Alemayehu G. Mariam

The inconvenient truth about Africa today is that dictatorship presents a far more perilous threat to the survival of Africans than climate change. The devastation African dictators have wreaked upon the social fabric and ecosystem of African societies is incalculable.

In his epic autobiography, the great Nelson Mandela used the metaphor of the 'long walk' to describe his decades-old struggle against apartheid and minority rule in South Africa.

In his book 'Night', Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and the man the Nobel committee called the 'messenger to mankind' when it awarded him the peace prize in 1986, wrote:

‘No alternative in the opposition,’ they whispered anonymously. What a disgusting phrase to use in justifying support for a ruthless dictatorship. That is apparently the scuttlebutt on Embassy Row in Addis Ababa.

It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The black horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi's regime denied there was any famine.

In the first part of our commentary on the madness of Ethiopia’s 2010 ‘elections’[/URL], we posed the question: ‘Is it possible to have a fair and free election in a police state?’ In light of the persuasive anecdotal evidence prese

'Is it possible to have a fair and free election in a police state?' That is the inescapable question one must answer after reading former Ethiopian President Dr Negasso Gidada’s recent reportage on his visit to Dembi Dollo in Qelem Wallaga Zone of Oromia region.[1] In his recent, widely read ana

It is not only Mother Ethiopia that is in deep trouble today but also the millions of mothers in Ethiopia.

'These are the times that try men’s souls' said Thomas Paine, one of the founders of the American republic, at the onset of the American Revolution. It could be said equally that these are times that try a nation’s soul.

Last April, we commented that the whole business of elections in Ethiopia is ‘much ado about nothing’. We offered a catalogue of reasons why the whole election rigmarole and ritual under the current dictatorship was an exercise in futility and absurdity: