Global Climate Change at Copenhagen

Meles Unites 52 Nations to Exert Clout at UN Summit (Update1) Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Jason McLure

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Africa’s point man at the Copenhagen climate-change summit next month is prime minister of drought- stricken Ethiopia, a former Marxist rebel who favors tailored suits and has coaxed billions of dollars in aid from the West.

Meles Zenawi, 54, who trained as a doctor before taking up arms and eventually toppling the country’s Communist regime in 1991, in August was named climate spokesman for Africa, the continent scientists say is most vulnerable to global warming.

Envoys for the Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen meeting were given a taste of Meles’s clout at climate talks in Barcelona last week when African delegates staged a one-day walkout to demand the developed world cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent. Meles has threatened a similar exodus at Copenhagen, which could derail an agreement as he’ll represent 52 of the 190 nations present when unanimity is always sought on global UN accords.

Meles is a serious negotiator, said David Shinn, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia from 1996-1999 and current adjunct professor of international affairs at George Washington University in Washington. “The guy is very smart, he doesn’t wing this stuff,” Shinn said in an interview.

He also leads one of the most impoverished countries on the world’s poorest continent. Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia have suffered five years of drought and periodic floods linked to climate change that affect millions of subsistence farmers.

Meles demands industrialized countries such as the U.S. and Britain that released most of the historical emissions to compensate developing nations for climate damage they caused in recent decades. He also seeks subsidies to install clean-energy equipment. The cost to richer nations: $67 billion a year.

Climate-Change Costs

That request has some foundation, according to European leaders who last month endorsed an estimate that the developing world faces total costs of 100 billion euros ($150 billion) a year by 2020 to cope with climate change and to limit emissions.

No accord is possible in Copenhagen without climate aid, the 27-nation European Union has said. Developed countries have refused to endorse an aid package in almost two years of talks.

In the last half-century, forest cover in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, has fallen from 40 percent of land area to an estimated 3 percent, causing widespread erosion as farmers felled trees for cooking fires and to clear tillable land.

Meles may be the “ideal” climate negotiator for the continent, Rhoda Tumusiime, the African Union’s agriculture commissioner, said Oct. 20 from Uganda, citing his knowledge of the issues and dealings with the U.S., Europe and China.

‘Has Charisma’

“We believe he has the charisma to engage with these global powers,” Tumusiime said.

Search for African leaders in power long enough who have international credibility and technical knowledge of climate issues and “you come up with a very short list,” Shinn said of Meles last month.

A spokesman for Meles in Addis Ababa declined an interview request for this story.

Meles, a father of three who has run the nation of 80 million people for 18 years, is fluent in Amharic spoken across Ethiopia, Tigriyna spoken in the country’s north and Eritrea, as well as English.

Born in Adwa, site of a 19th century Ethiopian victory over Italian colonial forces, Meles quit his studies to become a doctor at 19 to join the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, an armed rebel group opposing the country’s Communist Derg regime.

After the TPLF and allies from Eritrea ousted the Derg in 1991, Meles took control. A former Marxist, he established a one-party state, then built ties with the U.S. after the fall of the Soviet Union. While in office, Meles earned a master’s in business administration from the United Kingdom’s Open University.

Failed African States

Meles promoted the climate-change issue during an African Union summit in February in which he warned leaders that global warming could increase the number of failed states in Africa.

“The fate of countries and continents is likely to be determined by how well and how fast they adjust,” he said in Addis Ababa.

Africa may experience higher temperature increases, encroaching drought, more intense storms and rising seas that affect coastal cities like Lagos and Alexandria, Egypt, United Nations scientists say.

“The issue of climate change has become a priority for us because Africa is the worst-hit continent, the most vulnerable continent by the issue of climate change,” African Union Chairman Jean Ping said Sept. 17 in Ethiopia’s capital.

Meles has focused on the subject as the effects of climate change hit Ethiopia’s economy, which is dependent on rain-fed agriculture, said Negusu Aklilu, director of the Ethiopia-based Forum for the Environment.

Malaria More Common

“The temperature is increasing and droughts are becoming more frequent” in Ethiopia, Negusu said. The warming has had other effects, with malaria becoming common at higher altitudes.

“If it was 1,000 meters above sea level no one would think of malaria. Now in some places malaria can be found more than 2,000 meters above sea level,” Negusu said.

Meles has been criticized for his human rights record by Ethiopian and foreign rights organizations, including Brussels- based International Crisis Group, which cite his imprisonment of opposition leaders such as Birtukan Mideksa. Security forces loyal to Meles killed 193 people in Addis Ababa in 2005 after demonstrators took to the streets to protest election results.

In local elections in April 2008, opposition parties won just three of 3.6 million seats after many candidates withdrew citing intimidation, according to the U.S. State Department.

His regime’s “democratic rhetoric has not been matched by democratic practice,” an August report from the International Crisis Group said. Meles has countered that Ethiopia is striving to build a democracy in a corner of Africa littered with failed states such as Sudan and Somalia.

Cigarettes, Tennis

The cigarette-smoking, tennis-playing Meles says he seeks to build a “lily-white capitalist system.” The government remains the largest force in Ethiopia’s economy, controlling ownership of all land, two-thirds of the banking system and monopolies in electricity, telecommunications and aviation.

After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, Meles became a closer ally of the U.S., which provided intelligence and logistical support to Ethiopia’s two- year Horn of Africa war against Islamists in Somalia that ended with an Ethiopian withdrawal in January.

Ethiopia won $3.6 billion in debt relief from the World Bank and other donors in 2006 and receives more than $2 billion in aid annually from developed countries, who provide food aid for 13.7 million Ethiopians, about one-sixth of the population.

The U.S. trains the country’s army and provided some $850 million in aid last year, including 464,000 metric tons of food.

G-8, G-20

Meles was chosen to represent Africa at the G-8 summit in Italy in July and the G-20 summit in London in April.

He has won support from environmental and anti-poverty groups concerned that Africa will be outflanked at the Copenhagen talks by industrialized countries that produce most of the world’s carbon emission pollutants.

“We need African delegations to become more vocal in the negotiations,” said Jerome Frignet, a France-based campaigner for the Greenpeace environmental group. “African countries can’t send 500 negotiators like the U.S. can.”

The talks in Copenhagen are scheduled to be the final round of United Nations-led negotiations for a climate accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The U.S. and China, the biggest greenhouse-gas polluters, are stuck on such issues as the amount of aid richer nations should give poor ones to deal with climate change and how much industrialized economies should pledge to reduce emissions.

‘Simply Immoral’

“The justice of our cause is so patent that we do not expect anybody in the international community to reject the minimum conditions that we set,” Meles said Sept. 16. “I think it would simply be immoral.”

Asked what would happen if the African delegation walked out in Copenhagen like it did in Barcelona, Elliot Diringer, who oversees international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said that UN agreements are taken by consensus so “it would make a deal impossible. But that’s in no one’s interest so I wouldn’t expect it to come to that.”

As the rhetoric on climate change escalates ahead of the Copenhagen summit, Meles has “set himself up as the spokesman for Africa,” said Saleemul Huq, a researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development. “The high-level decisions will filter through him.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at

Last Updated: November 12, 2009 08:56 EST

Ending Poverty by creating Prosperity- an Idea whose time has come

Commercial Farming the pathway for Eliminating poverty with pros
Submitted by Globalbelai7 on Thu, 2009-10-22 17:21.
Dear Shanta:


I am amazed by your daring admission that Ending Poverty or creating wealth is the only solution to African's problem with poverty.


Poverty Reduction is a voodu science designed to starve Africans for a long time to come. Did you see European Union Agricultural Policy being developed on reducing poverty? For that matter is the Green Revolution in India based on increasing productivity or ending poverty?


It is interesting at last you seem to have got the idea, that wealth creation and building prosperity is the only solution to impending abject poverty. How can you reduce poverty? Can you really quantify poverty at the level where you can show you can reduce it.


Why not eliminate it with creating wealth and prosperity?


The old and outdated approach by the World Bank and IMF to postpone prosperity by reducing poverty is a bankrupt ideology that has no evidence based science but a rather cruel way of keeping Africans starving.


The latest work by Dr Gebissa Ejeta of Purdue University and the World Food Prize for 2009 indicate that if African Farmers are enabled with technology and are allowed to begin farming in a commercial way with increased cooperatives and the like, they will improve their productivity and eventual wealth creation.


The current system of micro-farming based subsistance farming is a recipe for disaster.


So, more than the farming technology, it is the Macro-Economics and lack of investment in Commercial Farming that is making poverty a substance of interest and perpetual failure by the Bank and IMF and similar bodies who do not seem to approach the problem with evidence based science.


All their structural adjustment and and conditionality is nothing but voodu science being played out by disconnected and callous economists and their supportive World Bank Governors and Donors.


it is time to look at the research carefully, and most importantly listen to the local governments and farmers on what works for them.


For once let Washington and the Economist listen to the farmers and science.


Please read the attahed interesting story about the work of Dr Gebissa Ejea for your additional information.


Belai H Jesus, MD, MPH
www.globalbelai7.blogspot.com
Globalbelai7@gmail.com


Ethiopian Sorghum Breeder Wins 2009 World Food Prize
By Steve Baragona
Washington
15 October 2009
Baragona Report - Download (MP3)
Baragona Report - Listen (MP3)


The World Food Prize is the top international award for individuals who have increased the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world


The 2009 World Food Prize has been awarded to Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born plant scientist at Purdue University. The private, $250,000 award -- presented at ceremonies in Des Moines, Iowa, October 15th -- is given annually to people who have helped address the world's food needs. This year's prize honors Ejeta's life-long work to improve the production of sorghum, one of the world's most important grain crops. It also honors his efforts to take his discoveries beyond the lab -- to the farmers who need them the most.


Desire to help others rooted in his own childhood poverty


Ejeta is one of those success stories that show the difference an education -- and a motivated mother -- can make. Ejeta grew up in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia. But he says his mother had other plans for him.


"She didn't care much for the lifestyle in the community that we lived in," Ejita recalls. "And for some strange reason, this woman was able to see that through education one can get out of this drudgery and get to a better life."


So she found opportunities for Ejeta to study, and a place to stay, in a neighboring town, a 20-kilometer walk away. Ejeta studied. He excelled. And now he is being honored for his life's work helping others rise out of poverty.


Lowell Hardin is an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has known Ejeta for 25 years. "Because he grew up in very, very modest circumstances -- a single mother in a remote village in Ethiopia -- he knew poverty," Hardin says. "He knew hunger. And when he was fortunate enough to get an education thanks to his mother's pushing, he decided he was going to apply his talents in this direction."


Research efforts focused on threats to African food crops


Gebisa Ejeta received World Food Prize for his efforts to improve sorghum production
Ejeta applied his talents to fighting a weed called Striga, or witchweed, which threatens crops that feed more than 100 million people across sub-Saharan Africa. Ejeta says the parasitic weed can ruin fields of sorghum, a major staple in hot, dry regions of Africa.


"If you grow a crop that is susceptible to infection by the parasite," he says, "you just basically don't have any chance for growing a crop if your soil is contaminated. And most of these soils are getting contaminated."


Before Ejeta took up the challenge, researchers hadn't had much success controlling the weed. Its seeds can lie dormant in the soil for decades. But Ejeta and his team at Purdue University discovered the chemical signals produced by the sorghum plant that tell the Striga seeds to wake up -- that a victim is available. They then found sorghum varieties that didn't produce the signals, and bred a line of Striga-resistant plants that thrived in a broad range of African growing conditions. These new varieties produced up to four times more grain than local types, even in drought-plagued areas.


Making sure African farmers benefit directly from his research


But Ejeta knew the research breakthrough was just the beginning. Once the new variety was developed in 1994, he worked with non-profit groups to distribute eight tons of seed to farmers in twelve African nations.


That's typical of Gebisa Ejeta, according to his colleague at Purdue, Mitch Tuinstra.


"One of the most important things about Gebisa's work is that he always carries it to the next level," Tuinstra says. "Which is, 'How do I translate the products of this research into technologies that empower and strengthen farmers in Africa?'"


Ejeta's new varieties of sorghum resist drought and the weed Striga
Ejeta has always understood the importance of getting technology into the hands of African farmers. Just out of graduate school, Ejeta bred a high-yielding, drought-tolerant variety of sorghum. When the new hybrid variety was introduced in 1983, Ejeta says farmers were thrilled to find it yielded more than double what traditional varieties produced.


"They thought it was fantastic that they were getting this kind of performance with this hybrid," he says. "And so, the initial response was, 'How can we get seed?'"


That is a critical question: Who will produce and deliver high-yielding seeds to farmers who need them, when there is no viable seed industry?


Ejeta was able to work with Sudanese farmers' cooperatives to scale up production of his drought-resistant sorghum.


But much of Africa still lacks a seed industry to get improved varieties to farmers. And farmers often don't have access to markets to sell the products of their improved harvests. So today, Ejeta is working to develop the market from the ground up. For example, along with local partners he connects brewers, bakers, and flour millers with farmers growing the improved sorghum. By working along the entire chain, from farmers' seeds to consumers' plates, his work is helping to lift people out of poverty - and providing a powerful weapon in the war on hunger.

OAU then and African Union now!

The Creation of the OAU
By Makonnen Ketema

In May 1963, thirty-two independent African States, with genuine hopes and visions for the continent of Africa, came together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to create the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

I had the privilege of hearing a detailed account of the staging of the 1963 Addis Ababa Summit Conference from a man who was once described by the international media as being closest to the creation of the OAU.

The man was none other than my father, the late Ketema Yifru, who was the Ethiopian Foreign Minister during the period 1961-1971. "Only a few [people] are aware of the hard work and all the effort that brought about the creation of the OAU," said my father. It is my hope that this article will give the reader a bird's eye view of the events that led to the creation of this organization.

In order to strengthen the continent of Africa and to make it less vulnerable to outside influence, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana strongly believed that the continent should be united.

Thus, in the late 1950s, he started a movement, which stressed the immediate unity of the African continent. When Dr. Nkrumah introduced the idea of African Unity, a division was created in the continent based on the implementation of this idea. On the one hand were those countries which believed in embarking on the process immediately.

These countries were originally Ghana, Guinea, and Mali. Later on Egypt, the Transitional Government of Algeria, and Morocco, joined the original three to form the Casablanca Group. On the other hand, the twenty-four member Monrovia Group (which included Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon) believed in a much more gradual approach to the question of African Unity.

The Casablanca and Monrovia Groups

By the early 1960s, most of the independent African states had pledged an allegiance to either the Monrovia or the Casablanca Group. In January 1962, the Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Ato Ketema Yifru, received invitations from each group to attend their conference.

Ketema Yifru began his tenure as Foreign Minister in 1961 by concentrating his efforts on bringing Ethiopia in line with mainstream Africa. His experience in the USA (early fifties) and, most importantly, the way in which his country was abandoned by the League of Nations during its hour of need, had made Ketema Yifru an avowed Pan-Africanist. The Foreign Minister strongly believed that his country's true allies were his fellow African brothers and sisters. For Ketema Yifru, the invitation from the two groups would ultimately bring his Pan-Africanist agenda to the forefront.

In Emperor Haile Selassie's office, Ketema Yifru presented his case in a manner which drew the Emperor's attention. He reminded the Emperor of 1935, the year in which Ethiopia, a full member of the League of Nations, was abandoned by the same organization that was created to protect its members from external aggression.

He advised the Emperor that a preventive measure should be taken to protect Ethiopia's future interests. Ketema Yifru explained that his country's national interest could be better served if aligned with its fellow African countries. He advised the Emperor to embrace his African identity and become a willing participant in the continent's upcoming political affairs.

Conference on Ethiopian Foreign Policy

The discussion between the Emperor and his Foreign Minister led to a national conference, chaired by Emperor Haile Selassie.

The question that was put forth was whether or not Ethiopia should pursue the new foreign policy that was proposed by the Foreign Minister, and thus become an active participant in the quest for a united Africa. The majority of the participants, who were conservative aristocrats, believed that it was in the best interest of the country to continue with its present course.

The majority of the participants were comfortable with the limited role that their country was playing in the African political arena. However, just when the prospect of Ethiopian involvement regarding African Unity looked bleak, the Emperor gave his approval to Ketema Yifru. In fact, the Foreign Minister was given full autonomy on the issue and was only required to report on his progress.

It was then time to address the inevitable question that the Ethiopian government was facing - whether to attend the Monrovia or the Casablanca Conference. Foreign Minister Ketema Yifru had to make the choice and present his decision to the Emperor.

The Foreign Minister decided that it would be in the best interest of his country and the cause for unity to accept the invitation from the Monrovia Group. The logic behind his thinking was that the Monrovia Group outnumbered the Casablanca Group twenty-two to six. If Ethiopia had aligned itself with the Casablanca Group, it would only help in widening the ever-growing rift between the two groups. In short, Ketema Yifru's decision was based on a pragmatic approach rather than an ideological stand.

The Monrovia Summit Conference

At the Monrovia Group conference in Lagos, Emperor Haile Selassie launched Ethiopia's peacemaking effort in his speech to the conference by stating that the gulf between the Monrovia and the Casablanca Groups was not as wide as it seemed. At a time when others had publicly declared their alliance to one of the two groups, the Ethiopian government was openly declaring its neutrality.

Meanwhile, the Ethiopian Foreign Minister began to lobby the conference participants to have the next meeting in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Ketema Yifru, who was working to bring the two groups together, believed that once he had the approval of the Monrovia powers, he would work on having the Casablanca members attend the proposed Addis Ababa Summit Conference. Through his relentless efforts, all of the Monrovia Summit participants accepted Ketema Yifru's proposal to have the next meeting in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia and Guinea

In the meantime, the Casablanca group had scheduled a conference in Egypt for June, 1962. Foreign Minister Ketema Yifru, who was at work to bridge the gap between the two groups, formulated a plan. Since he had very good relations with the Guinean government, including President Sekou Toure who was one of the leaders of the Casablanca group, he believed the governments of Ethiopia and Guinea could form a partnership to bring the two opposing groups together.

The Foreign Minster approached the Emperor with his plan to extend an invitation to President Sekou Ture for a state visit to Ethiopia. The Emperor agreed, and a special invitation was sent to President Toure who was then attending the Casablanca Group conference in Cairo, Egypt. The Guinean President accepted the invitation and met with the Emperor and his Foreign Minister on June 28, 1962.

At their meeting, Foreign Minister Ketema Yifru, who had forged a close friendship with President Sekou Toure and other members of his government, presented his case to the Guinean delegation.

He pointed out that the conflicting views of the Monrovia and the Casablanca Groups could create a permanent division in the continent and advised the Guinean delegation that it was in the best interest of both governments to stop such a drastic occurrence from taking place.

To the Foreign Minister's delight, after some convincing, the Guinean delegation agreed to help in bringing the two groups together. President Sekou Toure would later reaffirm his government's position during his talks with Emperor Haile Selassie.

The dye had been cast. It was agreed by both governments that the May 1963 Addis Ababa Summit Conference, which was initially set for the Monrovia Group, would be a Summit Conference of all the independent African States.

Following the agreement, the two heads of state issued a communiqué that stated that both governments believed the gap between the two blocs was dramatically increasing.

Therefore, in order to protect the continent from falling into harm's way, the governments of Ethiopia and Guinea had decided to call an all African Summit Conference in Addis Ababa, in hopes of resolving the differences that existed between the Casablanca and the Monrovia Groups.

After the communiqué was issued, the next step was to convince both the Monrovia and the Casablanca blocs to attend the proposed Summit Conference in Addis Ababa. It was decided that the Ethiopian government, represented by Ketema Yifru, would lobby both groups, while the Guinean government, represented by Mr. Diallo Telli who became the first Secretary General of the OAU, would lobby the Casablanca Group members.

Foreign Minster Ketema Yifru embarked on a long journey across Africa with the Emperor's letter of invitation. Determined to ensure the success of the planned summit, he made sure that he received a positive answer from each Head of State before leaving each country. One of the tactics he used to encourage the leaders to accept the letter of invitation was to make it appear as if he would not be permitted to enter Ethiopia if the leaders did not accept the invitation to the Conference.

All in all, the thirty-two independent African States accepted the invitation for May 1963. The leaders agreed that the summit would begin with a Foreign Ministers Conference to iron out various issues, including the drafting of a charter.

