Urael

The Crime Minister of Ethiopia, the name thief, Legesse Zenawi, is playing games about the war crimes committed by TPLF-Ethiopian troops in Somalia (for which I refer to the recently published 104 pages report of the New York based Human Rights Watch) ,while the population in Addis Ababa is suffering under an ongoing increase of food prices. Because of the unexpected rains and the increase of fuel prices, for instance, teff has reached a record high of 1400 birr for 100 kilo.
Because of a change in fuel subsidues policy, the kerosene and car fuels have decreased in price a little, but are not back at the level of two months ago and have made traveling more expensive;
not to mention the shortage of public transport and the ‘new’ Chinese busses, that are already starting to show signs of running out of operation. The introduction of blended petrol, 5% ethanol is added to it, has also become one of the uncountable failures of the ruling gang. One mixing station just could never take care of the amounts needed. The usual answer was threatening to close those stations that just could not get their stock.

So what is going on in Somalia. It looks like the troops in Mogadishu could not reached their suppliers and so extra men are fighting their way in to rescue them. Or we are again watching the magic of our Wladimir Illich impersonator, who can make defeats in victories and beggars into landowners. He must, once in a while, have sleepless nights now his fellow mafia ruler Robert Mugabe can only play the clown, once exposed as a ruthless dictator. I’ll tell you, the not less criminal Eritrean Faction of the TPLF, that is ruling Ethiopia, will in due time face the same fate.

T Shirts with the photograph of Teddy Afro are very popular and it indicates, that in contradiction to the propaganda of the Ethiopian Television, the true democratic movement is very much alive. It is another thing that is making the ruling elite nervous. Their only answer is repression and withholding any privilege from anyone outside of their bunch of loyalists and opportunists. But they cannot avoid the denigrating looks they have to endure. For the people of Ethiopia have had it for a long time with them, a new dawn is coming, it is time for change.

The Ethiopian Telecom Corporation, against the advice of her own engineers, has put her faith in the hands of the Chinese, ordered so to do by the ruling mafia gang.
The result is devastating. Especially the mobile network and the internet technology are functioning below any reasonable and expectable standard. In words and advertising, they are promising us broadband access, but the reality that, even with the dial-up system with a maximum of 56k6 connection, they just do not give proper connections.
The NGO’s and firms that bought a so called broadband connection, are facing the same problems and also have very limited access. And last but not least, internet is censored. Non of the .blogspot sites can be reached directly and sites critical about the Ethiopian rulers are blocked too.

Last week Ethiopian Airlines has announced that they will buy their own uplink through satellite. They cannot maintain their services, using the ETC connections, anymore. Minister of foreign affairs Seyoum Mesfin is the head of the Board of Directors of Ethiopian Airlines, so he must have been involved in this decision. I wonder what he is going to tell his fellow Eritrean and Tigrayan conspirators, when he has to explain that yet on another field of government, as they do in the neigbouring state Somalia, they are failing terribly.

Or maybe something else is the matter. When announcing that information technology would be a spearhead of their policy, they, as usual, just lied. They do not have the plan to give access to the internet information to the population. Just, as they have muzzled the domestic press, and have tried to silence critical radio stations as Deutche Welle and the Voice of America, in the same way they do everything to make internet almost unreachable.

They also do not have any plan to erase poverty. It would implicate that bigger groups of the population would be lifted up to the middle class. Their children would get access to higher education. They would become less dependent on the ruling class and consequently, will not depend of its “favours” anymore. More than before, the ruling mafia would need their repressive methods to stay in power. And that could become so ugly, that even the silence of the donor countries would be broken.

Early this morning I heard an explosion of some sort. Once before I witnessed something like that. It was the bombing of the Lalibela restaurant some years ago.
Up until now, I could not find any confirmation about what happened. It could be that, due to the warnings of the ruling mafia, suspicion and paranoia are clouding my mind.
I think it was Andrew Heavens on his Meskelsquare.com blog who wrote about this phenomenon just after the November 2005 violence of the security forces and Tigray elite forces the Agazi, who murdered almost 200 civilians in the streets of Addis Ababa. Then a simple noise of a car could sound like a gunshot.

Of course if an explosion took place, the usual suspects will be named and even arrests of activists of opposition members can take place. This is the reason that in my circles, the secret service itself is high in the ranks of the usual suspects. They always have found justification of their repressive deeds and exploited the situation by arrests of all of those that the ruling gang is not happy with. That is why they can not be trusted to be the source of the explosions themselves. They have unlimited access to the materials needed to create them and in a way they could prepare themselves on "the Great Run"in Addis Ababa on 23rd november next.

It also made me think again about the testimony of Berhanu Nega to the human rights commission of the American House of representatives. He warned that, if the current government and others in power are not able or willing to start a dialogue, sooner or later the country will fall in disarray and violence. It was the Crime Minister Legesse Zenawi, the name thief, himself on several occasions mentioned that: they got in power by fighting for it and that to get rid of them would need the same means.

I shall follow up the news this day to see, if an explosion happened or that just someone slammed the gate a little harder than as usual.

The figures published by the authorities, refers to an inflation of above 50% and they are optimistic about getting it down. Well our figures of last month arrived at an inflation over the past twelve months of 125% and, because of the decrease of fresh agricultural items like potatoes, onions and tomatoes, inflation over the period of a year is now 117%. Because of sudden non seasonal heavy rains, this decrease in fresh food prices can easily change into a sharp price increase, which is already the case with teff. And let’s be fair, not the policy of the government, but the weather this time influenced the price index.

The increase in fuel prices makes that traffic in town is less than it used to be. Car owners just cannot afford to pay the price anymore and are forced to cut down on the use of it. And the semi public transport system gets even more over stressed. The time to wait for an available place is getting longer by the day and also the prices for this kind of transport is adjusted with the fuel price increase. I know of many people, that stopped using their kerosene burner and are using charcoal (which has also doubled in price) or brushwood/leaves, because they do not have the money for it.

The reshuffle of ministers and the elimination of the ministry of information will not change anything about the day to day situation of many Addis Ababa citizens. It has probably more to do with internal power games and ambitions that got out of control, than with any intention to make the life of our people better. After we have been bombarded with the misplaced optimism of the Minum Yellum, now the new slogan is that the Ethiopian Renaissance is about to begin. The reality is, that more get impoverished and the streets are fuller with beggars then ever before. In addition many “security” and others are watching us.

The Dashen brewery is at the brink of bankruptcy, wasn’t that this factory is owned and run by the gang with Bereket ‘Goebbels’ Simon acting as president. We discussed the brewery before, when we wrote about the one and a half year closure of it to renovate it.
Which commercial enterprise can afford to do so? Their new product Dashen Royal draft is boycotted by so many people, that they are making huge losses and, without the support of the mafia endowments, would have been closed or sold already.

Several foreign donors, including the British en Dutch government representatives, are blaming the Ethiopian government to hide the deplorable situation in which large groups in East Ethiopia have to survive. UNHCR workers just cannot help the displaced rapidly enough and children are dying of hunger. This is the direct result of the actions following the attack on a Chinese oil exploration camp. The whole of the Ogadeni population is punished for it. And this is a flagrant abuse of human rights.

