Finote Radio on Ethio-Sudan Border Committee

Tedla Asfaw Date: Monday, June 30, 2008, 2:16 PM On  June 29 Finote Radio reported that the Ethio-Sudan Border Committee in  North America can not help the peasants who are battling the Sudan militias because "it is infiltrated  by TPLF/woyane". The radio,however, failed to give names of those who are working for TPLF and I personally contacted one of the members of the committee  after I read similar allegation on the Debteraw site and the person totally rejects such accusation. Currently no one is organizing any support for the displaced Ethiopians from our western front  and the campaign to discredit the Ethio-Sudan Committee without doing their part to support the people diplomatically or otherwise is just to let TPLF and Sudan accelerate their demarcation without any opposition. If there are bad apples in the committee we have to expose it with facts and if there are other Ethiopians who are organizing and defending our people let us hear from each and one of them too. Before VOA Amharic reporting last month nobody even discussed about the land transaction and come to defend our people and the rush now to discredit those who are still doing something is unacceptable. Any opposition party who is not on the for front with the people in this decisive struggle can not call itself as people party by only reporting the story and that job is the job of journalists not political parities.

Finote Radio on Ethio-Sudan Border Commitee

Tedla Asfaw Date: Monday, June 30, 2008, 2:16 PM On  June 29 Finote Radio reported that the Ethio-Sudan Border Committee in  North America can not help the peasants who are battling the Sudan militias because "it is infiltrated  by TPLF/woyane". The radio,however, failed to give names of those who are working for TPLF and I personally contacted one of the members of the committee  after I read similar allegation on the Debteraw site and the person totally rejects such accusation. Currently no one is organizing any support for the displaced Ethiopians from our western front  and the campaign to discredit the Ethio-Sudan Committee without doing their part to support the people diplomatically or otherwise is just to let TPLF and Sudan accelerate their demarcation without any opposition. If there are bad apples in the committee we have to expose it with facts and if there are other Ethiopians who are organizing and defending our people let us hear from each and one of them too. Before VOA Amharic reporting last month nobody even discussed about the land transaction and come to defend our people and the rush now to discredit those who are still doing something is unacceptable. Any opposition party who is not on the for front with the people in this decisive struggle can not call itself as people party by only reporting the story and that job is the job of journalists not political parities.

Call it by its true name, Famine not food problem !!

Tedla Asfaw



I read a commentary by Chege Mbitiru of Daily Nation (Nairobi, Kenya June 23) which characterizes the Ethiopian Famine as a "food problem" and accusing the editor of Addisvoice.com who wrote recently "Why is the emperor hiding our hunger?" of insulting Meles Zenawi.

Moreover the writer seems to be angry at Adissu, "Ministry of Agriculture" which I preferred to call him "Ministry of Rain" who still wait for the rain to come and if the rain does not come in the next month or two he might call for more aid until then we just call it "food shortage" and warned the international community not to exaggerate the crisis as ordered by the emperor, Meles Zenawi.

The emaciating children photos is not coming as it should be for all of us to see because the starving children are buried beyond  the rich of any media and as we all know there is no free media in Ethiopia. Villagers are burying their kids secretly without angering the emperor servants.  All the information we got of dying children are those that come out from very few  shelters and  many are dying in their villages quietly as we speak.

Yesterday on www.addisdimts.com (June 22) two callers from"Welayeta", South Ethiopia gave their eyewitness account on what is going on in their villages. Famine is  devastating their villages and there is nothing to eat and children are quietly dying and no picture is coming out and Mr. Mbitiru treating this as"food problem"  in defense of Meles Zenawi is just uncalled for.

"Parents are burying their children not to anger the regime cadres in the famine area" according to the interview on www.addisdimts.com  and if this comes out on a television screen that might be the end of "our emperor" Mr. Mbitiru is defending on his commentary by underestimating Ethiopia's famine as a "food problem" similarly faced by the 800 million people worldwide he reported.

I would like to ask the writer, how many children's death per day per total population can be reported as "Famine". I can tell the writer any  independent journalist can expose this for the world community if he or she has got access to all areas of Ethiopia affected by famine.

 Meles Zenawi has total monopoly on the news like it has on our hunger and that is why Addis Voice comes with the title,  "why  the emperor is hiding our hunger ?" Mind you this is a regime with the help of China is jamming VOA and German Amharic unsuccessfully. Journalists  from these stations broke this story  for Ethiopians by going to various  feeding stations run by humanitarian agencies in South Ethiopia. Without their reporting we might not even debate here "food problem" or famine.

The emperor has reason to hide this hunger with full cooperation of USA and UK. Both USA and UK  are the  supporters and financiers of of Meles currently working overtime for a regime change in Zimbabwe accusing Mugabe among other things of denying aid for starving Zimbabweans. What a double standard?

Why the same is not said about Ethiopia  is not hard to grasp. If they wish the Ambassador of USA and UK in Ethiopia can travel to the affected areas and talk to the starving people. We have seen efforts by the government officials of these countries shooting pictures of Mugabe opponents beaten up and similar effort is expected of them to show the starving children of Ethiopia if they would like to be remembered by Ethiopians as someone who went beyond politics and save lives.

Had we have a country run by a rule of law not by an emperor above the law we would have saved many lives with little  outside help and take our country out of  famine cycle  using our river potential the writer mentioned . We can replace the" Ministry of Rain" with "Ministry of Irrigation" and remove our country's name from the encyclopedia of famine forever and for that to happen  we can not see the current famine in isolation to the tyranny in Ethiopia, "emperor" or otherwise.

Open letter to Somaliland Representative in USA

Tedla Asfaw

Dear Somaliland Representative in USA,

On June 18  you were  on www.voanews.com/tvtoafrica with other panelist from Uganda New York VOA's studio to discuss the lack of free, transparent and accountable government and I enjoyed  following your analysis.

However, for a comment I made about Ethiopia on phone you were very cautious to comment. The host Shaqa even pressed you, why  Ethiopia currently starving  millions of its people spend millions for the war in Somalia.

Somaliland might have good relation with Ethiopia's  minority unelected regime and understandably you do not want to comment about Ethiopia fearing a back clash from Melese Zenawi..

Ignoring the fire in your neighbor might be tactically O.K, however, sooner or later it will come to you. Moreover, silence on the killing in Somalia, Ogaden and other parts of Ethiopia is totally against  Somaliland's interest even if you believe everything is OK in Somaliland.

I hope this generation of East Africans speak the truth wherever they are beyond their own narrow interest and I do believe all the countries in the Horn will flourish or die together.