Dear Dr. Ibrahim,

You suggested that Ethiopian economy has grown substantailly under EPRDF.

I am not an economist, but we have been hearing from Mr. Meles Ethiopia growing 8 to 12% for many years. We have been told that inflation is tamed or even at some point the prime Minister was telling us Ethiopia's inflation rate was below zero for some years. If you believe this and even agree that Ethiopia was growing on average 5% under Ato Meles's watch over the last 14 years, and assume 3% population growth during the same period (which is high by any standard), Ethiopia's GDP per capita would have increased quite substantially over the last 14 years. The 2% net gain per year over the last 14 years would have given us $161 GDP per capita. But the GDP per capita is $110, $10 less than the figure during Mengistu's time. This is disappointing considering the fact that Meles got over billions of US dollars from the World bank, US, UK, and other donors.

Two questions on the economy:

1. How come you failed to see this?

2. Now that I have brought it to your attention, what do you think went wrong?

With utmost respect and belief in your informed opinion I also submit the following questions:

1. Do you think ethnic based group right is better than a system that is anchored in individual human and political rights to promote progress and to ensure the rights of each and every member of society?

2. Do you see any thing wrong for an Ethiopian of Amhara ethnic origin to serve as governor in Somali region and for an Ethiopian of a Somali ethnic origin to serve as a governor of Amhara region?

3. Do you think an Ethiopian of Somali ethnic origin (representing a small percentage of the population) should be allowed to serve as the Prime Minster of Ethiopia and govern all Ethnic origin?

4. Do you think my posting in a separate thread that suggested as society we are traumatized and may benefit from group therapy has any merit?

Please accept my sincere questions in the spirit they are intended and respond to each one of them, keeping the issue of group right as opposed individual right as the basis of your analysis.

I look forward to reading your informed opinion and remain sincerely,

Mamo Qilo

Dr. Ibrahim,

This is the first time I believe you have remained quite. You were always ready at a snap of a fingure to lead a discussion. Mamo Qilo seems to have taken you to a higher platform. It is a test and we are anxiously waiting to read your reply. Go for it Dr.

I look forward to your reply. In anticipation of a learned opinion, I remain sincerely,

Bruktawit Bekele

Dear Dr. Ibrahim,

I had hoped that you would respond to my questions above. I know that you could not have given me an explanation, for it is difficult to hold the position you are holding and give a coherent and sound argument. As a principled person I had hoped you would at least come and say I was wrong.

Mamo Qilo

Ibrahim, you may wish to answer Ethiopia McCarthy as well. I have cut aand pasted her question to you in a different thread. I did not think it would be possible to go below G/S. Congratulations you have sank below him. I agree with Ethiopia. This is sickening.

Mussa Mohamed

--------------------
Dear Ibrahim,

I am at a loss with your statement. What does the massacre of peaceful demonstrators have to do with me and my parents being exposed to one side of the story? The massacre of peaceful demonstrators could only have only one side to it. It is barbaric, inhuman and illegal. Only a sick mind can see the other side. Please tell me the other side of it.


I am sure you were trying to make a point when you wrote that I missed "the whole picture and thinking in the mindset as if Ethiopia is only the country of one ethnic group and the rest of Ethiopian are guest."
There is no mindset that can justify or defend the massacre of innocent people, other than a sick mind. Help me understand what you are trying to say.

Your defense of your prime minister seems to be even worse than the flimsy attemp thet your friend Gebreselassie tried on us. At least he did not fabricate stories, as you seem to be doing. How in the world can you say "MP Meles has done an excellent job for Ethiopia because he embarked Ethiopian in sustainable development and accepts all Ethiopian to participe in the politics." When was the last time you checked the World Bank figures. My friend your country has been sliding backward since PM Meles took power. The numbers do not lie. Or do they. Or may be even you may have an explanation for the backward slide of your GDP under your Prime Minister. I have one word for all this: Sickening!

Ethiopia McCarthy

Dear Mr. Kilo,

Stupid! It is the Economy.

Are you better of today than fourteen years ago? Do you feel hopeful about the future? These questions are juxtaposed to highlight the ruling party preference to engage in ballots rigging and wholesale massacres rather than managing and reversing the downward spiral of the economy. It is sad; watching these long-drawn-out political maneuvers that are taking over center stage.

Poor economic management has devastated the country. The growth in the last decade has been erratic and grossly inadequate to alleviate the wretched and widespread poverty. The economy is bankrupt and prospects are bleak. The leadership insistence in a protracted Machiavellian intrigues and political conjectures are inexplicable and disheartening. The government is muddling through various political doctrines while the society continues to suffer from its futile macroeconomic policy. STOP DIGGING; THE COUNTRY IS ALREADY IN A DEEP HOLE!

The leadership has been unable to register a steady and meaningful economic growth since it came to power. It lacks the necessary vision and comprehensive plan to reduce the abject poverty, dilapidated infrastructures, appalling healthcare system and deficient educational program. These failures are attributable to incompetent and belligerent leaders that prescribed to poor economic policies, hodgepodge and hyphenated-democratic theories that are held with legendary and stifling bureaucracy. (Revolutionary or Liberal-Democracy, Bonapartism, etc, does anybody gives a hoot?) The party’s political and economic discourse is like a maze with high walls. You cannot see where you are going, how far the maze extends or how far you have come. Heck, if you knew that they’d drop you of the edge of the cliff at the end you would not enter the maze to begin with!