The withdrawal of subsidy on fuel, motivated by the fact that the money is going to be used to subsidize food, was actually because there is no sufficient hard currency in the country anymore. They just could not pay the bill. Last week for 5 days no petrol was available in Addis Ababa. The streets were empty and long cues stood before the few pump stations that had an extra stock. For those who have to live on less than a dollar a day, which is the large majority in this country, kerosene as a fuel is not affordable any more. Charcoal and brushwood are again the main sources of fires to cook on. Also other commodities coming from abroad are hard to get; banks do not provide importers with letters of credit anymore.

With their policy to alienate Ethiopians, NGO’s and Donors, and telling lies, lies, lies, to put anyone that tries to open the world eyes for the tragedy that is happening in Ethiopia in the wrong, Ethiopia is suffering more every day. Shame on them!

The inflation during the past twelve/thirteen months in Addis Ababa has reached 125% and we do not see any signs that it will flatten or go down. Specially food products like vegetables are increasing again. The price of kerosene, which in particular the rural population will depend on, has been increased from Birr 5.72 to Birr 8.59 which is an increase with Birr 2.87 or 50 %. Their only option for cooking is now cutting the few trees and bushes still around and we can imagine to what it will result in, being a further desertification and failures of crops due to no rain.
With the 10 million people, who are in serious need of food, you wonder when the ruling gang is going to admit that they made a mess of it. It was the week before last week that Legesse ’the name thief’ Zenawi, crime minister of Ethiopia, was again stipulating that the supporters of the EPRDF were mainly rural people. In so admitting that the latest election in Addis Ababa where they won all the seats, was a shamble and a fraud.

They can believe their own fairy tales, that they have supporters on a main scale at all. The myth that rural people support the ruling parties is one of their many lies.
Fraud, massacres, intimidation and depriving or threatening to deprive people of their livelihood, are the methods of the gang to force people to sign a membership card of one of the EPRDF parties. The elections of May 2005 proved that if people are given the freedom to vote, the EPRDF parties would be wiped away from the political spectrum.
It took them huge repression and fraud to keep the power, and their power is based on only that.

I once wrote that even if the opposition wouldn’t do better, when people voted for them they earn the right to rule, that’s democracy, not always the best wins.
But by now anybody can do better than the gang and their lackeys.

We have had the congress of the EPRDF and, as usual, it is a charade of non issues and lies that are brought outside. This while the foreign media are laying the finger on the sore spot, namely the growing famine which is already compared with the disastrous situation of 1984. And the local media are reporting, but to afraid to mention the real source of the problem. Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, crime minister of Ethiopia and his whole mafia gang are using food to destroy large groups of Somali Ethiopians in the Ogaden and Somalians in Somalia. These are crimes against humanity and because of the illegal invasion in Somalia, war crimes.

While millions of Ethiopians are suffering under the ongoing inflation which has reached the three digit stage, the state budget is raised again. For, as far as it is controllable, spending on military and security forces is 27% more than last year. And the Wladimir Illich impersonator is claiming that any penny spent in Somalia must be considered as spent in Ethiopia. Here we have the bright and super intelligent economist that claims that military spending in a foreign country is benefiting the economy. Just like that the land locking of Ethiopia had no bad influence at all. And anyone up to the leading figures in the IMF, Worldbank and donors that disagrees, does not understand the reality in Ethiopia, is exaggerating or must be crooked. Well it is obviously clear where the crooks are in this country.

Foreign television stations are showing families loosing their children because of malnutrition. Families of eight that have to live on halve an acre and who do not have the money to buy fertilizer. These are the citizens that in 9 years time, according to the TPLF/EPRDF will have a middle income… if they survive we might add.

The only thing the EPRDF congress did was
to scare the hell out of those that had the nerve and guts to ask questions and
to consolidate the powerbase of the gang and its lackeys.
The real problems of Ethiopia were not on the agenda and if they were honest they would have said they don’t care a shit about it.

I wish my Muslim sisters, brothers and friends a blessed Eid al Fitr.

First of all let me wish everybody an happy 2001, well everybody?
And my Muslim friends also a blessed Ramadan.

The opportunity to do a masters degree on the Universities of Ethiopia will be in the hands of the EPRDF/TPLF and no longer will the intellectual abilities of the candidate be decisive, but the loyalty to the party. It is a further step to totalitarianism and it proves again that the Marxist Leninist way of thinking, which was the basic principle of the TPLF, has never been gone. The discussion about academic freedom is already far behind us.

The inflation during the year 2000 has reached 116% measured as at the eleventh of September. And in various magazines and papers, a raise in inflation is mentioned too. The figures differ from 33 to 50%, so telling the truth and measuring themselves is probably politically to dangerous.
Just like telling that millions of Ethiopians are starving from hunger. Only the ferenji aid organizations can tell what is really going on.

Shamelessly the mafia gang is proclaiming one success after the other, while the common people are impoverished. And what they have always been very good at, is blaming anyone but themselves. Global economy, raising food prices, raising fuel prices, it is all to blame, while the so called economic successes are the result of their brilliant policies.
The fact that the whole country is floating on aid and dubious loans (for instance the telecom sector), is never stipulated by them.

The new busses that were bought in China are already starting to crumble. Their engine is just not powerful enough for the roads in Addis Ababa and the high altitude of the capital (at an average
2.250m up to abt 3.000m). Most of them are now producing black smoke and the already heavy air pollution in the city is only getting worse. These are direct consequences of the flirtation of the gang with their political peers in China.

There is a price inflation of 113.5 percent in Ethiopia. This month food prices kept on raising and because of, we hope, seasonal influences, specially onions, carrots and potatoes have become more pricy. I can imagine that some of the TPLF fans will still believe the propaganda of the gang in which figures are much lower than mine. So let’s list a couple of items.

Kerosine costed 4.15 birr in August 2007. Now you pay 6.50 birr per liter.
Teff costed 6 birr in August 2007. Now it costs 13 birr per kilo.
Baking oil costed 25 birr in August 2007. Now it costs 33 birr a liter.
Butter costed 55 birr in August 2007. Now it costs 125 birr per kilo.
Sugar costed 7.5 birr in August 2007. Now it costs 10 birr per kilo.
Salt has gone from 1 birr in August 2007 to 2.50 birr now.
Berbere from 75 to 82 birr per kilo now and Shiro from 7.50 a kilo in August 2007 to 15 birr now. Buna was 30 birr a kilo one year ago and now it is 38 birr.
Beef from 38 birr per kilo to 60 birr per kilo in one year time and milk from 6 birr per liter to 13 birr per liter. Not to mention the raise in transport costs and that of other services.

The bare facts are that people in the low or no income category are completely depending on begging or aid. This while for the second time this year action is started to remove the beggars from the streets of Addis Ababa. We remember that around the Millem Yelum festivities, they could not control the flow of desperate people coming to Addis Ababa to survive their extreme poverty. Because of the failed policy of the government, large parts of the population live in extreme poverty, and with this inflation this group will only become even bigger. They are creating the beggars and prostitutes and maybe, because of embarrassment about it, try to put them in camps far away from the ferenji eyes.