The 1963 Addis Ababa Summit Conference

The Conference of Foreign Ministers of the African States opened on May 15, 1963 with Ketema Yifru elected as chairman. The task of the African Ministers was to create a charter which could become the cornerstone of a future organization.

Some of the governments that were represented in Addis Ababa had different views on the components of the charter. Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria had each drawn up charters, which they wanted to become the basis for discussion.

While the charter of Ghana represented the views of the Casablanca group and the Nigerian charter represented the position of the Monrovia bloc, the Ethiopian draft charter embodied the views of both groups. As a result, the Ethiopian draft charter was chosen to become the basis for discussion.

Ethiopia's draft agenda consisted of the following: • The establishment of an Organization of African States, with a charter and a permanent secretariat. • Cooperation in areas of economy and social welfare, education and culture, and collective defense • The final eradication of colonialism • Means of combating racial discrimination and apartheid • Possible establishment of regional economic groupings • Disarmament

Before a consensus could be reached on adapting the charter, the Heads of States Conference was convened on May 22, 1963. Emphasizing the need to sign a charter and create an organization, Emperor Haile Selassie noted in his speech, “This Conference cannot close without adopting a single charter.

We cannot leave here without having created a single African organization [with] the attributes we have described. If we fail in this, we will have shirked our responsibility to Africa and to the people we lead.

If we succeed, then, and only then, will we have justified our presence here.” With directives from the Heads of State, the Foreign Ministers conference was convened once again to create a charter that could be signed by the Heads of sSate before the Summit was adjourned. The African Ministers worked overnight to come up with a charter that could be signed by their leaders.

After some deliberations, thirty-two Heads of State - Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Leopoldville, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, and Uganda - signed the OAU charter in Addis Ababa, on May 25, 1963.

The creation of the Organization of African Unity was indeed a significant historic moment for the continent of Africa, especially in an era where a number of African countries were still under colonial rule. Once the OAU was set up, Africans were able to come together under the umbrella of their newly formed organization.

Through the OAU's liberation committee and the United Nations, Africans were able to work collectively to bring about an end to colonialism. The plight of the African people that was once dismissed by many was now heard by the entire world.

In the early years of its creation, the OAU was able to conduct its own successful brand of conflict resolution. The Ethio-Somalia, Kenya-Somalia, and the Algeria-Morocco conflicts are examples of the OAU's ability to halt potential wars by peaceful means.

At that time, it seemed that Africans had come to a point where they had mastered the art of solving their own problems with their own brand of solutions. The Pan-Africanist atmosphere of the 1960s had brought with it an understanding that any conflict in Africa, regardless of its geographical location, was an African problem. It was with this positive outlook that our leaders were able to successfully solve many conflicts.

This article is drawn from materials presented at www.oau-creation.com.

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Ola - behind the scences |71.252.49.xxx |2009-08-31 17:54:23

The time span covered in this article is extremely important. It is for us to
know and teach the significance of events that took place behind the scences to
derail this African attempt to disentangle ourselves from a world system that
was exploiting our resources to the benefit of the colonising countries.

They had no intention of allowing this comming together to flourish as it would
ultimately lead to their decline and an acknowledged dependance on our raw
mineral resources in order to survive.

This period represented another serious crises for European and American Imperialist states. The divide and rule tactics that follwed led to the birth of a dysfunctional OAU with various heads of state jockying for personal and narrow interests.Nkrumah and Padmores vision was blighted with various assassinations, wars and outmaneouvering by intelligengence agencies of the west.I hope you will help us learn more by going into detail on the various disagreements and compromises reached.


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EMMANUEL YAHAYA - AM PROUD BEING AN AFRICAN |41.204.224.xxx |2009-02-26 23:04:35

I AM HAPPY TO RECIEVE THE HISTORY OF THE SOVREIGN STATE OF AFRICA.

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Onaivi Daniel |196.220.6.xxx |2009-02-18 03:08:02

A friend of mine is presently writing a project on the formation of OAU. This
information is really useful and has contributed greatly.

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wossene - founder |68.101.111.xxx |2009-02-04 11:11:08

I am very proud with the Governments who stood for Unity and established OAU. My
Problem is our people are more destitute and more helpless and nothing seems to
be resolved.

Why we, the modern African have problem of working together and
solve our problem? You never give up you should never stop trying.

President Obama's wining the presidency proofs to us that, if you want to make it happen , if you are passionate enough and sincere it might take time but you can
achieve your goal. For all Africans it is in our best interest to work together
if we want to change Africa. Please go to www.lifessecondchance.org.

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Samson |199.200.253.xxx |2009-02-04 10:25:18

I am privileged to be friends with the children of H.E. Ketema Yifru who is very
instrumental and an icon in the formation of OAU. He left a good name behind for
his kids and Ethiopians at large. I just hope that the leaders of our time look
back and remind themselves why the OAU was formed.

Samy

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Mesfin F. - A great idea gone mediocre |12.88.135.xxx |2009-01-22 06:42:41

There is no doubt that we owe a great deal of gratitude to the pioneers of
OAU-the now AU. Something is always better than nothing. However, as a student
of International Relations, I find the success of AU marginal at best.

Though we can point to several reasons as to why, one glaring fact has everything to do with its genetic makeup. An organization is as good as its members. The living
fiber of OAU/AU is weaved out of nation states that are politically
disfunctional and at best undemocratic. I doubt as Africans we need to debate
this historical as well as contemporary fact.

As each African country slipped into the abyss of political chaos and economic deprivation, bringing with it all the malaze of misery and hardship for its citizenry, it was clear to see the ineptitude and irrelevancy of this organization in the life of Africans.

My intent here is not to harp on the same old complaint but to put in-check the warm and fuzzy feeling we have about its inception and channel our focus on what
we can do to improve it. What is required to transform the effectiveness of AU?
Ideas abound, but this is my thought. To answer this question, we have to
reflect on its organizationl roots discussed above and give it to the treatment
of levels of analysis it requires.

The political, economical and sociall progress of each individual nation state would be a good place to start. This means, within each state, groups and individuals have to get involve in doing their part to influence change at the state, societal, family of community and down right to the individual level. Ultimately, each individual person has to work hard to transfrom his and her own thought process for intentional progress.

It is a long chain of events that appear to be far removed from this entity of
AU. However, we have to to keep in mind that what made AU ineffective as an
organization is the collective minds of individuals who failed to transfrom
their own thought process with intentional progress.
If we all agree that
everything begins with thought, then what gives AU life is the "thought"
behind it...thoughts that are intentionally progressive and pragmatic with time.

There is a saying in the world of physical fitness: "the definision of
insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a diferent
result." Today, AU may be breathing but it is not alive because it keeps
doing the same thing that stifle its essential growth and its true potential to
change for better.
Thank you
Mesfin

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Sulaiman Bangura |72.75.18.xxx |2009-01-18 16:32:16

Thanks very much for this piece of information. I will pass it on to others to
get the history of the formation of the OAU.
Sulaiman Bangura
Sierra Leonean
in The Netherlands.

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kinfe gebeyehu - pediatrician |67.163.51.xxx |2009-01-17 17:51:29

A nicely summarised review of the chronicles of the formation of the OAU.
As a
young college graduate preparing for a tour of duty to a rural health center, I
was in Addis when the heads of States flew in to Addis for that historic summit.
I cannot express the emotions that many of us then felt to see Africa who to the
most was in a grip of colonization only a few years ago uniting to lead its
people into unity and development.

I have read also the immense contributions Foreign Minister Ketema Yifru had in the formation of the OAU but the details in this piece would no doubt prove his true statemanship. The present charge for the heads of states in the present day Africa is maintaining that unity and striving hard for it to reflect on our modern day enemies- diseases, hunger and
poverty.
Kinfe

African Can end Poverty, only if Prosperityis the Agenda

Ethiopian Sorghum Breeder Wins 2009 World Food Prize
By Steve Baragona
Washington
15 October 2009
Baragona Report - Download (MP3)
Baragona Report - Listen (MP3)

The World Food Prize is the top international award for individuals who have increased the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world
The 2009 World Food Prize has been awarded to Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian-born plant scientist at Purdue University. The private, $250,000 award -- presented at ceremonies in Des Moines, Iowa, October 15th -- is given annually to people who have helped address the world's food needs. This year's prize honors Ejeta's life-long work to improve the production of sorghum, one of the world's most important grain crops. It also honors his efforts to take his discoveries beyond the lab -- to the farmers who need them the most.

Desire to help others rooted in his own childhood poverty

Ejeta is one of those success stories that show the difference an education -- and a motivated mother -- can make. Ejeta grew up in a one-room thatched hut in rural Ethiopia. But he says his mother had other plans for him.

"She didn't care much for the lifestyle in the community that we lived in," Ejita recalls. "And for some strange reason, this woman was able to see that through education one can get out of this drudgery and get to a better life."

So she found opportunities for Ejeta to study, and a place to stay, in a neighboring town, a 20-kilometer walk away. Ejeta studied. He excelled. And now he is being honored for his life's work helping others rise out of poverty.

Lowell Hardin is an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has known Ejeta for 25 years. "Because he grew up in very, very modest circumstances -- a single mother in a remote village in Ethiopia -- he knew poverty," Hardin says. "He knew hunger. And when he was fortunate enough to get an education thanks to his mother's pushing, he decided he was going to apply his talents in this direction."

Research efforts focused on threats to African food crops

Gebisa Ejeta received World Food Prize for his efforts to improve sorghum production
Ejeta applied his talents to fighting a weed called Striga, or witchweed, which threatens crops that feed more than 100 million people across sub-Saharan Africa. Ejeta says the parasitic weed can ruin fields of sorghum, a major staple in hot, dry regions of Africa.

"If you grow a crop that is susceptible to infection by the parasite," he says, "you just basically don't have any chance for growing a crop if your soil is contaminated. And most of these soils are getting contaminated."

Before Ejeta took up the challenge, researchers hadn't had much success controlling the weed. Its seeds can lie dormant in the soil for decades. But Ejeta and his team at Purdue University discovered the chemical signals produced by the sorghum plant that tell the Striga seeds to wake up -- that a victim is available. They then found sorghum varieties that didn't produce the signals, and bred a line of Striga-resistant plants that thrived in a broad range of African growing conditions. These new varieties produced up to four times more grain than local types, even in drought-plagued areas.

Making sure African farmers benefit directly from his research

But Ejeta knew the research breakthrough was just the beginning. Once the new variety was developed in 1994, he worked with non-profit groups to distribute eight tons of seed to farmers in twelve African nations.

That's typical of Gebisa Ejeta, according to his colleague at Purdue, Mitch Tuinstra.

"One of the most important things about Gebisa's work is that he always carries it to the next level," Tuinstra says. "Which is, 'How do I translate the products of this research into technologies that empower and strengthen farmers in Africa?'"

Ejeta's new varieties of sorghum resist drought and the weed Striga
Ejeta has always understood the importance of getting technology into the hands of African farmers. Just out of graduate school, Ejeta bred a high-yielding, drought-tolerant variety of sorghum. When the new hybrid variety was introduced in 1983, Ejeta says farmers were thrilled to find it yielded more than double what traditional varieties produced.

"They thought it was fantastic that they were getting this kind of performance with this hybrid," he says. "And so, the initial response was, 'How can we get seed?'"

That is a critical question: Who will produce and deliver high-yielding seeds to farmers who need them, when there is no viable seed industry?

Ejeta was able to work with Sudanese farmers' cooperatives to scale up production of his drought-resistant sorghum.

But much of Africa still lacks a seed industry to get improved varieties to farmers. And farmers often don't have access to markets to sell the products of their improved harvests. So today, Ejeta is working to develop the market from the ground up. For example, along with local partners he connects brewers, bakers, and flour millers with farmers growing the improved sorghum. By working along the entire chain, from farmers' seeds to consumers' plates, his work is helping to lift people out of poverty - and providing a powerful weapon in the war on hunger.

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This blog is maintained by Shanta Devarajan, the Chief Economist of the Africa Region at the World Bank.

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Some (Possibly Heretical) Thoughts on Agriculture
Submitted by Shanta on Wed, 2009-10-21 09:22
Since the publication of the 2008 World Development Report, there has been a vigorous discussion in the development community about agriculture; today’s publication of the World Bank’s Agriculture Action Plan is a milestone in that process. To stimulate further discussion on the subject, here are some thoughts from a garden-variety economist.

1. The oft-quoted statement, “GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in raising incomes of extremely poor people than GDP growth originating from other sectors,” is an arithmetical point, not an economic point. It simply reflects the fact that 75 percent of the world’s poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.



2. The key to reducing poverty is agricultural productivity growth. This is different from agricultural growth. In most countries that have grown and reduced poverty significantly, agricultural productivity (output per unit of land, for instance) grew, while agriculture’s share in GDP fell.


Click for larger version

3. Why has agricultural productivity not grown rapidly in Africa and South Asia? Some people claim it’s because the international community neglected agriculture for decades. While there is some truth to this claim, I also find that many government interventions in agriculture have worked against productivity increases, rather than for it. The canonical example is the large array of subsidies (water, power, fertilizers, and other inputs) we observe in both regions, which are aimed at helping poor farmers, but end up inducing the wrong product mix (growing cotton, a water-intensive crop, in Maharashtra, which is practically a desert), deplete environmental assets and, most importantly, crowd out necessary spending on infrastructure. Even the apparent success of the fertilizer subsidy in Malawi is being contested.



4. If government interventions have backfired in the past, how do we know that this time will be different? I hear a lot of discussion about “smart subsidies,” but I don’t hear enough about how this new generation of interventions will address the fundamental problem with these interventions: political capture. Most of these subsidies failed to help poor farmers because they got captured by other interest groups (including large-scale farmers). These interest groups were powerful enough to block attempts at reform.

5. Along the same vein, I am puzzled by the rule-of-thumb that, in Africa, at least 10 percent of public expenditure should be for agriculture. My agriculturalist friends tell me that there are huge problems with the productivity of public spending in agriculture. So why should we advocate an increase in this spending? It reminds me of the Woody Allen joke about two people eating at a restaurant. One says, “The food in this restaurant is terrible.” The other responds, “Yes, and the portions are so small.”

6. Perhaps the best way to ensure that interventions are productive is to make sure that voters are better informed about their benefits and costs. And how can we do that? We can start by a discussion on blogs like this one!

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Tags: African agriculture Agriculture agriculture productivity Health, Nutrition and Population Macroeconomics and Economic Growth Poverty Reduction Rural Development
Comments
Agricultural Counter-Heresy?
Submitted by Christopher Delgado on Thu, 2009-10-22 11:15.
It's truly nice to see the first string of macroeconomic interest at the Bank thinking about agriculture again, and sincere thanks to Shanta for taking the time to lay it out---but possible heresy? Let me rise to the bait. Some comments, following Shanta's numbering:


1) “Agricultural growth contributes 2 to 4 times as much to poverty alleviation as other forms or growth is an arithmetical point, not an economic one (paraphrased)” Maybe it does follow largely from the fact that 75% or the world's very poor are rural, and most of these are engaged in farming for at least part of their meagre livelihoods. The fact that agricultural spending had fallen to 4 % of ODA globally and of public expenditure in Africa at the time of World Development Report (WDR) 2008 suggests a stunning lack of arithmetical congruence at the very least. Further, much of the current discussion is about Africa, where WDR 2008 makes a compelling case that agriculture is vital for growth (unlike most of South Asia, as well as poverty alleviation (like most of South Asia).


The proportional size of the sector and high transfer and transaction costs for agriculture in a good chunk of Africa are consistent with an economic view that significant numbers of rural areas in Africa, housing lots of very poor people, are demand constrained (a counter-heresy?). That is to say, there are underemployed resources because no one has any money locally to buy anything, and local products are not competitive price-wise outside the local region. When money comes into these areas (as pension payments or sales of tradable products from within to outside the local area), and it is widely distributed to consumers in the zones in question, some of these underemployed resources are brought into production to produce the things that these now slightly richer poor people consume. If these consumer items are demand-constrained nontradables like services, locally processed foods, local bricks and mats for construction, etc, this produces a multiplier effect for agricultural growth. These effects have been widely observed in Africa for both pension trucks and export crops. The latter has the advantage over the former that it is economically sustainable and does not create fiscal deficits. The entry point then is to promote the supply of (agricultural) tradables in these zones for sale outside the local area.


2) I agree absolutely with Shanta that the key is to invest in agricultural productivity growth. But following the logic in (1), it should be targeted in the first instance to tradable items (stuff that can be sold and not rot by the wayside or is not dependent on constrained local demand). Second, there is a bigger economic kick to smallholder productivity increases than for large farms if that means—as it probably does—that the income benefits of productivity increases for smallholders are more widely spread to poor consumers. Productivity increase on both large and small farms benefit all through lower food prices, but the distribution of income side is critical when demand-constrained areas are a problem.


3) The pernicious nature of the subsidy syndrome of using public good resources for private goods that Shanta alludes to is absolutely correct, and in fact given significant treatment in WDR 2008. Helping Governments use “smart subsidies”, as in Rwanda during the food price crisis say, is a different beast, provided the caveats of targeting, exit strategy, cost accounting, and transparency are followed.


4) (see above)


5) Woody Allen and public expenditures: good fun, but the serious message is that WDR 2008 calls for both “more” and “better” public expenditures. It is great to see serious prospects for “more”, but we all need to work on the “better”. Unfortunately, it is probably easier (not to say easy) to fund-raise for “more” , than to get donors to do the less glamorous job of building human capacity and institutions for “better”.


6) Democracy and “better” agricultural interventions--absolutely! --and at all levels, especially community empowerment to improve the targeting, design, delivery, and use of interventions.

reply
Comment on Shanta's heretical thoughts on agriculture
Submitted by Apurva Sanghi on Thu, 2009-10-22 11:46.
Dear Shanta


Congrats on a wonderful and thought-provoking post. In my experience, in addition to mixing arithmetic with economics, I find that many of us continue to get mix other equally important things such as stocks vs. flows; accounting / financial costs vs. economic costs and so on. I hope you do a post on just these issues at some point.


While I agree with most of what you said, one minor quibble I have is related to your point 3 that the "fiscal space" so created by reducing subsidies should be spent on infra. I say this because a) whether more needs to be spent on infra vs. on other sectors, is likely to be highly context / country specific. In some cases, additional resources would have a bigger bang for the buck from paying down debt; in others it could be in social or other sectors and so on. And b) even if it were infra, one could argue that there too poor public (government and donor) interventions are arguably biased towards new, greenfield projects rather than routine, less glamorous, operations and maintenance, which is often ignored.


Anyway, as I said, it's a minor quibble, and I look forward to reading more such interesting posts.


Best regards,
Apurva

reply
rural information servicing & processing
Submitted by Hans Determeyer on Thu, 2009-10-22 12:45.
Dear Shanta,


Thanks for the pleasantly sharp and down-to-earth observations. Indeed, for a more successful rural development in Africa, information servicing may be one of the key elements where we can improve considerably.


This was also one of the key themes at the CTA conference in Brussels, last week, where the role of the media in rural development was discussed by more than 200 rural development specialists from around the globe.


ICTs create impressive progress in access to and exchange of information for those operating in the more urbanized regions. Considering the oral-literate aspect, in rural environments most probably radio will remain a key channel for access to information for years to come.


Interestingly, being so near its target group and in combination with text messaging, rural radio shows good potential to become much more interactive with the audiences in which it is rooted, in a relatively simple and lo-tech way. Thus, rural radio has potential to actually improve the quality of information offered by mixing it with feedback from those who actually toil the earth: meaning generations of experience.


This, however, moves the problem to the next point: how to make two-way information servicing and information processing by rural radio more sustainable and more professional? The medium suffers from a vicious circle type of dilemma. There is no money, so competent staff is difficult to retain, so quality cannot easily grow or be maintained, so its SME investment value does not flourish, so there will be no investor interested, so there is no et cetera.


For small and medium sized media, access to capital for investment and to working capital is very limited, if not zero. Subsidy and donation is more often than not their finance base, a dependency base. An entrepreneurial spirit is often there, certainly, but not necessarily always in terms of management, marketing or administration.


Yet, these are true SMEs, even though they may not see themselves as such. In the information era these are even KEY-SMEs, to be cherished! Governments, however, rarely support the SME media sector with dedicated development policies (was this a euphemism?) and commercial entertainment radio makes competition tough.


