Ethiopian desire to obliterate Tigray existence becoming more public

Yohannes Buayalew, a top Amhara government official warned that one of the key factors to win a war was to foster and internalize hate of the enemy

Once claiming Tigray as fellow  mislead Ethiopians, Ethiopian leaders now proclaim absolute hate for them. Yohannes Buayalew, an Amhara government official now proclaims a key factor to win a war was to foster and internalize hate of the enemy. “Artists should help promote hate among the people against the enemy. Hate is power needed to defeat an enemy.  He called on Ethiopian artists and writers to make hate sink in the people. Previous denials by Ethiopian officials that their war against the Tigray was an intended genocide but was only a “law enforcement operation” are now changed to bold proclamations of the need to develop absolute hate of everything Tigray. Of course the reality is that this hatred has been present since Abiy Ahmed began planning his Tigray obliteration after his alliance with Ahmara expansionists.

Before Ethiopian, Amhara, and Eritrean forces even entered the Ethiopian Tigray war they were told by commanding officers and political leaders that this war was about permanently removing the Tigray people from not only existence but history. We now know that specific orders were given to kill all male children over the age 4 at least and if more the better. Tigray women were to raped to bear Amhara children or their wombs rendered sterile by mutilation.

Schools, hospitals, farms, electricity, water, internet, and banking were to be destroyed that no vestige of society remained. Even before the Ethiopian invasion the Ethiopian Federal government had already changed the budgets of universities and other facilities to zero. Factories built by foreign interest which were financed by the Ethiopian government were to be destroyed.

Almost no prisoners of war from Tigray and minimally from Oromo fighters have been taken. Most were just killed on the spot and left for the hyena.

There are even some reports of Amhara FANO removing limbs from both combatants and civilians leaving them disabled. I saw innocent mothers shot in the back running from enemy soldiers and then their babies semi-decapitated. 

The hatred of the Abiy Ahmed and his followers has been so intense that Ethiopian Air Force bombing along the A2 Highway was allowed to kill many Amhara civilians as they could be sacrificed for the goal of genocide of the Tigray.

Ethiopian credit rating crash ends further loans to support government

The rapidly rising Ethiopian government debt further fueled by the Ethiopian Tigray war

Ethiopian failure to deal with a failing economy worsens the credit crash and severely limits possibilities for further international loans to support the government. Despite promises to cooperate with foreign lenders no progress has been made. There is a growing possibility that the Ethiopian federal government may collapse.

In February 2021 under an agreement called the Common Framework for Debt Treatment Ethiopia agreed to work with the International Monetary Fund to find a way to renegotiate its debt payments. Currently the Ethiopian government is estimated to be $40-$50 billion in debt for loans to the Ethiopian Federal government as well as “hidden” loans backing private businesses deals in targeted industries. This means Ethiopia currently has to pay more than $ 2 billion annually in debt service. The debt service may now be almost 50% of the Gross Domestic Product which is five times higher than the normal upper acceptable limit of 10%.

The Ethiopian government was supposed to come to terms with a committee which included France and China starting in September but so far according to Mood’s Investment Services report that came out today there has been no progress. As a result Moody’s downgraded the credit rating once again to Caa2. Their assessment is that the Ethiopian economy has a negative outlook and now has no likely source at this time for obtaining any further loans.

Moody notes weak government, poor control of COVID 19, increasing political unrest and war, drought, locust outbreaks, inflation, and loss of foreign investment interest among the factors making economic growth and stability unlikely for Ethiopia in the near future.

The world support for Abiy Ahmed makes it a partner in death and destruction

Abiy Ahmed’s most notable political act is the killing of thousands of Ethiopian citizens

Thousands are dead yet still the world will do nothing significant about the Ethiopian crisis. Diaspora influence and foreign government hesitance to see the real Abiy Ahmed greatly empowered Ethiopia’s descent into hell. The world cannot escape its responsibility in fomenting disaster. The world has to learn to not just to listen to words but also to measure the man who speaks them.  To hold leaders accountable when they stray from their promises.