And while Ethiopians are dwelling the streets to find a decent job, Chinese prisoners are building the viaducts and roads in Addis Ababa. With this forced labor the Chinese can easily compete with our local workers. It shows that the Chinese are not only exporting their low quality technology (their qualified technology is reserved for their prestigious projects such as the Olympic Games) but also their human rights violations. Not that they have to teach the current leaders of Ethiopia anything about that.

The engineers from Ethiopian Telecom have,over one year ago, warned, that throw in one's lot with the Chinese, would have catastrophic consequences. Remember an earlier I T system they sold to Ethiopia that, after it failed in the surroundings of Addis Ababa, was brought over to Jimma, but there too it could not perform. At the end it was written off at the cost of many millions.

Well the latest month (June 2008) we are starting to feel the reality of what the performance of telecom in Ethiopia is all about now. Next to the power losses three to four times a week, at the day of writing this blog (08-07), the telephone is just not working many hours a day. So even when you are lucky to have power, to communicate is just possible face to face because the wired and the mobile network is out of order.

It is of course politically motivated why the Dictatorship is buying inferior equipment and because everything is on tick, the Ethiopian engineers have hardly any voice in what and how. It must be frustrating to witness how the whole system is collapsing.

Because of this, all the service and production industries are loosing money every day. The ones that can afford to have their own power supply, see their costs rising by more than 100% and then still communication is becoming a mayor problem.

It is not for nothing that illegal uplinks are becoming more popular. It is a rumor that the government is shutting its eye for these practices, because they cannot loose investors.

The big hydropower plants that are under development now, will not ease the burden of the Ethiopian population. The revenues and production will mostly go abroad for many years. The powerplant in Koka will gradually be out of service because ever decreasing capacity for the storage of the water due to siltage/lack of maintenance but who cares?

The next time one of the ministers or even members of the gang will hold a cocky speech about the “favourable”results of their policy, remember that they are not even capable of operating the most basic things the people need.

The western countries were pressing the AU summit in Egypt to condemn the violence and rigged elections in Zimbabwe. It is the opinion of the western countries that the presidency of Robert Gabriël Mugabe is illegitimately and that all other African countries should not recognize it. But here we run into trouble. The credibility of the request and the credibility of the ones appealed to is at least questionable. I could make a list of presidents and governments in Africa where you could question if elections were free and fair.
The latest elections (April-2008) hold in Ethiopia for the administration of Addis Ababa for instance. All seats, with the exception of one who received the reward for his cooperation with the Dictatorship, went to the TPLF/EPRDF while two years ago, all seats went to the opposition. Who, because they were not allowed to take over the administration without conditions, were put in jail. So Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, crime minister of Ethiopia, himself from a very questionable background, is using the same tricks as his colleague mafia leader Robert Gabriël Mugabe. The difference is that the mafia in Ethiopia has better ties with the puppets of the oil and war industry in the United States of America with its British allies, but their human right records are even more worse than the one of the old man from Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile government officials do deny any food shortages in Ethiopia, while thousands are dying from hunger. Everything is under control is the message. Journalists that have examined the situation locally and NGO’s are exaggerating the situation, according to the ministry of information. It will probably take another Jonathan Dimbleby, who filmed the famine in 1973, to get a real picture of what is going on.
Actually the shameless, how this “government” is actually blaming natural circumstances for what is happening here. Just as they blame tribal wars for the brutal murder of political enemies that is still going on in Oromia.

Soon we will have the figures of the latest price rises, which are still going on. While the illegitimate mafia rulers of Ethiopia are now merely denying the mess they made, the population is suffering because of no purchase power. And the western leaders are again showing their prejudiced opinions.

The production of my blogs is low at the moment. Blame it to personal circumstances and/or the frequent non availability of the utilities such as electricity, telecommunication. It is certainly not that there is a lack of events or subjects that need commenting or to be revealed. The atrocities in the Ogaden, Oromia and Somalia are going on. There are messages of many arrests in Oromia; political repression is still getting worse. The land of our forefathers (Gondar) has been squandered to the Sudan dictatorship for obvious reasons. The hunger because of mismanagement and communistic agricultural policy is spreading all over the country. Addis Ababa has changed into an occupied city again with thousands of soldiers, armed with Kalashnikovs patrolling the streets and neighborhoods.

Yesterday I got the figures about the cost of the most basic commodities people have to buy, to live and stay alive. The official inflation according to the Dictatorship/government has reached 32 percent now. But this is as usual a blunt lie. According to my figures, and they have proven to be very accurate, inflation is climbing to the 100% annual. To be precise it is now at 87.5%. So with the 58% of last month the raise of teff ( now 10 birr per kilo), meat (55 birr per kilo), butter ( 115 birr per kilo) is making life extreme expensive.

So the Crime Minister is addressing the population and blaming the jalala (middlemen) to be the source of the inflation. And the only thing they are really good at, that is threatening and taking repressive measures is their answer. I wonder if anyone has ever seen price tags in our shops. No is the answer. But now the gang forces all shop holders to use price tags and the one that doesn’t, or who asks a price which is too high, will see his shop closed. This is the miracle answer to the inflation.

And while around Ginbot Haya Ethiopian television could not show us anything else than the successes of the “freedom” fighters from Tigray, the population is suffering.

The report that Amnesty International published about the atrocities committed by “Ethiopian” soldiers in Somalia, like slitting the throat of civilians, which of course is denied by Bereket ‘Goebbels’ Simon, alias Baghdad Bob, as un-Ethiopian. TPLF/Ethiopian soldiers just do not do these kind of things.
I am afraid that the future will prove that the once professional Ethiopian army has been deteriorating into a bunch of criminals that commit crimes against humanity and do slit throats amongst other atrocities, read the Amnesty Report about it.

When in 1991 the Ethiopian army was withdrawing to Addis Ababa, they were walking on both sides of the road while the few cars of ngo’s and ferenji were riding in the middle. The drivers and their passengers were scared to hell that their vehicle would be confiscated by the heavily armed soldiers, nothing happened. Until one car was stopped. The driver thought he had to start walking but the soldiers politely asked him if he could bring their wounded friend to the hospital, he was shot in his leg and could hardly walk. That is something else then raping, killing civilians and committing genocide.

As predicted, the TPLF/EPRDF and its lackeys have "won"the elections or better we say the appointments. No wonder when any serious opposition has been banned, intimidated or thrown in prison. It will not change that the majority of the population will not put their shoulder, under what the TPLF/EPRDF call the emerging democracy. They call it emerging to distract from the fact it has nothing to do with democracy.

Rumors are going that some high ranking athletes are considering fleeing away from Ethiopia and find refuge somewhere else. The immediate cause is the arrest and denial of bail of the artist Teddy Afro, presumably on false grounds. The tentacles of the gang reach to everyone who does not want to be silenced. The fact that Haile Gebre Selassie does not want to run the marathon in Beijing, because of its too heavy pollution in the air, had immediate consequences. While they do not dare to touch him yet, they banned him from running the 10k. It is known that Haile Gebre Selassie has political ambitions and that he is not to become a member or affiliated to the ruling gang.

