Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc for Peace and Prosperity- www.globalbelai4u.blogspot.com
Dear Patriotic Global Citizens, Friends of African Union and Greater Ethiopia Without Borders
Re: Fixing the Wall Street Speculators and Toxic Asset Managers (IV League MBAs) , who are sinking the Global Economy and Global Ecology to the detriment of our collective security, good governance and prosperity for our future global generation.
I am so fed up with the notion of lets us take our country back mantra! and stop flushing down the future of our children! only when it impacts the interests of the Wall Street parents who do not pay taxes nor respect any global financial regulations! Oh ! yes they can create and pay for the TEA party who then write the script for all politicians who will allow Wall Street to continue to sink the economy!
I read with interest the following article about Ethiopia and Global support to its 85 million people, that I believe is misguided at best and dangerous at worst. Just imagine when you have a big elephant called "Wall Street Speculators" that is sinking the global economy in trillions ; and we have these fools at Human Rights and Genocide Watch worried about some minuscule amount spent to assist the survival of 85 million people victims of the Global Climate Change due to unregulated pollution of both ecological and economic toxic assets for the past 100 years by the so called advanced or industrialized nations is highly sensational if not criminal.
Why not take the courage and blame Ethiopia and Africans for Sinking the Global Economy and Ecology instead? Three ($3 ) Billions that we spend on 85 Millions is nothing compared to the Trillions we sink every day! Then, the trillions we spent on the US and EU economy, the $10 Billion annually on Israel and $4 Billion on Egypt without transparency and accountability protocol is even more funny.
So let us do qualitative and quantitative evaluation of this article.
Qualitative analysis: Maintaining the interests and wellbeing of 7 Billion People. Value for money, Vision, Mission, Goals: Sustainable Development and collective prosperity and Good Governance.
By all stretch of imagination, the article does not promote the global security, good governance and the Global 7 Billion stakeholder's prosperity. By the way, who are these 7 Billion people? Do they really count? Are they represented by any institution? The UN, G20, IMF and World Bank? Oh! No, they just do not count. Only when we want to call them barbaric and genocidal like the recent Genocide Watch Dog and Wall Street Human Right Watch group?
What we see William Easterly trying to do is just an attempt to blame a poor set of 85 million people who are victims of 100 years of polluting industrialization, that have been victims for the past 40 years. Who is calling Barbarians whom is the real question.
The last time we read the word Barbarians was in the Book "Race to Fashoda"; by David Levering Lewis a Pulitzer Prize-winning Author of WEB Du Bois Biography of a Race, 1868-1919; the account of European Colonialism and African Resistance; where the Abyssinian (present day Ethiopians) were referred to as Barbarians; by the then Roman PM Crispi, when he planned to invade Ethiopia and was summarily defeated by Emperor Menilik of Ethiopia in 1896, just years after the Berlin Conference of 1855 that initiated the African Genocide!
The second time this heinous word was used, is some 40 years later in 1935, when the Fascist Mussolini had the Catholic Pope by his side, and declared war on Ethiopia, which he called a war against a barbaric nation, he wanted to assist into civilization after decimating them with a "Poison Gas" that was outlawed by the League of Nations. The Catholic Pope, who perhaps did not know God nor any form of Divinity, blessed the criminal troops. The blessing was so successful that Roman women threw their wedding rings into a basket to support this genocidal Barbaric effort, where Illegal Poison Gas was used to be sprayed on Ethiopians (the plant, animals and humans). To date these criminals have not paid for this genocide and the DC 14th Street Holocaust Museum does not include Ethiopian Patriots of the Second World War. Now the European Union is encouraging another set of Genocidal group, that are claiming and promoting the new story of barbarism in 2010.
Since then, Ethiopia has participated on both the League of Nations and United Nations and has sent its patriotic citizens to assist the Allied Powers of Second World War, the Korean War, the Congo War and more recently the series of African Wars (Biafra, Nigeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Darfur, etc along side the Allied forces.
When the Allied forces built the homes of their enemies in Europe and Asia (Germany and Japan) with the Marshal Plan, Ethiopia which was an ally was never built back and was left to fend for itself.
Now, in 2010, in Washington DC., a certain American of Genocide Watch declares that Ethiopia is a barbaric nation and the West should undertake another set of genocide like it did in 1896 and 1935 by calling Ethiopians Barbarians.
Here comes the Human Rights Watch Goons that cannot differentiate the basic elements of human rights as defined : Marlow's Hierarchies of Need: Food, Cloth and Shelter; and the ability of citizens to insult their assumed opponents as barbaric and genociders like this Genocide Watcher declares and the recent EU report on the 2005 elections.
Some where some thing is amis, when the New York based publisher puts up such an article.
