the country we rounded up and detained. Government officials were blunt about these tactics – to crackdown so hard that the momentum of protest would be halted. Once source surprisingly close to government went further. He told me that security forces had opened fire on demonstrators quite deliberately to show who was in charge.” Peter Gill, Famine and Foreigners

Via Aidwatchers, political scientist Davesh Kapur provides an interesting theory as to why a diverse, multi-ethnic and populous country as India is able to sustain its democracy. Kapur argues that the migration of the country’s highly educated elite to the West has given previously excluded social groups more political power and rights. “Because older Indian [...]

It is really troublesome that even HRW, an organization which has systematically exposed the real face of the Ethiopian government for years, succumbs to the “development rhetoric” so readily. In its choice of title and inside the 105-page report, the rights group seems to be implicitly suggesting that Ethiopia is a repressive but developmental state. This is not true.

Relentless and fearless, Dagnachew has treated the Birtukan case as an emblem of the struggle of people who aspire to live with their heads up, in freedom, and a state that wants to subjugate. Modesty might have stopped him from putting himself in that category, but there is little doubt that he has said “no” with honor, rigor and wit.

The regime made sure that Birtukan experienced both the physical and mental effects of torture without leaving the marks to prove it. Yet as a Norwegian court said of Verschärfte Vernehmung, “torture is torture.”

The problem is that sequential protests can happen only in authoritarian regimes with a relative degree of apprehension to use the oppressive machinery of the state early and decisively. The Sene 1 protests show how a brutal early response (killing 42 people in less than 4 hours) thwarted the formation of positive cascades, or worse, created the reverse effect(fence-sitters constructing even higher fences). Compare that to Haile Selassie’s meek responses to the sequence of protests before the revolution and how it made students and other members of social groups think that dissent was not ruthlessly punishable.

As it is the act of the patriarch and his people, most of those who debate the statue’s meaning and validity do so only in terms of the tenets of the church’s teaching and its history. They take it as an internal debate; something that “others” have no standing in. But the truth is this: this is not a bust erected in a compound of a church. It is in a public space in one of the trendiest areas of our capital. Monuments and statues in cities have profound human value. They not only represent the human condition; they are part of the condition itself.

EPRDF true cooption (an attack on a network of opposition political influence) is focused on a small number of people; even less number of people than my writing a few weeks ago suggests. After I wrote that article, a few “coopted” people wrote to me that EPRDF’s promises of promotion and good jobs were not kept. I asked a lot of them to tell me their positions (work place), social stature, connections, political participation etc and it seemed to me that they were coopted, but never in the truest sense of the term.

The Meles-led regime in Ethiopia has many of the characteristics of Triple Threats – a strong military, a strong party machinery and a strong leader. In that it resembles the regime in Egypt. Triple Threats have total control on the army and use it as an adjudicator of political contention. In some Triple Threats, the army’s adjudicatory role is frequent; in others it is an institution of last resort. Often the leaders of Triple Threats have military backgrounds (but may not be military members as they are in power).

I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They ought to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.

DireTube Explore – Internet Access in the Capital of Africa, Addis Ababa

With a measly 0.4% internet penetration rate, Ethiopia is one of the most closed states in the world.

Ethiopia is a case of classical one-man regime. Since the 2001 TPLF split, Prime Minister Meles has no power opponent or competitor – individual and/or group – within the ruling party. That the selectorate is considerably weaker than the man on top is a rather uncontroversial issue even among die-hard EPRDF supporters. This raises an interesting question: Is solid economic performance possible without the existence of institutions of accountability – in autocracy or democracy?

Meles Zenawi isn’t a side spectator in these changes – sometimes sudden – of discourse. He produces and distributes the talking points. The economic success stories, for example, became the integral part of government public relations campaign after opposition leaders, civil society members and journalists were imprisoned in late 2005. But he would have been less successful had the donors been slightly more hesitant to buy (and sell) his products.