Hearing On the Human Rights Dilemmas in Ethiopia

November 17, 2014

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission – Hearing On the Human Rights Dilemmas in Ethiopia – Testimony of Felix Horne, Researcher, Africa Division

Press Release

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak today about the human rights situation in Ethiopia.

The other panelists have articulated some of the critical issues that are facing Ethiopia ahead of the May 2015 elections. I would like to elaborate on human rights concerns associated with Ethiopia’s many development challenges.

Ethiopia is the one of the largest recipients of development assistance in the world, including more than $800 million in 2014 from the US government. Many of Ethiopia’s 94 million people live in extreme poverty, and poverty reduction is rightly one of both the US and Ethiopian government’s core goals. Improving economic and human development is fundamental to ensuring that Ethiopians are able to enjoy their rights to health care, education, shelter, food and water, and Ethiopia’s government, civil society, international donors and private investors all have important roles contributing to the realization of these rights.

But sustainable development also requires a commitment to the full range of human rights, not just higher incomes, access to education and health care, but the ability for people to express their views freely, participate in public policy decision-making, join associations of their choice, have recourse to a fair and accessible justice system, and live free of abuse and discrimination.

Moreover, development that is not rooted in respect for human rights can be counter-productive, associated with abusive practices and further impoverishment of people already living in situations of extreme poverty. In Ethiopia, over the past few years Human Rights Watch has documented disturbing cases where international donors providing development assistance are turning a blind eye to government practices that fail to respect the rights of all beneficiaries. Instead of improving life in local communities, these projects are proving harmful to them. And given the repression of independent voices, media and associations, there are no realistic mechanisms for many local communities to express their views to their government. Instead, those who object or critique the government’s approach to development projects face the prospect of intimidation, harassment and even serious abuse.

In 2011 in Ethiopia’s western region, Gambella, Human Rights Watch documented such abuses during the implementation of the first year of the government’s “villagization” program. Gambella is a region populated by indigenous groups who have suffered from political marginalization and lack of development for decades. In theory the villagization program aimed to address some of these concerns. This program required all indigenous households in the region to move from their widely separated homes into larger villages – ostensibly to provide improved basic services including much-needed schools, health clinics and roads.

I was in Gambella for several weeks in 2011 and travelled to 16 different villages in five different districts. I met with people who had not yet moved from their homes and others who had been resettled. I interviewed dozens of people who said they did not wish to move but were forced by the government, by police, and by Ethiopia’s army if necessary. People described widespread human rights violations, including forced displacement, arbitrary arrest and detention, beatings, and rape and other sexual violence. Thousands of villagers fled into neighboring countries where they became refugees. At the same time, in the new villages, many of the promised services were not available and the food security situation was dire.

The villagization program has also been implemented in other marginalized regions in Ethiopia. These regions are the same areas where government is leasing large pieces of land to foreign investors, often from India, China and the Gulf states, without meaningful consultation with local communities, without any compensation being paid to local communities, and with no benefits for local communities other than low-paying labor jobs on the plantations.

In the Omo valley in southern Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch found that the combination of sugar and cotton plantations and hydroelectric development is causing the displacement of up to 200,000 indigenous people from their lands. Massive amounts of water are being used for these projects which will have devastating impacts for Lake Turkana across the border in Kenya and the 300,000 indigenous people who live in the vicinity of the lake and depend upon it. The displacement of communities in the Omo valley is well underway. As in Gambella, communities in the Omo valley told Human Rights Watch about coercion, beatings, arrests and threats from military and police to force people to move to new settlements.

Human Rights Watch also found politically motivated abuse in development programs. In 2010, we documented discrimination and “political capture” in the distribution of the benefits of development programs especially prior to the 2010 elections. Opposition party supporters and others who did not support the ruling party were denied access to some of resources provided by donor-funded programs, including food aid, micro credit, seeds, fertilizers, and other critical agricultural inputs needed for food security, and even employment opportunities. Schools, funded as part of education programs by the US and other development partners, were used to indoctrinate school children in ruling party ideology and teachers were required to report youth perceived to support the opposition to the local authorities. These government practices, many of which continue today, show the intense pressure put on Ethiopian citizens to support the ruling party, and the way in which development aid is manipulated to discriminate against certain communities.

All of these cases have several common features. First, the Ethiopian government routinely denies the allegations without investigation, claiming they are politically motivated, while simultaneously restricting access for independent media and investigators. Second, these programs are directly and indirectly funded by Western donors, who seem unwilling to acknowledge, much less address human rights concerns in Ethiopia.