The impetus to finally fulfill the Ethiopian dream of a democratic state promoting ethnic unity and escape from poverty obscured the world’s view of the real Abiy Ahmed. Medemer, a promise of the blending of Ethiopia’s many cultures into a new national unity with equality for all, quickly deteriorated following the Prime Minister’s victory tour in the United States.  During this visit and subsequently Abiy Ahmed progressively became influenced by the Amharic clerico-fascist movement that believed the greatness of the Ethiopian state lied in returning to the time of Amharic expansion and dominance of the 19th century. This metamorphosis of Abiy Ahmed was mostly sparked by the influence of diaspora Amhara who greatly also influenced domestic supporters.  

This foreign diaspora influence is important to realize because it very much goes against the idea that what was happening in Ethiopia was all the result of beliefs and actions of  domestic “Ethiopians”. Promises of aversion to war, new economic development, freedom of the press, release of political prisoners, and open dialogue about the future of the state were quickly retracted. Instead, references to the troubled time of “princes without a king” of the 18th century Ethiopia from which Amharic leadership provided “rescue” in the 19th century became the dominant theme of government forward looking policy. Medemer was a camouflage for the return of Amharic dominance, expansion, and repression of other Ethnic groups. 

In the period of a year Ethiopia went from a booming economy with high levels of economic growth, foreign investment, improving educational and health care services to a devastating war that has killed thousands, displaced millions, genocidally declared Tigrayans (Tegaru) as needing extermination, bankrupting the economy, and the world view of Ethiopia as a pariah of the likes of Iran, Eritrea, and North Korea.

As I and others have written before, the function and the will of the United Nations and the African Union to to reduce the harm from this crisis is almost nil. Part of it is the disbelief that the Abiy Ahmed the world wished to see is not the evil man that ultimately emerged who kills, starves, and destroys. Now his victims are not just the Tigray but include all Ethiopians whose dream is now became a nightmare. The only recourse is to hope that the opposition forces of Tigray, Oromia, and others will be able to topple the evil. 

Ethiopian PM falsely blames aid wheat for food shortages in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has failed to reduce the need for wheat imports for several years

Today Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed threatened to stop all wheat food aid saying it causes diseases and stopping the aid would solve “70%” of Ethiopia’s problems. Extensive studies have been carried out over the past few years analyzing the increasing wheat demand yielding solutions which the Ethiopian government has failed to put into place. The Ethiopian PM now seems to making a strawman argument against aid instead of admitting his lack of action on developing agriculture.  He is also likely believing Ethiopia is facing imminent severe sanctions from Western democracies over the genocidal war with Tigray. The failing economy and falling birr will no doubt make it difficult to purchase the usual 4 million tons of wheat imports purchased yearly.

Ethiopia imports about 25% of its wheat needs every year estimated be over 6 million tons. Most of the purchased wheat imports, about 4 million tons,  come from the Black Sea while the United States provides additional donations each year of 1.5 million tons. Since 2019 attempts have been made to increase wheat production in the Afar and Oromia regions which are most fit to raise the crop, however, this was not a main focus of the government.

A review of the problems of wheat production in Ethiopia shows that low tech farming methods and low payments to farmers make for failure to make production goals. Ethiopian market studies show that although teff to make the native bread enjera is preferred by the lower class, those that can afford to purchase wheat to make pasta and traditional breads, dabo and ambasha for example, are demanding more wheat every year. International authorities on wheat production had suggested aggressive breeding programs to make wheat more resistant to climate change and disease such as been done in Mexico but Abiy Ahmed government was slow to respond. Experts said that dealing with land erosion, seed breeding, and modernizing farming could make Ethiopia wheat self sufficient.

Abiy Ahmed’s Recent Action reminds of Hitler’s “Nero” Decree

A child was one of several civilians killed and injured by the Ethiopian airstrike on a market in Mekelle claimed to be the main communication center by the ENDF

Reminiscent of Hitler’s actions in the face of defeat in World War II Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has done his own “Nero” Decree. Devastating loss of soldiers and equipment in the past week  to Tigray Defense Forces have only hardened the Ethiopian Prime Minister to escalate further his grotesque acts of war crime and inhumanity. Many military analysts are saying setbacks of the Ethiopian National Defense Force may have reached a point of no return. 

Ethiopian jet aircraft attacked a busy market in downtown Mekelle calling it the center of Tigray Defense Force communications near a well known hotel, Planet Hotel.  Ayder Hospital reports there were 3 causalities. This is the latest action whereas earlier in the week the jets repeatedly area bombarded areas along the A2 highway in Amhara killing at least hundreds of Amhara and Afar civilians, his own Amhara forces, and destroying many businesses with little effect on the Tigray Defense Forces.  Throughout the past 11 months under his command hundreds of thousands of innocents have been summarily executed, starved, raped, striped of health care, possessions, and communication. 

