Ethiopians confront Gordon Brown !!!

Tedla Asfaw



Hundreds of Ethiopians are protesting against the presence of Meles Zenawi to co-chair the environmental finance conference with Gordon Brown in London right now. Meles Zenawi has come to London after it launched its pre election terror and sadly the European Union promised to send observers to give legitimacy for this crime. EU is sending its delegates to participate on the coronation of Meles Zenawi  for five more years. Opposition leaders and candidates are jailed and killed and it is shame Gordon Brown is seating with a known human right abuser.

Will Gordon Brown seat with Osama Bin Laden to find a solution for terrorism ? That is what he did by seating with the known human right abuser, unelected leader to find a solution for global environmental problem. If the eighty million Ethiopians are from other planet then Gordon  Brown  is right to worry for the coming death and destruction from the global warming. Ethiopians are currently dying from terror organized by Meles Zenawi while Gordon Brown is worried for future loss of lives due to global warming.

Our people struggle will go on with or without freedom loving people support and no force and terror will stop Ethiopians march towards freedom. Meles Zenawi might be a darling of Gordon Brown but he is not an elected leader of Ethiopia. The least we ask  Gordon Brown and other western leaders is not to give money in the name of poverty alleviation that is used to terrorize our people.

                                                                                                                   

Voice of America as a voice for voiceless Ethiopians !!

Tedla Asfaw



This month has been the best for listeners back home and the rest of us in the diaspora thanks to VOA Amharic programs that covered issues that is critical to the future of Ethiopia and the well being of Ethiopians. The issue of the land grab by foreigners was the best of VOA Amharic by Tizita Belachew. This land grab documentary by VOA exposed the Ethiopian regime for  leasing Ethiopian land for up to ninety nine years that attracted almost  five thousands foreign landlords due to its cheap land deal promised by round o clock security protection by by the ruling regime. This is the program that certainly angered Meles Zenaw to start  new business called Jamming Radio Enterprise.

This new company has the start up capital from EFFORT, a company that was born twenty five years ago from food aid that was again confirmed by Ato Seye Abraha this month. The jamming industry did start business five years ago around the 2005 election and draw its first "profit" the same year. It went out of business the same year.

Before it went out of business,however,VOA Amharic journalists were accused of genocide and due to pressure from USA the charge was dropped and this same charge has now come to the VOA Amharic. Meles Zenawi accused of VOA Amharic as hate messengers like that of Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda that organized and led the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Meles Zenawi is telling VOA English that his Jamming Enterprise after it went out of business for the last five years is now back to business and is going to sale its stocks for public soon. Providing the pubic with Chinese made radios that are allergic to short waves will be the strategic goal but in the short term the Jamming Enterprise might be forced to shut off power until it perfects its new technology of jamming for emergency when VOA Amharic is on air around 9PM. Battery business will be booming like the generator. We know who makes the money.

"I declare for the coming two months until my coronation, to finish the job I started two decades ago,  VOA Amharic the number one enemy of my administration". VOA Afan Oromo and Tigrena according to Meles Zenawi are not as bad as the Amharic.

This is identical to  Hutus VS Tutsis scare he declared on last election in 2005 after our people voted for Kinijit on landslide. Divide Ethiopians wherever they are as Amharas/Amharic VS all others shamefully. How comes VOA Amharic is bad to be compared to Radio Mille Collines that gave  the address of Tutsis to be killed live on radio.

What VOA Amharic did is  read on air the  names of poor farmers whose land was given to new foreign landlords. This is journalism at its best telling the truth. I wonder where those poor farmers by now are. Not only lost their land they now will be charged for telling their stories that angered Meles Zenawi, his March madness.


Yes we are mad too. Our anger is not as one ethnic group VS others as Meles quotes whenever he is threatened, Hutus VS Tutsis every five years, but to his regime and all foreign landlords who are taking poor farmers land. This is not only anger I can assure you, no foreign landlords will harvest sack of crop without any challenge. Give order to your  Interahamwee/Agazi and let the fight begins.

Meles Zenawi's Interahamwee has already started its job. Aregawi Gebremedhin the father of six children a candidate for Mederk was killed in Tigray and this is not a one man job  will not be over by locking one man for fifteen years. Killing in Eastern part of Ethiopia is going on. Warning to students from elementary to universities is given by Meles Zenawi. The next two months plan to jam  VOA Amharic is not surprising.

It is the fear that victims and their families will come on air and expose these crimes in a language which is widely spoken, Amharic, made VOA Amharic a target. We expose TPLF's crimes for foreigners in their language but TPLF did not jam BBC for that matter for exposing food aid for gun this month.