Monitoring and evaluation of these programs for human rights abuses is inadequate. Even when donors carry out assessments to look into the allegations, as has happened in Gambella, they are not conducted rigorously and do not ensure victims of abuses can speak freely and safely. In the current environment in Ethiopia, it is essential for anyone seeking to investigate human rights violations to go to locations where victims can speak openly, to understand the dynamics of the local communities, and recognize the depths of the fear they are experiencing.

All of these problems are exacerbated by the ongoing government crackdown on the media and civil society. The independent press has been ravaged since the 2010 election, with the vast majority of journalists terrified to report anything that is remotely critical of the government. In October I was in a country neighboring Ethiopia where over 30 journalists have fled in the past few months alone. I spoke to many of them: their papers were closed, their families were threatened, and many had been charged under repressive laws merely because they criticized and questioned the Ethiopian government’s policies on development and other issues. I spoke with someone who was forced to seek asylum abroad because he had questioned in writing whether the development of Africa’s largest dam on the Nile River was the best use of money in a country where poverty is pervasive.

As for Ethiopian civil society, it has been decimated by another law, the Charities and Societies Proclamation. It has made obtaining foreign funding nearly impossible for groups working on human rights, good governance, and advocacy. Leading members of the human rights movement have been forced to flee abroad.

Some people take to the streets to peacefully protest. Throughout 2014 there were various protests throughout Ethiopia. In many of these protests, including during the student protests in the Oromia region in April and May of this year, the security forces used excessive force, including the use of live ammunition against the students. We don’t even know how many Oromo students are still detained because the government publicizes no information, there is no comprehensive human rights monitoring and reporting, and family members are terrified of reporting the cases. Members of the Muslim community who organized protests in 2012 against what they saw as government interference in religious affairs have also paid an enormous price for those demonstrations, with many beaten or arrested and most of the protest organizers now imprisoned on terrorism charges.

Finally, bringing about change through the ballot box is not really an option. Given that 99.6 percent of the parliamentary seats in the 2010 election went to the ruling party and that the political space has shrunk dramatically since then, there is little in the way of a viable opposition that can raise questions about government policy, including development plans, or other sensitive topics.

This situation leaves Ethiopians no real means to express concerns over the policies and development strategies imposed by the government. They either accept it, they face threats and imprisonment for speaking out, or they flee their country as thousands have done. The refugee communities in countries neighboring Ethiopia are full of individuals who have tried to raise concerns in all of these ways, and are now in exile.

To conclude, we all recognize that Ethiopia needs and requires development. The problem is how development is being undertaken. Development projects need to respect the rights of the local communities and improve their quality of life, regardless of ethnicity or political perspective. The United States and Ethiopia’s other major partners can and should play a leading role in supporting sustainable, rights-respecting development. The US should not accept arguments that protecting human rights is in contradiction to development goals and implementation.

In 2014, the appropriations bill required the US to scrutinize and suspend funding for development programs in Ethiopia that might contribute to forced evictions in Ethiopia, including in Gambella and Omo. This was an important signal that the abuses taking place were unacceptable, and this should be maintained in the upcoming FY15 appropriations bill, whether it is a stand-alone bill or a continuing resolution.

As one of Ethiopia’s key partners and supporters of Ethiopia’s development, the US needs to do more to ensure it is rigorously monitoring and consistently responding to human rights abuses in Ethiopia, both bilaterally and multilaterally. The US should be pressing the Ethiopian government to ensure that there is genuine consultation on development initiatives with affected communities, that more robust monitoring is put in place to monitor for potential abuses within programs, and that independent civil society, both domestic and foreign, are able to monitor and report on rights abuses. Respect for human rights is first and foremost a concern of all Ethiopians, but it is also central to all US interests in Ethiopia, from security to good governance to sustainable development.

The Ethiopian army is crucial for change in Ethiopia

November 6, 2014

by Tedla Asfaw

I just finished reading Dr. Aklog Birara’s recent piece posted here. It is also posted on many websites worth reading it.

I agree with his opinion of the “opposition” in being fragmented and thus hurt the cause of the struggle for freedom and justice.

I would like also to add considering the army as “Woyane Army” and categorizing it as the enemy hurt the struggle for freedom and justice too.

The generals in the army almost Tigreans are filthy rich while the rank and file multi ethnic is not better than the majority of Ethiopians. However, the propaganda emanating from the opposition medias help the regime by alienating the poor soldiers and officers from the masses.

