By Tedla Asfaw
We are not 99 like here in America and UK but 99.6. It is also true an average Ethiopian makes a dollar /about 99.6 cent a day back home. The Club of 99.6 are almost all Ethiopians who go to bed empty stomach. The double digit growth “makers” are the 0.4 Club who took control of all Ethiopian resources and do as they wish with no accountability. Here in America the Nobel Prize winner Economist, Joseph Stiglitz, coined the 99 percent on his book to expose the income inequality that has been exasperated by uncontrolled Wall Street which many rally now under the banner of Occupy Wall Street(OWS), “We are 99”, still alive and will be a force in the 2012 presidential election. Watch Obama !!!
Unfortunately Joseph Stiglitz when it comes to Ethiopia he “joined” the club of his “analytical” student Tyrant Meles Zenawi, Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, Can you hear me ? You may agree with me if I combine it and call him Analytical Tyrant. Meles Zenawi is the leader of the Club of the 0.4 who have not slept well in 2011 but still score a double digit growth again.
Well, some of the loot registered “double digit”, 11.5 billion dollar gone out of Ethiopia never to come back. I wonder people like Joseph Stiglitz who condemned the bailout of the Wall Street by the Federal Government and stand with the middle income Americans promote the club of the Super Looters in Ethiopia. Is what good for America is not good for poor Ethiopia or we should not complain after all Ethiopia has been on food aid assistant, bailout for more than a decade by USA tax payers money.
The Club of the 0.4 has foreign “guests”/landlords led by Sai Ramakrishna Head of Karuturi, Gambella and dual citizen Sheik Al Amoudi and some thirty or more. Their Wall Street Equivalent “Globalization Inc. ” is facilitating 300,000 hectare/30,000 sq km of arable land with huge water from poor Ethiopians for yearly rent to be deposited on foreign account of EFFORT led by Meles Zenawi’s wife Azeb Mesfin.
Al Amoudi the Gold Medal Winner of our Millennium four years ago is the “Lung” of the 0.4 club while Meles Zenawi is the “Brain” to quote Joe. Azeb Mesfin is CEO. No wonder, Growth for this camp is double digit. If you include the Loot, 11.5 billion dollar out of Ethiopia, Miracle might have been registered in macroeconomics as a possible candidacy for Nobel Prize. Sheik Al Amoudi must have Haile Gebreselassies’ Lung to give sufficient Oxygen for this miracle.
The 99.6 Club 90 million members half of which less than 14 years of age only know TPLF/EPRDF and a product of poverty and exclusion. While our Rich and Corrupt enjoy their lives the rest will be given once a year an “opportunity” to say a word of “protest” thanks to the Great Run in Addis Ababa. Ethiopians respect the founder Haile Gebreselassie and understands also why he is forced to join the Club of the 0.4 by praising our Analytical/Brainy Great Leader Ethiopia has ever seen.
The year 2011 is going to end with peoples victory, from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya and now is knocking Syria and Yemen. The people of these countries were in much better shape than our people by any measurement and yet people rose up for better life and accountable government and the 0.4 Club in Ethiopia will get its 2011 in the year of 2012.
The mass movement in the above countries also benefited from the information infrastructure. Poor Ethiopia is poor in all measurements including opposition parties back home and here in the Diaspora. We should not worry about it too much. It was not from top to bottom what has happened in North Africa and Middle East, it is from bottom up. We do not need to wait TPLF coronation every five years and the mobilization of our people has to go on. It is paramount that those opposition movements who are not the member of 0.4 Club to begin the year with a rally for justice for all detained for writing and speaking the truth. Demand the release of Eskinder Nega, Reyot Alemu, Andualem Arage and others who are paraded on a make believe justice.
Diaspora thanks to the information infrastructure is doing its job. Radios and ESAT TV are doing their part. Do not forget, Ethiopia’s 83 percent still live in rural Ethiopia where electricity is not available. Sending batteries and radios to our people is a job we can and must do. Programs on DVD can be shared by our people back home and we can afford to send them DVD/CD players. Diaspora should be practical in addition to doing a wonderful job of exposing the West/East collaborators of Meles Zenawi. Our protest made it hard for the Club 0.4 members to dine and wine with their foreign partners.
In the year 2012 the 99.6 Club will take back Ethiopia and the majority of Ethiopians in the Diaspora will go back home and build a strong prosperous Ethiopia for all. For that to happen Diaspora should demand all nationalist movements like OLF and ONLF to come to their sense and drop their demand of cessation as their right enshrined by Article 39 of the TPLF Constitution. Ethiopians will write a constitution by the people for the people. The beneficiaries of Article 39 are solely the members of 0.4 Club, few thousands.