PLAGIARSIM AND PLAIN THEFT

A WOMAN CALLED MEAZA MENGSITE plagiarized one of  my short stories (1993) and wrote a fulll book  " Beneath the Lion's Gaze" and has refused to apologize up to now. I have no lawyer to take to court in the USA. In Ethiopia, a certain Awgchew (a book seller) violated the copyright of Babile Tola and translated into Amharic the book entitled :The Red Terror in Ethiopia--To kill a Generation. It was also a very bad translation. The authorized translation was actually made by the late Tsegaye Gebre Medhin debteraw killled by the TPLF regime. Awgchew later apologised but a like thieving cat has come back again to republish the  unauthorized translation (Empress Publisher,Addis Abeba). Babile has also no lawyer to argue for his rights as the writer. Injustice at all levels.

OBAMA'S BAD WOMEN

OBAMA'S BAD WOMEN Hama Tuma Michelle Obama aside, Barack Obama has a penchant for very bad women. Wendy Sherman, the windbag of Foggy Bottom, and Gayle Smith, the new USAID chief who loves dictators, and the notorious Susan Rice are cases in point. Smith has been around more time to do more damage and to contribute to the putrefaction of the Clinton--Obama policy on Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular. Gayle Smith first let her white face get burnt by the Sudanese sun in 1984 when she came over to fulfill her role in the destabilization of the pro soviet regime in Addis Abeba. She was a correspondent in Cairo and conveniently made her way to the Sudan and as a journalist and aid activist leeched herself on the then rebel fronts called the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and its then puppet the Tigrean People's Liberation Front, the same one that is now in power in Addis Abeba and is being praised by Susan Rice and Wendy Sherman . Gayle even went to the so called liberated areas, became the lover of one of the top TPLF leaders (Yemane Jamaica--an EPLF fighter seconded to supervise the TPLF), learned some Tigrigna, advised TPLF women to set up a union and wrote fan articles on the two fronts and other secessionist groups not forgetting to attack and belittle the pan Ethiopian organizations like the EPRP. She had fellow travelers in Dan Connell, James Firebrace, Paul Henze, Alex de Wall, Oxfam, World Vision, UNICEF. the Norwegian Council of Churches and many other dubious groups and fellows with more suspicious connections and motives. As some observer had written, Gayle Smith was the connection between the CIA and the Tigrean front and behind the diversion of aid for the famine victims to the TPLF coffers to buy arms from China and favors from the Sudanese regime. Bono calls Gayle a force of nature though he does not mean gale, catastrophe, hurricane, and total disaster-- all of which she was for Ethiopia's future. Bob Geldof, on his part, has refused to admit that he was either duped or persuaded to be part of the food aid swindle, and will likely refuse to admit the nefarious role of Gayle Smith. But, she was a disaster indeed. When the pro soviet regime fell she ended her "journalistic" cover and moved on to become the chief of staff of USAID and later the special assistant to Clinton and head of the African affairs in the National Security Council. In both these positions, she gave aid and advice to the now dead dictator called Meles Zenawi, the boss of her lover Yemane. According to one reporter, as an NSC serious member " she rose early every morning to help prepare the National Security Estimate, the report given to the President first thing every morning at the start of the Presidential work day. Every morning, rain or shine, she was in the White House ready to brief President Clinton and answer any questions he may have about the various activities of the CIA et al in Africa". Gayle Smith remained so smitten by the Ethiopian dictator that she backed him on his war with Eritrea, his election rigging and tyrannical rule. So much so that Obama sent her along with Susan Rice to the dictator's funeral to heap eulogy on the enemy of Ethiopians thereby sprinkling salt on the open wounds of our people. Worse still, Gayle Smith had a hand in bringing forward Susan Rice, the Madeline Albright disciple, to the attention of her boss Anthony Lake. Wendy Sherman is, on the other hand, the fourth ranking official of the US State Department where she serves as undersecretary for political affairs. A feather weight by Smith's standards. this social worker was, during the Clinton Administration, a Counselor of the United States Department of State and Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State specially on North Korea Policy. Recently, she reared her head in Addis Abeba to stamp the repressive regime as democratic and the coming May general election as fair and just. Statement that must have shocked the regime itself as it knows like everybody that the coming election is as rigged as the earlier ones. Sherman appeared as a windbag with little or no knowledge of the Ethiopian reality. The Washington Post politely called her comments "irresponsible" but Ethiopians are not obliged to be polite towards her. A dog does bark for the master who feeds it. Sherman is a "Riceist" and if this word rhymes with another she may also be one. Her wanton and more than irresponsible words echo that of Susan Rice, the darling of African dictators who are pro American unlike Beshir and Mugabe. It will be a waste of time on my part to explain to Sherman why her words shame her to the core but she knows the situation no less than most. She knows of the repressive laws against NGOs and the Press, how the so called anti terror law is used to stifle dissent, how the regime is the predator of the free press, how the election board and the election laws serve the regime, how the regime holds more than forty thousand political prisoners, the torture in jails and ghost prisons, the sale of children and young women unto modern slavery, the massive corruption, the ethnic discrimination and so on and on. She knows the regime is ethno-centrist, if not fascistic, and outright authoritarian with a visible Stalinist nostalgia--totalitarian-- but as a good diplomat she lies and sleeps with the enemy of democracy (figuratively for her and literally for Gayle Smith). On top of all this is Obama, the big time disappointment for Africa, with Samantha Power at the UN (heaven forbid!) and the inept Kelly as the foreign minister (he popped into Somalia recently and declared to the world things are turning around for the better!). We await