In March of 1945 when Allied Forces crossed the Rhine and Russian forces were moving in fast from the West, Adolf Hitler made his infamous “Nero” Decree. He admitted to a few of his generals that defeat was imminent. He called for the destruction of Germany’s infrastructure and stepped up arrests of Jews and other undesirables as well as their executions.  The similarity of using genocide and deprivation of Abiy to Hitler seems to become closer and closer with each passing day. One wonders if Abiy Ahmed has read Mein Kampf. 

In public remarks Abiy Ahmed rambled between talking about avocados and that every Amhara citizen should stand by his house and fight to the death. While at the same giving frantic calls to the United States State Department to help him even though he does not want to negotiate with “Terrorists”. Meanwhile his supporters continue their chants “Hands off Ethiopia!” meaning they want no interference from the United States while complaining they want more food aid to Amhara even as they block it to Tigray.

War and economic collapse driving new Ethiopian brain drain

War and economic collapse is driving Ethiopian brain drain(photo from Quora)

Brain drain of university trained professionals and successful entrepreneurs may now be driven to even higher levels by the ongoing Ethiopian conflict with Tigray and other nationalities.  Even though in the post Derg era Ethiopia built 33 universities including medical schools, engineering schools, and literally a whole gamut of professional training to help develop its economy, brain drain has always been a problem especially to Europe and the United States. 

Academics describe that the “push factors” such as low pay, poor working conditions, and poor chance for advancement or continuing development combine with “pull factors” such as higher salaries, children’s education, favorable immigration policies,  career development, political and economic stability drive professionals to leave their home country. Restrictive policies to trap professionals are against United Nations principles and just add to unrest.

Before the onset of the Ethiopian Tigray conflict Ethiopia had one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. While the salaries of professionals remained significantly lower than more developed Western democracies many young graduates elected to stay in Ethiopia because they saw that economic development was a possibility. They were motivated by helping their country, having jobs where they had significant responsibility, and also that future income would improve as the country grew. A forecast for improving political stability and quality of family life convinced them to stay.

After almost a year of war that saw severe devastation of not only Tigray but now spreading to Amhara, Oromia, Afar, Somali, and SNNP. The cost of war has rendered the national debt so high that the government will have little left after paying foreign debt service to invest in infrastructure development. Meanwhile the value of the birr drops to new lows every week. Professionals who never thought about leaving are now reassessing this decision in the face of uncertainty.

This past month I have had contact with many doctors, engineers, and other professionals not just Tigrayans who have left Ethiopia and do not plan to return. Many of them were Amhara from Addis Ababa who are in their third and fourth decade of life with extended families to support who see no future in Ethiopia. Even in Somaliland many merchants from Addis Ababa and other regions have been seen.

International economists have had varying ideas about what are the effects of brain drain. Certainly many professionals receive higher wages and then send remittances back to their home country. This remittances significantly improve local economies where they are received. Although diaspora may help developing countries develop most immigrants to developed countries never return to their country of birth.

In the past few years not only Ethiopia has had stability and growth in Africa. Many Ethiopian doctors and other professionals for example have recently left Addis Ababa to work in Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi where their skills are in high demand at salaries sometimes two or three times what they earn in Ethiopia. The high quality of Ethiopian university education combined with the fact that English competency is required opens the possibility for pursuit of careers in the United States, Canada, Australia, England and countries of the old British Empire.

 

 

The death of the Ethiopian economic dream of prosperity

The International Monetary Fund is so pessimistic about Ethiopian growth it refused to give a report

The conquest obsession of Abiy Abid is rapidly fading any future of economic growth and financial independence for Ethiopia. They seemed to have missed out on the first lesson in any college freshman economic class about the “guns vs butter” trade off.

This month the inflation rate for Ethiopia will reach a record 50% in one year the highest in the world. The consumer price index is expected within a short time to also reach a new high of 300 points above normal. The Central Statistical Agency which normally posts this finding has actually closed its normal reporting website.

The Ethiopian government probably has less the $400 million to run the country for the next 11 months which normally requires about $2 billion. The International Monetary Fund has decided that Ethiopia’s finances are in such disarray that it cannot issue a report on growth. Although the official government report is 6.6% growth this year most analysts are saying it will exceed -2% net loss. Fantasy will not feed the hungry nor create sustainable businesses to drive economic growth.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has spent all cash reserves and transferred most gold reserves out of the country. France and China are trying to broker a new repayment plan for debt that exceeds $40 billion requiring payments of at least $2 billion year alone in debt service. Meanwhile Abiy Ahmed promises to guarantee private loan deals between private companies in Ethiopia and foreign interests have been discovered adding another $25 billion in debt previously hidden. His armies have destroyed hundreds of billions of birr worth of businesses and industries in Tigray. The war damage blight to Tigray now extends to much of Amhara with Ethiopian and Eritrean blanket destruction adding billions of birr in economic production loss and human life. 

At this point the continued war and misery are no doubt going to leave what was formally the prosperous state of Ethiopia in tatters. Severe austerity measures will need to be imposed just to get any country to fund loan repayment and it is likely that natural resources will likely be the mechanism of repayment but not at any significant profit to Ethiopia. The dream of Ethiopia being a second world country that escaped poverty is gone. The previous decades of progress will be just a memory traded for the false promise of conquest and repression. Ethiopia has become another Eritrea. 

Does Abiy Ahmed want to be the Christopher Columbus of Africa?

Once revered now history paints him in a different light. Currier and Ives print of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), landing in the West Indies on October 11, 1492.

The current war in Ethiopia begs comparison of the similarity of Amhara dominance over what we call Ethiopia with the European conquest of the New World. In America the once toted celebration of Christopher Columbus Day has become instead a day of solemn reflection on forced conquest and cultural obliteration. The blindness to the devastation of American European influence reminds me of the blindness of Amhara obliteration of other Horn of African societies.

The current Ethiopian conflict is not a really new phenomenon but really a repeat event of a recurring theme against central authority in the empire we now call Ethiopia. The expansion of the old Abyssinian empire under the Amhara monarchy since the mid 19th century has repeatedly tried to create a single nation state identity. To some extent international interests have at various times encouraged this to promote the development of a “civilized modern Ethiopian” state as defined by greater world powers. Whereas today many Abiy Ahmed supporters see his leadership as a new pro-Africa anticolonial movement in reality it is shaped into a redo of the reign of the late Haile Selassie into an internal colonization. Like Haile Selassie he portrays an Ethiopia that welcomes major power involvement in economic development but only through him. Like the European settlers who exterminated large groups of American Indians especially those who did not adopt European language and ways of life, Abiy Ahmed has advocated for non-Amhara extermination.

In the New World over the past century we have lessened the idea of Christopher Columbus as a discoverer of the New World in favor of him bringing a dark period of cultural obliteration and forced submission of the aboriginal population of America to that of Europe. The cause of bringing modernity to society is not a justification for tyranny.

Listen to the rhetoric of Amhara news sources and you hear frank open discussion of the inferiority of many ethnic groups and religions of Ethiopia except Amhara. The Amhara culture like Christopher Columbus forced its language, religion, trading practices, government, and even complete civil obligations of the Tigray, Afar, Somali, Beningshagul, and Southern Ethiopian Peoples. Those that argue that the Tigray dominated too much the previous Ethiopian People Revolutionary Front are making a similar point they fail to see about the Prosperity Party which is now an Amhara substitute. I suspect this is why many Tigray do not want to remain in Ethiopia. Many will be happy to see the other regions of Ethiopia find their own destiny. The current war of the Tigray is not about who dominates Ethiopia but rather whether the Tigray, Oromo, and others can choose their own path for self determination.

Like Europe learned in World War II where Hitler dreamed he could unify Europe under a German firm hand and Yugoslavia in the 1980s the times of monocultural dominance over large multicultural dominion are coming to an end. If the region of Ethiopia wants to prosper and find peace, to end the wars that come every generation, it needs to find a new solution. Christopher Columbus has no place in Ethiopia.

 

 

Ethiopian and Eritrean destruction will crash Ethiopian Development Bank

The Development Bank of Ethiopia has seen continuation of many loan failures under the government of Abiy Ahmed

Already failing Development Bank of Ethiopia strategies to successfully finance targeted Ethiopian business success are now crashing completely due to the Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Amhara forces destruction in millions of dollars of industrial projects which were 70% financed by the Development Bank of Ethiopia. Now these loans will never be paid and foreign investor interest has been severely discouraged.

The Development Bank of Ethiopia was created to be a mechanism to finance industries deemed vital to the economic development of Ethiopia because there was insufficient private or international alternatives. The Ethiopian Commerce Bank of Ethiopia which held 57% of deposits 18% of profits from private lenders was just not big enough to handle the load. The low interest rates paid by Ethiopian Commerce Bank were just too low to sustain financing for large projects.

Unfortunately over the past decade ongoing inflation and business failure of large projects in government targeted industries was creating a difficult situation to sustain the development bank. In 2020 just before the Ethiopian Tigray conflict began the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, began to take over policy determination of the Development Bank of Ethiopia. Despite this the number of distressed loans increased to one third of all projects. Under the PM the Ethiopian Investment Commission tried to help 485 troubled government targeted business ventures with additional cash disbursements and loan refinancing sometimes trying to encourage some help from the Ethiopian Commerce Bank but little improvement occurred.

As reported by the Tigray Interim Administration in February 2021 just in Tigray over 100 billion birr of destruction was done by the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in the so-called law enforcement operation. Thousands of workers lost jobs and foreign investors had no choice but to abandon the projects financed to tens of millions of dollars through the Development Bank of Ethiopia when they saw the destruction and theft of equipment and materials to Eritrea.

Now with the complete destruction of cities and businesses along the highways extending north from Dessie in the Amhara region by poorly controlled carpet bombing and artillery of the Ethiopian forces even more hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding loans will default to the Development Bank of Ethiopia likely resulting in its collapse. 

Destruction of 100 billion birr businesses in Tigray now spreads to Amhara

The $26 million investment by Velocity in Mekelle which was 70% funded by loan from the Development Bank of Ethiopia was a total loss due to destruction by the ENDF and Eritrean forces. Thousands of jobs and loan repayment are gone.

Abiy Ahmed and Esaias Afwerki beserk destruction destroyed thousands of workers lives, millions in foreign investment, and cancelled the future repayment of millions of dollars in loans made by the Development Bank of Ethiopia to foreign investors in Tigray.  The false message of liberation of the Tigray from the TPLF by Abiy Ahmed’s genocide which continues today was countered by some like Abera Niguse in the interim administration of occupation. Now with carpet bombardment of Amhara killing thousands of civilians and businesses, the Abiy Ahmed war machine continues the same in Amhara.

The false message of liberation of the Tigray from the TPLF by Abiy Ahmed’s genocide which continues today was countered by some like Abera Niguse in the interim administration of occupation.   Niguse appointed as Head of the Bureau of Justice for the Tigray Interim Administration during the Ethiopian occupation complained in February 2021 that the destruction of factories and businesses in Tigray was illegal. He noted that the procedure undertaken was a “law enforcement operation” that should not have constituted mass destruction in a radio broadcast on FM 104.4 in Mekelle. The damage done would require an investment of over 100 billion birr to repair he stated. Essentially every factory and business including pharmaceuticals, construction, mining, truck and agricultural equipment manufacturing, garments, steel, poultry, farming, cement production, etc. was destroyed.

I was involved in trying to help Velocity, an Indian and Dubai based garment company in Mekelle which also produced oxygen for industrial use, be allowed to produce medical oxygen but instead Eritreans were allowed to destroy the factory and take components to Asmara. The Velocity investment in Mekelle was $26 million dollars with a 70% loan from the Development Bank of Ethiopia. Now thanks to Abiy Ahmed’s destructive mania thousands lost jobs and loans outstanding to the Development Bank of Ethiopia will never be paid. This is just one example of many examples of how Abiy Ahmed’s will ultimately help break the economy of Ethiopia.

Niguse complained “This is not about getting rid of TPLF or capturing some clique. This war had no discipline. It has created insurmountable social and economical issues for the foreseeable future for the people of Tigray. It has caused serious insecurity in the region. Tigrayans are abused and suffering. Churches are burning. Women and young girls are being raped. Improper house checks and raids. All types of machinery, cars and many other properties of Tigray have been looted and taken out of the country’s border, some are taken to central Ethiopia”.