Blogger/Kaffa

 



Radio seems like the only way I can get real info about whats going on here in Ethiopia. It’s a shame because a person living in Ethiopia has to listen to a person living 5,000 miles away in Europe to hear about what’s going on in Ethiopia. It’s embarrassing. The other sad thing is most independent online media sources covering Ethiopia only talk about development and the econnomy; never about politics! News should include politics and actual events like what acidents happen etc, not just about development! Well I would like to thank Jimatimes for at least being an independent online voice covering everything INCLUDING politics as well. But, it doesn’t realy matter for most people in Ethiopia because internet connection is so bad here that online media is almost worthless. Anyway Ogaden, or Kilil 5 as they call it, seems like in a big mess. The new UN report saying a humanitarian disaster will happen soon is saddening. No body is reporting it but many parts of Ethiopia is already suffering massive floods everywhere. crops and infrastructure is being affected especially in low land areas. Maybe we shouldn’t compare our misery to the misery in Ogaden. But a UN investigation team having to spend 2 weeks to find out a humanitarian problem really exists in Ogaden, (or any part of Ethiopia) is the funniest thing I heard this week! It is like needing an investigation team to check if eating too much food really makes people fat or not. Of course it does. There are many common sense facts in our world, one of them is Ethiopia belongs in the Stone Age. (By the way the tourism sector infrastructure in Ethiopia is bad but more and more tourists are flocking to the deeply underdeveloped southern Ethiopia, despite the excessive advertisement to go northern Ethiopia, because tourists CAN ACTUALLY GO BACK 2000 years back in time!  Time travel, it can’t get better than this!!) I am a big Hollywood movie fan (addict?) and hope to learn movie making because I can probably get the National Geografic Channel out of business!  It is really a big experience for tourists down here.

 

Anyway, the NEW situation in Ogaden is more political than humanitarian for me. The ONLF rebels are really annoying the government with their ability to get international sympathy despite the killings at the Chinese oil place a few months ago. In my opinion, the ONLF rebels just don’t have enough diplomatic muscle to have a victory here. Maybe I will be proved wrong. The other probblem is other Somalae clans don’t really support them. There have been some clashes with the Oromia border towns as well. This might be one of the reasons why OLF has been quiet, not that I think OLF is powerful enough to do as much as ONLF. (But it has been unusually quiet) The ethiopian government has effectively closed rebel bases in northern kenya, eastern sudan and now in Somalia. But Somalia is the least stable of them all, thus ONLF has more traction than OLF. Anyway I think all this chaos will help the UIC militias a lot. The focus being inside Ethiopia itself doesn’t help Somali-TFG. Also all this is giving morale to potential ONLF recruits. Its all about morale. Personally I believe only in peaceful struggle but if I put myself in the shoes of ONLF I would not see the benefits of peaceful struggle. I mean, peaceful struggle is a good thing when you are trying to create democracy and justice inside a country, but armed struggle is a MUST if you completely don’t want to be part of that country. Ethiopia for the ONLF supporters is like what Italy was for the Ethiopians. You just have to kick it out of your land. For many Ogadenis, the Ethiopian Orthodox millenium celebration was a day of mourning. (even worse since 95% of ogadenis are Muslims) Can you imagine the Jews celebrating hitler's birthday?? Just telling it like it is.

 


 
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The views expressed in this blog do not represent the views of Jimma Times or its staff. The views are solely the blogger's. To become a blogger for Jimma Times, contact us for full details. Jimma Times gives priority to potential bloggers living in Ethiopia, particularly Oromia state.