his never to come apology. Obama promised a lot to Africans but failed to respect any of his words. He cuddles and supports dictators and, under the cover of an anti terror war, has unleashed destruction in the Horn, to Libya in North Africa and Yemen across the Red Sea. The instability in the region brings to the fore the primary responsibility of the misguided (Rice, Smith, Sherman, Vicki Huddleston and co. ) American foreign policy with Obama playing the drone master. However, to be fair to the conceited Americans, I must reveal to them that those in power in Addis Abeba have had a long experience in duping visitors and making wide eyed fans out of them. They were trained by none other than the likes of Gayle Smith. The visits to the so called liberated areas were organized like the visit of the Potemkin villages, women farming the land, guerrillas being welcomed by ululating village women, prepared fighters acting world savvy and asking prepared political questions on the international situation and the visitors leave mesmerized, some comparing their experience to utopia being built amidst war and penury, Worthwhile to read the reports and articles by Smith and her likes during the eighties. The arrogant Geldof was "robbed" in broad daylight but I am inclined to believe that he was an accomplice to or in his own fate. and he is refusing to admit his bad actions because he can't accept he was outwitted by thieving guerrillas in plastic sandals. Gayle Smith as chief of staff of USAID gave the TPLF $30 million in food aid for Tigrai. She is expected to use the agency to give more help to the brutal regime. Nothing new is expected from Rice and Sherman. Nothing new from Obama too whose confused and war mongering policies will continue to wreak havoc all over the world. And if at all Hilary wins, the Rice and Smith band may have it even better than now. After all, Hilary and her daughter danced in the street of Asmara, Eritrea , and together with her husband called the ruler there (along with Meles, Museveini and Kagame) "one of the new democratic leaders". Just think where this praise took all of them! At the end of the day, what is going on is crude and cruel real politics. Obama and his bad women (and men) serve, as they should, America's interest. They hobnob with and help tyrants because the tyrants are their own blood soaked SOB s. Donald Yamamoto was not yet ambassador to Ethiopia when opposition figures went to meet him at the State Department to complain about the rigging, stealing of votes and killings during the 1997 general election. He replied to their complaints and said (not verbatim); we know more people than your number (193) have been killed. We have photos of snipers on rooftops indiscriminately shooting and killing protesters. We know but we cannot touch Meles. America needs him. End of speech. America's policy has been anti African from time immemorial, it has worked against nationalist African leaders. It was behind the murder of Lumumba and the installment of the dictator Mobutu, it helped to foil the coup against Haile Sellasie, it overthrew Nkrumah, it fully backed Apartheid and categorized the ANC and Mandela as terrorist, and more. What is odd is for Africans to expect a pro African stance from Washington, London or Paris. America needs Rice, Gayle Smith and other surreal windbags like Wendy Sherman to defend and foreword its national interests that are still imperialist by all standards. Its allies are retrograde monarchies like that of Saudi Arabia or repressive regimes like the one in Ethiopia praised by Rice, Gayle and Sherman, Sleeping with dictators has for long been the pleasure of America whose rhetoric otherwise sounds hollow to the core. Sadly also, America needed Obama himself, alas, and we console ourselves by saying the darkness of night will not prevent the morning from coming.

THE HIGH COST OF SATIRE AND DOUBLE STANDARDS Hama Tuma Ethiopians have bitter sweet sayings and proverbs in line with their tradition of double entendres-- or wax and gold. What you hear is not the real message, what you see is not real at all. Go figure. Your mouth is your first enemy--shut it up. And so we say God does not quarrel with you without first preparing a big feast for you. Saydegis aytalam. Self delusion? Maybe, maybe not. Many a cloud has actually no silver lining. At the risk of offending some late comers to the magazine, I have to admit that the murder of the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo has become a god sent relief for the satirical magazine which was facing bankruptcy and sold no more than 30,000 copies. It now has 200,000 subscribers and has become world famous. Sad as the death of the satirists maybe, it is a blessing in disguise for the magazine. The blessing has also concerned Francois Holland, one of the dullest French president in recent history. His shockingly low public opinion support has shot up to 40%. On the fringe, there was also Netanyahu, responsible for the deaths of thousands in the Gaza, who waxed lyrical against what he called terrorism while the terrorist gangs of Stern and the Hgannah and their leaders like Menahem Begin are part of his recent history. He is busy using the incidents to call on European Jews to return to Israel. Even the keleptocrat Paul Biya of Cameroon used the Paris murders and his so called campaign againt Boko Haram to appear in patriotic garb and to dupe people enough for sane and honest citizens to delare Je suis Biya. For these of us who grew up in the sixties, the sight of people kissing soldiers and police does jar. It would have shocked he martyred cartonnists themselves who had little paience for authority and tyrants of all hues. Dictators who are persecuting journalists in their own countries were part of the massive Paris demonstration and declaring I am Charlie in straight faced mockery. It was a double standard show that verged on the inappropriate and grotesque. The imposed limits on Satire these days would haev resulted in the continuous banning of Charlie Hebdo's irreverent predecessor, Hara Kiri. Charlie Hebdo was secular at best and in contradicrion with the existing intolerance and religious fanaticism. God is humour is considered as a heresy with men rushing to kill and anticipating paradise and virgins if at all such belief is in their books, The tolerance of the feudal and medieval Saudi regime by the hypocrite West comes to mind. Every Friday, the Saudi regime beheads prisoners (including women ) in public just as the ISIL slits the