The American president likes to hector those he believes are not ‘on the right side of history’. But a look at his administration’s engagement with Ethiopia and Africa reveals that in fact Obama is on the wrong side of history

In Orwellian Ethiopia, the government is using foreign technology to bolster its widespread telecom surveillance of opposition activists and journalists both in Ethiopia and abroad. Addis Ababa uses control of its telecom system as a tool to silence dissenting voices

Despite a sustained international outcry about the expected devastation of the Omo Valley and loss of livelihoods for thousands of local people due to construction of a mega dam, Ethiopians and people in Eastern Africa are inexplicably silent. The indigenous people of the Omo Valley need your voice

Are all the delays, postponements and deferrals gentle hints and winks that some kind of a political deal has been cut between the ICC, Kenyatta, the African Union and the UN Security Council to eventually let Kenyatta off the hook for 'lack of evidence'?

The regime in power in Ethiopia today is orchestrating a full-court press demonization and vilification campaign against Atse Menelik II, the Nineteenth Century Ethiopian emperor whose centennial is being celebrated this year (Ethiopian calendar)

The life and struggles of Mandela have important and urgent lessons especially for young people in Africa today. As for his many critics who rightly point out many opportunities the South African icon missed, they should be thankful that he was just a human being who dared to try

Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians have voted with their feet to escape one of the most ruthless and brutal dictatorships in Africa. But Saudi Arabia where many of them have ended up is no better than their own motherland

In response to a crackdown on “illegal” immigrants by Saudi Arabia in which many Ethiopians were repatriated, Addis Ababa has imposed an unconstitutional ban on foreign travel for work. The ban is illogical. Better ways of handling the matter abound

Why does the African Union believe sitting heads of state should not be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide? There is no moral or legal difference between a warlord and a head of state who commit such crimes.

Africa’s anti-ICC crusaders who are threatening mass withdrawal from the Rome Statute are in a desperate last-ditch effort to rescue their brethren Kenyatta and Ruto from the ICC hook and simultaneously immunize themselves against any future legal accountability for crimes against international law

'Our silence in the face of outrageous lies may give the misimpression that we are ignorant, witless, fainthearted and without much sense or sensibility. But we know the simple truth; and that truth is human rights in Ethiopia is an afterthought for the Obama Administration'

The rulers in Ethiopia continue to use higher educational institutions not as places of learning, inquiry and research but as diploma mills for a new breed of party hacks and zombie ideologues doomed to blind and unquestioning servility

Last weekend thousands of young people poured out into the streets of Addis Ababa demanding democratic reforms. The security forces did not attack them as in the past. Peaceful change is possible in Ethiopia

In what classifies as modern day slavery, Ethiopian women sent to work in the Middle East have few rights and are subject to widespread abuse.

Two weeks ago, Ethiopia’s last independent weekly stopped publication after its managing editor was ‘forced to flee the country’. Zenawi has ‘finally succeeded in smashing and trashing Ethiopia’s free press,’ writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.

The recent self-immolation of an Ethiopian human rights activist ‘illuminates not only the serious and widespread human rights abuses by Zenawi’s regime but also Zenawi’s hubris and depraved indifference to the demands of the people at the local and regional levels,’ writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.

Following the Ethiopian elections of 2005, scores of unarmed men, women and children were massacred by state security personnel. Alemayehu G Mariam pays tribute to these martyrs for freedom and calls on all Ethiopians to reflect on their sacrifice.

The Ethiopian government has accused two freelance Swedish journalists of ‘terrorism’, after they entered the country with insurgents from the Ogaden National Liberation Front. With Prime Minister Meles Zenawi backing the charges against them, they have little chance of a fair trial, writes Alemayehu G Mariam.

According to Alemayehu G. Mariam, Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi has no qualms about backstabbing his professed friend, President Omar Bashir of Sudan, which is nothing strange. Dictators are in power for themselves and their cronies.

Why does Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi refuse to make public the details of a ‘large chunk’ of Ethiopian land given to Sudan, asks Alemayehu G. Mariam.