On May 6th I received the new figures for consumption goods in Addis Ababa. The annual inflation has risen to 58% during the period May 2007 unto April 2008. Main reasons for the increase are butter, teff, berbere and beef. Teff for instance will cost you 7.50 birr a kilo compared with 6.50 last month (6 birr per kilo last year May.).
Butter from 55 birr a kilo last month to 85 birr this month (40 birr per kilo last year May.). This is completely running out of hand. The thing is of course, that those who are responsible for this, are only blaming others. Since they do not have any credibility with the population, their unctuous tone to psychologically urge the turnaround of the negative spiral, has no effect at all. And soon they will start threatening and intimidating again.

The complete failure of the agricultural policy where talented farmers have no possibility to expend and industrialize their business, and are kept poor deliberately, can be seen as one of the main sources of this inflation. And petty farmers cannot afford expensive irrigation methods like almost all foreign investors are using. Even in case they could, they will not do, since the land does not belong to them so no use to invest/improve the infrastructure of the farm. So no expansion will take place, to the contrary, without proper irrigation, the lack of rain will destroy the little things they have gathered. Animals are dying in the south and in the Ogaden, and the latter is even worsening because of the human rights abuses that the army (Agazi) is still committing.
Hunger is political, always, and the tyrants of Ethiopia are to blame for it.

The street scene in Addis Ababa is reflecting the poverty of the rural and urban population. The amount of elderly who have no other possibility than to come to the city and rely on our mercy is growing by the day. So is the amount of women and children. Despite the hypocritical efforts to clean/ sweep the streets around the minem yellum celebrations, and despite the blown up rhetoric of the tyrants.

While Ethiopian Television tried to give us the impression that large queues were waiting to cast their votes, (they used pictures shot two years ago, as they are tampering with history many times), I passed some voting stations (on Sunday 13-04) and, beside two police men, nobody did show up. The people have vivid memories about what the ruling gang did when they were voted away. So the elections Sunday and those to come are merely an in-crowd happening of the asra ant with their lackeys/paid slaves and have nothing to do with democracy. Well it is democracy TPLF style, but outside that small circle we intend to call this dictatorship. And their always optimistic tone, in which they propagate their achievements, was interrupted by yet another power cut; it seems that reality is tempering their message.

During last week, lot’s of things were published about the inflation and even there they seem not really in stroke with the situation on the ground, as Bereket ’Goebbels’ Simon, alias Baghdad Bob, likes to call it. Claiming a 22% inflation, which is already a lot and devastating for the economy, is far from the reality. As The World Bank and the IMF, now conferring in New York have published, world food prices have risen by over 90% over the last two years. And this figure is about the same as I have measured over the last two years in Ethiopia. The real inflation is over 51% annually now. And the reality is that, what was published as a tribal clash near Wondo Genet, was actually a looting of a market by desperate people who were unable to buy or produce food anymore in this well known resort. The same messages are coming from other parts of the South.

Probably the TPLF/EPRDF is going to “win” their elections with great figures and they will shout it out that the people have regained confidence in them. Nothing is less beside the truth. A hyper inflation is torturing the people and the livelihood of millions is on the brink. The Somalians and Ogadeni are brutally repressed and murdered, and so are the Oromo and many others, who dare to strive for a little bit more freedom.

They may celebrate but they also know that if elections would be free and fair, they would be wiped away from power. They rule by the barrel of the gun and they know that they failed in many fields and territories. If it wasn’t that cruel and life threatening, it was so pittyful to see the asra ant and their lackeys playing their democracy game on Sunday, you almost felt sorry for them.

There is no democratic election in Ethiopia

If, and in African politics nothing can be taken for granted, but if Robert Mugabe and his ZANU party will not interfere in the results of the Zimbabwe elections, so loose it, then you can bet on it, that some shivers will go over the backs of the gang members at Meneliks Palace. The rule of the ZANU party in Zimbabwe, responsible for the collapse of one of the strongest economies in Africa, does not look to be eternal anymore and the tyrant Robert Mugabe of 84 years old is left only to strike a deal not to spend his last years in prison.
Also the previous Ethiopian dictator Haile Mengistu Mariam, who was given a way out by the TPLF/EPLF and found refuge under the protection of Robert Mugabe, will have some sleepless nights. And he has to consider moving on to some other old time friends to secure his “freedom”.

But this is all speculation. Observers from the enlightened countries of Iran and China were invited to monitor the process and some countries from the Southern part of Africa with an Angolan chairperson. Angola by the way which also has a “wonderful” reputation when it comes to democracy. I cannot remember they even had elections for a long time.

The upcoming local elections in Ethiopia are changing the street scene already. Just this morning (10-04) I witnessed that a Black Maria was driving through town, empty but I did not see one for the last few months. Normally the arrested petty thieves are transported handcuffed at the back of a pickup truck, which is in democratic countries on itself a violation of their human rights. The amount of patrolling police and security forces is increasing considerably. Also the water canons have started to appear again; intimidation as usual. This while the population is doing its own thing, for most of them it is surviving, and does not care anymore about the games the rulers want to play. They have to accommodate the ever increasing prices for the basics and the unannounced frequent interruptions of electricity, water and telecommunication.

The Leaders of the “loyal” opposition have no other options than to decide not to participate in the planned elections. This because of heavy intimidation and repression of their candidates who have no other options than to withdraw and bow.

The role of the subservient Election Board is loud and clear: to facilitate the success of the Dictatorship with its lackeys. I expect that not many of our people will line up early in the morning of coming Sunday 13th and Sunday 20th unless they are forced.
The outcome of the 2005 elections and its aftermath has proven that the current leaders of Ethiopia have no intention at all to leave, share or negotiate anything. Democracy is just to please the west and get the money. But if…, then their future will be less certain then they anticipated.

On Inflation in Ethiopia and the arrest of Currency Traders

The inflation which, according to scrooge finance minister Sufian Ahmed three months ago, was on its return, is as usual blamed to anybody else except the government in Ethiopia. So the street trade in dollars is targeted and the traders in Merkato are prosecuted when they are speculating by withholding goods from the market. But we know that the main reason for the inflation is the pressure the public sector is laying on the market. (The military expenses and the security apparatus for instance. In addition almost all important companies involved in trading are owned/under control of this Government and its TPLF party and affiliates and are operated as monopolies).

Meanwhile Addis Ababa is suffering under unexplained power cuts the last two weeks. In some parts of town these cuts start in the morning and end late in the afternoon. Up until now, no explanation is given so people are unprepared. This in contrast with a couple of years ago, when people could at least take measures. Maybe the delay of the start of the belg rains has something to do with it, because of too low water level in the reservoirs and capacity problems because of silt in Koka. We can only guess because we are left in the dark about it.

The propaganda machine of the US and the gang is working overtime. While the annual report of the State Department about Human Rights in Ethiopia is once again a litany of abuses, Don Yamamoto, US ambassador in Ethiopia, found it opportune to praise the role of Ethiopia as the only stable country in the Horn of Africa. Which is in fact complete nonsense because domestically and with two of its neighbors, Ethiopia is in a state of war.