throats of soldiers,civilians,Copts and journalists. Mostly Muslims we should point out. Much as some may look for social reasons for the religious extremism, it is evident that political ends are indeed being sought using religion as a reason for war. The concerted attempt by many in the West to link the actions of extremists to Islam as a religion and the demand that all Muslims apologize and/or come out in condemnation of the extremists is two-facedness at its best. No one demanded Norwegians to apologise for Anders Breivik when this bigot killled nore than 70 people in Norway. Baruch Goldstein, a Jew, murdered 29 praying Muslims in Palestine but no one called on Israelis to apologise en masse for his act. The asassination of Ytzhak Rabin did not suggest that eery Israeli was responsible for this act. And the unending saughter in Gaza? That a handful of fanatics killed the Charlie Hebdo journalists does not make Muslims and Islam resposnsible. From the Crusades to Indochina, to Iraq and Afghanistan the burden has not fallen on the White Christian world as a whole. The French prime minister is prattling about Islamo-fascism without adding to this Christiano-fascism for the Crusades type destructive campaign by the West itself to destroy Iraq, Libya. etc.. The protest around Charlie Hebdo was hijacked by the powers that be and behind it all there looms the question on beliefs, censorship and the freedom of the press. In Africa, we are familiar with self censorship unless you have the martyr's complex. Washington's close friend,Saudi Arabia, flogs bloggers. Washington's main African ally, that is to say Ethiopia, is a prdator of the free press and has jailed nine bloggers and many more journalists. The so called fight against what the West calls terrorism has made a democrat out of the likes of Idris Debi and imperialist invaders are being praised as liberators. Who at first stoked the fire of extremism? If not the Wahbists and Salafists, and the West ever hungry for resources and obsessed with domination and hegemony, then who? Saudi Arabia and Qatar-- from the Taliban to ISIL and the Boko Haram their hand is evident at the same time as they jockingly join the so called coalition set up by Washington. The destruction of Libya by NATO is at the centre of the chaos in the Sahel and the strengthening of the extremist elements. The Bokos are Salafists par excellence. Let us say show me the money, follow the money and ask where do all these barbaric elements get their support, money and weapons? The Boko Haram does not even kidnap that many foreigners and ransom them for money and yet it is evidently not lacking finance and modern arms. ISIL enjoyed surreptitious support from Turkey and Qatar to name a few. Sudan's Omar Beshir states that Boko Haram is funded and backed by the CIA and Mossad. Conspiracy theory aside, who gives these barbaric groups their military and financial backing. It cannot be Al Qaida only. In Yemen, the Saudi hegemony has collapsed with Iran gaining the upper hand. The West wants to insinuate that all struggles by the oppressed desrve the denigrating tag of terrorist but who is the terrorist par exclence in our world ? This is the poppy field of double standard and you can go dizzy at a whiff. The same time as 17 people got murdered in Paris, Boko Haram slaughtered hundreds (Amnesty says 2000) in Baga but this got little coverage. This has surprised many, including Africans who should have known better. Not every life is the same--one white nun killed in the Congo amounted to hundreds of Congolese lives and that was years and years ago before such terrible inflation and economic crisis. Black lives are not, as someone aptly pointed out, "grieveable", they are on the contrary "losable". How many journalists have been killed elsewhere than in Paris with little or no outcry? American trained Iraqis have killed many including one inquisitive American freelancer killed by a sniper. The recent hullabaloo about a psychotic and ultra patriotic, ( is there a different kind of this animal?), American sniper who killed at least 160 Iraqis (some say including women and children) comes to mind. Boko Haram's great great grandfather was surely perfidious British colonialism but its godfathers are the same ones who spawned Al Qaida itself. Who backed the warlords of Somalia and paved the ways for the Islamic Court and today's Al Shabab? Who are ones who paved the way for the extremists in Libya? who are the ones who, under the cover of Attacking Beshir Assad, gave support to hard liners and fanatics? Uncomfortable questions that one cannot expect the CNN or Fox news to ask. America backed the supported the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia and stated that referendum only concerns Eritreans and has nothing to do with Ethiopians who were actually losing territory and becoming landlocked among other losses. When Crimea wanted to hold its own referendum the first one to oppose was Washington fuming that it concerns all Ukrainians. Double standard is more than alive and kicking and as usual Africa is the main victim. In this broad space, the field left for satire to roam free as it should is very limited. Many years back a French cinema hall showing the film on Jesus by Scorsese was fire bombed in San Michel, Paris. If people who consider someone as their prophet see him depicted as a dog their anger and consternation is understandable. I am sure a book or film blaspheming the virgin Mary would be confronted by similar anger and denunciation in Ethiopia. The attempt to understand the reality does not in any way mean condoning censorship and the abridgement of the right of expression. As a longstanding foe of obscurantism, dictatorship, censorship and any form of religious fanaticism I have no intention of tolerating aggression against free expression. laicism and irreverence. The problem is multi -dimensional though and the state of our world now does not favor tolerance at all. Racism has become routine and widespread. And if 17 lives lost in Paris draw more attention and indignation (America sent only its ambassador to the Paris demonstration) than hundreds and millions more killed in Nigeria or Congo this is to be expected. It was and is our world. Satire and truth cost and even the big powers are not interested in paying the cost but in perpetuating the crisis. And Africans, with more serious political problems have instead on rampage burning mosques and churches. The broad plan of wrecking the Middle East and Africa is in action.