Managerial capacity may be limited, access to training for a more professional and entrepreneurial set-up may be limited, yet one finds thousands of such initiatives thriving around the world. They are thriving in terms of enthusiasm, in terms of rooting in its listenership, in terms of added value for rural and remote communities.


So, let's make a point of supporting these essential actors in rural information servicing and processing. Not with subsidy, but with structural access to capital coupled with subsidized business development services.


The models have been developed and tested. We can learn from KBR68H in Indonesia, SAMDEF in the SADC region, Red TV in Peru, MDLF. For more than ten years we see successful loans issued to media houses in developing countries. It can work and it deserves scaling up!


We challenge the World Bank to adjust its telescope and catch sight of information servicing on the ground - a sector that needs dedicated financial services and better, more stimulating national policies and constructive rather than constraining regulation.


We need the Bank's support in convincing governments that this SME media sector is essential to successful rural development. Their information services - often in local languages - are so essential, that policies promoting rural media may be considered pre-conditional to aid delivery.


Hans Determeyer - manager media finance mechanisms
Free Voice - support to media in development - The Netherlands

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Ethiopia at the Millennial Green Innovation Renaissance

http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE59K0I020091021?feedType=RSS&feedName=investingNews&rpc=401

Reuters

October 21, 2009

Ethiopia to trade specialty coffee locally

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia plans to move the trade in its specialty coffee to an Addis Ababa-based commodities exchange instead of the current channel of selling the beans at auctions overseas, a senior trade official said.

Eleni Gebre-Madhin, Chief Executive Officer at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) said up to 30 percent of the country's produce is classified as specialty beans but that higher prices for the fine coffees were not trickling down to farmers.
"The initiative positions Ethiopia to have perhaps the only domestic marketing system in the world for discovering and trading specialty coffee at the arrival stage, thus benefiting the farmers who produce these coffees, rather than at the export end of the chain," she said.

Ethiopia, which prides itself as the birthplace of coffee, opened talks with key players in the global specialty coffee industry on Wednesday on how best to handle the trading of premium brands.

"Ethiopia has a natural advantage to exploit its resources for the benefit of its people and we shall strive to generate more income for the benefit of the country," Eleni added.

Ethiopia is Africa's biggest producer with an annual average output of 330,000 tonnes. It expects a bumper harvest, 20-30 percent above the usual crop, this year (2009/10).


The ECX was set up in 2008 to replace a murky auction system that was often abused by market players.


Ethiopia, Africa's largest coffee producer, earned $376 million from coffee export in 2008/09 compared with $525 million in 2007/08.




============
http://www.addisfortune.com/Outmoded%20Coffee%20Industry%20Gets%20a%20Taste%20of%20Fast%20Paced%20World%20Market.htm

Fortune, Ethiopia

September 20, 2009

Outmoded Coffee Industry Gets a Taste of Fast Paced World Market

ABNET ASEFFA

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) inaugurated a new coffee tasting and bidding laboratory centre in Hawasa town of the Southern Regional State on Monday, September 14, 2009.

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD), senior Southern regional government officials, and coffee producers attended the inauguration ceremony of the centre which is expected to create suitable conditions for the marketing of coffee from Sidama and surrounding towns. The area is also to benefit from a large scale coffee cleaning facility, as Deribew Teferra, minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, indicated in a speech he made at the ceremony.

By November 2009, additional eight computerized coffee tasting and bidding laboratories will be launched in various parts of the country in the vicinity of coffee plantations, according to Eleni Gabre Madhin (PhD), CEO of ECX. The establishment of these laboratories with locations near the plantations will be the first in the world.

The bidding laboratory system will be co-coordinated from the Akaki coffee bidding centre in Addis Abeba and will involve the Southern and Oromia Regional States, the two coffee growing regions of Ethiopia. The eight centres will be in Dilla, Bonga, and Wollaita Soddo in the Southern regional state; Nekemte, Jimma and Limu of the Oromia regional state and the Dire Dawa Administration.

In preparation for Monday’s inauguration three professional tasters each from the USA and Ethiopia had been working on samples from Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, Harar, Jimma, Wollegga and Limu comparing these samples with set standards, Eleni said.

These tasters had reported in July 2009 that the coffee samples had been found to fulfill 96pc of the criteria required by the international system.

Ethiopian coffee would no longer be sold at the prices of grades 1, 2 and 3 coffee, as had been the norm; as of the coming November it would go even higher on the quality ladder and be marketed at the price for grade A coffee stated the CEO.

The International Coffee Organization has set quality indication for exportable Arabica and Robusta coffees. The Organizations’ regulation are such that should the Arabica coffee have in excess of 86 defects per 300g sample, and the Robusta coffee have in excess of 150 defects per 300g, they will not be exported.


The standard given for the former is Brazil or its equivalent and for the latter - Vietnam, Indonesia, or equivalent. It also rules out coffee with a moisture content below eight per cent or in excess of 12.5pc.

The networked laboratories will enable individuals to take part in biddings at all the international bidding centres of the country within seconds. This new system will facilitate the trading of Ethiopian coffee in the international market.

ECX had also been working with the US Special Tea and Coffee Association, the outcome of which will be the commencement of a special trading system for Ethiopian coffee as of November 2009.

Besides the local bidding facilities, coffee farmers recognized and registered as special standard producers would get the opportunity to directly supply their coffee to the world market using the system.

According to Eleni, the modern coffee marketing system would: avoid complaints from world coffee buyers who had indicated that they faced challenges in finding the coffee suppliers and help coffee farmers get access to markets directly from the coffee fields.



======================
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090923005568&newsLang=en

Research and Markets, US

September 23, 2009
Research and Markets: This Essential Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband & Forecasts for Ethiopia Is Now Available
(Full report must be purchased)

DUBLIN Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/84329a/ethiopia_telecom) has announced the addition of the "Ethiopia - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband & Forecasts" report to their offering.

The Ethiopia - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband & Forecasts report includes all BuddeComm research data and analysis on this country. Covering trends and developments in telecommunications, mobile, internet, broadband, infrastructure and regulation.


Ethiopia is the last country in Africa allowing its national telco, ETC a monopoly on all telecom services including fixed, mobile, Internet and data communications. This monopolistic control has stifled innovation and retarded expansion. The government tries to encourage foreign investment in a broad range of industries by allowing foreigners up to 100% equity ownership. However, there is no official schedule for the privatisation of the national carrier and the introduction of competition, but once this happens, the potential to satisfy unmet demand in all service sectors is huge.

Ethiopia has the second lowest telephone penetration rate in Africa, but it recently surpassed Egypt to become the second most populous nation on the continent after Nigeria. However, it is also one of the poorest countries in the world with approximately 80% of the population supporting themselves through subsistence agriculture, which accounts for more than half of the country's GDP.

Despite the monopoly situation, subscriber growth in the mobile sector has been excellent at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 90% since its inception in 1999 and more than 100% in the past six years. However, demand has been even stronger, and ETC has been unable to satisfy it. Ethiopia's mobile market penetration is still one of the lowest in the world at little more than 3%. Fixed-line penetration is even lower, and this has also impacted on the development of the Internet sector. Prices of broadband connections are excessive.

Improvements are beginning to develop following massive investments into fixed-wireless and mobile network infrastructure, including third generation mobile technology, as well as a national fibre optic backbone. Ethiopia is investing an unusually large amount, around 10% of its GDP, into information & communication technology (ICT). However, telecommunications revenue has grown only moderately in comparison, at around 16% per annum. It has remained under 2% of GDP, a low figure in regional comparison.

Key Highlights:
• Forecasts for fixed-line, mobile and Internet markets to 2010 and 2015;
• Comparison with other countries in the region in terms of GDP, mobile, fixed and Internet market penetration;
• Detailed profile of the monopoly service provider in all market sectors;
• Launch of 3G mobile service in market with excessive broadband pricing;
• Extensive rollouts of national and international fibre infrastructure;
Key Topics Covered:
Executive summary
Key statistics
Market analysis 2009
• Regional statistical comparison
Regulatory environment
• Regulatory authority
• Telecom service licenses
• Telecom sector liberalization
• Privatization of ETC
Fixed network operator
• Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation
Internet market
• Overview
• Internet statistics
• National connectivity
• Public Internet access locations
• VoIP grey market
• ISP market
Broadband market
• Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
• WiMAX
• Broadband via satellite
Mobile communications
• Overview of Ethiopia's mobile market
• Mobile operator
• Mobile voice services
• Mobile data services
• Third generation (3G)
• Mobile banking
Forecasts
• Forecast - fixed-line services - 2010; 2015
• Forecast - Internet users - 2010; 2015
• Forecast - mobile subscribers - 2010; 2015
• Notes on scenario forecasts
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/84329a/ethiopia_telecom


www.eastafricaforum.net

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0510/p06s04-woaf.html

Christian Science Monitor

May 10, 2009




A worker packs roses for export at the Ethio Highland Flora farm in Sabeta, Ethiopia.
Aidan Jones/The Christian Science Monitor





Got Mother's Day flowers? Ethiopia does, but few are buying.
Ethiopia is being hit hard by a dramatic slump in demand for flowers as the global economic crisis forces consumers to curb spending on perceived luxuries.
Aidan Jones


Sabeta, Ethiopia - A local pop song trills out from the radio, filling the cavernous packing hall at the Ethio Highland Flora farm in Sabeta, a 45-minute drive from Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

Dozens of workers tackle a seemingly endless stack of exotically named roses, separating the short stems and rotten petals from the bright Valentino, Duo Unique, Wild Calypso, and Alyssa blooms destined for Europe.


Most of the farm's 400 employees earn less than a dollar a day, but it is a steady wage in one of the world's poorest nations where 80 percent of the population lives off the land.

This year the 20-hectare farm, a sprawl of irrigated and temperature-controlled greenhouses, is set to beat its target for growing, cutting, and exporting 21 million stems.

That is a 15 percent rise on its contribution to the 1.5 billion stems exported by Ethiopia in 2008, earning an estimated $175 million for the industry.

But the positive figures belie a dramatic slump in demand for flowers as the global economic crisis forces European consumers, Ethiopia's main market, to curb spending on perceived luxuries. It's a tough blow for Ethiopia, where flower power was touted to supplant coffee as Ethiopia's main export and highest earner of foreign exchange.
Many analysts now fear that, without swift assistance, Ethiopia's nascent flower industry will wilt in the heat of global recession.

"We're not talking about falling profit this year, just survival," says farm manager Emebet Tesfaye. "Even Valentine's Day was down from last year. The problem is Europeans don't want flowers right now. The buyers in Amsterdam control the market, and they are setting prices very low – there is no minimum price for our stems.

Every loss is on the growers' side: transport, water, electricity, wages, and even fees to the rose breeders."

Sales down on Valentine's Day and 'Mothering Sunday'
Sales forecasts are traditionally pegged to an expected bonanza at Valentine's Day and Mothering Sunday (Europe's version of Mother's Day on March 22). This year Ethio Highland Flora Farm sold 20 to 30 percent fewer flowers, punching a hole in expected revenues and compounding the pain caused by low stem prices.


Prices per stem are now 10 cents (euro) or less, down 15-20 percent from last year.
On bad days, the flower auction houses of Amsterdam – where the majority of stems from Kenya, Ethiopia, Namibia, and Tanzania vie for buyers – have reported dips of up to 40 percent.

Four farms have already filed for bankruptcy – out of 85 – while at least half of the remainder are operating at a loss.
Oh, what a difference half a year makes. Just six months ago, things looked very different.

Foreign and local investors piled into the sector lured by predictions of revenues of $1 billion within five years, tax incentives, and a surfeit of cheap labor.
One thousand hectares of land went under cultivation, more than 50,000 people were directly employed on the farms, with tens of thousands earning a crust along the supply chain, as Ethiopia threatened the regional primacy of Kenya's longer-established floriculture.

Keen to banish Ethiopia's famine-ridden reputation, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi played his part, hailing flowers as the flagship of an increasingly buoyant economy – the government says that in 2008 gross domestic product grew at just under 10 percent.

And it is to him that the flower farmers are now turning, calling for a reprieve from the banks which are nervously eyeing their loans, and the freight firms and airlines, who currently charge $1.85 per kilo of cargo to fly the flowers to Europe.
"This is a problem caused by the developed world, but we are paying for it in Africa," says Tsegaye Abebe, president of the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA). "We can tolerate low market prices for a time, but if prices continue like this for many more months our industry will be under serious threat. It is time for all the businesses with a stake in the sector to help each other out."

Despite a recent pledge to support the industry "through thick and thin," Meles – as he is widely known – can not hold back the confluence of global and local forces sweeping across the Ethiopian flower business.

Too much power in hands of European middlemen?
It is a tough trade; cheap and high quality stems pour into the market from across Africa and Latin America, putting European buyers in the driving seat.
Prices are set low in the knowledge there is a surplus of supply from desperate growers, and farm owners have yet to build the capacity to trade directly with supermarkets – the major sale point for flowers.

As a newcomer to the market, Ethiopia does not benefit from the same economies of scale as neighboring Kenya, raising fears it is particularly vulnerable to the price shock.


Mr. Tsegaye believes survival can be secured through a diversification of products to include herbs, fruits, and vegetables, and markets to reach Japan, Middle East, Russia, and the United States. "But that depends on the short and medium term being kind to us," he says.

The social impact of decline will also be keenly felt in Sabeta – where small holding farmers were convinced to sell their land to flower farms by the promise of big rewards to come.

The majority of flower workers are women, and the recession threatens to stymie plans to empower them with minimum labor standards and unions.
It has deflated Emebet Tesfaye's hopes. She may soon be left with the awkward choice of dumping some of the 70,000 flowers a day produced at Ethio Highland or flooding the market with roses no one is buying.

A recent visit to a Dutch auction house intensified her gloom as she witnessed the pecking order of a market which roots flower-producing nations to the bottom.
"Each morning the buyers look at their computer screens and click one button that determines the life of all these people," she explains gesturing to the female packers. "We have no power."



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http://www.apanews.net/apa.php?page=show_article_eng&id_article=97300

APA

May 2, 2009

AfDB cumulative commitment to Ethiopia reaches over $2bn

Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Africa’s pioneer development partner is one of Ethiopia’s development partners where it is supporting over 100 projects by investing over $2 billion.

The AfDB started operations in Ethiopia in 1975 and remains one of the country’s most important financial partners by providing grants and loan. According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, to date, AfDB cumulative commitment in the country stands at $2.564 billion for 106 operations.

“This makes AfDB one of Ethiopia’s development partners along with the World Bank, the IMF and other partners as well as the donor community,” said Hailemariam Mekonnen, project expert at the ministry.

Mekonnen indicated that in its 34 years partnership with Ethiopia, the AfDB helped Ethiopia to implement various development projects which benefit millions of Ethiopians.

“Irrigation, health, education, roads projects, among others, are among the projects which the bank are supporting in the country. This support by AfDB has a meaningful impact for our fight against poverty,” said Mekonnen.

The AfDB’s objective is to reduce poverty by addressing key policy and administrative challenges related to local governance; public financial management; the quality of locally delivered basic services; and inequities in access to the services.

According to Mekonnen, Ethiopia is currently implementing irrigation, hydro-electric and infrastructure projects with the support of the AfDB.

“We are still waiting for the bank to support some huge development projects in the country .We have already presented over $300 million worth project proposals to be supported by the bank,” added Mekonen.

The Ethiopia-Kenya road link and the Gilgil Gibe hydro electric projects are among the main projects, which Ethiopia is waiting to be supported by the bank in 2009.
According to the Ethiopian road authority, the Ethiopia-Kenya road link project is worth over $200 million.

According to the authority, this highway project will be carried out between Hageremariam and Moyale towns on the Ethiopian side, which will cover 300 kilometres.
“The road would be one of Africa’s major trans-boundary highways. The government has finalized the environmental impact assessment and rehabilitation study of the project,” said the authority.

The project is expected to be carried out in 2009.

The road project constitutes a major highway linking Ethiopia to Kenya traversing as far as the port of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast, the authority said.
The road would be vital in terms of commerce as it traverses major coffee-growing areas in the south Ethiopian states.

The road runs 300 kilometres as part of the Addis Ababa - Moyale route. “This route is part of the 10,000 kilometre Cairo - Gaborone - Cape Town trans-boundary highway, which is the longest of the four main highway links in Africa,” added the authority.

========
http://cyberethiopia.com/news/?id=139024

Fortune, Ethiopia

April 26, 2009

State Grain Firm Dips into Coffee Export Trade

PAWLOS BELETE

To Sell 12,000Qtls to German Co.

The Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE) signed its first agreement to sell 12,000Qtls of coffee to a Germany based company more than a week ago, officials of the enterprise disclosed. The agreement, signed on April 14, 2009, makes the German company the first buyer of EGTE's coffee; the latter has finalized preparations for the first shipment of coffee to Germany in May.

The state owned enterprise penetrated the coffee export business for the first time in its half a century history a couple of months ago. It has already bought more than 42,000Qtls of coffee through open auction at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX).

The idea of becoming involved in the coffee export business was floated during Business Process Reengineering (BPR) of the enterprise, according to its officials. The assessment proved that the enterprise has both the infrastructure and manpower to handle export trade of coffee, in addition to the export of pulses, oil seeds and other agricultural products, which the enterprise has been known for over the past 50 years.

"We have the experience both in the domestic and international markets, with the manpower and the infrastructure to do the business," Beru Lede, deputy General Manager of the enterprise, told Fortune.

Nevertheless, perhaps because it has started at a time when the government has taken stern action against major coffee exporters and suppliers, accusing them of hoarding export standard coffee, there has been criticism that the enterprise's move is a government ploy to enter the coffee business.

But senior government officials argue that this strategy is a result of concern for the void in the coffee export business created due to the action taken against the major actors.

"The enterprise has entered the coffee market for one simple reason; there is concern that the capability to process the coffee exports of the remaining several actors in the market may not be adequate to push the coffee through the system quickly enough," Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said at a press conference more than a week ago.

Though the preference would be to handle the trade through private sector actors, if there are bottlenecks created, the government would try to beef it up through the Grain Trade Enterprise, according to Meles.

"But there is no intention of establishing a public monopoly in any of the agricultural markets because we know that it doesn't work," the Prime Minister emphasized.

The coffee the EGTE bought at the ECX is from the stock the government has taken over from the stores of the six major exporters, knowledgeable sources disclosed. People engaged in the coffee export business, however, see EGTE's coming to the scene as potential competition.

"The move is contrary to the principle of free market; it was a practice apparent in the military regime through the Coffee Market (Buna Gebeya), a coffee exporter who requested not to be named told Fortune. "It complicates the competition field."

The absence of equal power between the state and private enterprises makes it difficult for the latter to compete fairly, the exporter added.

With its head office on Beyene Aba Sebsib Avenue (Debre-Zeit Road), the EGTE has 11 branches and 40 trade centres and warehouses throughout the country, with a combined storage capacity of eight million quintals.

The enterprise has a 1,700 strong permanent workforce in all its branches and sales points. The business the enterprise was engaged in before exporting the commodity include transporting the coffee to the processing facilities it runs in different parts of the country for pulping and cleaning the coffee to meet the country's quality and grade requirements, as well as the buyers' needs.

The enterprise is eyeing markets in Europe, America, Middle East and Asia. Its general manager, Brehane Hailu, was recently in Atlanta, US, to participate in a coffee fair held there and to source for potential customers.

The enterprise has in stock pulped and fermented coffee - which is washed to remove its sticky mucilage - otherwise known as "washed coffee" from Yirga Chefe and Sidama Areas of the Southern Nation, Nationalities and People Regional State, as well as "Sun Dried" coffee that is dried, hulled, cleaned and stored as red cherry coffee from Jimma and Nekemte of the Oromia Regional State. These are in stock ready to be transported to any interested buyer.

Over the past 50 years, EGTE has been active in the buying and selling of grains, and for more than a year now, it has become a responsible government arm for the stabilization of the domestic grain market. It is accountable to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) and is run by a board chaired by Ali Suleiman, commissioner of the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

EGTE owns 39 new and additional used heavy trucks to transport commodities to customers' facilities, or to and from the port, in the case of export and import transactions.

The enterprise operates with 105 million Br of fully paid up capital injected by the government as seed money; its annual turnover is currently about 500 million Br. The turnover does not include the over 250 million dollars the government spent over the past more than a year to buy close to 800,000tn of wheat from the international market, mainly East Europe, to stabilize the local market through subsidized imports.