Soon we will publish the new figures about the cost of living. The Ethiopian government is just doing some window dressing, while leaving the real sources of the inflation untouched. Actually we did not expect anything else. When the will of the people is not respected, not any solution can be offered.

There is a stream of foreign investors coming to Ethiopia who can acquire land to start a business in the horticulture sector. All they have to do is request the land from the government and buy out the farmers who are using the land. And many farmers are glad to make a carrier move from being the slave of the TPLF/EPRDF system of agriculture to become a laborer for a foreign investor. And the current rulers are happy because the population stays poor and dependent.

There are of course also Ethiopian investors too, taking over land from the local communities, many times with huge loans from the Development Bank of Ethiopia.
With some lubricant, which this bank is famous for, and preferable connections with the right political officials, it is easy to become a landowner (well at least for the lease period)

In contrast to this, all the peasantry does not get the facility to extend their small farms, even when they are successful. They cannot buy their neighbors farm and start employing them. If they could, the agriculture economy would get a sudden radical boost, but also the grip of the local asra ant would collapse, when a new elite of gentleman-/investing farmers would emerge.

The gang prefers to keep the rural population poor and dependent. They are treated as serfs of the political elite that govern this country like the mob does the underworld.

Because of the very limited amount of people, who registered as voters for the upcoming election, the kebele administrators and their goons have started to visit all houses in Addis Ababa to do their donkey job by threatening. It is an old habit of the gang to secure their election.
With the imprisonments, torturing and killing of many people, most of us find it very frightening to be addressed directly by the lackeys of the gang. As we said earlier, even weeks before the election, the fraud and theft has already started.

The prediction we made last week has now come out. Price Inflation in Ethiopia is now 51% from the period March 2007 to February 2008, which means that the great majority of our people will not be able to buy the essential and basic food and others to survive. The rulers knew this was going to be published sooner or later, so the official figure was published in an Amharic newspaper and is saying it is 21%, which of course is the usual lie. Everyone, who does some shopping, has noticed the sudden raise of food prices. Bread for instance has risen by over 35% only this month and is not enough available. Even the small dabo, once 0,10 only has reached 0.35 per pc. So have taxis, tomato, shiro, kerosene for cooking, vegetable oil, injera, wheat, just to mention a few. Unless drastic measures are taken, this will go on and drive the poor to hunger and despair. For the readers who try to refer to price inflation in other countries so it is common and should be acceptable, I want to point out that in our Country people cannot find any compensation by taking a second job or working extra in overtime against payment as our brothers and sisters can do abroad to receive some compensation or negotiate a salary increase through their free labour Unions. It ends indeed in giving our children less dabo/food.

Not a word on Ethiopian Television on how the ruling party and the opposition in Kenya have reached an agreement to share power. After May 2005, the TPLF/EPRDF had a chance to share responsibility with the victorious Ethiopian opposition, but instead, they started to declare the emergency position to have free hands to terrorize the opposition and its followers which is continuing up until today.
The Ethiopian Herald mentioned that the television channel and radio broadcasts are open for all political parties, but we all know that this is merely window dressing.

By the way, the article begins by defining the political system in Ethiopia being an infant democracy. What can we say about this? There is no democracy in Ethiopia with all the killings and harassments/intimidation of all political movements, that challenge the position of the rulers. The ones that have infantilized any chance of democracy are the current rulers . Calling Ethiopia an infant democracy is a disqualification of the policy executed for the last 17 years by the TPLF/EPRDF. It is saying that they have repressed any serious opposition by brute force which makes them tyrants and dictators.

Although we do not have the figures for the month of February yet, inflation in Ethiopia is in full gear now. It is starting to look like that the raise of the fuel costs has triggered the increase of the rest of the prices. Cooking oil, buna, bread and for instance tomato’s (7 birr per kilo). But also a bottle of local Guder has risen from 16 birr to 20 birr per bottle. My estimate is that we are going to have a 50% inflation/loss of purchase power for those who are not compensated and that is unfortunately almost everybody with possible exception of the paid slaves, if things do not radically change soon.

We can predict the reaction of the government on forehand. They will blame the merchants and the international oil prices now crossing the $100 mark per barrel for crude oil. The fact that their policy is the main factor for the current inflation is something they will and cannot admit. But the surtax and the war in Somalia and domestic security operations (read Human Rights abuses) are the engine behind the whole thing. You do not need to be a professor in Economy to understand that.
It is like pouring money down the drain. The World Bank and the IMF have warned the gang to get a grip on the inflation last year. The opposite is happening.

If I have understand it correctly, the former top staff of the Ethiopian Telecom has been charged with fraud and corruption, because they bought equipment from the Swedish firm Ericsson instead of from the Chinese favorites of the gang. Of the former CEO and 20 of his staff members, houses, cars and other possessions have been confiscated. You just wonder why the Supervising Board of Directors, who had the same information on what was going on, appears not to carry any responsibility. We can guess of the reasons.
The Ethiopian Telecom is now at the mercy of the Chinese ZTE who gave them a loan of billions of Birr. The results of it are becoming clearer every day. The internet is not functioning for days and the mobile phone net is interrupted more often then before.

Every country where the telecommunications is given to the free market, such problems won’t occur. But that could mean for the ruling elite, that they will lose control over what people read and write. And of course the revenues of the ZTE lubrication would not be available and you bet they are saving for when they have to leave the country, like their predecessor Mengistu Haile Mariam had to do.

We have confirmation. The gang is planning to become the start of a new dynasty in Ethiopia, which they probably are going to call a new democracy based on capacity building and democratic revolutionary principles. They have become very agile in using language and I suspect they have got special civil servants, who’s only job is to listen around for new fashionable idiom. We have noticed before, that the gang is actually functioning almost exactly like the royal palace in the Imperial times did. If you have the feeling that some ministry, or minister, or a party lackey did you wrong, there is always the way to the gang. The Crime Ministers Office, as it is called, can change any decision, be it from a high court judge or a custom officer.

We have seen it with the prisoners of conscience of the CUDP. Not a week after they were convicted of serious crimes, the gang decided that they were to set free. (Actually they were forced to do so by all of the western countries that keep Ethiopia financially afloat.) The Crime Ministers Office is where everything is coming from. State Ministers are merely executives and allegations of corruption are already in the desk in case they start having pretensions or show the first sign of disloyalty.

But all this is beside the point. The feudal and dynastical aspirations of the gang, under which democracy and elections play no role anymore, is up till now carefully hidden.
They have gathered enough wealth among a small group of people but always under the pretext other than a monarchy.

But last week I was at a Kebele restaurant and to my utter surprise the Dashen beer of Bereket ‘Goebbels’ Simon, alias Baghdad Bob, the only brewery that survives because of huge state support, is one birr more expensive than other drafts and is called Royal Draft.
Get it?