THE GELDOF SWINDLE

THE GELDOF SWINDLE ( or THE BUSINESS OF AID ) " Bod Geldof is a humanitarian activist. He is also an egotist, a celebrity economist, and quite wrong on Africa". So wrote, politely, Mr.Greg Mills in the Guardian of March 8/2013. Bob Geldof is a also a businessman who has much profited from the aid business or from what some call the business of hunger. Those who remembered the Live Aid concert to help the victims of famine in Ethiopia cannot forget the paternalist, if not racist, song called "Do they know it is Christmas?",The song has reared its head again ostensibly to aid victims of Ebola in West Africa and many Africans there are not amused at all. This time again the infamous song (which even Geldof himself had termed horrible in the past) has been sung for Ebola victims and widely condemned as a symbol of ignorance, cringe worthy, demeaning and racist to boot. During the 1984 famine, Geldof, an almost washed out singer of the C list Boomtown Rats, rose to prominence through Live Aid, was knighted in Britain and used the aid money and trucks to finance and arm the now in power repressive Tigrean front in Ethiopia. Geldof vehemently denies this but much evidence is present to prove that he was not duped by the street smart and now dead Meles Zenawi. War on Want, which stole more than a million pounds of aid money, did not hide the fact it was directly helping the front and not the famine victims. Numerous NGOs helped the Tigrean front under the cover of aid for the famine victims to use the situation to bring down the pro soviet regime in Addis Abeba. Geldof, who wanted to preach to Ethiopians on what is known as Christmas, forgot then that Ethiopians were Christians long before his ancestors. With the Live Aid fame, he was also able to join the Bono fellow to self appoint themselves as the mouth pieces of Africa. A pretension that got them next to cruel dictators and other world leaders. Geldof was a fan of the Tigrean dictator in Addis Abeba and has recently gone on record to praise the war monger and corrupt Tony Blair who had embraced Meles Zenawi. Actually, Geldof, like his friend called Bono, has failed to realize the economic problems of Africa and their causes. Not drought but bankrupt agricultural policies, not humanitarian aid to sustain development but real investment and democratic rights in the countries. Geldof was recently in Ethiopia to watch over his wine business together with a Tigrean (the ethnic group of the ruling front) millionaire who declares publicly and without shame that the people need food and security first and not democracy . The much touted economic double digit growth is obviously fiction in the light of the reality of mass impoverishment which even the World Bank (often an apologist of the tyrannies) has admitted a few months back. A few Tigrean elites and front leaders control the economy and have embezzled the nation's wealth and enjoyed the support of the likes of Blair and Washington because they have accepted the western diktat and invaded Somalia and given a drone base to America in Arba Minch, Southern Ethiopia. This is the regime that Geldof admires and with whom it is doing business on a big scale. Massive donor aid from Britain and the USA has sustained the repressive regime and with the added help of China the regime has been able to stifle dissent. Journalist are persecuted, bloggers in jail, opposition web sites and radios blocked and jammed, extra judicial executions systematic. The regime in Addis Abeba is one of the top predators of the free press, practices routine torture and holds close to 40,000 political prisoners all over the country in known and secret prisons. It has enabled foreigners (Indian, Chinese, Arabs mainly) to engages in a gigantic land grab which has led to the dislocation and forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands. If construction of buildings and villas is a sign of development it must be said that the routine power failure in the cities and the lack of adequate drinking water has made the so called buildings and condominiums unlivable. More than half a million street dwellers or homeless people contrast with the indecent opulence of the ruling clique. It is to this type of country that Geldof often travels for profitable business and to praise the dictators to the skies. His friend, the late Meles Zenawi, shrieked that economic progress and democracy are not necessarily joined, that China and South Korea under Park developed while being politically repressive. However, the so called Chinese model is flawed and Ethiopia is not China to begin with. This same conception has been forwarded to portray the Kagame regime in Rwanda as developmental. However, recent reports by an economic expert who defected has revealed that Kagame had ordered him to doctor the economic statistics to present impressive development. 10 million people in need of food aid, a population that can ill afford to eat three times a day, 50% youth unemployment, average 28% inflation, and many more factual and real statistics indicate that the great leap forward by the regime in Addis Abeba is pure fiction. The deception is entertained by Geldof and co, and the West, to sustain a treacherous and repressive regime. America and Britain back the savage regime in Saudi Arabia and they have not found it onerous to back the regime in Ethiopia. Geldof finds himself in the middle of this. In the Awash winery, Bob Gelfof holds a substantial share and he persuaded a wine expert called Phillip Pritchard to come to Ethiopia to give expert advice. Awash bottles seven million liters annually and is mainly owned by a Tigrean millionaire working tightly with the tyrannical ruling elite. As one newspaper wrote : Geldof owns a private equity he chairs, 8 Miles, which owns Blue Nile, a company which acquired the 70 year old winery (producing Gouder wine) based in Addis Abeba and a vine yard near the town of Ziway" from the privatization agency.. Recently, in Addis Abeba, Geldof dined at the famous Castelli restaurant with the notorious officials and hirelings of the regime (Dawit