Ethiopia earned close to 175 million dollars in the first six months of the 2008/2009 fiscal year from the export of 59,188tn of coffee, which is 61.2pc of the plan (285 million dollars). Compared to the previous year's performance of the same period, the coffee export this year increased by 14pc in volume and 21pc in earnings, according to data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

======== http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=antthZHxegVk&refer=africa

Bloomberg

April 15, 2009

Japan May Resume Coffee Imports From Ethiopia, Ambassador Says

Jason McLure
Japanese trading houses are in talks with Ethiopian coffee exporters to resume purchases of beans from the Horn of Africa country, a year after imports were slashed when several contaminated shipments were discovered.


“Some Japanese businesses are seriously negotiating with Ethiopian businesses for the resumption of imports to Japan,” Kinichi Komano, Japan’s ambassador to Ethiopia, said in an interview today at his office in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Japan curbed imports of Ethiopian coffee last year after shipments were seized between April and June by Japanese customs officials and found to contain “abnormally high” pesticide residues in the beans. Japanese imports of Ethiopian coffee plunged to 8,000 metric tons in 2008, from 29,000 tons a year earlier.

Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer. Japan had previously purchased about 20 percent of the country’s exports, making it Ethiopia’s third-largest market after Germany and Saudi Arabia, according to the Trade Ministry.


Mocha beans from Ethiopia are highly regarded in Japan for their distinctive flavor and last year’s ban forced coffee shop owners to seek new blends.

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http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-04-14-voa22.cfm
VOA
April 14, 2009
Ethiopia May Prosecute Coffee Exporters

Peter Heinlein
Ethiopia is considering legal action against coffee exporters who withheld beans from the market in response to unfavorable market conditions, causing a drop in the country's revenue. Officials are hoping prosecution of a few big exporters will send a warning signal.

Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi, (file photo)
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi says six of the country's largest coffee exporters could be prosecuted for what he called 'hoarding' beans.

"I only know of six companies who have legal issues, and I would not be surprised if some of them will be taken to court," Mr. Zenawi said.

Ethiopian authorities say stockpiling is contributing to an already severe foreign exchange shortage and they recently revoked the licenses of six big coffee exporters and closed their warehouses. They turned over sale of the beans to a state-owned commodity exchange.

Ethiopia is the world's sixth-largest coffee producer, and the biggest in Africa. But income from exporting the beans has fallen sharply during the past year. Analysts say the drop is due to a poor harvest, weak world prices and a ban on Ethiopian imports by the country's biggest customer, Japan.

Prime Minister Meles said Monday he had warned the largest producers months ago that withholding beans from the market constituted an attempt to 'sabotage' the economy. He told reporters prosecuting the big exporters is intended as a lesson for smaller players in the market.

"The government is not pursuing the case in the hopes that the steps taken against these six companies will be an adequate signal to the rest of the actors in the sector to behave in accordance with the law," Mr. Zenawi said.

Government officials had earlier attempted to reassure markets, saying there is no plan to nationalize the coffee industry. Communications Minister Bereket Simon said last week the state would act only as a market regulator.

Trade Ministry statistics indicate Ethiopia's coffee exports declined by more than 10 percent in the first eight months of the current fiscal year, compared to the same period last year. Coffee accounts for about $500 million a year in foreign exchange earnings or close to half the nation's total export revenue.

Industry sources say the United States buys about five percent of Ethiopia's coffee exports, or roughly 65 million kilograms a year. Japan had imported approximately five times more than the United States before the ban was imposed, after traces of insecticide were discovered in some bags of Ethiopian coffee.


============
http://www.addisfortune.com/First%20Coffee%20Export%20Set%20for%20State%20Grain%20Firm.htm
Fortune, Ethiopia
April 12, 2009
First Coffee Export Set for State Grain Firm

OMER REDI

The state owned Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE) is set to begin export of coffee for the first time in its history of half a century. The first consignment of its export is being prepared, which managers say will be shipped out in about a week.


In the past three weeks, the Enterprise has been making final preparations for its first ever export of the commodity, which is on the top of the list of items that earn Ethiopia its foreign currency.

The decision to engage in the export business of coffee, was made following a business process reengineering (BPR) study conducted by the Enterprise, Brehane Hailu, general manager of the Enterprise, told Fortune.

“Though we have not entered into any kind of export agreement with any buyer in a specific time, we are negotiating with some customers,” Brehane said. “In the short time since we started the export process [about two weeks ago], we are working on some preconditions.”

The preparations and preconditions include transporting the coffee to processing facilities the enterprise runs in different parts of the country for pulping and cleaning to meet the country’s quality and grade requirements, as well as the buyers’ needs.

The enterprise is in the early stages of embarking in the coffee export business; it expects to ship its first consignment early next week, according to Berhane.

Over the past half a century, EGTE has been active in the buying and selling of grains and, for more than a year now, has become a responsible government arm for the stabilization of the domestic grain market.

No wonder then that the excitement and rush due to the inclusion of the new business line for the federal agency was evident in its officials and employees stationed in the two five-storey buildings on Beyene Aba Sebsib Avenue (Debre-Zeit Road), right in front of Garad Building which houses Dashen Bank’s head office.


The officials held a series of meetings, mostly on BPR and the new business, and paper works about coffee and the latest export business are being sent from one office to another. Most employees talk about it amongst themselves. However, those directly involved in the export business, including experts and senior officials, seem cautious of any discussions on the matter, especially with the media.

The Enterprise is accountable to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) and is run by a board chaired by Ali Suleiman, commissioner of the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. Its members also include one of the state ministers of Agriculture.

With its head office in Addis Abeba, the about 50-years old EGTE has seven branch offices and 36 trade centres throughout the country. Its major business areas include the purchase and sale (distribution) of food grains from producers or suppliers; the export of oil seeds, pulses and cereals; the supply of grain as raw material inputs for domestic food processing industries; and warehouse operations for the inventory credit system.


A state establishment with about 1,700 permanent staff, EGTE also has a combined capacity to store more than 800,000tn of grain in its warehouses in different parts of the country along the 36 trade centres distributed in every region.

The enterprise owns heavy and light trucks to transport grain as per customer’s requirement. It operates with 105 million Br of fully paid up capital injected by the government; its annual turnover is currently about 500 million Br. This amount excludes the over 250 million dollars the government spent over the past more than a year in buying close to 800,000tn of wheat from the international market, mainly East Europe, to stabilize the local market through highly subsidized imports.


“We are engaging with a lot of [business] people from both abroad and at home in the export business,” the general manager, who has been kept busy with the new business, told Fortune.

Brehane and other officials of the EGTE have had tight schedules over the past few weeks which were jam-packed with meetings with potential buyers from abroad at prominent hotels in the city. The General Manager has also visited foreign countries like Dubai for the same business purpose.

Pulped and fermented coffee - which is washed to remove its sticky mucilage - otherwise known as “washed coffee” from Yirga Chefe and Sidama areas of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS), as well as “sun dried” coffee that is, dried, hulled, cleaned and sorted red cherry coffee from Jimma and Nekmpte of Oromia Regional State are in stock ready to be transported to any interested buyer.

Any of the deals the EGTE makes have to go through the recently introduced transaction system by the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX).

Ethiopia exported about 176,390tn of coffee in 2006/2007 and earned a little over 424 million dollars. The following fiscal year (2007/2008), it raked in over half a billion dollar from the export of 170,888tn of the commodity, which recently has become a source of dispute between the government and major private exporters.

The showdown led to the revoking of the licences of six key exporters by the government more than a week ago, and the closure of their storages was followed by a stark warning by MoARD to about 90 others to keep exporting the coffee they have or suffer the same consequences.


Ethiopia earned close to 175 million dollars in the first six months of the 2008/2009 fiscal year from the export of 59,188tn of coffee, which is 61.2pc of the plan (285 million dollars). Compared to last year’s performance of the same period, the coffee exported this year increased by 14pc in volume and 21pc in income, according to data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

EGTE is licensed to engage in both import and export businesses.
_______________________________________


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http://www.poorfarmer.blogspot.com/

Coffee Politics, US

April 8, 2009

Coffee Brews Feud, Drowns Out Voices
Wondwossen Mezlekia
An internal feud between Ethiopian private exporters and the government caught the media spotlight recently but, as usual, limited journalism coverage derailed the attention off the fundamental issues.

On March 25, 2009, the government seized 17,000 tons of coffee beans from six exporters, and revoked their licenses. The government is now considering selling the seized stocks itself on the international market. The licenses of additional 88 independent traders had also been cancelled for failing to heed the authorities.

This happened after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused some coffee exporters in January of having been reluctant to sell stocks through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). He warned them of conspiring and disturbing the integrity of the ECX system by supplying and then buying back their own coffees to sell coffee meant for export on the domestic market, threatening to "cut off one of their hands" if they did not behave.

The exporters deny these accusations.

When the media picked and wagged a thread, the news spilled over to global markets and sent a shockwave across the specialty coffee community. Some importers of specialty coffees got worried that the new coffee law may put an end to direct sourcing of beans and severely impacted the already scant traceability of Ethiopia’s coffee beans.

In all this, the farmers’ voice is drowned out and their concerns left unnoticed.
As it happens, the recent development in Ethiopia’s coffee sector has more ramifications to the national economy than on the specialty coffee industry. Importers and roasters interviewed for this report confirmed that their sourcing is unaffected while the feud continues.

To understand the underlying reasons for the private exporters’ frustrations and the government’s heavy-handed actions, one needs to look at the history of coffee in Ethiopia and what changed in recent years.

Political Crop

Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, is the sixth largest coffee producer and the seventh largest exporter worldwide. It is the largest coffee producer and exporter in Africa. Exports between March 2008 and February 2009 were 2,679,155 bags of coffee beans, a share of 2.73 percent in global coffee trade.

The fine quality of its coffees and the distinctive features of the sector, including its genetic resources, abundance of wild coffee trees, and the organic coffee production, earned Ethiopia a unique place in the global coffee marketplace.
Coffee is the backbone of Ethiopia’s economy. In the 2007/2008, coffee export fetched more than 525 million dollars, accounting for about 60 percent of the country’s hard currency earnings. Moreover, coffee provides an important source of income for a large portion of the population and is an important source of tax revenue to the government.

Coffee holds a strong political significance in Ethiopia because of its tremendous importance in the economy and its political purposes for the regime. The ruling party ensures the centralized collection and controlling of foreign currency in order to stay in power.


Currently, the government is strapped; its foreign currency reserve is at its lowest level of $850 million, enough to cover only a month’s imports. The foreign exchange shortage was exacerbated by declines in global coffee prices, poor harvest, and contraction of sales following the loss of Japan’s market due to the ban imposed in May 2008 by Japan after finding “abnormally high” pesticide residues in a shipment of the beans.

Under these circumstances, coffee can be extremely appealing to the government.
The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), a government owned central trading system, meant primarily for grains, began trading coffee in December 2008. Launched in May 2008, the trading platform was set up to replace the murky auction system often abused by market participants.

During the ECX rollout, which happened to coincide with the global economic turmoil where domestic and global prices were sharply rising, there was severe shortage of grains flowing through the exchange.

Although it is authorized to trade in both spot and futures contracts, ECX announced in April 2008 that it intends to start off with only spot contracts for immediate delivery (as a strategic driver of the ultimate futures trading) and impose compulsory delivery of grains.


In August 2008, the government swiftly enacted a new coffee law in order to provide ECX with the necessary legal framework that would enable it, among others, to impose compulsory delivery of coffees. This law requires all coffees to be traded through the ECX – the only outlet to international markets.

The New Coffee Law

The new coffee law, as some call it, is believed to be what sparked the outcry among private exporters in Ethiopia and the specialty coffee community. Outside Ethiopia, there is confusion on whether or not the law prohibits direct sourcing of single origin coffees.

The law, formally known as the Coffee Quality Control and Marketing Proclamation (No. 602/2008*, declares all coffee trade “shall take place in lawful coffee transaction centers.”

More specifically, Article 10(1) reads:
“Any person involved in the roasting and grinding of coffee for selling shall purchase the coffee for such purpose only from auction centers, the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange or wholesalers.”

But Article 11 appears to be leaving room for direct sourcing:
“Any coffee producer shall: 1/ without prejudice to Article 6(1) of this Proclamation, have the right to directly export coffee from his own farm, only after submitting the same to the coffee quality liquoring and inspection center for grading before and after processing for export; and 2/ sell coffee by product in auction centers or the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange only upon examination and approval of the coffee quality liquoring and inspection center.”

This provision makes it easier for coffee farmers’ cooperatives and marketing unions to transact with importers directly. Some of the cooperatives and unions that are reasonably equipped and well positioned to handle export orders will hopefully reap the benefits of direct marketing.

Meanwhile, farmers that are not organized in cooperatives, which constitute the majority of the farming community, are disadvantaged, as dealing with importers from thousands of miles away would be challenging, if not impossible. However, importers do have the option and abilities to initiate and enter into contracts with all producers and access their favorite coffee origins by establishing direct relationships with producers. This approach helps the poor farmers dig themselves out of the traps of poverty and eternal exploitation.

The law abolishes the old practices by some exporters of handholding coffee bags from farm gate to export. Now, they will have to compete with other exporters if they need to buy specific bag of cherries supplied by suppliers or “akrabis.”
In this respect, the Coffee Quality Control and Marketing Proclamation and ECX call for segregation of duty at all levels of the value chain. It appears, though, the government is now in violation of this noble code of ethics.

Conflict of Interest
The present-day domestic marketing chain in Ethiopia is as old as the export trade itself.

The bean passes through numerous market participants before arriving at the central auction centers: collectors or “sebsabis” collect the beans at local stations from rural merchants or farmers and sell it to suppliers or “akrabis”; akrabis deliver the coffee en masse to the auction centers; private exporters or local distributors buy from auction centers. Suppliers and exporters are not allowed to bypass the auctions and exchange directly.

With the introduction of the new exchange system the auction centers are replaced by the ECX, while all other participants continue to function as is, but with one fundamental change: transparency.

The previous auction system was marred with loopholes that seem to have allowed some exporters holding dual licenses to purchase back their own coffee in the auctions, thereby enjoying too much control over coffee prices. Supposedly, ECX’ introduction of rules of trading, warehousing, payments and delivery, and business conduct principles will seal off those loopholes. This seems to have upset a few exporters and fired back at by the government accusing them of engaging in conflict of interest.

But the government’s reactions were even more troubling. It not only confiscated coffee beans from the exporters but also tasked the state owned Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE) with exporting of coffee.

This measure throws privatization and domestic market liberalization out in the window.

Ethiopia’s coffee market has always been a relatively private business, with the exception of limited government interventions to enforce quality standards, etc. This was true even during the days of the communist regime that “nationalized” almost every sector in the nation.

EGTE’s slated assignment marks a detrimental precedence in the nation’s history. The government’s engagement in exporting beans produced by smallholder families while it controls almost all means of production in the country, including the distribution of farm inputs, capital, and the land, is inconsistent with principles of a free market system.

Drowned Out Voices

As usual, when those up in the value chain fight, in this case the government and private exporters, it is the farmers that suffer most. In Ethiopia, smallholder farmers produce about 95 per cent of the nation’s total coffee production and these farmers rely on the sale of their cherries for their families’ mere survival.

For generations, Ethiopian coffee farmers have been at the mercy of their marauders. In the long and inefficient marketing chain, each participant marks up their prices weighing down the burden on the farmers’ shoulders. Ethiopian farmers receive barely a small fraction of the value their produce is worth, currently around 40 percent of export prices, much less than the 70 percent that their counterparts in Central and South America receive.

A transparent and efficient exchange market system nurtures competition and benefits everyone in the value chain, from bean to cup. Farmers producing the finest quality coffee can get rewarded for their hard work as well as suppliers and exporters whose innovation and smart marketing skills pay off.

But, if given the choice, farmers in Ethiopia would choose direct marketing over a chain of licensees that add little value to the product. To that effect, ECX would be more beneficial to the farmers if its processes support and facilitate for more farmer-importer relationships.

Looking Ahead

The role of a centralized modern commodity exchange is indispensable for developing economies, such as Ethiopia.

The country’s coffee sector is highly dependent on international prices and the export is affected by the structure and workings of the world coffee market. The market participants need to understand that Ethiopia is competing with countries that have the abilities and the will to easily adopt innovative low-cost production and marketing systems.


The current bickering and prejudice will only affect coffee quality, weaken the country’s brands, deter potential importers, and put the sector at risk. The government needs to exercise restraint, listen to and address the concerns of all participants, from farmers to importers. Its obligation to protect the farmers from exploitation includes itself as well. Replacing private exporters by EGTE won’t lessen the burden on poor farmers.

The interests of all participants can be better served if the market functions, in the words from ECX’ mission statement, “based on continuous learning, fairness, and commitment to excellence.”

=================================================================
http://www.capitalethiopia.com/archive/2009/April/week1/local_news.htm#6

Capital, Ethiopia

April 5, 2009
Coffee trade plunges; Slightly revives by week end
Muluken Yewondwossen

Since the six biggest coffee exporters were suspended from coffee trading activities and export a week ago, the daily coffee trading at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) market had first dropped 20 percent.

Eleni Z. Gebremedhin (PhD), Chief Executive Officer, told Capital at the start of last week, that following government's measures taken on the said exporters and suppliers, coffee trading has sunk over around 300 lots (40 percent) per day.

"However, as of mid week the trading has become more alert than last week and the daily market rose to over 450 lots per day," she said.
Since last December, when the coffee trading was controlled by ECX, the daily sale has not reached 50 percent against the daily market supply. At the first month, the daily sale has not exceeded 350 lots.

A coffee supplier to the ECX central market told Capital that this week has seen buyers turning away from the coffee market when compared to the previous weeks. "This is because the main coffee exporters are out from the trading system," he added.

However, by the end of the week, especially on Thursday and Friday, the trading has increased by 466 and 580 lots, respectively. But the trading is still lower than previous weeks.
The exporters prevented from trading in the daily sales were engaged in exporting from 600 to 800 lots previously.

Since last week, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) has suspended six exporters and 88 coffee suppliers, accusing them of hoarding the bean as they wait for prices to rise. The government has started buying through the Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise to export the product directly.

Currently, the country is under pressure with acute shortage of foreign currency. According to the government, the decline of coffee's export range is one of the main factors that caused the problem.

MoARD also accused this past week, the local private press and foreign media on their reporting of the coffee crisis saying "They are engaged in distorting facts."
The Ministry said the measures were taken on coffee suppliers and export companies for violating coffee control and transaction proclamation.
Pointing out that the government is taking various measures to strengthen the export sector of the economy, MoARD noted it had held discussion with over 100 coffee exporters on the subject in question.

Dr. Eleni Z. agrees with MoARD's statement pointing at the international media. She adds that even after the government's measures on exporters last week, the country has exported 2,705 tons of coffee beans worth 7.43 million dollar to buyers in Germany, Italy, France, USA, Belgium and Saudi Arabia from Addis Ababa only. Dire Dawa is another exporting center for coffee.

Owner of Mulege Plc. and chairman of the Coffee Exporters Association, Mustefa Awele, one of the biggest coffee exporters who is also suspended, told Capital that there is no development since last week’s ban until the end of the week. But, he said that there is a schedule to discuss the issue with the government's higher officials in the beginning of next week.

There are over 100 coffee exporters in Ethiopia, whereas the six suspended exporter used to control or export 70 percent of the total export.

========
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=axFP2F7qAX14&refer=africa
Bloomberg
April 2, 2009
Ethiopian State Plans Coffee Exports to Ease Currency Shortage
Jason McLure

Ethiopia, Africa’s largest coffee producer, will start exporting beans itself after closing the warehouses of six of the country’s largest exporters, which it claims are stockpiling coffee and contributing to a shortage of foreign currency.

A drop in export income, because of a poor coffee harvest, weak world prices and a ban on Ethiopian beans in Japan, is being exacerbated by stockpiling, Eleni Gabre-Madhin, chief executive officer of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, said on March 27.
Today, the Horn of Africa nation said it would start exporting coffee via the state-owned Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise in a bid to improve the situation.
“Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise knows that it has the capacity to do this and it has a very good opportunity to fill this export gap,” said Berhane Hailu, the company’s general manager, by phone from Addis Ababa today.

The company has started trading coffee on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange and is in talks with foreign buyers about exports, he said.