The ongoing devaluation of the Ethiopian Birr is moving rapidly now. From last year February up until now, we have reached the five percent. Last year you could get 8.84 Birr for one dollar; just today that is 9.26. It will put even more pressure on the prices and with that on the price inflation/loss of purchase power, which for most of the people during the last 12 calendar months reached 35% in January 2008. As all of us may know, that the devaluation of the Birr has nothing to do with the current economic situation. It is the result of a deal this government made with the IMF that gradually the Birr would get a more realistic value against foreign currency. Figures that were indicated at that time were 12 Birr for the Dollar. But with a price inflation of 35%, this realistic value may prove to be just as unrealistic as the value of the Birr is currently.

It is starting to look like, we are in a downward spiral and the economic failure of the gangs policy is growing bigger by the day. The money pit of the war in Somalia and the threat of a war with Eritrea will not make things any better. The rapid growth of the foreign flower growers and lately vegetable/fruit farmers, does not bring much solution. They make their profits with their foreign companies abroad and take care that their plc’s in Ethiopia can just pay the bills and other expenses. When they have to start to pay taxes after a four or five years tax holiday, they will take care that there will be hardly any profit to be taxed.

And the citizens of Ethiopia are feeling the pain directly. For as far as people had any purchasing power, they are loosing it, criminality is raising fast and the landowners from the north, as one minister called the Tigrayan beggars in Addis Ababa, have to share the generosity of the fortunate ones with many others. It is this arrogance and probably also ignorance, that is pushing us down and only a small group of carefully selected ones, who are called the “elites” or the privileged, are celebrating and making profits out of the misery of the masses.

The Oromo Federal Democratic Movement (OFDM) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) have issued a statement, in which they say, that the election process has already been rigged.

They speak about the harassment and imprisonments of their members and supporters.

Their offices in the country side are closed and 300% of additional “taxes” is being imposed on farmers, who are suspected of supporting the opposition parties and in addition no credit or other facilities. The registration of the voters is done in police stations and/or in residences of the ruling party members.

Actually there is nothing new and we already pointed at the fact, that without any doubt, the ruling party will “win” the elections, but has lost the respect and participation of the population. So any plan, be it a five year one or whatsoever, will fail because of the fact that it will be imposed upon the population. We also have to mention the fact that whenever a population is revolting against measures, they obviously will attack the ones that are the executives of this oppression. And then the gang will come with big words as genocide and refer to situations like in Rwanda and nowadays with the neighboring state Kenya.

It is because of the restraint of the Ethiopian opposition and their believe in a peaceful political process, that these situations have been avoided up until now. Nothing has really changed and the EPRDF=TPLF is again playing games, which have nothing to do with a democratic process. They rule by the barrel of the gun and an election is used to keep the opposition quiet and under control, in that sense, it is a practical instrument for the gang.

So after the elections, we will get the propaganda how the TPLF/EPRDF has regained the confidence of the population and how the democratic process is developing in Ethiopia.
Well the OFDM and the UEDF have made their point crystal clear. Without any drastic change the upcoming elections are unfair and rigged.

With the figures of consumer goods for the month January 2008 now available, the results of the fuel price rise is immediately visible. Compared with last month inflation has risen with 10 percent. Inflation in Ethiopia is now approximately 35% during the past 12 calender months. This means that not only the poor suffer, but that a part of the middle class is falling back to poverty and hardship too.
A friend of mine commented that this cannot continue without the growth of social unrest. It remains to be seen in what kind of shape this will occur, but tension is growing.

The economic policy of this government seems to be failing more grossly by the month. And the argument that the rural population is benefitting is just not true. It is the same myth as that the ruling gang is depending on the support of the farmers. They have no support anymore, if they ever had it. Probably we are going to have some cocky figures about the economic growth and bumper harvests, but the reality is of course that great amounts of people that could have a decent living, now drop into the poverty gap because of the loss of purchase power. The people of Ethiopia won’t see a penny of any growth if it excists.

Then the reality is that they have to stop the education of their children. They have to sent their youngsters to the Middle East states to get an income and risk abuse and humiliation. The prostitutes that were taken of the streets last week because of the African Union summit, will return with even more because it is their only chance to survive. They will ultimately die because of infectious diseases or aids and won’t have the money to receive a proper treatment.

This weekend the Abuna Petros, our “holy” womanizer gave a price to the biggest laughing stock of Ethiopia, President Wolde Georgis and to one of the biggest crooks Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, and in return the Abuna got a price from the government for cheating his way into the World Council of Churches. This is what we call ceremonial incest and the Ethiopian Television showed it to us at broad daylight.

The African Union is holding its annual summit and for three days Addis Ababa has changed into a fortress with many military and guns. They say the situation in Kenya will be on top of the agenda. Probably the ruling gang in Ethiopia will advise the Kenyans to use more force and repression to avoid that citizens take their right into their own hands. Of course we know, that the situation in Kenya and the one in Ethiopia are incomparable, so every hint will be pure nonsense, as is the African Union as an executive body. I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, is the mentality while human right abuses and shameless enrichment of the ruling class is normal practice in many African countries.

But I am sure that the illegitimate government of Ethiopia will do anything to use the presence of the African leaders. Maybe they will discover another Shabia conspiracy so they can imprison innocent followers of the opposition without having to answer difficult questions. Or Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, crime minister of Ethiopia and descendant of a traitorous family, will portrait himself the world leader he imagines he is. The reality is of course that after the ending of the cold war, many African leaders like him have failed to bring the new African renaissance. They have not risen above the standard medieval chieftains, and no tailored suit or fancy protocol can change that.

Just like the TPLF/EPRDF are certainly using this gathering, they have been stealing lot’s of religious and cultural festivals from the Ethiopian people. With Genna, Meskal and Timkat, the TPLF/EPRDF leaders that are appointed or those that have stolen their position, appear to bring their political message, while the worshippers gathered came to pray and socialize and want nothing to do with the oppressors that are ruining our country. At the Waaqa Festival in Debre Zeit, the political leaders present were made crystal clear, that they had no place at this holy Oromo gathering. It seems respect and wisdom are qualities that the current political elite is not blessed with.

On Saturday, as predicted just a week ago, oil prices in Ethiopia have been increased substantially by more than 10%. And of course immediately taxi prices followed. For a moment it looked like the taxi drivers, just as about two years ago, were going on strike, but it proved difficult to find unity and the repression is still immense, so yet another time everyone swallowed and the grieve is building up once more.
And although the ruling class is saying that they will do anything, to prevent that the poor will become the victims,… kerosene, the most used cooking fuel for the underprivileged has risen too. This will increase the feelings of desperation.

It seems that Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi had repeated, that the western world cannot impose democracy in Africa. This is a popular item of him, but completely missing the point. The issue is not that the western countries want to impose democracy. Some western diplomats are bringing the point that the current illegitimate regime of Ethiopia did not only steal its majority in the representing bodies, but in addition are misusing their power.
They impose their model of Marxist Leninists ideas to people, who are yearning for freedom. They are imposing ethnical centralistic policies upon all Ethiopians. They have silenced the free press and kidnapped and stolen property that did not belong to them. They violate human rights on a massive scale and they are the destabilizing force in the Horn of Africa. Clear evidence can be traced in the various concentration camps all over the country including the Tigray, Oromo, Amhara and Somali regions. Then we did not refer yet to the “rendition” camps out of sight and so out of right.