Zewde, Sebhat Nega, Elleni Gebre Medhin) and waxed lyrical on his business activities. Geldof has used the aid business to profit personally just as the man he admires, Tony Blair, has become a distasteful example of using one's government post for personal profit and corruption. Geldof hobnobs with ethic chauvinist dictators in Ethiopia and Blair is a consultant of notoriously anti democratic tyrants ranging from Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan. Does Geldof know he is exposed and finished? Not yet, and he continues to peddle his ignorant "Do they know it is Christmas?" song without shame. He has allied with the Tigrean regime in Ethiopia to exploit right less workers and the country as a whole. From a self proclaimed humanitarian to a merciless business partner of the enemies of Ethiopia-- the voyage did not take that many years. And that Bono fellow? Read the following: ‘As his career continues to free fall into total irrelevance, pop star “Bono” of the rock group U2 has announced his support for a U.S.-backed plan to rape and pillage Africa by stealing its land and agricultural systems and replacing them with corporate-owned GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) and chemicals. At the recent G8 Summit held at Camp David in Maryland, the Obama regime met with private industry leaders to announce the launch of the “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition,” a thinly-veiled Green Revolution 2.0 that aims to uproot autonomous family farming systems throughout Africa and replace them with toxic monoculture systems controlled by multinational corporations like Monsanto.’ The charity business is well and alive. The business of aid and hunger is benefitting the lords of poverty. Geldof, who had boasted he has helped British business in Africa, maybe knighted by the Queen but he is considered by Africans as a front man for neocolonial plunder of Africa.

IS EBOLA WHITE? EBOLA or whatever that is ravaging people in West Africa is no joking matter and trivializing it is not my intention at all. Condolences and sympathies to those who lost a kin or are suffering is due. And yet, Ebola raises many questions needing immediate answers. Is Ebola really Ebola? is Ebola a plot? Is it man made? Is it an inflated malaria? A Meningitis gone wild? What is its color--black? white? Is it the white man's perpetual desire to reduce the black population? In Ethiopia, we say a person who escaped from a snake's attack will jump in fright when he or she sees a vine on the ground. Aggrieved, duped and hurt so many times, we Africans have become suspicious of all things bad attributed to our beloved continent. Some people attribute most viruses and plagues to Africa. Some think the A in AIDS refers to Africa. Bill Maher said AIDS came from the copulation of an African with a monkey. Ebola is now said to be a result of eating monkeys though it did not appear in Asia where monkey meat is a delicacy in some countries. Is Ebola a conspiracy against Africa? Some seem to think so as the following article does suggest: http://www.undergroundworldnews.com The recent Ebola outbreak in Africa coincides with a massive Meningitis Vaccine campaign targeting over 100 million Africans; notably including all four African countries (Guinea, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone) caught in the epicentre of the viral spread. The cost-effective vaccine, MenAfriVac®,(less than US$0.50 per dose) was “kept outside the cold chain for up to four days at up to 40°C”. Vaccine Resistance Movement is investigating the link between this extremely toxic experimental vaccine and the sudden surge in cases of Ebola. Symptoms of ‘Acute fulminating Meningococcal Septicemia’, a virulent form of bacterial meningitis (marked by extreme vomiting, hemorrhaging – excessive bleeding around the eyes & mouth, severe blackish bruising on the arms & legs), closely resemble those seen in Ebola victims. Why has the Ebola virus suddenly erupted in a region of Africa known as the “Meningitis Belt”? Because the WHO & CDC/enter for disease control--USA) are deliberately trying to cover up their bloody tracks once again. This supposed outbreak of Ebola bares all the hallmarks of a rarified, virulent strain of bacterial Meningitis, ‘Acute fulminating Meningococcal Septicemia’, also known as ‘Waterhouse-Friderichsen Syndrome’. Another case of a dangerous, untested vaccine triggering a tsunami of viral mutations – in impoverished regions". The accusation that the depopulation of blacks--specially Africans--has for long been on the agenda of western countries is not to be dismissed as a stupid right wingers' raving. More, Ebola must definitely be worse and more dangerous than Boko Haram and the region's version of Al-Qaida for America to send soldiers and not medical personnel like Cuba. Deadly as it is, the color and texture of Ebola baffles. My very cynical friend from Ghana insists that Ebola is as African as Cassava and caused by a costly desire to be noticed on the part of a West Africa jealous of the Somalia status (drones and invasions). He further stated that Syria, and the Kurds especially, are dying with envy as Syria has no American soldier on its soil and is praying for a Middle East Ebola. Africa's alleged double digit annual economic growth that ought to be envied by China and France among others has not become a best seller fiction (though fiction it is) --we need money and attention and voila Ebola! And so, Ebola could very well be an African greed and money con act that misfired--curse on the corrupt regimes. Attractive as this argument seems, I am not satisfied that Ebola is black. It is obvious that Africans are prone to slaughter Africans so much so that some African Americans do not want to be called African at all and one TIME magazine journalist even blessed his ancestors for leaving Africa as slaves. (By the way can one take the slave trade as mass migration, forced as it was, and a blessing?). After much observation and absolutely no research in West Africa, I am convinced that Ebola is white. Such catastrophes over Africa were in