Ethiopia suspended the licenses of six of the country’s largest exporters last week after accusing them of hoarding coffee and illegally selling export-grade beans on the country’s domestic market.

The country has experienced shortages of hard currency over the past year, with the nation’s reserves falling to as little as $850 million, enough to cover just one month of imports, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on March 19. The shortfall has led to rationing and shortages, including cement and medical supplies, because companies can’t import goods or raw materials.

Foreign Currency
Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise may use the foreign currency from coffee exports to purchase and deliver wheat to Ethiopia’s urban poor as part of a government program to subsidize food prices, Hailu said.

Ethiopian coffee shipments have dropped more than 10 percent to 76,674 tons during the first eight months of the country’s fiscal year, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Trade Ministry.

The country has earned $221.7 million from coffee exports over the period, short of a government target of $446.7 million. Last year, the government also blamed rising food prices on hoarding by traders.
==============

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008976281_ethiopia03.html
Seattle Times, US
April 3, 2009
Coffee-trade switch in Ethiopia disappoints importers

U.S. coffee importers and roasters are worried that a new auction system in Ethiopia makes it almost impossible for them to buy coffee from the particular farmers whose beans they want.

Melissa Allison

U.S. coffee importers and roasters are worried that a new auction system in Ethiopia makes it almost impossible for them to buy coffee from the particular farmers whose beans they want.
The system, overseen by the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, mixes coffee beans from different growers before selling them for export.

That's a big deal to specialty roasters who prefer beans from certain growers and processors, and sometimes have worked with them to improve quality.

During a visit to the Ethiopian exchange in February, one Seattle coffee importer became concerned about how the new system would work.

"We spent a whole day going through the phases of grief — anger, denial and acceptance — just trying to get our arms around what's going on," said Craig Holt, owner of Atlas Coffee Importers.

The new auction system and its implications are poorly understood, Holt and others said.

What they know for sure is that they're unable to order many of the coffees they want.

Some have had trouble getting any coffee from Ethiopia, although it is not clear whether the new auction system is to blame.
Royal Coffee, an importer based in Oakland, Calif., has not received shipments from Ethiopia that ordinarily would have arrived by now.

"There seems to be a wrench in the gears," president Robert Fulmer wrote on the company's blog. "To say there is confusion and chaos in Ethiopia is an understatement."

Last week, Ethiopia closed the warehouses of six of its largest exporters, accusing them of hoarding coffee and contributing to a shortage of foreign currency.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the government plans to start exporting beans itself.

The changes haven't affected Starbucks, a spokeswoman said. The company buys coffee through the exchange and from cooperative unions and estates, which are allowed to sell directly.

The U.S. imports 12 to 15 million pounds of Ethiopian coffee annually, less than 5 percent of that nation's total coffee exports. Japan is the largest importer of Ethiopian coffee, taking about 66 million pounds a year, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Ethiopia's new exchange estimates that specialty coffee, which is high-end coffee for which consumers pay a premium, represents about 3.7 percent of its coffee exports. Specialty coffee includes coffee bought by importers and roasters who have relationships with certain coffee growers.


The exchange said in a December paper on specialty coffee that it can hone its contract specifications to reflect geographic criteria and other refinements. For further traceability, "the direct channel by which growers can directly export coffee can be used," the paper said.

Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle is among those counting on it.
Coffee buyer and head roaster Perry Hook is excited about a shipment of 2008 Ethiopia Natural Yirgacheffe Beloya beans that he just bought from the importer Ninety Plus Coffee.

He doesn't have much hope of getting anything so specialized from this year's crop.
"We'll still buy Ethiopian coffee, because they have some of the best coffee in the world," Hook said. "It's the specialty ones that can be tied back to specific producing areas and handled in specific ways that we're not going to get [this year]. We're just going to hope something happens down the road and that in 2010 we can get these kinds of coffee again."

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/ethiopia-stops-coffee-exports/
New York Times
March 25, 2009


Ethiopia Stops Coffee Exports

Oliver Schwaner-Albright

In the latest scrimmage in the battle to control Ethiopia’s coffee trade, the government has suspended the licenses of the country’s largest coffee exporters, Bloomberg News reported today. Until things get sorted out, no coffee is leaving Ethiopia.

The government accuses the exporters of keeping coffee off the international market until prices rise. Coffee is Ethiopia’s number one export and the beleaguered country’s primary source of foreign currency.

This is the latest twist in a saga being watched closely by both the specialty coffee community and those concerned about alleviating poverty in the developing world.

In 2006 the Ethiopian government trademarked “Yirgacheffe,” the name of the country’s most celebrated coffee-growing region, hoping to use its cachet to help all their coffee exports. Then in December, the government mandated that all coffee growers sell their crops through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, to insure that all beans fetched an adequate price. Some antipoverty groups thought this would help all Ethiopiain coffee growers.

It meant, though, that coffee roasters in the United States and other coffee importing nations would not be able to buy from specific growers whose beans they prize the most. It effectively ends direct trade for single-origin and microlot coffee.

George Howell of Terroir Coffee, a respected roasting company near Boston, Also points out that the government’s efforts might cheapen the brand. He wrote in his newsletter:

“What scares me is that the trademark route in no way guarantees that the coffee even comes from the particular ‘designated’ region (ironically while Yirgacheffe now becomes a trademark, any coffee lover thinks of it immediately as a region). It is merely a trademark, without any guarantee of origin or traceability.”

======
Government to put stop to coffee stockpiling
Yohannes Anberbir

A new manager has taken the bold decision to confiscate stockpiled supplies of coffee. Tefera Derebew, who replaced the current deputy prime minister as a minister at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD), said that suppliers and exporters were engaged in holding back their produce as they wait for the price of the commodity to appreciate.

“We have decided to confiscate all stocked coffee beans and deliver them ourselves to the international market,” he confirmed.

The government believes that many of the suppliers and exporters were engaged in collaborative market distorting tactics before the new electronic trading system was introduced late last year.

Now, as the new system has blocked these murky practices, the authorities say the exporters have resorted to stockpiling.

The new electronic commodity exchange system began trading coffee in December, replacing the old system. However, the modernised exchange has not helped the country increase its foreign currency earnings, leading to the industry putting pressure on the government to revert to the old system, the MoARD boss explained on Thursday.


Before resorting to confiscation, the government, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, tried to convince all involved to try and make it work. However, the results were not satisfactory, leading to the ministry setting a one week deadline that was extended an extra week at the request of the market players, according to the minister.

However, the Coffee Exporters’ Association refused to accept the government’s reasoning, saying that the stockpiling was being conducted because the price the exporters are getting on the international market is lower than the price they are purchasing the beans for locally.

“We told officials to allow the new system to interfere in the local exchange market so that the prices go down,” Alemwork Getahun, top official of the association, told Capital.

According to her, minister Tefera was also willing to consider concerns of the exporters, but she said the current process is disadvantageous to the exporter.
Coffee accounted for about 60 per cent of Ethiopian foreign exchange revenues in 2007/2008, when it earned more than 525 million dollars from the export of 170,888 tonnes of mostly high quality Arabica beans.


However, within the first six months of this fiscal year, the country earned only 70 million dollars from the 30 per cent of stock held in ECX warehouses that has been sold.
====
http://en.ethiopianreporter.com/content/view/813/26/

Reporter, Ethiopia

March 14, 2009

Coffee exports plummet below target

Coffee exports are sharply falling below the target set for the year with falling world prices exacerbating the situation, it was learnt.
The government set a target of over 101,000 tonnes of coffee to be exported during the first seven months of the current fiscal year while the actual export stood at 66,000 tonnes, thereby decreasing the forecast in coffee export earnings by over 46 percent.

The world coffee price per pound has plunged by some 67 cents over the last several months following the global financial turmoil-one of the major culprit for the country’s sharply falling coffee exports-operators in the sector noted.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development had last week warned coffee exporters against hoarding which it believed has a major contribution to the sharp drop in coffee exports, according to observers.

Major operators in the sector, however, say that the drop in coffee exports is directly linked to the global economic crises, bringing down world coffee prices to one of their lowest level in decades.

“Major coffee buyers such as Star Bucks, which had to layoff tens of thousands of employees months ago, are finding it hard to access loans from banks to buy coffee in bulks,” a mojor coffee operator told The Reporter on condition of anonymity. “This has led [coffee] prices to tumble down which, in turn, makes us unable to export as much as we could.”

Despite government urging for more coffee exports, the situation has yet to improve, government export figures indicate.

Only 7.4 thousand tonnes of coffee were exported in January 2009 against a 22,000 tonnes export forecast for the month, according to the latest export figure. Likewise, earnings from coffee dropped by a sheer 400 percent against the target for the same month.

However, earnings from coffee exports during the first seven months are slightly higher than that of the same period of last year.
======

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601012&sid=a4xgM2P4Ug78&refer=commodities

Bloomberg

March 9, 2009

Starbucks Delays Ethiopian Coffee Research Center, Capital Says
Jason McLure

Starbucks Corp. put on hold plans to build a coffee research center in Ethiopia because of the slowing global economy, Capital said, citing Vivek Varma, a spokesman for the company, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Starbucks’ then chairman and current Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz said during a visit to Ethiopia in November 2007 that the company would open a research center to improve the quality of Ethiopian coffee, the Addis Ababa-based newspaper said. A similar facility in Rwanda has also been put on ice, Capital said.


In June 2007, Starbucks and Ethiopia ended a dispute over the Horn of Africa nation’s efforts to gain U.S. trademarks for three of its most popular coffees. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
=====
Ethiopian Institute for Non-Violent Education & Peace Studies (EINEPS), US

March 21, 2009

OBAMA AND ETHIOPIA, 5:
TIME FOR FRESH THOUGHT, NEW DEPARTURES?

Donald N. Levine
University of Chicago

Throughout 2008 I published articles (www.eineps.org/forum) on links between Ethiopia’s needs and the promises of an Obama presidency. Now that President Obama is in office, what might we project? What, that is, might it mean to reconsider U.S. relations with Ethiopia in ways that align them with the
orientations of an Obama presidency?

Eyeing policies the Obama administration has already implemented and earlier statements suggests at least half a dozen aims:

1) employ state-of-the art technologies to advance human welfare; 2) develop energy sources to replace fossil fuels, and in other ways conserve natural environments; 3) link upgraded education and health services with a strengthened economy; 4) avoid sharp polarities of

pronouncement and of conduct; 5) curtail terrorist tactics, but in smart ways; and 6) restore moral direction for a market economy and public service from the citizenry. In what follows I explore implications of those principles and priorities for U.S. relations with Ethiopia.

Leapfrogging over industrial society technologies

America's vast aid program to Ethiopia encompasses commitments of a billion dollars in FY 2008. This assistance goes to about a dozen areas: food aid linked to rural works ($301.6 million);
agricultural development ($4.6m);

maternal-child and reproductive health ($31.6m);

malaria control ($20m); water and sanitation ($2.3m);

basic education ($15m);

democratic capacity-building in legislative, judicial, and civil society branches ($2.7m);

security sector reform ($1.5m);
trade and enterprise expansion ($6.3m);
ecotourism and habitat protection ($1.5m); programs to combat HIV/AIDS ($349m);

and humanitarian emergency assistance, including early warning systems ($291.5m).

Management of this program constitutes a daunting challenge that has been met by a devoted crew of American aid professionals. They have accomplished an enormous amount in many areas, work that rarely gets the kind of recognition in Ethiopia or in the United States it deserves. Even so, much of their mission remains defined in terms of conventional visions and methods.

It is a truism in development thinking that Latecomers have special advantages over Earlybirds, in that they have an opportunity to bypass errors and traumas of the countries that modernized first and to exploit ideas and inventions not available when the latter transformed. One need not be Trotsky to appreciate the insights contained in his Law of Uneven and Combined Development.

Hitherto this dynamic has meant applying what advanced technologies are already in place for having worked well in American and other modernized systems.

Suppose that aid work were animated by a vision of reaching out for technologies that are just beyond prevailing practices. Suppose that a hard look at the unintended consequences and negative byproducts of current approaches were combined with imaginative forays into new possibilities.

Suppose, for example, that Ethiopia acquired an Information Technology Park that started right off with 21st-century hardware and software, rather than hand-me-downs from outmoded systems. Suppose that medical records in Ethiopia were rationalized in ways that U.S. hospitals have yet to achieve. Suppose that educational reforms were based on teaching methods created from the emerging neuroscience of learning. Why not try?

Promoting energy independence, resource management, and
environmental restoration

President Obama mentioned energy independence as the highest priority of his administration. In Ethiopia, leapfrogging over costly, wasteful, and environmentally harmful practices of the industrial age can be realized right now through green technologies. The U.S. is at the edge of efforts to rethink its ways of procuring energy, efforts necessitated by a combination of security, environmental, and
economic exigencies. Available new technologies, with other innovations in tow, would create stunning socioeconomic results in Ethiopia.

By taking advantage of recent discoveries and inventions, USAID could help Ethiopia lead the movement towards the emerging clean tech, carbon-free age. Such initiatives might include Low-cost Organic Roads, 30-40% cheaper than asphalt with up to 85% less maintenance; more efficient Municipal Waste Management, through digesters, gasifiers, and plasma systems–top sources for biofuel and bioenergy; low-cost, quickly implemented micro-wind and solar parabolic systems–ideal for distributed energy production; improved hydroelectric turbine technology for dams, rivers, and geothermal systems; mini-gasification for animal and agricultural waste; and Power Playgrounds, which use playtime energy to create power and to pump purified water for villages.

The move to green technologies, already pursued actively by the Ethiopian government, preserves the environment as well as boosts the economy. It helps save trees from the survival-driven practice of converting them to charcoal and can energize a reforestation process. It could fortify a growing environmental awareness in Ethiopia, which hopes to avoid mistakes like environmentally destructive
dams like those in Egypt and China–but has already suffered the destruction of beautiful Lake Koka. What is more, low-cost organic roads could attract new ecotourism and generate additional revenues.

Linking health, education, and economy


The Obama administration has already taken action in two areas prominent in the campaign statements: health and education. It clothes these initiatives not only in a rhetoric of social justice but also in a discourse about equipping new generations of Americans to be competitive in the global economy.

In the Ethiopian setting, other issues get triggered when improvements in health and education are supported by USAID programs. Improving the quantity and quality of education for girls may be a core item in this complex. It is not just that educating females will add a large number of qualified persons to the work force. By keeping girls in school, it spares them the degradation and health impairment of
early marriage. It keeps them from becoming part of the growing army of prostitutes who contribute heavily to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It leads to smaller families, a crucial response to Ethiopia's dilemma of increasing population at the expense of realistic capacities to feed them.

The Obama emphasis also leads to the idea of restoring the effective program of deploying Peace Corps Volunteers as secondary school and college teachers. During the Kennedy years, American teachers imparted quality instruction in mathematics, physics, biology, geography, and English. On the last desideratum I cite words of one accomplished beneficiary: "Ethiopians need to use English language
from an early age as I did growing up in a poor rural school in Arsi. This will make Ethiopia globally competitive.

This will also produce good students for the rapidly growing universities and possibly reverse the damage of requiring them to learn local mother tongues only and so denying them the opportunity to learn in Amharic and thus participate effectively in the national economy and politics. This view is based on my conversations with my ancestors who speak both Amharic and Oromiffa with equal fluency and are teaching their children Amharic and Oromiffa, and encouraging them to learn English at an early age as I did growing up."

Open communication without confrontational gestures

Building on shifts in security thinking of the last year or so, the Obama administration rejects attempts to impose the American political-economic system on other countries in a domineering way.

In keeping with the President's own predilection for dialogue in place of combat, a stance followed by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the U.S. Government has sought more to listen to what leaders and citizens of other countries are saying and what their own deepest needs and aspirations are, not with the idea of accepting all they say but in order to take their statements seriously into account. We are ready to extend a hand, his Inaugural affirmed, if the oligarchs of the world unclench their fists.

This position requires an approach to dealing with problematic features of the EPRDF regime that is more nuanced than moralizing statements from members of Congress. U.S. officials need to recognize the deep roots of Ethiopia's aversion to being subordinated to any outside power.

A millennial history as "Ethiopia, proud and free" reaches to the core of Ethiopian identity, and why she was for so long looked up to as a symbol of freedom during the long struggles for African independence. Among the most appreciated attributes of Emperor Haile Selassie were his determination and skill in balancing the aid from other countries so that no single nation could secure a quasi-colonial monopoly of influence.

Even the worst ruler in Ethiopian history, Mengistu Haile Mariam, showed this pride when, reacting to a Newsweek report of his effort to imitate the Red Terror of Soviet Communism, he snorted: "We don't need to copy what the Russians did. We can invent a Terror of our own!" How could a self-respecting regime in Ethiopia not take umbrage at critiques from officials of the powerful U.S. Government? – especially when her halting but averred efforts to democratize stand in contrast to other, more repressive
African governments who remain unrebuked.

At the same time, an Obama-style rhetoric represents American concerns for human rights and freedom of press as expressions not of a partisan outlook but of what have become globally accepted standards. That could remind us all of how important has been Ethiopia's wish to be treated in accord with those standards.

After all, it was the failure of the League of Nations to live up to those standards
that made Ethiopia an icon for the principle of collective security. Indeed, it was the Ethiopian Government's wish to abide by those standards that induced her to decree an end to the Slave Trade as in 1923, and to follow that with an imperial proclamation outlawing slavery in 1942.

To the extent that Ethiopia’s government can reject allegations that those standards have been violated, Americans should listen to those claims and evaluate the evidence impartially. This in turn requires verification through the work of professional agencies monitoring such issues.

The expressed commitment of Ethiopian authorities to their constitution and to the rule of law should be respected and fortified. That is why I have advocated a more energized approach to helping Ethiopians in their determination to build capacities for a more effective judiciary and other institutions of democratic governance.

This might well include more public information about the significant contributions already made by USAID in the areas of legislation and institution building, justice and human rights, and conflict mitigation.

And the fact that the Obama administration has taken steps to require agencies to open up more sources of information might inspire Ethiopians to move toward greater transparency and clarity, lack of which, I have argued (http://www.eineps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746), contributed to a half century of missed opportunities in Ethiopia.

Countering terrorism through Smart Power

The bitter lessons from Iraq should have been more widely anticipated before the U.S. launched its hapless adventure there, as then State Senator Obama and many others warned. Those lessons were apparently not held in mind when the U.S. supported Ethiopia's incursion into Somalia. From Obama's early warnings and subsequent statements, three points are conspicuous.

Thinking of terrorist criminals as war combatants sets the stage for counter- productive martial actions. Except for identified posts of key terrorist agents, aerial attacks on presumed terrorist lairs tend to backfire. Counterterrorist interventions need to follow, not drive, diplomatic and developmental approaches. Insofar as the Ethiopian Government pursues a scorched-earth policy in the Ogaden region and wanton attacks on presumed OLF- and OPDM-sympathizers, it may be drawing encouragement from bad examples that the U.S. wrongly provided.

Relatedly, unilateralism needs to yield to multilateral diplomacy. To collaborate effectively with other countries having interests in the region enhances, not weakens, U.S. objectives. Acting Assistant Secretary for Africa Phillip Carter already manifested this in statements made on return from an international gathering on the Somali crisis in Brussels. Developing the point at House Subcommittee hearings on March 12, former Ambassador David Shinn observed how essential it is to work with the countries in the region and with traditional donor countries, including members of the European Union, Norway, Canada, Australia, and Japan; with China and Russia; with India, Turkey, and Brazil; and with the United Nations and a number of international agencies. He further agreed with Secretary Carter's observation that primary responsibility for solving political and economic problems in Northeast Africa lies with Africans themselves.

Finally, a fresh articulation of America's purposes abroad may counter the widespread belief that U.S. programs in Ethiopia are driven solely from her value as an ally in the global "war" on terrorism.

Facts like the quantity of pre-Qaeda Aid delivered and the current array of humane programs like maternal and child health care, legal training for judges, and human rights education among police and the courts have little traction once such perceptions gain currency.

It is not the least of the reforms of President Barack Obama and his colleagues to have put terrorist tactics in their place as a social ill that must be addressed, to relate to moderate citizens in all regions who yearn for peace and civility, and to have proclaimed an era of optimism and hope to replace one of fear and dread.

I hope that the ugly bunkers now girding the U.S. fortress embassy in Addis Ababa will be demolished in the spirit of this new perspective, and that Ethiopia's parliament might similarly be moved by a spirit of openness to expand the space for freedom of press and for the work of advocacy groups and charitable organizations.

