At another critical time when the fangs of hunger and famine have threatened over 9 million Ethiopians and while citizens are dying an unacceptable death in the 21st century, Weyane has reportedly spent up to 5 million birr, to distribute flags across the country for what it calls "flag day celebration" in connection with the extravagant millennium party. What makes the gimmickry even more sickening, disturbing and preposterous is the fact that the regime has no respect for the poor and dispossessed people of Ethiopia as well as the history behind the Ethiopian flag, which was once a symbol of our unity, territorial integrity and the ultimate sacrifice that millions of Ethiopians have paid for their people and country. Even more, the Meles regime has recently ceded Ethiopia's Western frontier to the Sudan at the expense of the nation at large and poor farmers in particular who have been jailed, displaced and dispossessed for the sake of doing favour to the Sudanese. Given the glaring facts, tyrant Meles Zenawi is not qualified enough to distributed our national tricolour that he has defiled throughout his adult life and at this time of hunger.
While it is saddening to see emaciated and hunger-stricken citizens on TV screens across the globe once more as a result of the failed policies of the government to provide enough food and water, Weyane wastes time, money and energy to distribute millions of flags to add colour to its endless millennium party as if there is no urgency to save millions of famished Ethiopians. The Meles regime has also spent over 400 million birr to organise the recently held local elections that were hallow and desperate tyrannical farce to ensure absolute political and economic control over the oppressed and hunger-stricken people of Ethiopia.
Famine is no longer a natural disaster in the 21st century, but a failure of governments that never care. Such horrendous acts of inhumanity are outrageous and tantamount to genocide and crimes against humanity that Ethiopians across the world should strongly condemn and reject.
[AV]
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One million flags to be distributed during flag day celebrations
Daily Monitor [May 27, 2008] Necessary preparations are underway to mark the Flag Day by distributing more than one million different kinds of flags through out the nation, the Addis Ababa millennium office and Ayat Share Company jointly announced on Friday.
Speaking at a joint press conference at the Millennium office, Kiros Haileselasie, Director of Addis Abeba millennium office told journalists that the intended programs of the celebration would be accompanied by a "bold participation" of all members of the society.
"We prepared it to send out our respect and care for our flag and country to the next generation.
We are not the only source of this celebration," he added stressing the need for public participation.
An estimated 3-5 million Birr cost needed for the preparation of the celebration is to be covered by Ayat Share Company, the largets real estate company in Ethiopia.
Under the agrement with the Millennium office, the company will cover the costs of the flags, musicians, booklets and poems of the anthem that will be distributed to dwellers of the capital Addis Ababa and other regional cities and towns.
Ayalew Tesema, owner of the funding company said the celebration would be a good opportunity for him personally and his compnay to contribute to his country.
"I am giving only my money but there are people who scarify their life and I promised to support the celebration each year." He added that the preparation of the flags and the "thousands of CDs" with the national anthem is almost complete.
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Children starving in Ethiopia again
By Anita Powel | May 21, 2008
SHANTO, Ethiopia (AP) — This year's poor rains have nearly killed Bizunesh.
The 3-year-old weighs less than 10 pounds. Her long limbs, weak and folded like a praying mantis, cannot carry even her slight weight. She cannot speak. She doesn't want to eat. Health officials say she is permanently stunted.
"She should be bigger than this," said her mother Zewdunesh Feltam, rocking the listless child. "Before there was maize, different kinds of food. But now there is nothing ... I beg for milk from my neighbors."
The U.N. children's agency said in a statement Tuesday an estimated 126,000 Ethiopian children urgently need food and medical care because of severe malnutrition — and called the current crisis "the worst since the major humanitarian crisis of 2003."
The U.N. World Food Program estimates that 2.7 million Ethiopians will need emergency food aid because of late rains — nearly double the number who needed help last year. An additional 5 million of Ethiopia's 80 million people receive aid each year because they never have enough food, whether harvests are good or not.
In Shanto, a southwestern agricultural area that grows sweet potatoes, recent rains arrived too late to save the harvest.
The crisis here is vivid. A feeding center run by the Irish charity GOAL has admitted 73 starving children in the past month.
Some, like Bizunesh, are frail and skeletal. Others, like 4-year-old Eyob Tadesse, have grossly swollen limbs in a sign of extreme malnutrition.
Eyob, whose mother said he used to be a lively, talkative child, sat in a stupor, unable to speak, not moving even to brush away the flies that swarmed over his face. The sunny room humid with a recent, too late, rain shower was made gloomy by an eerie silence despite being full of sick children. Chronic malnutrition can affect children for life, stunting their growth, brain development and immune systems, which leaves them vulnerable to a host of illnesses.
Many mothers said their families were trying to survive on a gluey, chewy bread made of the root of the "false banana" plant — one of many wild or so-called famine foods that Ethiopians depend on in times of trouble.
It's not known how many children have died or are starving now. Local and international aid and health workers say between 10 and nearly 20 percent of Ethiopia's children are malnourished — 15 percent is considered a critical situation. In 2006, Ethiopia had 13.4 million children under age 5, according to UNICEF.
Samuel Akale, a nutritionist with the government's disaster prevention agency, said the hunger will get worse. "The number of severely malnourished will increase, and then they'll die."
WFP officials say the drought has affected six of Ethiopia's nine regions, stretching from Tigray in the north to the vast and dry Somali region in the south, though not every part of each region is affected.
Spokesman Greg Beals said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is preparing an appeal for additional tens of millions of dollars.
"This is a real crisis that needs to be addressed," he said.
Ethiopia is a country with a history of hunger. It's food problems drew international attention in 1984 when a famine compounded by communist policies killed some 1 million people. Pictures of stick-thin children like Bizunesh were broadcast onto television sets around the world.
This year's crisis is far less severe. But drought and chronic hunger persist in Ethiopia, a Horn of Africa nation known for its coffee, a major export. In 2003, droughts led 13.2 million people to seek emergency food aid. Drought in 2000 left more than 10 million needing emergency food.
Drought is especially disastrous in Ethiopia because more than 80 percent of people live off the land, and agriculture drives the economy, accounting for half of all domestic production and 85 percent of exports. But many also go hungry because of government policies. Ethiopia's government buys all crops from farmers at fixed low prices. And the government owns all the land, so it cannot be used as collateral for loans.
Aid agencies say emergency intervention is not enough and are appealing for more money to support regular feeding programs.
"What we're doing at the moment is waiting until children get severely malnourished, taking them into the feeding program, getting them back to a level of moderate malnutrition and then watching them cycle back," said Hatty Newhouse, a nutrition adviser from GOAL.
There are fears that the next harvest also will fail.
"We are crying with the mothers and the children," said Akale, the nutritionist.