the past the doings of whites--colonialists and imperialists. Western pharmaceutical giants (Pfizer in Nigeria for example) have always taken Africa and blacks as guinea pigs or monkeys for experiment. Why not Ebola then? Could it be the result of their misfired experiment? Ethiopians, who are a suspicious lot and know far too much about death be it from famine or brutal State terror, say those who are not suspicious (doubting) will be weeded out (killed) . Or as Mizner said: " I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education" is worth quoting in this instance. Now that Ebola is appearing in the Western countries, its alleged "Africanness" is also being put to test. In this connection, one wonders why the vaccine that saved another American was not given to the Dallas patient (color black) who has now died. While more than 4000 Africans have perished and millions are expected to be infected come next year, not one white person has died from Ebola (minus two Spanish missionaries--we know how they always steal our thunder- and a very sick nurse who may try to challenge my assertion by dying) . What about the thousands of Chinese in West Africa ? I have not heard of one dying up to now. The thousands of exploitative and racist Lebanese merchants? Not one has died from what I have tried to gather. Ebola is apparently very much anti black. As was and is Aids. As they say, no statue has ever been erected for a critic but this should not frighten us unto saying nothing. Ebola is anti African. If it has now appeared in the West then it can only mean that THEY have goofed somehow. Of course, some Africans would see it as deserved revenge on the colonialists and predators of the West. Ebola in the West would force them to find a vaccine, Ebola in Africa who cares ! It is like malaria, perhaps more deadly but so long as it is an African curse why bother. All those who argue that Africans are already too many and not concerned by birth control would be happy. The less blacks the better. Ebola is definitely white and racist if we have to bluntly put it. So, what is the tomorrow of Ebola? It will kill more Africans and will, as they say now, spread to the West too and shake up their world till they realize that sending soldiers is not the solution. Till they get it that Ebola may be as dangerous as those the West calls terrorists and the solution is not soldiers and drones but medical mobilization and vaccines. That said what the hell is Ebola? The result of messed up experimentation? a biological test gone awry? a virus on Africa? The easiest is to conclude that Ebola is some devil that detests Africa and Africans. As the Chinese would say a white devil. All said, Ebola is, alas, very real. Fortress Europe and America have now one more reason to say blacks please go back.

The Dollar side of War

THE DOLLAR SIDE OF WAR Or (HOW LOVELY IS WAR?) A wise person once wrote as follows: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. (…) How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? None or very few is the number. Vladimir Putin came up with a proposal that the beleaguered Obama could not refuse even if the self-declared Socialist Francois Hollande of France fumed at the mouth calling for war. But it was not only powerless Holland (Syria not being Mali) who was disappointed by the non-declaration of war against Bashir Al Assad. The war profiteers felt jilted out billions of dollars. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have benefitted many petroleum connected companies, tomahawk sellers (1.45 million dollars per missile),health care and construction firms, Halliburton, Bechtel, DynCorp, General Dynamics, Aegis Defense services, soft drink companies, Lockheed, several other defense contractors including private guards and mercenaries etc. to the tune of US $ 70 billion for a decade long war in Iraq alone. A full out strike against Syria would have brought in billions to the war profiteers as was the case during the attack on Libya which is now verging to a failed state status. The collapse of Gadhafi and Libya has upset the whole security situation and balance in the Sahel area and had led to more wars that are benefitting the defense contractors and suppliers of petrol, jet fuel, bombs and the like. Dick Cheney was with Halliburton and, a former friend of Sadam, a big beneficiary from the war on Iraq. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have their own agendas on Syria as has Turkey and the much trumpeted rebel arenot beautiful democrats that Cameroon and Hollande resent them to be. Between Assad and Al Qaeda it is a beauty contest between monkeys as we like to say in Ethiopia—all ugly. But the war profiteers may still have their way on Syria. Sartre said: when the rich wage war it is the poor who die. In African wars, thousands millions of poor people die and have died and I for one have never heard the multinational mining companies and firms losing one of their CEO. Wars in Africa displace thousands if not millions and have created millions of refugees that benefit the charity business and on the side, as the French NGO in Chad, engage in sale of children or as in Ethiopia in abusing young boys. Many NGOs make millions out of the consequences of the war, the sale of alleged orphans unto adoption also brings in millions for various quarters. The war between the Meles regime and that of Isayas brought millions of dollars to arms sellers China, Russia, Ukraine and others. Both regimes also found many contractors, often associated with States, making millions. The invasion of Somalia by the Meles troops net millions for the ruling clique and the general who headed the invasion force was accused of making millions from bribes given to him by smugglers and traders in Somalia. When a collection of African countries sent soldiers to help Kabila they got their pay in gold and diamonds, millions of dollars’ worth. So on and on for South Sudan, Darfur, the AU troops incursion into Somalia. War is business, war is profit for the war mongers and a disaster and a catastrophe only for the people. The dollar side