Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Mrs. Meles Zenawi and all Ethiopian women activists who work hard to fight the AIDS pandemic in Ethiopia, Africa and throughout the world. I am also very much aware of the devastating impact of AIDS on my brothers and sisters in my beloved Motherland. What I am totally against is the neatly packaged PR stunt to promote Azeb Mesfin as a humanitarian concerned with the human condition in Ethiopia.
MLK, throughout his life, rubbed shoulders with the likes of Rosa Parks and not with the likes of Imelda Markos.
While thousands of innocent Ethiopians are maimed, killed and imprisoned in Ethiopia, the former guerilla fighter-cum-first lady has yet to speak out against the atrocities committed by her husband. The daily tears running down the chubby cheeks of the young sons of Dr. Berhanu Nega, the daughter of Judge Bertukan Mideksa, the little boy of journalist Serkalem Fasil, all of them unjustly incarcerated in Kaliti prison and the countless other children of ordinary Ethiopians never seems to weigh on the mind of Mrs. Zenawi.
With all due respect to the powers that be at Georgetown University, the award being given to Mrs. Zenawi on Martin Luther King’s birthday is not only in bad taste but a slap in the face to all Ethiopians who are peacefully waging a war, like MLK himself, against injustice along the length and breadth of Ethiopia. Unless the committee members, responsible for selecting the award recipients just dropped from outer space, it is hard to fathom why they would pick the wife of Meles Zenawi, whose Agazi forces have mercilessly gunned down innocent children on the streets of Addis. From rare lion cubs to precious young tots, no one has been immune from the grotesque cruelty of Mrs. Zenawi’s husband.
As Mrs. Zenawi is preparing for her American sojourn, thousands of young Ethiopian
women are joining the ranks of “ladies of the night” to feed themselves and their families
because they have no jobs and no other means of support. I will leave it to the creative imagination of the good people at Georgetown University how the influx into this line of work mitigates against the fight of AIDS in Ethiopia.
President Bush’s commitment to help fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa is admirable. While we commend his humanity, 77 million Ethiopians who are held hostage at gun point will appreciate it even more, if he would rather stop the blind support to the dictatorial regime in Addis Ababa whose bankrupt socio-economic policy is the major cause for much of the ills that affect present day Ethiopia. More than a feel good hand out, a tempered policy towards Ethiopia that condemns dictatorship in all its virulent forms and supports good government for sustained development will reverse Ethiopia’s slide back into the dark ages.
I strongly urge the good people at Georgetown University to withdraw this award to a controversial lady who neither garners the respect nor the moral authority to represent Ethiopian womanhood.
I also urge my Ethiopian compatriots to call Georgetown University to express their outrage at this shameful act.
Contact info:
Andy Pino: 202-687-4328
e-mail:[email protected]
—
Lulit Mesfin is Senior Editor of Ethiomedia.com, and can be reached at [email protected]