Restoring moral direction for a market economy and public
service from a citizenry

The Obama approach to political economy exhibits a return to ideas of the classic theorist of commercial society, Adam Smith, who lauded social virtues and advocated the use of government to regulate markets and finance public works. Such views dominated American ideology from the late 19th century through the New Deal, which valued the creation of governmental resources to regulate commerce and provide public initiatives to promote social welfare.

David Ciepley's Liberalism in the Shadow of Totalitarianism shows that the rise of totalitarianisms in Eurasia in the 1930s began to turn American opinion leaders against such interventions. Even so, strong government remained alive and well during the presidencies of Eisenhower through Carter. And then, Paul Krugman goes on to relate (in The Conscience of a Liberal), radical rejection of government as a bulwark of social welfare began under President Reagan and continued non-stop into the present.

The casualties of the Cold War, especially in its last two decades, included the eclipse of the middle road. This resulted in a polarization of ideologies, such that the collapse of Soviet communism was hailed widely as a vindication of unregulated free-market capitalism. Applying this view to the developing countries of Africa makes no sense.

As many social scientists have explained for a long time–including the late Talcott Parsons already in 1960–in the developing countries, government needs to play a proactive role. At the same time, one of its functions must be to provide a nurturing environment for a vast field of local initiatives–supporting small loans, local roads, local radio communications, and the like.

Beyond valorizing a significant role for governments, the Obama perspective returns us to community service and civic virtues. The well-governed modern society includes a cultivation of the virtues of a modern work ethic–punctuality, integrity, self-discipline, professionalism–and of voluntary efforts to assist others in need and contribute to communal projects. The Obama and Biden families publicized these civic virtues just before inauguration by honoring the Martin Luther King, Jr. National
Day of Service–as envisioned in its legislation fathered by then Senator Harris Wofford (who, incidentally, was the first director of the Peace Corps in Ethiopia under President Kennedy).

Traditions of the diverse peoples of Ethiopia include customs of communal service and civic engagement, as noted in my talk “The Promise of Ethiopia” (http://www.eineps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=749).

In the course of modernization and nation-building, these customs have begun to erode and have not been replaced by modern moral visions. The Obama vision may inspire Ethiopian leaders–in religious, in schools, in government, and in civic organizations–to temper the mindless drives toward material consumption and narrow self-interest imitated from modernized societies with new forms of conscience and civic virtue.

If something on that order happens, the name Ethiopia may come to symbolize once again–as it did for ancient Greeks, the writers of the Old and New Testaments, and of the Islamic Sira–a land of people who manifest exceptional justice, righteousness, and virtue.
============


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=adrjqcD27t8Q&refer=africa

March 19, 2009

Ethiopia Should Ease Bank, Telecom Rules to Join WTO, U.S. Says

Jason McLure

Ethiopia should liberalize its protected banking and telecom sectors as a step toward joining the World Trade Organization, a U.S. trade official said.
“For a country like Ethiopia, this is extremely important in establishing the competitiveness of its economy,” Peter Allgeier, the U.S. representative to the WTO, said at a press conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. “Our expectation would be there are some movements in these areas.”


Allgeier, in Ethiopia to attend a gathering of African trade ministers, met privately with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi today and urged him to consider privatizing the state-run Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp. and allowing foreign banks to open branches.

Ethiopia is fielding questions about its trade policies from countries including the U.S. and Canada as it attempts to negotiate entry into the global trade group.
The Horn of Africa nation, twice the size of Texas, with a population of 82.5 million, applied for membership in the Geneva-based organization in 2003. The country is counting on membership to open new markets to boost its $25.1 billion economy.

“The prime minister today said he wants to advance things very quickly,” said Allgeier.

No Plan Seen
Ethiopian Trade Minister Girma Birru said in a Feb. 17 interview he didn’t “see any plan” to break up or sell the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp. to private investors. He also said the country was unlikely to liberalize its banking sector.
“I think there is some tension there between those two positions,” said Allgeier, who at one point waved his non- functioning handheld wireless device to illustrate a point about Ethiopia’s telecom service.


Ethiopian Telecommunications’s monopoly enables it to charge $35 for a mobile-phone SIM card, which is required to obtain a phone number. In neighboring Somalia and Kenya, which have private mobile services, cards cost less than $5.
There are no foreign banks in Ethiopia, and local banks are unable to process common transactions such as MasterCard credit card purchase.
================
http://www.travelagentcentral.com/africa/ethiopian-airlines-strong-us-market-13600
Travel Agent Central, US
March 9, 2009
Ethiopian Airlines Strong in U.S. Market


Ethiopian Airlines has been making waves in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The African airline, which offers several weekly from Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport, was the official carrier at the Adventures in Travel Expo in Washington D.C. on February 21 and 22.

The airline completed several events, including a special reception for dignitaries from the embassies of Angola, Botswana, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda.

The recession does not appear to have a huge impact on the airline. Gobena Mikael, director of North and South America for Ethiopian Airlines, said in a statement that the airlines is marking record revenues and profits; its year to date July-December 2008 revenue from the U.S. increased by 13 percent over that of the same period last year. In the short-term, the airline will continue operating four flights per week up to the summer, after which they will increase to five flights per week for the period June through August.
======
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=adot_hJ.1pyc&refer=africa

Bloomberg

February 19, 2009

Ethiopia Won’t Free Telecoms, Banking for WTO, Minister Says

Jason McLure
Ethiopia will pursue membership of the World Trade Organization, though it has no plans to liberalize its telecommunications and financial-services industries to gain access, Trade Minister Girma Birru said.


Ethiopia is currently fielding questions about its trade policies from countries including the U.S. and Canada, as it attempts to negotiate entry into the global trade regime, Birru said in an interview on Feb. 17 in the capital, Addis Ababa.
The Horn of Africa nation, twice the size of Texas and with a population of 82.5 million, applied for membership of the Geneva-based trade arbiter in 2003. The country is counting on membership to open new markets to boost its $25.1 billion economy.


“Primarily we will join the WTO not to make others happy, but to make our economy work,” Birru said. “So to the extent it helps our economy we will liberalize things, but if it’s not going to assist our goals in trade and development we will not liberalize. Why do we have to?”

The country’s protected telecom and financial industries will be points of contention in the talks with WTO-member countries including the United States and United Kingdom, Tewodros Mekonnen, a researcher with the Ethiopian Economic Association, said in a phone interview on Feb. 19.

“I don’t see any plan” to break up or sell Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp. to private investors, Birru said. “If there are some problems it has nothing to do with ownership. It has only to do with management. Management and ownership don’t necessarily go together.”

Private Investors
Ethiopia has resisted pressure from the World Bank and trade partners like the U.S. to sell the telecommunications company to private investors.

Ethiopian Telecommunication’s monopoly enables it to charge $35 for a mobile-phone SIM card, which is required to obtain a mobile-phone number. In neighboring Somalia and Kenya, which have private mobile services, cards cost less than $5.

A 1-megabyte per second Internet connection costs more than $2,000 a month in Ethiopia. In South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, a similar service costs between 600 rand ($59) and 760 rand, according to the http://www.mybroadband.co.za Web site.

“In Ethiopia, if there is any problem I don’t think it’s the price,” said Birru. “It’s the quality of the service. This has to be improved. And to improve this I don’t think it would be wise to privatize it.”

Ethiopia’s government is reluctant to sell the company because it is profitable and is expanding services to rural areas, Newai Gebre-Ab, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s top economic adviser, said yesterday in an interview.
Cash Generator The company is “generating a lot of money and that money is being put to good use for development of infrastructure,” Gebre- Ab said.

Birru also said the Ethiopian central bank lacks the capacity to regulate large foreign financial institutions. The country is also unsure whether foreign banks would play a positive economic role in the country. As a result, the country is unlikely to liberalize the financial-services industry.


“At this stage, given the capacity that we have in terms of managing things and supervising them at the National Bank level, I don’t see why we’d allow that,” he said.

Ethiopia’s three state-run retail banks control about two- thirds of the capital in the country’s banking industry, according to the National Bank of Ethiopia. Until last year, no bank in Ethiopia could process MasterCard transactions. Banks in the country are also reluctant to lend to businesses that cannot provide real estate as collateral.

=======
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Country List | World Factbook Home

The World Factbook
Ethiopia

Introduction Ethiopia

Background: Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule with the exception of the 1936-41 Italian occupation during World War II. In 1974, a military junta, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile SELASSIE (who had ruled since 1930) and established a socialist state.

Torn by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and massive refugee problems, the regime was finally toppled in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia's first multiparty elections were held in 1995. A border war with Eritrea late in the 1990s ended with a peace treaty in December 2000.
The Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission in November 2007 remotely demarcated the border by geographical coordinates, but final demarcation of the boundary on the ground is currently on hold because of Ethiopian objections to an international commission's finding requiring it to surrender territory considered sensitive to Ethiopia.


Geography Ethiopia
Location: Eastern Africa, west of Somalia
Geographic coordinates: 8 00 N, 38 00 E
Map references: Africa
Area: total: 1,127,127 sq km
land: 1,119,683 sq km
water: 7,444 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly less than twice the size of Texas
Land boundaries: total: 5,328 km
border countries: Djibouti 349 km, Eritrea 912 km, Kenya 861 km, Somalia 1,600 km, Sudan 1,606 km
Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)
Maritime claims: none (landlocked)
Climate: tropical monsoon with wide topographic-induced variation
Terrain: high plateau with central mountain range divided by Great Rift Valley
Elevation extremes: lowest point: Danakil Depression -125 m
highest point: Ras Dejen 4,533 m
Natural resources: small reserves of gold, platinum, copper, potash, natural gas, hydropower
Land use: arable land: 10.01%
permanent crops: 0.65%
other: 89.34% (2005)
Irrigated land: 2,900 sq km (2003)
Total renewable water resources: 110 cu km (1987)
Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural): total: 5.56 cu km/yr (6%/0%/94%)
per capita: 72 cu m/yr (2002)
Natural hazards: geologically active Great Rift Valley susceptible to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions; frequent droughts
Environment - current issues: deforestation; overgrazing; soil erosion; desertification; water shortages in some areas from water-intensive farming and poor management
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection
signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification, Law of the Sea
Geography - note: landlocked - entire coastline along the Red Sea was lost with the de jure independence of Eritrea on 24 May 1993; the Blue Nile, the chief headstream of the Nile by water volume, rises in T'ana Hayk (Lake Tana) in northwest Ethiopia; three major crops are believed to have originated in Ethiopia: coffee, grain sorghum, and castor bean


People Ethiopia
Population: 85,237,338

note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2009 est.)

Age structure: 0-14 years: 46.1% (male 19,596,784/female 19,688,887)
15-64 years: 51.2% (male 21,376,495/female 22,304,812)
65 years and over: 2.7% (male 975,923/female 1,294,437) (2009 est.)
Median age: total: 16.9 years
male: 16.6 years
female: 17.2 years (2008 est.)
Population growth rate: 3.208% (2009 est.)
Birth rate: 43.97 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Death rate: 11.83 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Net migration rate: -0.02 migrant(s)/1,000 population
note: repatriation of Ethiopian refugees residing in Sudan is expected to continue for several years; some Sudanese, Somali, and Eritrean refugees, who fled to Ethiopia from the fighting or famine in their own countries, continue to return to their homes (2009 est.)
Urbanization: urban population: 17% of total population (2008)
rate of urbanization: 4.3% annual rate of change (2005-2010)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.96 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.75 male(s)/female
total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2009 est.)
Infant mortality rate: total: 80.8 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 92.06 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 69.2 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 55.41 years
male: 52.92 years
female: 57.97 years (2009 est.)
Total fertility rate: 6.12 children born/woman (2009 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 2.1% (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 980,000 (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths: 67,000 (2007 est.)
Major infectious diseases: degree of risk: high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: malaria
respiratory disease: meningococcal meningitis
animal contact disease: rabies
water contact disease: schistosomiasis (2008)
Nationality: noun: Ethiopian(s)
adjective: Ethiopian
Ethnic groups: Oromo 32.1%, Amara 30.1%, Tigraway 6.2%, Somalie 5.9%, Guragie 4.3%, Sidama 3.5%, Welaita 2.4%, other 15.4% (1994 census)
Religions: Christian 60.8% (Orthodox 50.6%, Protestant 10.2%), Muslim 32.8%, traditional 4.6%, other 1.8% (1994 census)
Languages: Amarigna 32.7%, Oromigna 31.6%, Tigrigna 6.1%, Somaligna 6%, Guaragigna 3.5%, Sidamigna 3.5%, Hadiyigna 1.7%, other 14.8%, English (major foreign language taught in schools) (1994 census)
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 42.7%
male: 50.3%
female: 35.1% (2003 est.)
School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education): total: 8 years
male: 8 years
female: 7 years (2007)
Education expenditures: 6% of GDP (2006)
Government Ethiopia
Country name: conventional long form: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
conventional short form: Ethiopia
local long form: Ityop'iya Federalawi Demokrasiyawi Ripeblik
local short form: Ityop'iya
former: Abyssinia, Italian East Africa
abbreviation: FDRE
Government type: federal republic
Capital: name: Addis Ababa
geographic coordinates: 9 02 N, 38 42 E
time difference: UTC+3 (8 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
Administrative divisions: 9 ethnically based states (kililoch, singular - kilil) and 2 self-governing administrations* (astedaderoch, singular - astedader); Adis Abeba* (Addis Ababa), Afar, Amara (Amhara), Binshangul Gumuz, Dire Dawa*, Gambela Hizboch (Gambela Peoples), Hareri Hizb (Harari People), Oromiya (Oromia), Sumale (Somali), Tigray, Ye Debub Biheroch Bihereseboch na Hizboch (Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples)
Independence: oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world - at least 2,000 years
National holiday: National Day (defeat of MENGISTU regime), 28 May (1991)
Constitution: ratified 8 December 1994, effective 22 August 1995
Legal system: based on civil law; currently transitional mix of national and regional courts; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal
Executive branch: chief of state: President GIRMA Woldegiorgis (since 8 October 2001)
head of government: Prime Minister MELES Zenawi (since August 1995)
cabinet: Council of Ministers as provided for in the December 1994 constitution; ministers are selected by the prime minister and approved by the House of People's Representatives
elections: president elected by the House of People's Representatives for a six-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 9 October 2007 (next to be held in October 2013); prime minister designated by the party in power following legislative elections
election results: GIRMA Woldegiorgis elected president; percent of vote by the House of People's Representatives - 79%
Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament consists of the House of Federation (or upper chamber responsible for interpreting the constitution and federal-regional issues) (108 seats; members are chosen by state assemblies to serve five-year terms) and the House of People's Representatives (or lower chamber responsible for passing legislation) (547 seats; members are directly elected by popular vote from single-member districts to serve five-year terms)
elections: last held 15 May 2005 (next to be held in 2010)
election results: percent of vote - NA; seats by party - EPRDF 327, CUD 109, UEDF 52, SPDP 23, OFDM 11, BGPDUF 8, ANDP 8, independent 1, others 6, undeclared 2
note: some seats still remain vacant as detained opposition MPs did not take their seats
Judicial branch: Federal Supreme Court (the president and vice president of the Federal Supreme Court are recommended by the prime minister and appointed by the House of People's Representatives; for other federal judges, the prime minister submits to the House of People's Representatives for appointment candidates selected by the Federal Judicial Administrative Council)
Political parties and leaders: Afar National Democratic Party or ANDP [Mohammed Kedir]; Benishangul Gumuz People's Democratic Unity Front or BGPDUF [Mulualem BESSE]; Coalition for Unity and Democratic Party or CUDP; Gurage Nationalities' Democratic Movement or GNDM; Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement or OFDM [BULCHA Demeksa]; Omoro People's Congress or OPC [IMERERA Gudina]; Somali People's Democratic Party or SPDP; United Ethiopian Democratic Forces or UEDF [BEYENE Petros]
Political pressure groups and leaders: Ethiopian People's Patriotic Front or EPPF; Ogaden National Liberation Front or ONLF; Oromo Liberation Front or OLF [DAOUD Ibsa]
International organization participation: ACP, AfDB, AU, COMESA, FAO, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IGAD, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, ITUC, MIGA, NAM, OPCW, PCA, UN, UNAMID, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNMIL, UNOCI, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO (observer)
Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Samuel ASSEFA
chancery: 3506 International Drive NW, Washington, DC 20008
telephone: [1] (202) 364-1200
FAX: [1] (202) 587-0195
consulate(s) general: Los Angeles
consulate(s): New York
Diplomatic representation from the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Donald Y. YAMAMOTO
embassy: Entoto Street, Addis Ababa
mailing address: P. O. Box 1014, Addis Ababa
telephone: [251] 11-517-40-00
FAX: [251] 11-517-40-01
Flag description: three equal horizontal bands of green (top), yellow, and red with a yellow pentagram and single yellow rays emanating from the angles between the points on a light blue disk centered on the three bands; Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa, and the three main colors of her flag were so often adopted by other African countries upon independence that they became known as the pan-African colors

Economy Ethiopia

Economy - overview: Ethiopia's poverty-stricken economy is based on agriculture, accounting for almost half of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation practices.

Coffee is critical to the Ethiopian economy with exports of some $350 million in 2006, but historically low prices have seen many farmers switching to qat to supplement income. The war with Eritrea in 1998-2000 and recurrent drought have buffeted the economy, in particular coffee production. In November 2001, Ethiopia qualified for debt relief from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, and in December 2005 the IMF voted to forgive Ethiopia's debt to the body. Under Ethiopia's constitution, the state owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; the system continues to hamper growth in the industrial sector as entrepreneurs are unable to use land as collateral for loans. Drought struck again late in 2002, leading to a 3.3% decline in GDP in 2003. Normal weather patterns helped agricultural and GDP growth recover during 2004-08.