Consequently, the nation’s standard of living has been declining and now stood fourth from the bottom as measured by the Poverty Index (in real-term in US dollar and adjust for inflation). It is well below Bangladesh and Chad but just above Sierra Leone and Somalia, a dubious badge of honor and a sad commentary on the government economic program. No wonder, its citizens had given up hope and its sense of pride and have resigned to fate.

The dismal economic trends are becoming the nation’s destiny. Ethiopia is the poorest among the poor. Regrettably, the near-term prospects are also gloomy. Poverty is rampant, perverse and growing. The population growth is outstripping its meager national wealth. The infrastructures are crumbling at alarming rate and the energy resources remained inadequate and inefficient.

The dreadful and discouraging educational system is the cruelest indictment against the regime. The government has failed comprehensively in educating its youth in this competitive and technology driven millennium. The country will be in a disadvantage position, comparatively, for a protracted period to attract foreign direct investment due to the lack of skilled and professional labor pool. The young generations are condemned to miserable and worrisome future. Their prospects are worse off compare to their parents’ era.

The lack of vision and well define objective and the government inability to drive-down and implement its own haphazardly stated policies have left the country to languish in pitiful and protracted poverty.

The party is clueless. The free market economy currently in vogue is vague and lacks convictions. It is myopic to address the daunting and poor economic conditions. Its stated policy is convoluted with rural development jargons and other democratic buzzwords. Tinkering marginally on the fringe of free market economic program is not a panacea for the worsening economic discontent. The trumpeted economic liberalization program lacks transparency and coherent plan. Its action has nothing to do with transparent, sound and sustainable market economic reforms and structural adjustments. The declaration to pursue market based economic program without clearly defined and forward-looking and integrated macroeconomic program among various economic sectors including well defined poverty reduction programs are cynical schemes to get economic aids from donors and other international organizations for the benefit of narrowly defined ethnic-based constitutes. These scandalous shenanigans and scornful sarcasms should not be tolerated!

The leadership is secretive and bureaucratic in its economic planning and political processes. It exhibits semi-Stalinists tendencies in substance and style. Its utter disregards for universal human rights and its inability to accommodate deferring point of views reveal its rigid Marxist proclivity. It is a devious, conniving and belligerent political institution that lacks humility and a sense of vision.

The spontaneous combustion in Addis Ababa shows that the government has failed addressing the abject poverty, poor housing conditions, appalling healthcare system, chronic and high unemployment and underemployment. Brute force and mass arrest are not the answer.

The people are discontented and disillusioned. Therefore, stop your political gobbledygook and abdicate the government and relinquish power, peacefully.

T S Rasta

PS: Ethiopia thank you for your thoughtful messages. We are grateful for your willigness and patient to put up with some of thrse infantile and juvenile netters.

City: Cambridge, MA

recently.

Meles has said in public that he is sick and tired of "ye Amara melas ena ye Somali budget" implying that the Somali cannot administer themselves. The joke around town is that the administrators chew Chat with the budget. This is a prime minister that belittles your people that you praise as your savior.

Mamo Qilo aka
Bula Geberdin aka
Cyber Bully

Dear Dr. Irahim,

I am hoping that you would counter Terbu Rasta's analysis. His assessment s based on facts. Ethiopia's GDP per capita has been sliding backward, Ethiopia is seen barely above Somalia and Sierra Leon. This is your hero's (Meles's) claim to fame. Please sir, I have the utmost respect for you, for reasons I am yet to figure out. But please sir do not write like a militia intelligentsia, one who is short on substance and long on demagogy and fabrication, as you have been doing recently.

Meles has said in public that he is sick and tired of "ye Amara melas ena ye Somali budget" implying that the Somali cannot administer themselves. The joke around town is that the administrators chew Chat with the budget. This is a prime minister that belittles your people that you praise as your savior.

Mamo Qilo aka
Bula geberdin aka
Cyber Bully

Dear Mamo,
First of all, I was not ignoring your comment; however, I was busy writing and working on my homework. I am working on law degree and have to read a book on constitution.
Anyway, to answer your questions: I do believe that Amhara has every right to work in Somali region as Somali does in Amhara region; however, Somali Ethiopian should be given preference in Somali region since there is big gap between the two ethnics.
This is affirmative action a la Meles Style that is couched in the new Ethiopian constitution.
The primary reason that CUD is set up is destroyed these provisions benefiting people such as Somali.
Amahra were favored for hundred years in terms of education, political and social.
Moreover, the question of individuallity versus commonality is an age old question that social scientist have been struggling to find solution for it.
That is to say, as Jean Jacques Rousseau nicely put" The conflict of humanity has debuted eversince the appropriation of propriety is introduced"
In other word, man has begin to think for himself or herelf and ignore the question of society at large.
This is not an easy question. In the Western World, people are struggling to demarcate between GOD, Society and Ideology when it is based upon the perception of individuallity versus commonality.

Email: shirdons@yahoo.com

City: Washington DC

Ibrahim,

You answered my question quite intelligibly. Thanks. I agree with the general gist of your reply. I look forward to getting your reply on all the points if your time permits you.

May I dare to say some times you impress me with your analysis. At other times I find you ate the level of Gebreselassie. Quite a contrast. Please take this comment in the spirit it was intended.

Mamo Qilo

Ibrahim,

I found you to be a moron. I thought I should tell you so you know. Menabak honeh new TeyaKeyen Yematemelesew? You are simply a moron. I must be candid.

Mamo Qilo

The cloning of Mamo,
I am clever enought because I grew with camel milk that I know that brother Mamo did not write this last e-mail.

Email: shirdons@yahoo.com

City: Washington DC