For the record: The US is being bailed out with Trillions of Dollars, Greece with $30 Billion, Ireland with$30 Billion, Israel with $10 Billion Per year and Egypt with $4 Billion per year and no one seems to be bothered what is happening to these nations and their track record in good governance.
The Ethiopian people have governed themselves for over 7,500 years with Divine+Human Constitutions referred to as the Glory of Kings (Kibre Negest) and Justice of Kings (Fitha Negest), etc and is the only independent nation that has never been colonized regardless of the Catholic Pope Blessings of the 1935 Genocide on its people.
Surely, with such impressive MDG records, and accelerated economic growth, Ethiopia needs all the friends it can get be it the West and East, the current pittance of $3 Billion need to be raised to $3 Trillion and hopefully the Chinese and the US can lead on such effort.
Please leave Ethiopia alone and worry about the Wall Street Toxic Assets and Corruption of the worst kind in the universe that is the real cause of the global Economic Crisis and Economic Crisis.
Let us focus on investing in Ethiopia and stop these foolishness of Genocide and Barbarism, that has nothing to do with Ethiopia but Europe of the past 100 years as the latest book of Civilization and Barbarism of Bernard Wasserstein ISBN 13: 9780198730743; Oxford University Presss testifies.
All the same please read below and share your perspective
The Lion of Judah Prevails (Rev:5:5; Gen 49; I Kings 10)
Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
www.SolomonicCrown.org
www.globalbelai4u.blogspot.com
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Ethiopia is best model in cultural tolerance, peaceful coexistence: Ministry |  |  |  |
Friday, 12 November 2010 | |
 Addis Ababa, November 12 (WIC) –The Ministry of Federal Affairs said that Ethiopia can be a best model for the rest of the world in promoting cultural tolerance and peaceful coexistence.Federal Affairs Minister, Dr. Shiferaw Tekelemariam, said that the rest of the world can learn a lot from Ethiopia’s experience of intercultural and interreligious peaceful coexistence. Dr. Shiferaw was speaking at a seminar on “Religious Tolerance, Traditional Conflict Resolution, and Federalism: Contribution of Ethiopia to the Alliance of Civilizations” which was opened yesterday at the UN Conference Center. He said Ethiopia is a composite of more than 80 ethnic groups with various religions and a land where different religions have been living side by side in harmony for centuries. Speaker of the House of Federation (HoF), Kassa Tekleberhan, on his part said that Ethiopia is a home of 80 million multi-cultural people living peacefully. The seminar would help share experience of Inter-ethnic stability, which is outstanding in Ethiopia. Special Advisor of the Prime Minister with the Rank of a Minister, Dr.Fasil Nahom, on his part said Ethiopia is known as an ancient common home of Indaism, Christianity and Islam that have lived together in harmony and tolerance for a prolonged period. He said Ethiopia considers the alliances of civilizations as the most important global initiatives of our time and fully supports its objectives. According to the advisor, durable peace and prosperity can be secured only through a continuous process of dialogue among different views and interests which Ethiopia understands and advocates well. President of Justice for All and Prison Fellowship Ethiopia, Pastor Daniel Gebreselassie said, “The people of Ethiopia has been denouncing local and foreign extremists who do want to destabilize peace so far with one voice and this is a clear indication of their peace loving culture and we will continue to spread to the world.” Ambassador Xavier Marchal, Head of the Delegation of the European Union, said the EU is keen to support Ethiopian efforts to build a balanced society which respects the individual with his specificities. Spanish Ambassador to Ethiopia, Antonio Sanchez-Benedito Gaspak said that Ethiopia is a country with so many communities, both cultural and religious, that constitutes a successful model of living together. He added such a commendable model is necessarily meant to become an example of coexistence for the rest of the world, and very especially for a region like the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia joined the alliance of civilizations in November 2008 and has participated in various meeting. The Alliance of Civilization (AoC) was established in 2005, at the initiative of the Governments of Spain and Turkey, under the auspices of the United Nations. It has 127 member states, including Ethiopia. | |
Last Updated ( Saturday, 13 November 2010 ) |
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Why Are We Supporting Repression in Ethiopia?
William Easterly and Laura Freschi
Mike Goldwater/Getty Images
Farmer Makaba Wasu planting a grain crop. He lost part of his one hectare field due to river erosion. Jaffa Village, Wolayita Zone, Ethiopia, August 19, 2008
Foreign aid observers have often worried that Western aid to Africa is propping up autocratic regimes. Yet seldom has such a direct link from aid to political repression been demonstrated as in “Development without Freedom,” anextensively documented new report on Ethiopia by Human Rights Watch. Based on interviews with 200 people in 53 villages and cities throughout the country, the report concludes that the Ethiopian government, headed by prime minister Meles Zenawi, uses aid as a political weapon to discriminate against non-party members and punish dissenters, sending the population the draconian message that “survival depends on political loyalty to the state and the ruling party.”