GDP (purchasing power parity): $63.44 billion (2008 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate): $25.08 billion (2008 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 8.5% (2008 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP): $800 (2008 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 45.9%
industry: 12.9%
services: 41.2% (2008 est.)
Labor force: 27.27 million (1999)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 80.2%
industry: 6.6%
services: 13.2% (2005)
Unemployment rate: NA%
Population below poverty line: 38.7% (FY05/06 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 3.9%
highest 10%: 25.5% (2000)
Distribution of family income - Gini index: 30 (2000)
Investment (gross fixed): 25.4% of GDP (2008 est.)
Budget: revenues: $4.586 billion
expenditures: $5.729 billion (2008 est.)
Fiscal year: 8 July - 7 July
Public debt: 34.4% of GDP (2008 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 41% (2008 est.)
Commercial bank prime lending rate: 7% (31 December 2006)
Stock of money: $3.651 billion (31 December 2006)
Stock of quasi money: $3.258 billion (31 December 2007)
Stock of domestic credit: $6.694 billion (31 December 2006)
Market value of publicly traded shares: $NA
Agriculture - products: cereals, pulses, coffee, oilseed, cotton, sugarcane, potatoes, qat, cut flowers; hides, cattle, sheep, goats; fish
Industries: food processing, beverages, textiles, leather, chemicals, metals processing, cement
Industrial production growth rate: 6% (2008 est.)
Electricity - production: 3.268 billion kWh (2006 est.)
Electricity - consumption: 2.941 billion kWh (2006 est.)
Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (2007 est.)
Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (2007 est.)
Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 1.3%
hydro: 97.6%
nuclear: 0%
other: 1.2% (2001)
Oil - production: 7 bbl/day (2007 est.)
Oil - consumption: 30,450 bbl/day (2006 est.)
Oil - exports: 0 bbl/day (2005)
Oil - imports: 29,820 bbl/day (2005)
Oil - proved reserves: 428,000 bbl (1 January 2008 est.)
Natural gas - production: 0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - consumption: 0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - exports: 0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - imports: 0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - proved reserves: 24.92 billion cu m (1 January 2008 est.)
Current account balance: -$1.609 billion (2008 est.)
Exports: $1.439 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.)
Exports - commodities: coffee, qat, gold, leather products, live animals, oilseeds
Exports - partners: Germany 8.2%, Saudi Arabia 7%, US 6.9%, Djibouti 6.6%, China 6.5%, Italy 6.5%, Japan 5.9%, Netherlands 4.8% (2007)
Imports: $6.218 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.)
Imports - commodities: food and live animals, petroleum and petroleum products, chemicals, machinery, motor vehicles, cereals, textiles
Imports - partners: Saudi Arabia 17%, China 15.9%, India 7.8%, Italy 5.1% (2007)
Economic aid - recipient: $1.6 billion (FY05/06)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $1.008 billion (31 December 2008 est.)
Debt - external: $3.158 billion (31 December 2008 est.)
Currency (code): birr (ETB)
Currency code: ETB
Exchange rates: birr (ETB) per US dollar - 9.57 (2008 est.), 8.96 (2007), 8.69 (2006), 8.68 (2005), 8.6356 (2004)
note: since 24 October 2001, exchange rates are determined on a daily basis via interbank transactions regulated by the Central Bank
Communications Ethiopia
Telephones - main lines in use: 880,100 (2007)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 1.208 million (2007)
Telephone system: general assessment: inadequate telephone system; the number of fixed lines and mobile telephones is increasing from a very small base; combined fixed and mobile-cellular teledensity is only about 2 per 100 persons
domestic: open-wire; microwave radio relay; radio communication in the HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies; 2 domestic satellites provide the national trunk service
international: country code - 251; open-wire to Sudan and Djibouti; microwave radio relay to Kenya and Djibouti; satellite earth stations - 3 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean and 2 Pacific Ocean)
Radio broadcast stations: AM 8, FM 0, shortwave 1 (2001)
Radios: 15.2 million (2002)
Television broadcast stations: 1 (plus 24 repeaters) (2001)
Televisions: 682,000 (2002)
Internet country code: .et
Internet hosts: 128 (2008)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 1 (2002)
Internet users: 291,000 (2007)
Transportation Ethiopia
Airports: 84 (2007)
Airports - with paved runways: total: 15
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 5
1,524 to 2,437 m: 5
914 to 1,523 m: 1
under 914 m: 1 (2007)
Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 69
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 5
1,524 to 2,437 m: 11
914 to 1,523 m: 29
under 914 m: 21 (2007)
Railways: total: 699 km (Ethiopian segment of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad)
narrow gauge: 699 km 1.000-m gauge
note: railway under joint control of Djibouti and Ethiopia but remains largely inoperable (2006)
Roadways: total: 36,469 km
paved: 6,980 km
unpaved: 29,489 km (2004)
Merchant marine: total: 9
by type: cargo 8, roll on/roll off 1 (2008)
Ports and terminals: Ethiopia is landlocked and uses ports of Djibouti in Djibouti and Berbera in Somalia
Military Ethiopia
Military branches: Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF): Ground Forces, Ethiopian Air Force (ETAF) (2008)
note: Ethiopia is landlocked and has no navy; following the secession of Eritrea, Ethiopian naval facilities remained in Eritrean possession
Military service age and obligation: 18 years of age for compulsory and voluntary military service; theoretically, no compulsory military service, but the military can conduct call-ups when necessary and compliance is compulsory (2008)
Manpower available for military service: males age 16-49: 17,666,967
females age 16-49: 17,530,211 (2008 est.)
Manpower fit for military service: males age 16-49: 11,078,847
females age 16-49: 12,017,073 (2009 est.)
Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually: male: 908,384
female: 916,354 (2009 est.)
Military expenditures: 3% of GDP (2006)
Transnational Issues Ethiopia
Disputes - international: Eritrea and Ethiopia agreed to abide by the 2002 Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's (EEBC) delimitation decision, but neither party responded to the revised line detailed in the November 2006 EEBC Demarcation Statement; UN Peacekeeping Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), which has monitored the 25-km-wide Temporary Security Zone in Eritrea since 2000, is extended for six months in 2007 despite Eritrean restrictions on its operations and reduced force of 17,000; the undemarcated former British administrative line has little meaning as a political separation to rival clans within Ethiopia's Ogaden and southern Somalia's Oromo region; Ethiopian forces invaded southern Somalia and routed Islamist Courts from Mogadishu in January 2007; "Somaliland" secessionists provide port facilities in Berbera and trade ties to landlocked Ethiopia; civil unrest in eastern Sudan has hampered efforts to demarcate the porous boundary with Ethiopia
Refugees and internally displaced persons: refugees (country of origin): 66,980 (Sudan); 16,576 (Somalia); 13,078 (Eritrea)
IDPs: 200,000 (border war with Eritrea from 1998-2000, ethnic clashes in Gambela, and ongoing Ethiopian military counterinsurgency in Somali region; most IDPs are in Tigray and Gambela Provinces) (2007)
Illicit drugs: transit hub for heroin originating in Southwest and Southeast Asia and destined for Europe, as well as cocaine destined for markets in southern Africa; cultivates qat (khat) for local use and regional export, principally to Djibouti and Somalia (legal in all three countries); the lack of a well-developed financial system limits the country's utility as a money laundering center
This page was last updated on 19 March, 2009

Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire

Wonderful Ethiopians
OF THE
Ancient Cushite Empire
BY DRUSILLA DUNJEE HOUSTON.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA., U. S. A.
1926, no renewal

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I..............................................................................9
THE EMPIRE'S AGE AND SCOPE........................................................................9


CHAPTER II...................................................................14
OLD ETHIOPIA--ITS PEOPLE.......................................................................14
CHAPTER III..................................................................21
ANCIENT ETHIOPIA, THE LAND........................................................................21
CHAPTER IV.................................................................28

THE AMAZING CIVILIZATION OF ETHIOPIA...................................................................28

CHAPTER

V............................................................................34
PREHISTORIC EGYPT, THE LAND OF WONDERS.......................................34

PREFACE

THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION

The minds of men today are stirred with eager questionings about the origin of civilization and about the part the different races of mankind played in its development from primitive. ages.

The remains that archaeologists are uncovering in Egypt, old Babylonia, and South America, reveal that there were significant factors in the first development of the arts and sciences that history has failed to make clear. Scientists are busy today studying the types of those old civilizations and comparing them with those of the present. Our modern systems do not function for the masses to give them development and happiness as did some of the ancient cultures.

Books upon the early life of man are very hard to secure. Few have been written that are authentic, because it requires technical skill to assemble and condense such matter. Exhaustive research work is necessary to secure this kind of information, with only a line here and there in modern books to help the reader to reach definite conclusions. Only the trained mind holds the multitude of details and possesses the ability to impartially weigh and classify the facts, that prove the influence of the races upon the civilization of today.

The quest for the innumerable and startling facts of the succeeding volumes arose, much as did the motive of Schliemann to seek the buried ruins of Troy, from the oft repeated expression found by the author in research work, that "what the ancients said about the Ethiopians was fabulous." Curiosity was aroused to go back over the story of the ancients to agree or draw new conclusions. The finds were so astonishing that the vow was made to spend upon this study many years if necessary. Like the "Quest of the Holy Grail" the aim became sacred, for the trail led backward into the heart of all that the world holds most precious and to the primal roots from which all culture sprang.

At first the reading of an afternoon in the average public library would hardly reveal a line to the credit of the Ethiopian. Sometimes a ten volume set of modern books might yield only a few paragraphs; but the vow and the richness of the finds, gleaming like diamonds, led the eager searcher on. The trail was followed into the dry dusty books of the ancients, where the path widened and truth was revealed that will answer some of the baffling problems of civilization today. Here were missing links of the chain of culture vainly sought for elsewhere.

Our story will deal with the ancient Cushite empire of Ethiopians, that covered three continents and held unbroken sway for three thousand years. We will visit old Ethiopia, where as Herodotus said, "the gods delighted to banquet with the pious inhabitants." We will study the land and the ancient race.

The "Old Race," will next win our attention, that Petrie found in Egypt of distinct and unique culture, who were the people of the earlier and superior civilization of the first dynasties. Down through this prehistoric vista we see "Happy Araby" with her brilliant primitive culture and her unrivalled literature of later days. On the screen flashes the rich and surpassing culture of oldChaldea, which belonged to the ancient Cushite empire of Ethiopians.

Next comes veiled and mysterious India, the scene of charming story and magic fable, with her subtle mysticism and philosophy. Tarrying a while with the conquest and life of the ancient Medes and Persians, the trail runs far afield into the dominions of Western Europe and the striking questions array themselves demanding to be answered. Who were the Celts? Who were the Teutons? and what was the origin of the so-called Aryan race?

The author was as much astounded as will be the reader, as to what this study reveals. It leaves us wondering if there is any Aryan race.

We learn in the study of the races of Western Europe, to understand the hatreds of Europe that underlaid the world war. We learn that when the Celt and Teuton call the Ethiopians of the new world "Uncle" and "Auntie," they are using titles that are scientifically true. Our story passes on to another remnant of the ancient Cushite empire, that baffling race, the Iberians, now represented by the Basques; then to the Berbers of North Africa,. another branch of the Cushite race. Some scientists have called them the descendents of the "People of Atlantis." Next succeed the singular facts about the life of the mysterious Etruscans of old Italy who were the teachers of the Romans; then we follow the life and tragedy of the fleeting Pelasgians, who were the fountain out of which later Greek culture welled. They were the people of the legends of Greek mythology.

It is almost impossible to find anything but scanty fragments in the world's literature about any of these people of pre-historic days, but our text has compiled these fragments, so many of them, as to form fascinating chapters. Today all of these subjects remain unexplained mysteries in the average book. We dwell for a while on the marvels of the lost civilization of the Ægean and stop to study the Greece of Homer and the meaning of the Greek legends. All having direct relation to the ancient Cushites.

Historic Greece in all her glory, but viewed from new angles, passes before us with the older and superior civilization of Asia Minor, which has been almost entirely overlooked in modern literature. Next we come to the fact that the Phoenicians called themselves Ethiopians and that the Hebrew writers gave them the same name; then we reflect upon the strange relationship of the family of Cushite tongues to the so-called Indo-European group of languages.

The trail leads us high up to where we get a breathless view of the astounding Ethiopian religion, which gives us the answer to many strange and incomprehensible traits in the Ethiopian of today. Next follows the chapter on the "Wonderful Ethiopians," who produced fadeless colors that have held their hues for thousands of years, who drilled through solid rock and were masters of many other lost arts and who many scientists believe must have understood electricity, who made metal figures that could move and speak and may have invented flying machines, for the "flying horse Pegasus" and the "ram of the golden fleece" may not have been mere fairy tales.

Next out of the forgotten wastes of the dark continent rise before us ancient African empires, representing other civilizations of the time of the Cretan age. Then across the screen comes flashing the "Ancient Cushite Trade Routes," which contrary to our notion were the medium by which rich and varied products were interchanged.

In the chapter on "Ancient Cushite Commerce," we follow the ships of these early, daring and skillful seamen, who before the dawn of history had blazed out the ocean trails thatt he Phoenicians later followed. We find irrefutable evidence of the presence of these daring conquerors in the primitive legends, religion and institutions of America.

Next out of the dim haze of far antiquity, rise the indistinct lines of "Atlantis of Old," the race that gave civilization to the world, the race that tamed the animals and gave us domestication of plants. The gods of the ancient world were the kings and queens of mystic "Atlantis." The chapter the "Gods of Old" makes plain that the deities of Greece and Rome were also the kings and queens of the ancient Cushite empire of the Ethiopians, which was either the successor of the most famous branch of the Atlantic race.

It was about these princes and heroes that all the wonderful mythology of the ancients was woven. They were the deities that were worshipped in India, Chaldea, Egypt, and in Greece and Rome, which nations themselves must have been related to the race of Atlantis, that tradition said had been overwhelmed by the sea. Atlantis could not have been mythical, for her rulers were the subjects of the art and literature of all the primitive nations until the fall of Paganism long after the birth of Christ.

Another division of Atlantis was trans-Atlantic America. There the mysterious Mound Builders represent the ancient Cushite race. We study the peculiar culture and genius of the fierce Aztec, who acknowledged that he received the germs of civilization from the earlier Cushite inhabitants.


We pass southward and examine the higher development of the wonderful Mayas of North America, whose ruins are attracting special study today and we find there transplanted the Cushite arts of the ancient world. Next flash the pictures of the marvelous culture and arts of the Incas, superior to those of Western Europe in 1492.

From America the story turns to the "Bronze and Iron Ages," we seek the origin of the mysterious bronze implements of Western Europe found in the hands of seemingly barbarous people. We seek for the place and the race that could have given the world the art of welding iron.

The trail reveals that the land of the "Golden Fleece" and the garden of the "Golden Apples of Hesperides" were but centers of the ancient race, that as Cushite Ethiopians had extended themselves over the world. These are subjects that have attracted the study of world scholarship.

They represent not mere myths but are all that vast ages have left to us of events of primitive race history. "Cushite Art" and "The Heart of the African" answer many questionings of our hearts about Ethiopians. The series closes with a comparison of ancient culture with modern forms. The intelligence of the Cushite, his original genius is held up beside the decadence of true ideals in the art and literature of the present. The "Revolt of Civilization" and "Dawn of a new World" voice the concern of the thoughtful over the present decay of culture.


We are sending forth this information because so few men today understand the primitive forces that are the root of modern culture. So superficial and prejudiced has been most modern research, that many important and accepted theories of universal history have no actual basis in fact.

The average modern historical book contradicts what the ancients said about the nations. that preceeded them. We cannot solve the stupendous problems that the world faces, until we can read aright the riddle of the evolution of the races. Uninformed men make unsafe leaders. that is the primal cause for so many errors of judgment in state and national councils. We look upon them not as statesmen but as promoters of petty politics, for out of their deliberations spring no alleviation of the woes of the world. It is from this lack of understanding in leadership that the world suffers
6
most today. We could discriminate between the true and false in our civilization, if we knew more about primitive culture. The way by which the first man climbed must ever be the human way. Racial prejudices are the greatest menace to world progress. Classes clash because the wealth of the world concentrates more and more in the hands of a few.

The tragedy of human misery increases, the increase of defectives, the growing artificiality of modern living, compels us to seek and blazen forth the knowledge of the true origin of culture and the fundamental principles that through the ages have been the basis of true progress. Only by this wisdom shall we know how to lift human life today.

In most modern books there seems to be preconcerted understanding to calumniate and disgust the world with abominable pictures of the ruined Ethiopian, ruined by the African slave trade. of four hundred years. There seems to be a world wide conspiracy in literature to conceal the facts that this book unfolds. Because of this suppression of truth, world crimes have been easily made possible against the Ethiopian.

These people are held in low estimation because truth is hidden which proves that today though more favored races are at the apex of human accomplishment; yet in the earlier ages the wheel of destiny carried upward those, who now seem hopelessly under. To wipe away the black stain of the slave trade, modern literature has represented the slave trader as having trafficked in depraved human beings.

Today the lower types of the Aryan race look upon them as creatures only fit for political and economic spoilation, to fill the coffers of the colonial renegade, who could not succeed at home. This type of the world finds it easy to stifle the life of ruined and defenceless races.

This spoilation of the weak, returned in a counter stroke from which it was impossible to escape in the world war. Belgium reaped in identical measure and kind, what this type had meted out to the defenceless people of the Congo. Nations must reap what they sow.

This is not the nature or intention of the better men of the civilized nations but we are uninformed about alien peoples. We are narrow and provincial in our views. The hatred of the races springs out of misunderstanding. The men of the world who have traveled, and read, and thought, upon ethnological problems are the men who have the cultivated instincts of human brotherhood.

Shall England, France, Germany, America, suffer further because we have not taught the uninformed of the nations that we must pay a still heavier toll for a continued measure of injustice to weaker peoples? Innocent must suffer with the guilty, for it is in our power to inform and curb the power of the selfish. The question looms large in the minds of thinking men today, whether Ethiopians are worthy of equal opportunity.

Let us settle forever out of time's irrefutable evidence, whether if we gave him the chance, the Ethiopian would treat us as we have treated him. There need be no conjecturing; for the archives of the past hold the facts. The history of the Cushite Ethiopians down through the ages is one of the most thrilling as well as tragic of all time's age old stories. It is almost incredible that its rich treasure for developing our understanding has so long remained veiled.

The Ethiopian is a great race, probably the oldest. It is a race that does not die out under adversity. When other races are sullen, or despairing and turn to self destruction, these people cheerfully press on. When they think the way is blocked they turn aside to pick flowers along the pathway of pleasure. We hear their happy voices in the cotton field,

they can be the life of the carnival, their zealous fervor in camp meeting and the swing song of the marching black regiments of the world war and the stevedore regiments in peace, show these people as they employ themselves, patiently waiting for bars to progress to rot down, if nothing else will remove them. Then again they take up the steady march onward, that has been the wonderful element of their history on down through the ages.

We need our eyes opened, this type that we in ignorance despise, built the eternal pyramids of Egypt and laid the foundation of the civilization of the historic ages, Because the slave trade broke the threads of remembrance, they walk among us with bowed heads, themselves ignorant of the facts that this story unfolds.


Lift up your heads, discouraged and downtrodden Ethiopians. Listen to this marvelous story told of your ancestors, who wrought mightily for mankind and built the foundations of civilization true and square in the days of old. Awake ye sleeping Aryans, become aware of the acute need of the world today of this enchained energy and ability. The absence of this power is the cause of many a breakdown in modern, civilization.

Out of our own accepted sciences, the chapters of this book, prove the Cushite race to have been the fountainhead of civilization. If you desire truth, if you desire to be fair minded, to be educated in vital knowledge not possessed by the average college student, if you desire to be an authority upon the life of the ancients, go down with me as archaeology, ethnology, geology and philology disclose; not in a dry and tedious way, but through the unfolding of this the most intensely interesting and startling drama of the ages.

The Cushite race, its institutions, customs, laws and ideals were the foundation upon which our modern culture was laid. Let this not stir the pride of the modern Cushite, but rather inspire him to a greater consecration to the high idealism that made the masteries of olden days.

Knowledge of the primal strength and weaknesses of each world group must be possessed by world leadership or we shall still further go astray. Without this knowledge international councils cannot intelligently assign each race to its rightful place in the consummation of God's plan of the Ages. Without this truth the nations cannot put over their programs.

The world war proved that we have no international stability. The world's securities and diplomatic relations are propped. Because the real history of mankindis not a part of our general knowledge, we are discounting factors most needed to secure world balance.

There can be no more needed contribution to civilization, than to gather from the archives of the past and present day science all the truth about the origin of culture. Only thus will we know how to develop better men today. If we knew just what contribution each race has made to art, science and religion, we would know what would be its fitness to take part in world government and control. Hag the influence of a race been creative or destructive throughout the ages? That should point plainly to the part they would be likely to play today.


Because we are without this knowledge, we cannot read aright the past or present history of civilization. Modern crimes of injustice toward weaker peoples have been made easy by this suppression of truth. It has been popular and remunerative to write and speak on the side of prejudice. A better spirit is rising in the world. Men are eager for information, for the truth. Through the teaching of sociology, the most popular and crowded classes of our great universities, in a scientific way, man is beginning to see the need of a
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realization of our common brotherhood and to reach out to solve unmastered problems and unfulfilled duties. Many problems are an international consternation because they are too gigantic for the handling of any one world group. Civilization was appalled at its helplessness in the world war. The leading nations faced annihilation, yet were unable to walk out of the trap until the flower of European manhood had perished.

The noblest offered themselves for sacrifice, the more selfish remained at home. The world may never be capable of calculating its artistic and moral loss. We see the difference in the crime and debauchery breaking down the culture of today. Unless we can rouse men to truth and united effort, there is no hope for our civilization which is tottering and must fall.

In justice to that Divine Leading that piloted this search of a decade over trails, that otherwise might not have been found in a lifetime, in tribute to the pluck and consecration to a purpose--to add to the light of truth, that has gathered such an avalanche of testimony from authoritative sources, we speak of this work which has taken all those spare moments, that are our right to spend in leisure, that a frail unflagging spirit might make possible this marvelous story, as strange as any olden fairy tale; yet by the light of our accepted sciences true.

We lift the veil lightly lest the careless skim over these pages carelessly, little recking what they have cost. Often when limbs and weary brain cried out in protest, the searcher pressed on, seeing fully the power in this truth if patiently, carefully gathered, to lift the men of all races to a clearer comprehension of the contribution of each race to all that we prize in civilization, and to stir within us the determination to lift and bear aloft the "torch" lit in primitive ages by a race today despised and misunderstood.

The average book has its dozen helpers and advisors, this work has been done in hermitage. The hermitage of a life submerged in service. Humbly, reverently, this truth is offered in love to all races. Ten years more may be devoted to its final setting but the facts imbedded in these pages are too important to be longer withheld.