If there is some imposing being done it is the Eritrean clan, most are half-castes, within the TPLF, that have stolen about anything they think is theirs now. Moreover they tell us, that they better know what is good for the Eritrean than the people over there. What an arrogance! They have even stolen the pride of the Tigreyans. It is easy and cheap to point the finger at someone else, if you have to hide your own mistakes and cheating. That is what this interview is all about and nothing else.

With the kerosene being impossible to buy for the poor, we will see an increase in the use and price of charcoal (not much will be left over of the remaining forests) and firewood/leaves being transferred by girls and old woman from the woods surrounding Addis Ababa. Many of us remember seeing this degrading and backbreaking labor. This is what the EPRDF is doing to the people. No rhetoric of the gang about the west will change anything to that. Shame on them.

A spokesperson of the Ethiopian government, Ato Zemedkun Tekle, has said that the government has no agenda of jamming radio stations and dismissed the accusation as baseless adding that the said stations (Voice of America and the Deutsche Welle) may experience technical problems. Probably these technical problems are from the same source as for instance Nazret.com is having or any other blogspot site on the Ethiopian internet. It shows the narrow-mindedness of the ruling gang. And it also shows that whatever they produce with their propaganda machine, it most of the time is pure nonsense. International radio stations that broadcast in Amharic and/or Oromiffa are jammed and websites that publish critically about Ethiopian politics are blocked.

As we reported earlier, the Ethiopian citizens are not enthusiastic about the upcoming Kebele and subcity/Worede elections. You wonder why? It is now published that the voter registration is by far not reaching the amount of 2005. That is what happens if the results of the peoples wish is not respected and votes are rigged.

It seems that Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, Crime Minister of Ethiopia has told the parliamentary commission that came from the Netherlands, that the opposition in 2005 were people that had committed human rights abuses and torture, while he was fighting the Dergue before 1991. It is these kind of lies and accusations that are totally baseless and evil. If it was like that, why these people have not been prosecuted because of that, you wonder. No they were prosecuted because of other made up accusations. The other thing is that the Wladimir Illich impersonator was leading a comfortable life in Mogadishu, while his comrades were fighting the Dergue (and sometimes their own stock organized under TLF and others) and the Somali leaders of that time were invading and occupying up to about 33% of our Country’s territory.

I learned from various friends from Tigray, that again a campaign is going on to liquidate the possible effects the operation of the latest established party “Arena” will have on the docility of followers of the Tigray-Eritrean mafia dictating the Country. The previous indoctrination was in 2001/2002 immediately after so many youngsters were sacrificed due the Mismanagement of that same Maffia and in particular the two Cousins, which was very much appreciated by most of the Tigrayan population. So when the pressure was over an indoctrination was started to play down the sacrifice of their countrymen and women and socially separate themselves from the forces still left over, because they had “evil” intentions. But the Tigrayan mothers who were preparing the food and talla for our soldiers during that evil war, could never be convinced but indeed they were silenced.

We reported that it is difficult to get cylinders with gas to cook on. This weekend we came to know that, there is a shortage too in kerosene supply. What the reason for this shortage is, remains to be guessed. It seems that the Crime Minister has noticed, that the government in Ethiopia is running out of foreign currency/credits and cannot afford to remain in Somalia much longer. Most of the time this kind of remarks have to put the begging machine in full swing. Just one year ago, the language was about crushing the “terrorists” within two weeks and peace efforts as a contribution to the development of the whole Horn of Africa. Now it is starting to look like that the poor and needy in Ethiopia are paying the bill.

And still other African countries are not prepared to take over. Rwanda and Nigeria are sending some, but this is just window dressing. They rather do not want to be involved in the human rights abuses that the TFG-Somalis under command of the TPLF-Ethiopians are committing over there. The Ugandans too are remaining in their barracks and avoid becoming involved.

So Ethiopia is facing an energy crisis, because valuable resources are wasted in a senseless occupation and repression of our neighbor Somalia. And as usual the international community is requested to solve the problem. Not one moment they even consider that they- the TPLF and Affiliates- have caused this problem in the first place. But what is new?

The national interest of Ethiopia has never been on top of the agenda of this regime. And even just a few months ago, Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, crime minister of Ethiopia and scion of a traitorous family
( this complete different to the patriotic ancestors of Seye Abraha, a personality quite respected by me, in spite of all the mistakes/blunders he made and admitted, as my readers will remember )
dared to defend the fact that our country became landlocked when Eritrea became “independent”. This while negotiators of our northern neighbors were willing to give our Country the port of Aseb and a sufficient safe corridor to it.

Btw, the harder the illegitimate rulers of Ethiopia are shouting and insulting, just as the illegitimate rulers up north, the more they are hiding their own failures.

The good news is that finally a decree was issued by the Minister of Trade & Industry to force the distribution Companies of oil to make available blended fuel. (Mixed with ethanol from the sugarfactories). It always amazed me why this mix was not introduced at the time of the coming up stream of the Finchaa sugar factory. The technology and advantages together with some possible risks were all known for which we refer to the Brazilian and Indian know how all available even on the internet when it works.

File Photo: Andrew Heavens

Broadband internet in Ethiopia?

The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, together with the Chinese ZTE, is going to introduce broadband internet through the cell phone network. 2 megabyte per second is what they are aiming at. Momentarily they are studying what price they should ask the customer. If this was real, we would make a huge step forward. Internet in Ethiopia is notorious for its slowness and by times it is impossible to even fetch mail or send it.

The ETC sold its soul to the Chinese, against the strong advice of its senior engineers. It was a political decision to accept a multi million loan and by that have the telecom system in Ethiopia “Chinesefied”. We wonder to who/which offices commissions are paid?

For those who do not know it, if an Ethiopian asks a friend about the quality of a product, he or she asks: “Is it Chinese?” Africa is rapidly becoming the dumping ground of inferior products. ETC already had to depreciate a complete Chinese cell phone system, because it just did not work. I am not suggesting that the Chinese have no quality, but for that you have to pay the market price in convertible currency.

The promise of broadband has been done for a couple of years now and has never been materialized. Some institutions are paying thousands of Birr for a 24/7 flat rate connection, but have the same poor speed as every dial-in customer. People who know about these things inform me, that the connection to the backbone is just not fast enough.
So it is interesting to know where they will find the bandwidth to fuel the 2 Megabyte wireless broadband connections. Or will they sell something which just does not do what it is supposed to do, as usual.

And another thing is that opening the country for honest information might have consequences for the propaganda machine of the political elite. Disrupting the radio programs in Amharic and Oromo languages of the Voice of America and the Deutsche Welle shows the fearfulness of the tyrants that the truth might reach the population. Because people know I have got access to sources other than international radio and Ethiopian Television, many have asked me lately what the actual situation in Kenya is, ETV ignores the unrest there completely. If broadband is really introduced in Ethiopia, it will be priced that high that only a very small upper class can actually use it. All the rest is propaganda.