Mass revolt like the one we witnessed this month in Burkina Fasso can happen in Ethiopia any time without any warning. The opposition medias should better correct their flaws by bringing the rank and file of the Ethiopian army with the masses, inform them no reason to defend those in power who enrich themselves at the expense of the masses including themselves. Ethiopian army are defenders of the masses and Ethiopia. That should be the propaganda line coming out of the diaspora medias.

United opposition with the dissatisfied Ethiopian army can bring hope for our country. Without the army participation in our struggle whatever revolt is coming certainly will not bring a regime change in Ethiopia. USA and UK trained officers of the Ethiopian army who see the suffering of their people should play a transitional role for future change in Ethiopia. The 1974 Ethiopian “Abyot” is our recent history to look back and learn from it.

TPLF still licensed to steal

TPLF still licensed to steal (1984 Great Ethiopian Famine) 
By Alemayehu G Mariam
November 3, 2014

Gebremedhin Araya (L), Max Perbedy (C), Tekleweyne Assefa (R)

In my commentary last week,  (Remembering the Great Ethiopia Famine of 1984, Part I), I reviewed various commentaries I had written over the years challenging the fabricated and false claims of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and its late leader Meles Zenawi that there has been no famine in Ethiopia since they took power in 1991.  I argued that Meles & Co., in a silent conspiracy of semantics and word games with the international donors and loaners, have managed to successfully conceal the existence of famine ravaging various parts of Ethiopia for over two decades. I concluded that famine in Ethiopia sugarcoated with fancy words and phrases is still famine!In Part II of my memorial to the victims of the 1984 famine, I revisit the great TPLF swindle of humanitarian aid during the 1984-86 famine. I first wrote on the TPLF theft of humanitarian aid during this period in my May 2011 Huffington Post commentary entitled, “Licensed to Steal”. Using interview evidence from two former top TPLF leaders, I examined  the scope and magnitude of the of the criminal diversion of humanitarian aid by the TPLF for weapons purchases and other non-humanitarian purposes. The pattern and practice of international aid corruption by the TPLF which began in 1984 still persists in 2014 with today with finesse and sophistication.

“Ali Baba” Meles and the 40 TPLF/REST Aid Thieves in 1984-85

In 1984-85, at the height of the catastrophic famine in Northern Ethiopia, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars were raised internationally for famine relief. That famine was extreme and unprecedented in its severity. Michael Buerek of the BBC who visited the Tigrai region in 1984 described the situation as “a biblical famine in the 20th Century” and “the closest thing to hell on Earth”.

In 1984-85, normal delivery of emergency humanitarian aid to the Tigrai region and other famine-stricken areas in Northern Ethiopia was virtually impossible because of rebel activity and bombardment by the Derg military junta. The roads normally used to deliver aid supplies to the Tigrai region from the capital had become unusable because of intense rebel military activity. The various international famine relief non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had to find alternate routes to quickly deliver relief aid to famine victims in rebel-controlled areas.

As an alternative, many of the NGOs set up shop in Eastern Sudan close to the Tigrai border to expedite food delivery to famine victims. The large concentration of NGOs on the Sudanese border and the publicity surrounding the enormous fundraising efforts by various international celebrities for Ethiopian famine victims caught the attention of the TPLF leaders who saw a lucrative business opportunity for themselves and their rebel army. They proffered themselves to the NGOs as effective conduits for relief aid delivery in the areas they controlled.

According to Gebremedhin Araya, a former treasurer and TPLF co-founder Dr. Aregawi Berhe, top TPLF leaders including the late Meles Zenawi, implemented an elaborate scam to swindle millions of dollars from international famine relief organizations earmarked for famine relief. Gebremedhin and Aregawi stated Meles and his top cadres hatched out and successfully executed a fraudulent scheme to use a front “humanitarian relief” organization called “Relief Society of Tigrai” (REST) for aid delivery. The TPLF leaders managed to “convince” the various NGOs operating out of the Sudan that REST is a genuine charity organization completely separate from the TPLF, the military wing. In fact, REST was the other face of the TPLF coin.

Dr. Aregawi Berhe, presently in exile, explained the TPLF’s sophisticated aid fleecing scam to BBC’s Martin Plaut:  

… Sometimes we were using aid money to buy arms through secondary means. You come to the Middle East, you can buy arms if you have the money. So we were using some of the money to buy arms. You know this organization called REST, Relief Society of Tigrai. It was the humanitarian wing of the TPLF, and through REST aid money was coming to the TPLF. So when you get this aid money, you make a budget for relief, for the Front or to buy arms, medicine and so on. I would say we were relying on the aid money for sustaining the struggle.

We are talking about millions of dollars. I can cite you a concrete example. In 1985, when Tigrai was hit by a terrible famine, aid money was flowing through REST to the TPLF. So the MLLT (Marxist-Lennist League of Tigrai), and the TPLF leadership which is almost one and the same had to budget for $100 million U.S. dollars. I remember Meles Zenawi suggesting that 50 percent of that money should go to TPLF activities; 45 percent should go to MLLT organizing and 5 percent to support the victims... I know these two guys [Araya Gebremedhin and Tekleweyne Assefa]. They are TPLF fighters. One is pretending to be a merchant the other is pretending to be buying the sorghum from the merchant. Both of them are TPLF senior cadres and they are just doing a drama, pretending to be a merchant. All these things are dramas to get the money. [NGO representative Perbedy pictured above fanning a wad of cash] was fooled.”

Gebremedhin corroborated Aregawi’s statements. Gebremedhin (pictured above counting cash) said he personally handed cash payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the late Meles Zenawi and the serpentine Godfather of the TPLF, Sebhat Nega. Meles and Nega, the two TPLF head honchos, controlled the cash flow of the TPLF. Although Gebremedhin was the chief TPLF treasurer, he said he was kept in the dark about the uses of the money obtained from the NGOs after he delivered it to Meles or Nega. Gebremedhin nevertheless had well founded suspicions about the uses and misuses of the money. However, the incriminatory evidence, (including  the candid photograph above depicting the two TPLF cadres and Max Perbedy, a representative of Christian Aid, one of the largest UK NGO, counting and recording stashes of cash in a large satchel on the floor), is shocking as it is damning and irrefutable.

To magnify the severity and dramatize the gravity of the famine situation for the NGOs, the TPLF leaders ordered the exodus of large numbers of victims from Tigrai into the Sudan creating a mushroom of refugee settlements overnight along the northern Sudanese-Ethiopian border. Using different techniques and methods, the TPLF leaders stage-managed an elaborate marketing “drama” for the NGOs to deliver aid to the large famine-stricken population inside Tigrai. This was done principally by organizing a small group of their most trusted and inner circle members to pose as “grain merchants” and solicit business from the NGOs.

The NGO deception games, or more accurately the Western NGO famine aid-sharking scheme, were varied. At the onset of the scam, the TPLF leaders used a three-staged process. In stage one, one group of TPLF/REST officials masquerading as legitimate grain merchants would approach the myriad NGOs and offer to sell them substantial quantities of grain for quick delivery to the famine victims. At the time, the TPLF had acquired hundreds of heavy trucks and stashed in secret underground warehouses grains from various sources, including NGOs, for use by its fighters. These secretly stashed grain stockpiles were in fact being offered for sale to the NGOs. The TPLF/REST “grain dealers” would make grain sales deals with the NGOs, complete the sale transaction and return back to their hideouts with the cash payment. Gebremedhin personally played a direct role in this drama as a “grain dealer”. He described his role with stunning simplicity:

I was given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant. The NGOs don’t know me because my name was Mohammed. It was a trick assigned (created) by the top leaders for the NGOs. I received a great amount of money from the NGOs and the money was automatically taken by (the TPLF) leaders. The money, much of it, the leaders put it in their accounts in Western Europe. Some of it was used to buy weapons. The people did not get half a kilogram of maize. Once the grain “purchase” was made another group of TPLF/REST operatives would take over the responsibility of “delivering” the relief aid inside Tigrai.

In the second stage, TPLF/REST officials would facilitate spot checks of grain stockpiles in their own secret warehouses. But the warehouses were tricked out. Gebremedhin said, “if you go there, half of the warehouse was stacked full of sacks of sand.” Gebremedhin said the NGO representatives would perform cursory visual inspections of the stockpiles in the warehouses, give their approval, make payments and cross back into the Sudan to make arrangements for additional grain purchases.

In the third stage, the same or different group of TPLF/REST operatives would go back to the NGOs and make a pitch for additional sales of grain for delivery in a different part of Tigrai. These offers did not actually involve any new or fresh supplies of grain. Instead, stockpiles of grain already in secret storage facilities in various locations throughout Tigrai were trucked around and shuttled to new locations, giving the appearance to the NGOs that fresh supplies of grain were being bought in for delivery. Since the aid workers had no means of independently verifying the grain that they are paying for is grain that is being shuttled from one location to another from TPLF stockpiles of fresh shipments, they would perform their usual cursory inspections and make payments. In that manner, TPLF/REST were able to sell and resell multiple times the same previously acquired stockpile of grain (and sand) to the NGOs generating millions of dollars in revenue.  

Martin Plaut, who as a BBC reported from the famine regions of northern Ethiopia in the 1970s’, in his March 2010 report identified a 1985 official CIA document which concluded, “Some funds that insurgent organizations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes.”  Robert Houdek, a senior US diplomat in Ethiopia in the late 1980s, was quoted by the BBC saying that TPLF members at the time told him that some aid money was used to buy weapons. An aid worker named Max Peberdy stated that he had personally delivered to TPLF/REST officials $500,000 in Ethiopian currency to purchase  grain.

The prima facie evidence of massive relief aid diversion and theft in 1984-85 by the TPLF is compelling and damning as Gebremedhin has detailed it in his articles. (To access Part I of Gebremedhin’s Amharic article, click here; for Part II, click here.) 

The evidence of TPLF aid theft and conversion is further corroborated by Prof. Seid Hassan in his meticulously researched and documented article, “The State Capture Onset in Ethiopia: Humanitarian Aid and Corruption” (recommended reading). Prof. Hassan concluded, “The documents I examined and the interviews and testimonials I gathered indicate that donors and aid agencies knew that the Relief Society of Tigray (REST) was the flip-side of the same coin- the TPLF and aid agency personnel knew a portion of the humanitarian aid that they were providing was being diverted for military purposes by the Fronts…”

Those accused of involvement in the wrongdoing have dismissed the evidence as “rubbish”;  they have not called for a full fact-finding inquiry to clear their names of such serious and grave charges. Until such inquiry takes place, the evidence of aid-sharking and theft stands unchallenged and unrefuted. Bob Geldof who organized Live Aid/Band Aid in 1984 collecting tens of millions of dollars in donations upon hearing of the claims of misuse of famine aid for arms purchases threatened, “If there is any money missing I will sue the Ethiopian government.” 

One must grudgingly admire these TPLF con men for their sheer audacity, genius and creativity in ripping off tens of millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief from the NGOs in the mid-1980s (and also for the past twenty-three years from the Ethiopian people). Truth be told, Ali Baba and his 40 thieves could not have pulled off such a brilliant scheme to sell and re-sell to the NGOs the same sand as grain over and over again. Even Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, would not have been able to come up with such an exquisitely perfect plan to hoodwink and bamboozle gullible NGOs of hundreds of millions of dollars. The TPLF leaders truly deserves the title, “A New Breed of African Thieves”. 

REST (Relief Society of Tigray) never rests

U.S. food assistance in Ethiopia is administered Ethiopia exclusively  through three foreign NGOs (Food for the Hungry (FH) (self-described as a “Christian organization serving the poor globally since 1971”), Save the Children (SC) (self-described as “the world's top independent charity for children in need”), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) (the “official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States”) and one domestic NGO, Relief Society of Tigray (REST). The very same REST that facilitated the swindling of hundreds of millions of aid dollars in 1984-86  is facilitating food aid delivery in Ethiopia in 2014. 

Between 2010 and 2014 (and quite possibly prior to 2010 as well), REST was the ONLY  domestic NGO involved in the distribution of over USD$1.5 billion in food aid. According to an August 15, 2014 USAID report,  USAID through its Office of Food for Peace provided REST and other international NGOs USD$237 million in 2014; USD$236 million in 2013; USD$307 million in 2012; USD$313 million in 2011 and USD452 million in 2010.

REST still describes itself as the “humanitarian wing of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front”. REST in 2014 is in fact a behemoth domestic NGO monopoly and a conduit for the diversion and laundering of international aid funds to the TPLF just as it was in 1984. It has no domestic competition in the distribution of international food aid in Ethiopia. As a matter fact, the so-called “Proclamation on Charities and Society” which decimated virtually all NGOs in Ethiopia (in 2010 after enactment of that law the number of civil society organizations in Ethiopia was reduced from about 4600 to about 1400 in a period of three months) made REST the undisputed domestic NGO monopoly. According to one Ethiopian scholar, REST is a TPLF conduit. “The initial capital for TPLF’s business empire apparently came from several sources. A major conduit was the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), a famine-relief charity run by the Front. REST is widely credited for serving as an effective front organization for funneling aid money and materials from unsuspecting as well as willful foreign benefactors into TPLF coffers.”

