By Paul Schemm

METI, Ethiopia — Earlier this month, hundreds of high school students in the small Ethio­pian town of Meti gathered for a demonstration.

It’s good news that Ethiopia’s government has announced the release of 9,800 people detained for their participation in anti-government protests. But they represent fewer than half of the 24,000 people detained since a countrywide state of emergency began on October 9. And most never should have been arrested. The state of emergency has had catastrophic rights implications for Ethiopians, and the factors that prompted it remain unresolved.

By Prof. Al Mariam

For the past year, I have railed against Donald Trump in numerous blogs.

But I have not said exactly why I am supporting and voting for Hillary Clinton.

I support and will vote for Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016 NOT because she is the perfect presidential candidate; or because she is beyond moral reproach.

By Masud the Native of Oromia

This week, we heard funny news about TPLF-led Ethiopian Government’s new cabinet ministers. Prime Minister Haile Marian Boshie announced that out of the 21 newly appointed ministers, 9 are Oromo. The Oromo people are struggling for system change and TPLF-led Ethiopian Government is making cabinet change. Something is missing. TPLF still think it can control the Oromo people by using Afan Oromo speaking soldiers of fortune. Let us closely look at two of the newly appointed Afan Oromo speaking ministers as a sample.

Another T-TPLF disinformation campaign

By Prof. Al Mariam

Hailemariam Desalegn, the Puppet Prime Minister (PPM) of the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) yesterday announced a “significant reshuffle” of his cabinet. The reshuffle is intended to soften the blowback from the “state of emergency” the PPM declared a couple of weeks ago.

By Prof. Al Mariam

Author’s Note: This is the third successive installment in a series I have called “What Do WE Want and Do NOW?”. The serialized commentaries have three aims: 1) take stock of the impact of the recent uprisings in Ethiopia against the backdrop of the extreme repression (“state of emergency”) unleashed by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF); 2) challenge Ethiopians, particularly Ethiopian intellectuals, to think outside the box, indeed with no box at all, about going forward, and 3) propose some ideas that maybe useful in charting a future course of action given current circumstances.

By Prof. Al Mariam

Don T. always wanted to be a brother. But not just a regular brother in the hood.

In September 1989, Don T. told an interviewer the kind of brother he wanted to be:

A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. I think sometimes a black may think they don’t have an advantage or this and that… I’ve said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.

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What Do WE Want and Do NOW (that we are under T-TPLF Reign of Terror)?

By Prof. Al Mariam

These perpetual little panics of the French – which all arise from fear of the moment when they will really have to learn the truth – give one a much better idea of the Reign of Terror. We think of this as the reign of people who inspire terror; on the contrary, it is the reign of people who are themselves terrified. Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves.”

Karl Marx in a letter to Friedrich Engles during the Paris Commune (1870).