Al Gore versus HR 2003

By Robele Ababya | December 21, 2007

Former US Vice President Al Gore (Reuters)

It is amazing how God rewards good men in His own way. Mr. Al Gore, former vice president of the United States, received the coveted Nobel Prize for Peace. Readers would recall that he lost to President George W. Bush in the last Presidential race for the White House although he reportedly got over half a million popular votes than his rival nationwide. The race was close in Florida. The dispute between the two rivals was settled in the Supreme Court since the time-consuming counting of the votes had to stop. Incidentally, in a desperate effort to hoodwink the world and kill HR2003, Meles Zenawi cited the saga of the election in Florida to lie and preach to his rubber-stamp parliament that there is no electoral board in the US, and that the returning officer was a brother to the winner of the Presidency.

Those of us who witnessed the loss of Al Gore’s bid to the White House are now happy that he was meant to play a greater leading role in the scramble to save our planet Earth from being victimized by global warming. It is quite in order to warmly congratulate Al Gore for receiving the coveted Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo where his wife watched the auspicious occasion beaming with radiant smile as her husband was walking to the podium to be crowned Laureate. It is also in order to congratulate Mrs. Gore for being the strong Lady behind her successful husband in reaping the fruit of his dedication to environmental issues spanning 30 years.

This writer watched the glamorous occasion with intense interest and wondered whether the political landscape of our present world could have been different if Al Gore had made it to the White House. He pondered whether the horrifying event of 11 September 2001, the war in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the Israeli-Lebanese war in the Middle East, the invasion of Somalia by the Meles Zenawi forces could have been avoided. He weighed the magnitude of the losses wrought by the said conflicts against the attendant catastrophe to our environment due to global warming. And he came to the conclusion that Al Gore lost the White House for he was meant for a greater calling in leading the process of saving planet Earth.

This writer was left with no doubt that with AL Gore as President of the United States, the historic Ethiopian election of 15 May 2005 would have gone to its true victors; the martyrs of June and November 2005 would have been alive to savor the victory of the Ethiopian people; tens of thousands innocent protesters could not have been thrown into congested dungeons where many got their heads shaved in turns with a single razor which was not sterilized. Democracy in Ethiopia could not have been killed under the gazing eyes of Ex-Ambassador to Ethiopia, Vicki Huddleston, and her predecessor Aurelia Brazeal – the former still fighting tooth-and-nail to kill HR2003, the Ethiopian Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007, in the Senate although the House of Representatives of the United States Congress has unanimously passed the Bill.

Laureate Al Gore is now a statesman of the world who will face challenges in his future undertakings regarding the destructive effect on the ecosystem largely attributed to the actions of humankind.

The contribution of each and every free man and woman is indispensable in saving the planet Earth. HR2003, the Ethiopian Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007, speaks for liberty and democracy. It is a tool that leaders of the caliber of Al Gore can use to take on board the enormous contributions of free men and women in his endeavor to save the plane Earth. As Albert Einstein said: “Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom’. It would therefore be in the interest of the noble project to save the planet Earth to support the contents and spirit of Bills like HR2003, which clearly puts moral leadership before political expediency on the part of the US.

It is noble to talk about saving the planet Earth. It is more important to walk the talk. It is also essential to ponder for whom mother Earth is being saved. It is morally imperative to ask and answer the question: what is the use of saving the planet Earth if the plight of its oppressed inhabitants may face the same level of abject poverty and injustice perpetrated by misrules of despotic leaders of the present world? Saving mother Earth requires the awareness and collaborative efforts of its human inhabitants. There is no doubt that greed and bad governance did, does now, and will endanger the ecosystem. Under the present conditions where the actions of despotic leaders are wrecking havoc in various regions of the world, it is difficult to say that the negative effect of global warming is a priority for the victims of abject poverty and injustice. In order to take these victims on board, conditions must be set right so that their potentially and inherently enormous contributions to the project of saving our planet Earth are fully realized. Respect for the letter and spirit of universal human rights is an indispensable condition for taking every individual in making the world a better place to live in. Evidently, dictators play significant negative roles in the degrading of the environment by excluding the masses from participation by denying them private property ownership as in the case in Ethiopia.

Meles Zenawi’s regime misrules millions of landless Ethiopian peasants living in serfdom. His totalitarian regime owns or controls all lucrative enterprises. All pillars of democracy are under his strict control. In this condition of people living under slavery, it is fool hardy to expect the slaves to worry about environmental issues. Why should anyone care for a piece of land, plant and nurture a tree on it, if he is not the owner?

Close to one million dislocated Somalis live as refugees in their own land as a result of atrocities unleashed by the army of the Zenawi regime. These refugees are unproductive besides being a heavy burden on their overly congested camps. Why do they care about saving mother Earth? What is there in it for them? In keeping with his lies and deception, Zenawi denies that humanitarian crisis in Somalia and accuses the United Nations for hyping the case.

The two examples in the above paragraphs are but a few shocking examples of gross violations of human rights bringing despair and despondency to millions who could have been formidable human resources in caring for the environment:

The purpose of saving as it is understood by the common man/woman is to invest that saving or consume it at ones choice at a later time. It is based on the hope that the time for that choice will materialize. However, to those living under one or more of the above enumerated horrible conditions, the future is bleak.

At the Nobel Prize award ceremony of 13 December 2007, Mr. Gore said that humanity is bound by a single civilization in our global village. That is absolutely correct. He further quoted Albert Einstein: “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them”. That is also absolutely correct. Dictators have deaf ears for these truths. Their preoccupation is to stifle growth and debase humanity. The despotic Zenawi regime thrives on divide and rule strategy of ethnic-based politics; it is petrified in the old precepts of communist dogma; it cannot be trusted as a partner in the noble project of saving planet Earth. The anachronistic ideology of the regime will bar the masses from participating positively in the project for saving planet Earth.

Therefore the challenge for Laureate Al Gore, his colleagues in the scientific community, and the entire democratic agents of change is to unite in the noble cause of saving the planet Earth – while at the same time taking action to subdue dictators. Zenawi is determined to kill HR2003 with the help of a powerful lobbyist paid US$ 50, 000 per month – a colossal amount collected from millions of peasants living in abject poverty in his serfdom. He must not succeed.

This is a solemn plea to Laureate Al Gore to exert the weight of his influence, in his capacity as a world statesman and a popular leader in the US, to not let HR2003 die in the Senate because Zenawi and his cohorts are determined to kill the Bill in the Senate. Its opponents falsely and deceptively argue that it infringes on Ethiopia’s sovereignty. The same pressure that is being contemplated in the Senate to apply on President Musharef of Pakistan should also be exerted on Zenawi who is bluffing that with the Bill becoming law the coalition of the willing on the war on terror would be weakened.

This is a also a reminder to all like-minded fellow citizens to make similar pleas to Laureate Albert Gore by underlining that the Treaty of Wuchale has nothing in common with HR2003 of which the Zenawi regime is scared to death.

Save the planet Earth for all humanity to live in liberty and freedom!!

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The writer, Robele Ababya, can be reached at [email protected].