The fact of the matter is that under the so-called Charities law, the only domestic NGOs allowed to operate in the country are those that are wholly owned subsidiaries of the TPLF or others who have established partnerships with individuals and organizations affiliated with the TPLF.  In 1984, the TPLF laundered international humanitarian aid through REST. In 2014, the TPLF still launders international humanitarian aid through REST. How ironic! The more things change, the more they remain the same!

In all of Africa, USAID has its largest aid program in Ethiopia. What has happened to the tens of billions of dollars in U.S aid given to the TPLF over the past 23 years? The answer to that question is a curiously mindboggling one! No one knows. Not even the USAID which has dumped billions of dollars into the coffers of the TPLF knows! That was the conclusion of the U.S. State Department Office of the Inspector (IG) in his “Audit of USAID/Ethiopia’s Agricultural Sector Productivity Activities  (Audit Report No. 4-6663-10-003-P (March 30, 2010)”.

…The [IG] audit found the [Agricultural Sector Productivity] program is contributing to the achievement of market-led economic growth and the improved resilience of farmers, pastoralists, and other beneficiaries in Ethiopia. However, it is not possible to determine the extent of that contribution because of weaknesses in the mission’s performance management and reporting system. Specifically, while the mission used performance indicators and targets to track progress in several areas…, the results reported for the majority of those indicators were not comparable with the targets. Moreover, the audit was unable to determine whether the results reported in USAID/Ethiopia’s Performance Plan and Report were valid because mission staff could neither explain how the results were derived nor provide support for those reported results. In fact, when the audit team attempted to validate the reported results, it was unable to do so at either the mission or its implementing partners (pages 6-12)…

In October 2010, a few days after Human Right Watch released its report on the abuses of aid in Ethiopia, USAID and the Development Assistance Group (the 27 bilateral and multilateral development agencies providing “assistance to Ethiopia”, (sometimes collectively referred to as the “international poverty pimps”)  issued a statement denying the “widespread, systematic abuse of development aid in Ethiopia. Our study did not generate any evidence of systematic or widespread distortion.” Tweedle Dee testifying as a star witness on behalf of Tweedle Dum!

As Dambissa Moyo has convincingly argued, international aid has been a trap for Ethiopia and other African countries. The wages of international aid in Ethiopia have been a vicious cycle of dependency, endemic corruption,  market distortions, deepening poverty and terminal aid addiction.

Post Script:

There are two unsung heroes who have made significant contributions for decades in reporting on famines in Ethiopia. On the 30^th anniversary of the Great Ethiopian Famine of 1984, I would like to personally thank Michael Duncan Buerk, the British journalist whose reporting of the 1984 Ethiopian famine not only inspired musician Bob Geldof  to launch the Live Aid concert but also brought great international awareness to the suffering of the Ethiopian people. I also wish to thank Martin Plaut, who as a BBC reporter and later as Africa Editor, exposed the siphoning off millions of dollars in Western aid to victims of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 for weapons purchases. Walter Lippmann, the famous American writer, reporter, and political commentator observed, “There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.” I do not believe there are any journalists who told the naked truth and shamed the devil about the Great Ethiopian Famine of 1984-85 than Buerk and Plaut. All Ethiopians owe them a debt of gratitude.

International aid is a vicious poverty trap for Ethiopians, but a license to steal for the TPLF! 

Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.

Eight pilots of the Ethiopian Air Force defected

November 2, 2014

Asmara ( DIPLOMAT.SO) – According to news websites of Eritrea, a total of eight Ethiopian Air Force pilots have defected this month, according to a senior Eritrean official.

Eritrean official who declined to be named didn’t specify if the pilots defected to Eritrea, or if they managed to flee the country with their aircrafts, though it is highly likely they did in both cases.

The defections come as reports indicate the Ethiopian Air Force is in shambles, and that the TPLF oligarchs are “disgusted” by their poor performances.

Ethiopia is no stranger to high-profile air force defections. Last year, four Ethiopian helicopter pilots and a MiG-23 pilot defected to Eritrea.

The names of the helicopter pilots are Cap. Aklilu Mezene, Cap. Tilahun Tufa, Cap. Getu Worku and Cap. Biniam Gizaw, while the name of the MiG-23 pilot is Daniel Yeshewas.

Diplomat News Network does not confirm the credibility of the Eritrean official statement because of lack of photos and videos which explain this matter, and also did not find independent sources verifying this issue .