EPRDF Membership Required for Ethiopia Gov’t Employment

daily monitor - Ayenew Haileselassie

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Is Ethiopia Writing Its Own Obituary?
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Now nearly every university student applies for membership, because the card is at least as important as the diploma and degree.
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One brazen new member attached a copy of his membership ID (dubbed ‘green card’ by the new members) with his CV when he applied for a job- it might have been a coincidence, but he got the job.
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“They (EPRDF) could rule for any length of time,……..finally the outcome is disastrous. Look at what happened to Congo and Somalia when Mobutu and Ziad Barre went out of office.”
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[Addis Ababa] — Into a dreary and cold small Southern village in Kembata a young man was posted as a teacher in a local government school. Those were the dark days of fear under a Marxist military government. Everybody received the party newspaper, Serto Ader, and pretended that they loved it.
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The two sides of Meles Zenawi

Aug 13th 2009 | ADDIS ABABA
From The Economist print edition

A long-lasting leader faces growing problems at home and abroad

HE HAS run Ethiopia as prime minister since 1991, but Meles Zenawi, still only 54, has two faces. One belongs to a leader battling poverty. In this mode he is praised by Western governments, with Britain to the fore, for improving the miserable conditions in the countryside, where 85% of Ethiopia’s 80m-plus people live. Mr Meles takes credit for building new roads, clinics and primary schools, and for an array of agricultural initiatives. He also wins plaudits for his country’s low crime rate and for keeping its parliamentarians more or less on the straight and narrow, especially in terms of wealth. They get paid only about $3,240 a year compared with the $120,000 earned by Kenya’s fat-cat MPs. Moreover, in the past few years Ethiopia’s economy has grown fast. Mr Meles says it will grow this year by 10%, though the IMF’s figure is about half as big.
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U.S. Policy Shift Needed in the Horn of Africa

Author: Bronwyn E. Bruton, International Affairs Fellow in Residence
August 6, 2009


U.S. strategic interests in the Horn of Africa center on preventing Somalia from becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda or other transnational jihadist groups. In pursuing its counterterror strategy, the United States has found common cause with Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government has long feared the renewal of Somali irredentist claims on its eastern border, or that a powerful Islamist movement may stoke unrest among its own large Muslim population, and feels beset both by a powerful indigenous separatist movement in its Ogaden region and an unresolved border dispute with its northern neighbor, Eritrea.

But the Ethiopian government's behavior in recent years, both domestically and in bordering states, poses mounting difficulties for the United States and its long-term goals in the region. Washington must be prepared to press its partner to alter its strong-handed approach to political dissent and counterterrorism or consider ending the relationship. More ≫

Heads Up Diaspora, The New Terrorism Law Is Dangerous For You Too - Joe Michael

According to the new law, even a peaceful citizen who doesn’t report a terror activity, whether he/she was aware of it or not, historically terror in Ethiopia could be peacefully assembling to criticize the government, could face a serious penalty. A journalist that interview, publish, meet, etc. with someone who is doomed by the government as a terrorist, again keep in mind that the government has been dooming his critics as terrorists, will be punished with rigorous imprisonment of 10 to 20 years.

It is to be recalled that in the aftermath of the 2005 election, special military squad killed close to 200 innocent civilians using U.S. made humvees that was given to Ethiopia by the Bush administration for a purpose of fighting terrorism. The regime also doomed all main opposition leaders as terrorists and imprisoned them for two years. Their crime was basically winning the election.

The new terrorism law also requires Ethiopians to report all foreign nationals in their homes, including Ethiopian born foreign nationals who would go back home to visit their families. This simply means that families must report their loved ones when they return home, or they will face serious punishments, perceptibly if they are pro-oppositions.

Even though terrorism was misinterpreted and misused in Ethiopia long before the new law, it is now going way out of hand. Like one opposition member said, the new terror law it self terrorizes Ethiopians in that it gives infinite power to the government to make 80 million Ethiopians terrorists any time it wants to. The only terror act that is not punishable by the new law is having a dream about terrorists (oppositions), which no one yet would dare to tell it.

What is terror anyway? Who are real terrorists in Ethiopia? Aren’t the terrorists those who are killing innocent, unarmed civilians? Aren’t terrorists those who kept opposition leaders and their supporters in jail without due process? Aren’t the terrorists those who cruelly shot and killed hundreds of civilians, women, and kids
in 2005?

Well, heads up Diaspora, next time you want to go back to Ethiopia, you should know that you are not only taking dollars to your family, you are placing them in trouble too. Get registered, or your family will be doomed as terrorists.