VOA Amharic did a good service by inviting former and current TPLF bosses like Aregawi Berhe, Gebremedhin Araya and in fact the famous interview of Aboy Sibhat Nega, my favorite a year ago. "We did not know each other before the TPLF infrastructure development,  people start coming together". "EFFORT is the richest company and it is only Tigrean". These were the words of Aboy Sibaht Nega and no one cry Hutus VS Tutssi  as Meles Zenawi wished then. In fact Seye Abraha told us this week that EFFORT is now a few selected TPLF family members property.

On recent program on the food aid loot and the massacre in Hawzen more than two decades ago we heard Aregawi Berhe and Gebremedhin Araya though they have the same stand when it comes to food aid for gun by TPLF they differ on what happened in Hawezene. VOA Amharic put the opinion of Aregawi who accused Derg for the crime and Gebremedhin Araya  accuseing TPLF for orchestrating the crime to get the support of Tigrayans. That is journalism as we know it in a civilized society.

Today we will have Aregash Adane  an opposition candidate to challenge Meles in Adwa and Aregawi Berhe are debating the issue of food aid for gun and many including Meles Zenawi are listening. VOA Amharic is giving an alternative for our people. Let TPLF talk about its development proudly and if this development changed peoples lives why to worry about the Hutus VS Tutsis. As Aboy Sibhat Nega said thanks to TPLF Ethiopians have come closer.

Congratulatory letter to Seye Abraha

Dear Seye Abraha,



I just finished reading nine pages speech by you  on Medrek gathering, estimated to be six thousands, at Mekelle Municipality last Sunday. The speech was one of the best I heard from former TPLF leaders. I wish you made such speech when you joined the UDJP few months ago. On that speech I congratulate Dr. Negasso Gidada while demanding more from you on my piece, "Well come Dr. Negasso Gidada and we are waiting for the arrival of Seye Abraha". I am happy  your plane touched at the Mekelle Municipality safely last Sunday. Well come home Ato Seye Abraha.

I have respect for you and I saluted you when you came out of jail after separated from your family for more than six years. I wish you success on whatever political platform you wish to serve your  country. I wish Medrek and AEUP  work in collaboration than adversarial because the only one will benefit from such division is none other than the TPLF gangs.

                                                                                          Yours,

                                                                                   Tedla Asfaw
                                      
                                                                                

Bob Geldoff defending the looters of food aid ?

Tedla Asfaw


I met Bob Geldoff in Belgium, Ghent,  in 1986-87 by accident in conference as a young student and was excited to see him after the live aid he organized saved the lives of the famine of 1984-85 victims in northern Ethiopia of Tigray.This young man was my hero and many Ethiopians do believe like that. However, Ethiopia after twenty five years of the great famine is still on food aid, wide famine has been averted only because of food aid by USA and the west for TPLF since it has been in power in 1991. The hundred millions of dollars food aid "fruit" is also visible buying wealth for  TPLF millionaires.

The current rulers of Ethiopia, TPLF, which Bob Geldoff know them personally are millionaires using looted  money from food aid. BBC documentary by Martin Plaut, March 3. 2010, exposed, though late, how aid money was used to buy weapons which many Ethiopians have been aware thanks to one of the person in the documentary, Gebre Medhin Araya, TPLF fighter then. The scheme of deception and looting  has been the trade mark of TPLF since that deadly famine. An experience that is only getting sophisticated year to year after TPLF has controlled power for almost two decades.

What Matin Plaut did is telling  the world community what he found in his one year investigation, no wonder, the thieves and those who were cheated, the aid agencies, are crying foul. I wish Bob Geldoff has not declined the invitation for the documentary. However, Bob Geldoff  defending the looters and accusing BBC for the story and accusing the former TPLF fighters who are our heroes as disgruntled people is to be fooled once more and we totally reject it.

Let me tell you one thing Mr. Geldoff. The aid money that went through, Relief Society of Tigray( REST) is now under Endowment Fund For Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) that controls ninety percent of wealth in Ethiopia. This is a fact and the source of the wealth is foreign food aid which you yourself and other aid agencies handed to REST/TPLF in Khartoum for which Gebre Medhin Araya was a witness, TPLF treasurer.

Mr. Geldoff, whatever is exposed now can not be washed away as a case of  few disgruntled individuals including Aregawi Berhe former TPLF commander, trying to score points. The fruit of the loot is open for all to see.  As I said last year on the twenty fifth anniversary of the famine on my piece, "Millionaires were born out of Ethiopia's famine" Oct. 25, 2009. Now as BBC reported it was also used to buy weapons. Stop the cover up Mr. Geldoff, and I urge you to distance yourself from Meles Zenawi and other looters who are busy now selling Ethiopian land for fast cash in open market.

The diaspora community will rally against Meles Zenawi and call for him to step down representing Africa in global environmental conference. A man who supervised the sale of "Sand for Money" is responsible for the loss of  thousand of  lives and can not be a spokesperson for planet earth. My hero, Bob Geldoff defending such a man is an insult to all Ethiopians, the victims of that famine and those of us who are still alive !!!!