of war is indecent but only we the naïve get vexed over it. 130,000 Ethiopians died in the Badme war for nothing. The cruelty of war is also unbelievable. In Eastern Congo, no less than half a million women have been raped by ferocious militias backed by Western mining companies as well as by Rwanda and Uganda—5 million or more have died. No wonder the millionaires in the West and in African capitals swoon with joy when a war erupts or when they provoke wars against their neighbors or against their own people. There is money to be made War gives tin pot dictators the chance to play the leader. We have seen that in Ethiopia when a coward, now dead, played at being a leader and a hero over the corpses of thousands. Poor countries spending millions on defense allocation and ignoring the social sector (Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries spend at least a million dollar a day for their futile war ventures). The dry ration suppliers, the fuel vendors, the medicine and health care firms make millions. The regimes profit the wars and this so true that one can feel the anguish of those who wanted an all-out strike against Syria. Some of the bloodletting is for foolish causes as we have seen time and again and most of the time it is for greed, for the enrichment of the few with calloused hearts. It is what Martin Luther called a spiritual doom that has crippled many, alas. The Tigrean clique that now rules Ethiopia by force used to compose crude songs hailing the Kalashnikov gun as their protector and liberator. Worshipping crude metal of sorts. In almost all wars truth dies first and in the process the cause that one fights for is covered up, becomes elusive,is even forgotten. Fools believe what they are fed. The sight of Colin Powell in the UN trying to flash a test tube and tell us that Sadam has for sure WMDs is unforgettable but a costly charade that the money hungry Blair fellow imitated. The war against Iraq was for oil but many lulled themselves into sleep and chose to be duped. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have perished as a result, the country is in ruins and every day the death toll mounts. The same situation is diversely but surely trying to repeat in Syria and behind it all stand the war profiteers. Same situation in Somalia where Ethiopian and other African troops have invaded and wreaked havoc trying to fulfill a misguided American policy that would not end the tragedy and the terror at all. But, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi regimes profit. And others too. Oh, how lovely war is!

THE JENNIFER TURN

The primary curse goes to that Angelina Jolie person. “Haro sur Angelina”, curse on that Joly who started out with much fanfare the adoption racket of Ethiopian children. The famous actress adopted an alleged orphaned child who was sold away by her own mother and a very cruel government that controls the adoption industry. The little girl was renamed Zahra and taken to Hollywood with the actress padding her resume as a “do gooder”. One fellow wrote that Ethiopians live under stone-age poverty (what exactly does this mean really? Were people starved during the stone- age?) and Angelina type of actions is God sent and to be praised. It is nowadays called Child Harvesting, using the suffering of parents to take away their children with false promises and money. Divas and actresses compete fiercely and Madonna made her foray in Malawi and adopted two children thereby giving the Malawi president then ( Dr. Bingu Mutharika formerly known as Brightson Webster Kyson) the chance to shame himself, his country and all Africa by declaring publicly: “I wish someone had come and taken 10,000 Malawi children because then I would know that 10,000 Malawians would have better education and opportunities”. As I wrote years ago why don’t they adopt us all and put an end to our so called stone age-poverty? And now it is the turn of Jennifer Lopez, the singer actress who reportedly insured a part of her body for a cool six million and received a jewel studded toilet seat worth 120,000 euros from her boyfriend of the time who is none other than another actor who got rewards for a CIA sponsored film that presents Iranians as savages and who claims to be concerned for the Eastern Congolese so much so he is living at $2.50 a day for two days as a show of solidarity. Call it slumming of a sort, fake and hypocritical, once again using us as pets and inflating their names and publicity in the process. Jennifer has now trekked to Ethiopia and adopted a rural boy (child) with priests present (these days Ethiopian priests could hold mass at any time of the day if ordered or paid well as they did for Beyoncé shaming the Church) and a humiliating ceremony accompanied by an oath and Lopez’s unconvincing actress tears. One more child sold and the whole process registered as a video and You Tube presentation. The director? No known but it is nauseating at least for us Ethiopians. Ethiopia accounts for more than a quarter of the international adoption. Ethiopia’s cruel rulers sell children cheaper than the fertile land (the size of Belgium) sold or ceded to Arabs, the Chinese, Indians and Sudanese. The adoption industry is flourishing and very profitable. Ethiopia has many orphans (thanks to the wars and the political repression that takes away parents) and millions of children with poor parents. Dozens of orphanages are actually transit and trafficking agencies harvesting children from poor rural parents and selling the children to foreigners cheaper than Haitian, Vietnamese and Russian children. Ethiopian children are said to have “no future” and thus their sale is justified. The regime in Addis Abeba has been selling young women to modern slavery to the racist Middle Eastern countries that torture and even kill them.. The business nets millions to the regime that controls the option and the sale of women to the Middle East. Foreign agencies and embassies are involved in the shameful process. One American woman who adopted an Ethiopian child testified that the American embassy in Addis Abeba told her to lie and to assert that the adopted child’s parents are dead. UNICEF had worked hand in glove with the Tigrean front (TPLF) when this criminal outfit was claiming to be a liberation front and enjoying the support of Live Aid, Geldof, War on Want, Grassroots International, World Vision, USAID, Norwegian Council of Churches, etc and even now this outfit is supporting the criminal regime on all fronts. Doug Webb, a UNICEF official in Addis Abeba, has bent backwards to tell us that the adoption racket, the new export industry that is bringing in in millions of dollars to the regime, is actually the work of “local cadres” and the regime is trying to correct the mistakes.. There is actually no “local” in Ethiopia. All is centralized, all is controlled by the ethnic Tigrean elite or ruling class. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the adoption agency body are all under the regime and headed by ethnic Tigreans. Shame on the UNICEF once more! Talking of cover up we can go to mention the IMF, World Bank, the US Department. The Western embassies in Addis Abeba, that all are desperately trying to present the tyranny in Addis Ababa like Park of South Korea and the former dictator of Singapore as an outfit that is registering double digit economic growth in Ethiopia despite political repression and gross human rights violations. Statistics are numbers that one can manipulate. Imagine a country that is said to have a growth annual economic record more than China but has 12 million famine affected people waiting for food aid, more than 85% of the population below the poverty line, and as they say, afflicted by “stone-age poverty” and one can have an understanding of a people subjected to crushing poverty, absence of rights and, again as they say as they snatch our children, no future. Debilitating poverty like the one the rich actresses can never imagine or the millionaire actor who wants to try living at $2.50 per day for a few days can never envisage forces parents to sell their beloved children. Poor Ethiopian parents were/are never told that what adoption meant but informed that their children will go abroad, get all opportunities and will help them. Most of the parents were duped to say the least and have lost their children. The charade is promoted by the regime in place which is getting thousands of dollars per child and the number of Ethiopian children sold to adoption in now in several thousands. Ethiopian children have become favorites because they are cheap, sufficiently exotic, little wait time and scant control or checkup. A woman who adopted a child and beat him to death in Amsterdam went back to Ethiopian and easily adopted another. Here below are some other reports: “A deputy Pennsylvania attorney and his wife have been arrested after their two adopted Ethiopian children were found starved and beaten to near death according to police. Deputy Attorney General Douglas Barbour and his wife, Kristen were arraigned today after their 6-year-old boy was found malnourished with skin lesions and the 18-month-old girl having multiple skull fractures and being possibly permanently blind”. “Hana Grace-Rose Williams came to Washington State from Ethiopia in 2008 with ringworm, cold sores, parasites and hepatitis B. But none of those things killed her. Instead, Skagit County authorities say, 13-year-old Hana died because her adoptive parents chronically starved her, abused her and left her outside on a cold May night with inadequate clothing”. How many children have been starved, beaten, sexually abused and sent to their deaths? The countries that are adopting Ethiopian children are the USA, Denmark, Sweden, France, Norway, Canada, etc. The countries that are enjoying the traffic of young Ethiopian women are in the Middle East including Yemen. Not a pip is heard from otherwise loud and shrill international human rights bodies. The sale of Ethiopian children is also passed in silence. Actors and actresses with more love for their pets than for black children adopt Ethiopian children. Adopting Ethiopian children is a la mode as the French would say—it is fashionable and they are cheaper than Cambodian, Haitian, Russian or Vietnamese children. Ethiopian law insists that children should be orphans to be adopted but these days the dollar/money kills thee parents when they are very alive. Parents duped and induced into handing over their beloved children are made to believe anything but the reality of adoption. Most do not know that their children are lost, sold away. The duplicity is backed by the regime, the so called adoption agencies, the child harvesters, the western embassies, who all claim great economic success on the part of the regime (to hide the incredible poverty of the majority of the people forced to sell their own children), and tolerate the violation of the human rights of children and of young women sold to modern slavery. Indignation aside, we should perhaps heed the advice of the former president of Malawi and call for the adoption of all African children by foreigners to give them a chance for education and more opportunities. If a woman can insure her body part for millions of dollars she can surely afford to buy not one but a few thousands of children for adoption (and for sale if she so desires). That is life as the stone- age impoverished Africans have no life to talk of. If you want to buy fertile land at no cost and to have the right to beat, oppress and play slave master on workers go to Ethiopia. If you want to buy children cheap even if they have their parents go to Ethiopia. You can starve them to death, feed them dog food, beat, mutilate and kill them. No problem. Millions others are there for sale. As far as I am concerned, my problem has to do with why these rich and self-proclaimed humanitarians are not ready to adopt all of us Africans repressed and impoverished by tyrants backed and supported by their countries. In Ethiopia we say “manew balesamint , in France they say a qui le tour, the English speaking say who is next. Who will be there and ready to adopt us with all the fanfare, tears, oaths, video, you tube and all?