Alemayehu G. Mariam speculates on the possible benefits and drawbacks of remittances to Ethiopia from the Diaspora. Using examples from Latin America and Asia, the author suggests the cash influx to Ethiopia (estimated at over a billion US dollars per year) can either be harnessed for investment, or, more negatively, trigger ‘Dutch Disease’.

With Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi speaking at Columbia University in the US this week, Alemayehu G. Mariam calls upon the institution’s President Lee C. Bollinger to extend the same reservations towards Zenawi that he did towards Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2007.

As Ethiopia celebrates its new year, Alemayehu G. Mariam resolves ‘to continue to call attention and raise awareness’ of the ‘unjust imprisonment’ of opposition political leader Birtukan Midekssa by the Zenawi government. Mariam highlights parallels between Midekssa and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, with their 'genuine empathy and understanding for the ruthless dictators who are themselves "locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness".'

A new directive from Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education effectively outlaws distance learning and creates a monopoly for state-controlled universities to administer the disciplines of law and teaching, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. While the official reason given for the sudden change in policy is concern for educational quality, Mariam hypothesises that it will enable the regime ‘to control two of the most important professions that have the greatest impact on the lives of the people’.

As ‘Africa’s top kleptocrats … gathered at their annual summit’ in Kampala, US Attorney General Eric Holder and US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson told those assembled that the US Justice Department has established the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI) to recover criminally acquired funds, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Corruption and the misappropriation of funds have a devastating impact, Mariam stresses, and in developing an initiative to combat elite impunity, it seems that ‘President Obama … has finally found the silver bullet to deal with Africa’s corrupt thugs.’

The Obama administration must hold Meles Zenawi to account for gross human rights abuses against his people in Ethiopia, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Mariam argues that although the US has instilled a hope for a better future in the vision of the oppressed, without a realignment of US foreign policy and subsequent pressure against the regime in Ethiopia, belief will deteriorate into despair and anti-Americanism in the country. ‘It is time for the US to fish or cut bait in Ethiopia’, writes Mariam.

Although US government has pledged to defend human rights, it hasn’t followed up on this promise in Ethiopia, argues Alemayehu G. Mariam. Despite the detention and torture of hundreds of political prisoners by the Ethiopian government, the United States continues to provide aid to the country, allowing the country’s current dictatorship to maintain its power and deprive citizens of their human rights, Mariam writes. Arguments that 'forceful action' could create ‘instability’ in the country are no justification for the US’s failure to defend the human rights of ordinary Ethiopians, Mariam adds.

It seems the concern for the liberation of the oppressed injected into US foreign policy is merely a muted growl from a seemingly ‘toothless and clawless (paper) tiger’, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Mariam voices the frustrations of those in Ethiopia who lay witness to the empty human rights rhetoric of US foreign policy makers, and urges the US to back up its big human rights talk with big human rights action in the country so to avoid its descent as a silent witness to the crimes of dictatorship.

If a single hummingbird tries hard enough it has the power to put out a forest fire. As Alemayehu G. Mariam writes, Ethiopian citizens and opposition politicians – the hummingbirds – have become too complacent and uncoordinated to mobilise and end the current dictatorship in Ethiopia. Despite claims that only violence can end the authoritarian rule, Mariam points to the examples of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela as cases where citizens have united for a cause to peacefully end suppression. He also points to periods of history where ‘hummingbirds’ have prevailed, only to take the same road as the ‘forest fire’ predecessors they’ve succeeded. Mariam calls for the need for a united Ethiopian political opposition and citizenry to bring an end to the current dictatorship.

It was in part Ethiopian opposition leader and activist Birtukan Midekssa’s campaign for women’s rights that led to her imprisonment by the Zenawi government, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Highlighting the challenges Ethiopian women continue to face, Mariam looks to Midekssa’s legacy for a vision of a better Ethiopia, in which women’s rights are recognised and in which women play a vital role in the country’s history.

Decades of recent history are witness to plots by ruthless dictators to enslave the minds of youth and perpetuate a one-party, one-leader rule; but one by one, these leaders failed and fell. Alemayehu G. Mariam writes that like his autocratic predecessors – Hitler, Mao, Stalin – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will lose his bid to conform Ethiopia’s youth to his party mentality. What is less clear is how Ethiopia’s youth will react to the increasingly deplorable social and economic conditions their government is cultivating. Mariam cautions these marginalised youth are a ‘ticking bomb’. Conflict prevention, he writes, requires the older generation and youth in the diaspora to actively empower this sidelined generation.

Following the widely contested result of the Ethiopian elections in May, Alemayehu G. Mariam urges Ethiopian intellectuals to rise and become the ‘tip of the spear of social change’ in the country. Mariam persists to contend Meles Zenawi’s right to the presidency, whilst calling on fellow intellectuals to become advocates of peaceful change and democracy in their homeland through a focus of the intellectual ‘eye’.

The crime of ‘democricide’ is being committed in Ethiopia both by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and a hoard of accessories who cheat the Ethiopian people out of fair elections, free press and aid, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Those complicit in this crime include the political bureaucracy that pumps out shining reports on ‘development’ and the donors themselves, who continue to prop up regimes like Zenawi’s and stifle democracy in the name of stability.

The Ethiopian election that ushered Meles Zenawi back to power with a 99.6 per cent majority is a testament to the tyranny of the powerful and the hypocrisy of the collective opposition, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. The opposition parties, through inaction and submission, betrayed the Ethiopian people and must share blame for this most recent violation of democratic rights. To atone, the opposition needs to make a public apology and a renew its commitment to speak the truth.

In the aftermath of the May 2010 Ethiopian elections, many are left with the question: ‘Where do we go from here?’ writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Mariam challenges the legitimacy of an election that saw Meles Zenawi reinstated in power with a 99.6 per cent share of the vote, and explores the future direction of the Ethiopian ruling class.

While it was as good as a foregone conclusion that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi would remain in power after the latest Ethiopian 'election', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, those prone to being dejected should not give up on the struggle for freedom and democracy in the country.

Though currently incarcerated in Akaki federal prison, Birtukan Midekssa remains a key figure in the suppressed pursuit for democracy in Ethiopia, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Mariam presents Midekssa's concerns and hopes for the future in this interview, hopes which can only be realised by 'fully embracing democracy, human rights and the rule of law'.

With Mother's Day celebrated in May in Ethiopia, Alemayehu G. Mariam honours the contribution and sacrifices of one of the country's much lauded mothers, human rights defender Birtukan Midekssa.

With Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's regime gearing up to set things firmly in its favour, Ethiopia's upcoming national election this month is already a done deal, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Zenawi's threatening gestures towards opposition leaders and dissenting political activists, Mariam stresses, are simply part of a broader campaign of pre-electoral intimidation and political paralysis.

Press freedom is now a core value of all humanity, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, but the ‘recent history of the independent press in Ethiopia is a chronicle of brutal crackdowns, arbitrary imprisonments and harassments of local and international journalists, shuttering of newspapers and jamming of external radio transmissions’. The Ethiopian people have the ‘inalienable right to have the information they need to make informed decisions about their form of government, leaders and lives,’ Mariam argues.