Note: I recommend to my readers to take notice of the well written blog available on the various websites by Fekade Shewakena under “Prison speaks Oromiffa”. I believe that all of us have to work with his suggestions and show solidarity with all suffering people from our Country. Time for internal bickering we can not afford anymore.

Ethiopia - About the 'booming economy' in Ethiopia

The inflation in Ethiopia over the year 2007, according to the list of items we keep updated since April 2006, is 24.5 percent. On the list are commodities every family uses. Just to mention a few things that have become more expensive in 2007: Seed (Cooking oil from 14 birr a liter to 25 birr), Kibe (Butter from 40 birr a kilo to 55), Berbere (from 28 birr a kilo to 75), Buna (Coffee from 23 Birr a kilo to 32).
We have mentioned the rent of houses before, which has gone up and the costs of a housemaid for instance. Things that are not on our list are the birra, draught beer and the local Guder wine, which has been raised in the restaurants and draft houses, and for those who do not drink alcohol, the laslassa (soft drinks) have been raised too.

As many readers may have noticed is that the value of the Birr towards the Dollar, the only currency which it is bound to, has risen from 8.78 to 9.20 from January 1st 2007 to the same date in 2008. This is a devaluation of the Birr of 4.8 percent. It means that imported articles like for instance study and other books, medicines, car fuel, kerosene, fertilizer and automobiles will get more expensive. The government cannot hold the centrally fixed prize for oil products much longer, when internationally a barrel of unprocessed oil is hitting the hundred dollars. The prize of a 12 kilo cylinder of cooking gas, which is a commodity that is regulated by the market, has risen from 112 to 157 Birr. That is for as far as it is available. The providers of cooking gas just do not have a stock anymore. Those exceptions who have, are limiting their sales to their regular customers.

A few months ago I passed a group of shops fabricated from containers and made available some years ago to tackle unemployment. The owners bought these places for 1500 birr and got a license to start a business. (Which BTW many were threatened to loose these outlets in November 2005, when either because of fear or because they supported the general strike closed their shop for a couple of days.) I noticed that most of them are closed. When I enquired why, they told me that the purchasing power of the public has become so low that it was impossible to keep running these shops, even not at break even point.

According to the Ethiopian Herald, the country is gearing up for the upcoming elections in Ethiopia.
This has not come to my attention at all, before I read the article. The current rulers have messed up the last elections in May-2005 so badly, that unless major changes in the system are made and guaranteed, no sane person will have any confidence in a free and fair conduct of any election in Ethiopia. And up until now no measures have been taken to change anything. After the release of the prisoners of conscience, immediately the intimidation and false rhetoric of the TPLF gang started again. This resulted to-day, due to a so called misunderstanding, in the arrest and release (rather shortly afterwards) of our heroine Wzt. ex Judge Bertukan Mideksa, Eng. Getachew Shiferaw and Lt.Alemayehu Yeneneh on their way back from the South, where they provided their supporters an update.

I do not remember who told me or where I read it, but the opinion is that the one, who will count the votes, determines the results of any election, well at least in African countries. We still remember how Ana Gomez was treated, when she gave her opinion about the results of the May-2005 elections. So not a lot of people are gearing up for the election and the lines in front of the polling stations will be considerable more short than two and a half years ago.

You might reason that this way, it will be an easy task for the ruling parties to claim victory, but this is a very shortsighted way to evaluate this situation. Without the real support of the population, every positive change in our Country is doomed to fail. All the potential for growth, development and democracy can only be explored, if the citizens will know that they will be part of the process. We have argued this before. And because of the repression and the economic failure of the current rulers, more and more are left out. They might be gearing up for their next cheat, we are certainly not.

File photo: ETV's Ethiopian Idol

The Ethiopian Television Corporation, which actually is an executive organ of the gang, had during the last year changed its programs drastically. Not that I am a frequent watcher of it but, whenever I switch over, most of the time it is a celebration of the different peoples that inhabit Ethiopia. You might get the impression that farmers and the rest of the rural population have plenty of time to sing and dance. There is a cultural upstanding going on in Ethiopia which is unprecedented, if you believe the propaganda machine of the gang.

What they don’t show is the repression that is flagellating the population. The fact that the news about the unrest in Kenya is kept away from the Ethiopian television screens shows, how uncertain they really are about what is in the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian peoples. The exhibition of the cultural outings of the different Ethiopian peoples and nationalities is a simple and cheap way of hiding the failing policy of the rulers and the yearning for freedom and democracy of the people.

It is a new attempt of trying to create an atmosphere that everything is back to normal.
The amount of soldiers in the streets has drastically decreased, but instead of soldiers, the traffic police occurrences has more than doubled. And they have taken the time to infiltrate this force with loyal spies and officers from the secret service and tplf cadres.
Their real problem of course is that the Ethiopian people cannot be fooled anymore.
There is only one way that this government can stay in power and that is by violence and repression. If they only allow a tiny bit of political freedom, they know that they will be confronted with a majority of people that has had enough of them, with or without the dancing and singing.

Road leading from Urael to Bole Medhani Alem (Photo newskyliner)

Ethiopia - Some observations and thoughts from Ethiopia

So for a while they had the illusion that Urael had been silenced. Well I am not going to write about my private life, but neither the street dogs nor the illegitimate rulers of Ethiopia had anything to do with the interruption of the publishing of my thoughts and observations from Ethiopia. Neither the still very bad internet access could be blamed. The ferenji end of their Year and Ethiopian Genna might have had some influence, but the most important thing is that I am back. So the hired commentators won’t have to be afraid that they would become jobless: the gang and its servitudes, the asra ants and other surrounding opportunists can start shivering again.
The secret service can stop interrogating the prisoners they took the last two weeks, because I am not among them.

To my utter surprise Yemiru Nega, who is trying to prevent the foreclosure of his Dembel Building by the Development Bank of Ethiopia, is one of the major share holders of the newly formed Oromia International Bank. It shows how the National Bank of Ethiopia is not really checking the solvability of the banks. It is still just an instrument to theft and favoritism by the ruling gang. Money which is earmarked to develop agricultural projects, is actually used to form legalized theft machines. All Banks should report to all their shareholders in a transparent way and at regular intervals, the amount of “loans” they provided to their shareholders and the names of them. I know that with quite a number, the intention to become a shareholder of a Bank is to get an easy way to receive loans without having to abide by the same rules as the other clients. Also here it is my firm believe that all of us are equal to the law and the Rules and Procedures of the Banks too.

The unrest after the election/the first count in Kenya, which looks partly similar to that what happened in Ethiopia more than two years ago, is not a newsworthy item according to the Ethiopian television. While every major news agency was putting it on top of other stories, everything that is happening to our southern neighbors is kept away from the Ethiopian public. It is announced that Legesse ‘the name thief’ Zenawi, Crime Minister of Ethiopia has offered to mediate between the rulers and the opposition of Kenya, just like he offered to bring peacekeepers to Darfur. This while he made Ethiopia into a dictatorship and Somalia and the Ogaden into a new Darfur. But we already knew that he had no shame.