Ethiopia is Africa’s largest recipient of foreign aid (at $3.3 billion in 2008 and rising), and is frequently described as a country where western assistance is providing a safety net for the poor and laying the groundwork for country-wide economic growth. Donors working in Ethiopia, citing progress on six out of the eight Millennium Development Goals, claim that aid has “had a significant impact on improving the lives of the poorest families.” A predominantly Christian country bordering two unstable Islamic states (Somalia, and Sudan), Ethiopia is also seen as a crucial ally in the “war on terror.”
Yet Human Rights Watch contends that the government abuses aid funds for political purposes—in programs intended to help Ethiopia’s most poor and vulnerable. For example, more than fifty farmers in three different regions said that village leaders withheld government-provided seeds and fertilizer, and even micro-loans because they didn’t belong to the ruling party; some were asked to renounce their views and join the party to receive assistance. Investigating one program that gives food and cash in exchange for work on public projects, the report documents farmers who have never been paid for their work and entire families who have been barred from participating because they were thought to belong to the opposition. Still more chilling, local officials have been denying emergency food aid to women, children, and the elderly as punishment for refusing to join the party.
Nor should any of this come as a surprise. Meles has for many years managed to charm and win the trust of Western leaders even as his government becomes increasingly repressive. As Helen Epstein recently reported in the New York Review, “countless journalists, editors, judges, academics, and human rights defenders have fled the country or languish behind bars, at risk of torture. New laws passed in 2005 have made political activity more difficult than ever.”
Indeed, many aid officials interviewed in the Human Rights Watch report admit that they were aware of these abuses. As one western donor official said, “Every tool at [the government’s] disposal—fertilizer, loans, safety net—is being used to crush the opposition. We know this.” Yet the umbrella group representing 26 donors in Ethiopia (the Donors Assistance Group, or DAG), suggests that aid agencies intend to continue more or less with business as usual. Their overall response has been to reject the conclusions of the Human Rights Watch report, noting that, in their own research, they have not found “any evidence of systematic or widespread distortion.”
A study of aid recipients over the past three decades shows that the failure of western aid donors to separate themselves from autocratic rulers is not confined to Ethiopia—or even to Africa. In fact, despite growing awareness in the aid community of how foreign development support has sustained anti-democratic regimes, little has changed: dictators continue to receive a third of all international aid expenditures, and much of the remaining portion goes to countries that are only “partly free.”
One reason for this inertia is a genuine concern for the poor, hungry and sick who might suffer or die if the government stopped providing vital social services as a result of aid cuts. Another, less sympathetic, reason is that aid agencies literally exist to give aid; organizational incentives push aid bureaucrats to keep the money flowing, to keep their field offices open, and secure their own jobs.
In the case of Ethiopia, a violent government crackdown on the opposition that left 200 dead in 2005 embarrassed the donor community into an unusually frank reconsideration of their strategy. Until that point, many donors had been giving aid through the mechanism known as “direct budget support,” in which money goes directly into the federal government’s budget (as opposed to, say, going to specific projects to improve public services). Seemingly alarmed by the Ethiopian government’s repressive turn, the World Bank in 2006 resolved to “move away” from this system by channeling aid through local government instead, in order to protect its funding from “political capture.” It also said it would decrease aid to Ethiopia if governance did not improve.
But these threats have proved empty. Even before the Human Rights Watch report came out, observers had pointed out how hollow the World Bank’s move was, since local governments are also under control of the ruling party. And now, donors have been reversing even this feeble step, arguing for a quick return to direct budget support. The donors cite illusory “progress in long-term institution-building and gradual improvements in governance.”
This blatant indifference to democratic values is particularly tragic since there are many ways the aid community might help Ethiopians rather than their rulers. First and foremost, donors could insist that investigations into aid abuse be credible, independent and free from government interference, and then cut off support to programs they find are being used as weapons against the opposition. They could speak out forcefully against recent legislation that smothers Ethiopian civil society. They could also seek to bypass the government altogether, channeling funds through NGOs instead, or giving direct transfers or scholarships to individuals.
As a last resort, if the government prevents all attempts by donors to reach beneficiaries, then aid to Ethiopia could be suspended altogether. An aid cutoff under these circumstances does not hurt the intended beneficiaries if aid was not reaching them in the first place. Above all, though, donors must recognize that the current status quo is unacceptable. For not only is foreign aid to Ethiopia not improving the lives of those most in need, by financing their oppressors, it is making them worse.
November 15, 2010 11:20 a.m.
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