November 1st A day of sorrow; a day of solidarity; a day of renewed commitment
Kinijit press release
Ethiopians all over the world are planning to join hands to commemorate the first anniversary of the November 1 2005 mass murder and imprisonment. This is one of the darkest days in the history of the Ethiopian People. We recall the sequence of events that dragged the people of Ethiopia into the abyss.
The government of Meles Zenawi called a general election on May 15 2005 with absolute certainty that it will win. It never expected to lose to the opposition. Contrary to the expectation of the incumbent and its foreign backers the opposition won. The Party of Meles Zenawi was not prepared to leave office. It put the civilian and military bureaucracy at its disposal on an overdrive and began conducting massive electoral fraud. The people of Ethiopia and the leaders of opposition parties stood firm and demanded that the votes be counted. Meles Zenawi arrogantly spurned all civil and peaceful means of solving the electoral dispute. The choice that the government of Meles Zenawi left to the Ethiopian people was to live under slavery.(More...)
Commentary on recent news events [Amharic, satire]
(More...)Open letter to Dr Mekonnen Disasa
Mekonen Disasa (seen here) is the newly appointed head of the “teletafi” inquiry board. Ato Mekonen said on his report “the measures taken by security forces (in the June and November killings) were appropriate when they were seen in light of a budding democracy”. Ato Mekonen dissasa and the few remaining members of the “teletafi” inquiry commission, like Judas, betrayed those killed and maimed, in return for a few pieces of silver.
(by Tsegaye Hagos via AddisVoice)
I have been shocked to hear about the altered version of the inquiry commission’s report which justified the massacre of defenceless citizens including children. Thanks to Judge Wolde-Michael Meshesha, we know the real findings and conclusions of the inquiry commission whose honest members have faced intimidation and threats. People may flee their country but the truth remains where it is.Having said that, I would like to say what I know about you, Dr Mekonnen Disasa, who appeared in front of reporters, as Acting Chair of a defunct commission, to lie on behalf of the tyrannical regime. That wasn’t unexpected from a political turncoat who was once a devout Derg cadre. When I worked as a lecturer at Addis Ababa University for nearly two decades, one of those frustrated ‘academics’ and enemies of academic freedom, who changed colours like a good chameleon, as time changes, was yourself. (More...)
Also read:
-Ethiopian security forces massacred protesters: Associated Press
-Judge: Ethiopian forces killed 193 unarmed protesters: CNN
-Ethiopian protesters 'massacred': BBC
Lucy' tour gets no love from two U.S. museums
Rick Potts, the director of the Smithsonian's Human Origins Program and a paleoanthropologist, said he and many other scientists agree that Lucy is too fragile to travel. He said the Ethiopian artifacts would not come to the Smithsonian.
A spokesman for the American Museum of Natural History in New York also said that the museum would not accept the 3.2-million-year-old fossilized remains.(More...)
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