PRESS RELEASE ON THE UPCOMING VISIT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA TO ETHIOPIA

 It has been announced that President Barack Obama would be going to Addis Abeba towards the end of the coming July to talk with the African Union and also with the officials of the repressive regime in Ethiopia. Obama would be the first sitting president to visit Ethiopia though he has met with the dictators in his own country and other places. Obama's visit to Ethiopia comes two months after the anti-democratic regime rigged (yet again) a general election winning (yet again) all the seats (547) in the rubber stamp parliament. The visit comes after less than two months since the regime's murder squads killed at least two prominent leaders of the opposition, after it had rounded up hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, denied justice to bloggers and journalists and had intensified the repression against dissent all over the country. The EPRP did not have great expectations

or naive assumptions knowing full well that American foreign policy as regards Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa and the whole continent for that matter had been and is an unmitigated disaster that had stood against the basic rights and aspirations of the people. Obama is on record praising the late dictator Meles Zenawi as a “democrat” (sic), talking of rights and progress where these and more have been absent from the scene. The regime in Addis Abeba is the darling of Washington and the West in general because it unashamedly serves their interest (invading Somalia, being a foot soldier in the so called anti-terror war, etc). The regime came to power and is surviving thanks to the support of Washington and the EU. Had Obama been true to his own words. 1 and declarations he should not have supported an anti people regime or declared any intention to visit Addis Abeba to dine with and praise the dictators. The losing person in this circus is Obama himself and America. Obama's partner regime has no less than 40,000 political prisoners in known and secret prisons, camps and hell holes where torture has been routine for years. It is a regime that uses rape of both men and women as a weapon of humiliation and to crush dissent. The regime is one of the most corrupt in Africa, one of the worst predators of the free press and a notorious ethnic chauvinist regime. The much trumpeted ("double digit") economic growth is but an illusion in a country that is one of the most poverty stricken in the world, with millions depending on food aid, hundreds of thousands officially homeless, a country whose fertile land the size of Belgium has been sold off cheaply to India, China and Saudi Arabia, with millions uprooted from their lands and resettled elsewhere forcefully and more. It is an unsavory regime and a candidate for vigorous condemnation. No surprise actually if Obama treks to Addis Abeba to praise murderers and to shame himself. In Africa, hypocrisy aside, America has traditionally refused to stop acting against the interests of Africans. 2