CHAPTER I.

THE EMPIRE'S AGE AND SCOPE.

The excavations of Petrie revealed in Egypt the remains of a distinct race that preceeded the historic Egyptians. The earliest civilization was higher than that of the later dynasties. Its purer art represents an "Old Race" that fills all the background of the pre-historic ages.

It colonized the first civilized centers of the primitive world. The ancients called this pioneer ram which lit the torch of art and science, Cushite Ethiopians, the founders of primeval cities and civilized life. The wonders of India, to which Europe sought a passage in the age of Columbus, the costly products and coveted merchandise of Babylon, and the amazing prehistoric civilization of Asia Minor, sprang from this little recognized source.

The achievements of this race in early ages were the result of co-operation. Cushites reached the true zenith of democracy. Their skillful hands raised Cyclopean walls dug out mighty lakes and laid imperishable roads that have endured throughout the ages. This was the uniform testimony of ancient records. Modern writers seem of superficial research, either being unaware of these facts, or knowing, purposely ignore them. Archaeologists dig up the proofs, ethnologists announce their origin, but history refuses to change its antiquated and exploded theories.

General history informs us that when the curtain of history was lifted, the civilization of Egypt was hoary with age. It was a culture that must have developed from thousands of years of growth. Why is the scholarship of the world so silent Is to what lay behind historic Egypt?

No nation throughout the ages has "as Athene sprung full fledged into knowledge of all the arts and sciences." The story of what lay behind Egypt fascinated the whole ancient world. The culture of Egypt did not originate upon the Lower Nile. Who then was her teacher? It was the ancient Cushite empire of Ethiopians, which weighty authorities tell us ruled over three continents for thousands of years. Should the world wait longer to test the truth of these ancient witnesses? Beside, these gigantic achievements, the petty conquests of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and of Napoleon Bonaparte, fade into insignificance.

There seems to be fear to tell about these ancients, who built mighty cities, the ruins of which extend in uninterrupted succession around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Traces of this hoary empire, works appearing to have been wrought by giants, hearing marks of Cushite genius, have been found by scientists all over the primitive world.

We marvel at the wonders recently unearthed in Egypt. Let us look behind her through the glasses of science at the "Old Race" of which she was in her beginning, only a colony. Ethiopia was the source of all that Egypt knew and transmitted to Greece and Rome. We are accustomed to think of Ethiopia as a restricted country in Africa but this was not true. The study of ancient maps and the descriptions of the geographers of old, reveals that the ancient Land of Cush was a very widespread and powerful empire. Rosenmuller shows us that the Hebrew scholars called Cush, all the countries of the torrid zone. It was the race that Huxley saw akin to the Dravidians of India, stretching in an empire from India to Spain. The Greeks described Ethiopia as the country around the Indus and Ganges. (Rosenmuller's Biblical Geography, Bk. III, p. 154.)

H. G. Wells says that the Hamitic tongue was a much wider and more varied language than the Semitic or Aryan in ancient days. 1 It was the language of the Neolithic peoples who occupied most of western and southern Asia, who may have been related to the Dravidians of India and the people of George Elliot's Heliolithic culture. Sir H. H. Johnson says that this lost Hamitic language was represented by the scattered branches of Crete, Lydia, the Basques, the Caucasian-Dravidian group, the ancient Sumerian and the Elamite.

The peoples of this race were the first to give the world ideas of government. Stephanus of Byzantium, voicing the universal testimony of antiquity wrote, "Ethiopia was the first established country on earth and the Ethiopians were the first to set up the worship of the gods and to establish laws." The later ages gained from this ancient empire, the fundamental principles upon which republican governments are founded. The basic stones of that wonderful dominion were equality, temperence, industry, intelligence and justice.

The average historical book ignores this testimony and disputes in its theories the records and monuments of Egypt and Chaldea. They group the races in utter contradiction to the records of the Greeks and Hebrews. In the light of reason, who would know about the ethnic relations of the ancients, the scholars and historians of Egypt, Chaldea and Greece, who are more and more corroborated by the findings of science, or the theories of the men of today?

The modern writer whose research has been superficial does not know that before the days of Grecian and Roman ascendency, the entire circle of the Mediterranean and her islands was dotted with the magic cities and the world-wide trade of Ethiopians. The gods and goddesses of the Greeks and Romans were but the borrowed kings and queens of this Cushite empire of Ethiopians. So marvelous had been their achievements in primitive ages, that in later days, they were worshipped as immortals by the people of India, Egypt, old Ethiopia, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean world.

Rawlinson, after his exhaustive research into the life of ancient nations, says, "For the last three thousand years the world has been mainly indebted to the Semitic and Indo-European races for its advancement, but it was otherwise in the first ages. Egypt and Babylon, Mizraim and Nimrod, both descendants of Ham, led the way and acted as the pioneers of mankind in the various untrodden fields of art, science and literature. Alphabetical writings, astronomy, history, chronology, architecture, plastic art, sculpture, navigation, agriculture and textile industries seem to have had their origin in one.

or the other of these countries." (Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, Vol. I.) The taming of the animals was the gift to us of these prehistoric men. By skill and perseverence they developed from wild plants the wheat, oats and rye that are the foundation of our agriculture. This work was done so many ages ago, that their wild origin has disappeared. The average man little realizes the gifts of the prehistoric ages, or how helpless we would be without them today.


Rawlinson continues, "The first inventors, of any art are among the greatest benefactors of mankind and the bold steps they take from the known to the unknown, from blank ignorance, to discovery, are equal to many subsequent steps of progress." Bunsen says in his Philosophy of Ancient History, "The Hamitic family as Rawlinson proves must be given the credit for being the fountainhead of civilization.

This family comprised the ancient Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the original Canaanites and the old Chaldeans. The inscriptions of the Chaldean monuments prove their race affinity. The Bible proves their relationship. It names the sons of Ham as Cush, Mizraim, Phut and the race of Canaan. Mizraim peopled Egypt and Canaan the land later possessed by the Hebrews. Phut located in Africa and Cush extended his colonies over a wide domain." (Philosophy of Ancient History, Bunsen, p. 51)
Bunsen concludes by saying, "Cushite colonies were all along the southern shores of Asia and Africa and by the archaeological remains, along the southern and eastern coasts of Arabia.

The name Cush was given to four great areas, Media, Persia, Susiana and Aria, or the whole territory between the Indus and Tigris in prehistoric times. In Africa the Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the Libyans, the Canaanites and Phoenicians were all descendants of Ham. They were a black or dark colored race and the pioneers of our civilization.

They were emphatically the monument builders on the plains of Shinar and the valley of the Nile from Meroe to Memphis. In southern Arabia they erected wonderful edifices.

They were responsible for the monuments that dot southern Siberia and in America along the valley of the Mississippi down to Mexico and in Peru their images and monuments stand a "voiceless witnesses." This was the ancient Cushite Empire of Ethiopians that covered three worlds. Some of our later books recognizing their indisputable influence in primitive culture, speak of them as a brunet brown race representing a mysterious Heliolithic culture.


Wells testifying from researches of Eliot Smith admits that this culture may have been oozing round the world from 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. He calls it the highest early culture of the world. It sustained the largest and most highly developed communities, but as in other modern books there is failure to give us clearer light upon this ancient culture and its origin.

Baldwin speaking more frankly affirms that Hebrew writers describe these first inhabitants of cities and civilized life as Cushites. "The foundations of ancient religions, mythology, institutions and customs all had the same source. He considered the Egyptian and Chaldean civilizations as very old but the culture and political organization of Ethiopia was much older.

They belonged to what Egyptians and Chaldeans regarded as real antiquity, ages shrouded in doubt because they were so remote. The oldest nations mentioned in history did not originate civilization, the traditions of Asia bring civilization from the south, connecting it with the Erythraean Sea. These traditions are confirmed by the inscriptions found upon the old ruins of Chaldea." (Prehistoric Nations, Baldwin.)

Wilford, that eminent student of the literature of India, found that Ethiopia was often mentioned in the Sanskrit writings of the people of India. The world according to the Puranas, ancient historical books, was divided into seven dwipas or divisions. Ethiopia was Cusha-Dwipa which included Arabia, Asia Minor, Syria, Nubia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and an extended region in Africa. These Sanskrit writings prove that in remote ages these regions were the most powerful richest and most enlightened part of the world. From these authoritative records and the conclusions drawn by historians of deeper research we would decide that many ancient peoples, who have been assigned to other races in the average historical book of modern times, were in reality Ethiopians.

There were nations that called themselves Cushites who never knew themselves under the titles and classifications that superficial students have given them. The Phoenicians in the days of Christ called themselves Ethiopians. The Scriptures and ancient records called the Samaritans Cushites. To create a true story of the ages the entire fabric of the ethnological relationship of the races will have to be torn down to be more honestly laid.

This Ethiopia, which existed for long ages before its wonderful power was broken, cannot be limited to the short chronological period of history, that, the facts of geology prove to be in error. The Bible gives no figures for the epochs of time. It speaks of Creation and its after periods in God cycles that we cannot resolve into figures. We read in Prehistoric Nations, "In the oldest recorded traditions, Cushite colonies were established in the valley of the Nile, Barabra and Chaldea.

This beginning must have been not later than 7000 or 8000 B. C. or perhaps earlier. They brought to development astronomy and the other sciences, which have come down to us. The vast commercial system by which they joined together the "ends of the earth" was created and manufacturing skill established. The great period of Cushite control had closed many ages prior to Homer, although separate communities remained not only in Egypt but in southern Arabia, Phoenicia and elsewhere." (Prehistoric Nations, pp. 95, 96.)

Baldwin continues, "5000 B. C. Egypt and Chaldea became separate. The Cushites were still unrivaled. 3500 to 3000 B. C. the kingdom divided again. We do not know what caused the breaking up of the old empire, which for thousands of years had held imperial sway." It may have been that the first cities and civilization extended beyond the "Deluge." The Sabaeans, Himyarites, and Ethiopians maintained supremacy almost to modern times; but the ancient glory had departed previous to the rise of Assyria 1300 B. C. Not long before the Arabian peninsula had been overrun by Semites, chiefly nomads, who became the permanent inhabitants.


The previous conquests of the ancient world denominated by modern books as Semitic were Cushite Arabian and not of the later Semitic Arabian race. Through this error many ancient branches of the Hamitic race are lined up its Semitic. After the rise of Assyria, tire Ethiopians above Egypt became the central representatives of that power that had exercised world empire for thousands of years. What kind of race could this have been that could throw such giant shadows upon time's dawn?

The stories of the "Arabian Nights," which so enthralled us in childhood and to which the childhood of the world clings as though they were true has this historic basis. They picture the activities and world wide scope, of Cushite civilization in the declining days of Ethiopian glory. Its scenes represent India, Persia, Arabia and Chaldea, which were primitively Cushite, in the decline of the Gold and Silver Ages of ancient tradition. Archaeological research and findings are proving that there wore such ages.

The tales of the Arabian Nights, so marvelous and gripping in interest, did not spring from mere fancy alone, and because of this have for mankind an alluring and undying fascination. These tales minus their genii and fairies form an imperishable book picturing a far distant but powerful civilization. In the land of the ancient Chaldean, in Egypt, in happy "Araby the Blest," and along the shores of the Mediterranean, the evidences of this prehistoric civilization are being dug up in wonder by the archaeologists of the civilized nations to-day. Relics in their way as wonderful as the gems called up by Alladin's Lamp, hidden just as were his finds in chambers of the earth.

Heeren, whose researches furnish invaluable information to the later historians says, "From the remotest times to the present, the Ethiopians have been the most celebrated and yet the most mysterious of nations.

In the earliest traditions of the more civilized nations of antiquity, the name of this most distant people is found. The annals of the Egyptian priests were full of them, and the nations of inner Asia on the Euphrates and the Tigris have woven the fictions of the Ethiopians with their own traditions of the wars and conquests of their heroes; and at a period equally remote they glimmer in Greek mythology." Dionysus, Hercules, Saturn, Osiris, Zeus and Apollo were Cushite kings of the prehistoric ages. Around these and other Ethiopian deities the people of the Mediterranean and the Orient wove their mythologies.

Prejudice and ignorance may have marked their deeds as fabulous but the imperishable monuments that they left are not imaginary. They are the realistic reminders of a people who deeply impressed and colored the life, art and literature of the ancient world.

The prehistoric achievements of Cushite heroes were the theme of ancient sculpture, painting and drama. They were the object of worship of all the nations that appear civilized at the dawn of history. The literature and music of Greece and Rome was permeated by this deep Ethiopian strain.

These classic forms and ideals maintain supremacy in the art of modern times. Heeren continues, "When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by name, the Ethiopians were celebrated in the poems of their bards. They were the remotest nation, the most just of men, the favorites of the gods. The lofty inhabitants of Olympus journey to them and take part in their feasts. Their sacrifices are the most agreeable that mortals can offer and when the faint beams of tradition give way to the clear light of history, the lusture of the Ethiopians is not diminished. They still continue to be objects of curiosity and admiration; and the pens of cautious and clear sighted historians often place them in the highest rank of knowledge and civilization."
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CHAPTER II.

OLD ETHIOPIA--ITS PEOPLE.

Because of the great lapse. of time, it seems almost impossible to locate the original seat of the old Ethiopian empire. Bochart thought it was "Happy Araby," that from this central point the Cushite race spread eastward and westward. Some authorities like Gesenius thought it was Africa.

The Greeks looked to old Ethiopia and called the Upper Nile the common cradle of mankind. Toward the rich luxurience of this region they looked for the "Garden of Eden." From these people of the Upper Nile arose the oldest traditions and rites and from them sprang the first colonies and arts of antiquity. The Greeks also said that Egyptians derived their civilization and religion from Ethiopia.

"Egyptian religion was not an original conception, for three thousand years ago she had lost all true sense of its real meaning among even the priesthood." (Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection--Preface.) Yet Egyptian forms of worship are understood and practiced among the Ethiopians of Nubia today. The common people of Egypt never truly understood their religion, this was why it so easily became debased.

Ptolemaic writers said that Egypt was formed of the mud carried down, from Ethiopia, that Ethiopians were the first men that ever lived, the only truly autochthonous race and the first to institute the worship of the gods and the rites of sacrifice. Egypt itself was a colony of Ethiopia and the laws and script of both lands were naturally the same; but the hieroglyphic script was more widely known to the vulgar in Ethiopia than in Egypt. (Diodorus Siculus, bk. iii, ch. 3.)

This knowledge of writing was universal in Ethiopia but was confined to the priestly classes alone in Egypt. This was because the Egyptian priesthood was Ethiopian. The highly developed Merodic inscriptions are not found in Egypt north of the first cataract or in Nubia south of Soba. These are differences we would expect to find between a colony and a parent body. Herodotus (bk. ii, p. 29) says that Meroe was a great city and metropolis, most of its buildings were of red brick. 800 B. C. at Napata, the buildings were of hard stone. (Meroe--Crowfoot, pp. 6, 30.)


The Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature says, "There is every reason to conclude that the separate colonies of priestcraft spread from Meroe into Egypt; and the primeval monuments in Ethiopia strongly confirm the native traditions, reported by Diodorus Siculus, that the worship of Zeus-Ammon originated in Meroe, also the worship of Osiris.

This would render highly probable the opinion that commerce, science and art descended into Egypt from the Upper Nile. Herodotus called the Ethiopians "Wisemen occupying the Upper Nile, men of long life, whose manners and customs pertain to the Golden Age, those virtuous mortals, whose feasts and banquets are honored by Jupiter himself." In Greek times, the Egyptians depicted Ethiopia as an ideal state. The Puranas, the ancient historical books of India, speak of the civilization of Ethiopia as being older than that of Egypt. These Sanskrit books mention the names of old Cushite kings that were worshipped in India and who were adopted and changed to suit the fancy of the later people of Greece and Rome.

The Hindu Puranas speak of the Cushites going to India before they went to Egypt, proving Hindu civilization coeval with that of Chaldea and the country of the Nile. These ancients record that the Egyptians were a colony drawn out from Cusha-Dwipa and that the Palli, another colony that made the Phoenicians followed them from the land of Cush. In those primitive days, the central seat of Ethiopia was not the Meroe of our day, which is very ancient, but a kingdom that preceeded it by many ages; that was called Meru. Lenormant spoke of the first men of the ancient world as "Men of Meru." Sanskrit writers called Indra, chief god of the Hindu, king of Meru. He was deified and became the chief representative of the supreme being.

Thus was primitive India settled by colonists from Ethiopia. Early writers said there was very little difference in the color or features of the people of the two countries.


Ancient traditions told of the deeds of Deva Nahusha, another sovereign of Meru, who extended his empire over three worlds. The lost literature of Asia Minor dealt with this extension of the Ethiopian domain. An old poem "Phrygia," was a history of Dionysus, one of the most celebrated of the old Ethiopians. It was written in a very old language and character.

He preceeded Menes by many ages. Baldwin says that the authentic books that would have given us the true history concerning him, perished long before the Hellenes. The Greeks of historical times distorted the story of Dionysus and converted him into their drunken god of wine. "They misconstrued and misused the old Cushite mythology, wherever they failed to understand it, and sought to appropriate it entirely to themselves." One of the poetical versions of the taking of Troy, on the coast of Asia Minor, was entitled "The Æthiops," because the inhabitants of Troy, as we shall prove later, who fought so valiantly in the Trojan war, were Cushite Ethiopians. This version presented the conflict as an Egyptian war.


In those early ages Egypt was under Ethiopian domination. In proof of this fact, the Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature says, "Isaiah often mentions Ethiopia and Egypt in close political relations. In fine the name of Ethiopia chiefly stood as the name of the national and royal family of Egypt. In the beginning Egypt was ruled from Ethiopia. Ethiopia was ruined by her wars with Egypt, which she sometimes subdued and sometimes served." Modern books contain but little information about the country of the Upper Nile, but archaic books were full of the story of the wonderful Ethiopians. The ancients said that they settled Egypt.

Is it possible that we could know more about the origin of this nation than they? Reclus says, "The people occupying the plateau of the Blue Nile, are conscious of a glorious past and proudly call themselves Ethiopians." He calls the whole triangular space between the Nile and the Red Sea, Ethiopia proper. This vast highland constituted a world apart. From it went forth the inspiration and light now bearing its fruit in the life of younger nations.

Heeren thought, that excepting the Egyptians, no aboriginal people of Africa so claim our attention as the Ethiopians. He asks, "To what shall we attribute the renown of this one of the most distant nations of the earth? How did the fame of her name permeate the terrible deserts that surrounded her: and even yet form an insuperable bar to all who approach. A great many nations distant and different from one another are called Ethiopians.

Africa contains the greater number of them and a considerable tract in Asia was occupied by this race. The Ethiopians were distinguished from the other races by a very dark or completely black skin. " (Heeren's Historical Researches--Ethiopian Nations. Ch. 1, p. 46) Existing monuments confirm the high antiquity of Meroe. In the Persian period Ethiopia was an important and independent state, which Cambyses vainly attempted to subdue.

Rosellini thinks that the right of Sabaco and Tirhakah, Ethiopian kings, who sat upon the throne of Egypt in the latter days, must have been more by right of descent than by usurpation or force of arms. "This may be judged," he says, "by the respect paid to their monuments by their successors."

The pictures on the Egyptian monuments reveal that Ethiopians were the builders. They, not the Egyptians, were the master-craftsmen of the earlier ages. The first courses of the pyramids were built of Ethiopian stone. The Cushites were a sacerdotal or priestly race. There was a religious and astronomical significance in the position and shape of the pyramids.

Dubois points to the fact that in Upper Egypt there were pictured black priests who were conferring upon red Egyptians, the instruments and symbols of priesthood. Ethiopians in very early ages had an original and astounding religion, which included the rite of human sacrifice.

It lingered on in the early life of Greece and Home. Dowd explains this rite in this way: "The African offered his nearest and dearest, not from depravity but from a greater love for the supreme being." The priestly caste was more influencial upon the Upper Nile than in Egypt. With the withdrawal of the Ethiopian priesthood from Egypt to Napata, the people of the Lower Nile lost the sense of the real meaning of their religion, which steadily deteriorated with their language after their separation from Ethiopia.


If we visit Nubia, modern Ethiopia today, we can plainly see in the inhabitants their superiority to the common Egyptian type.


RACE TYPE OF THE EARLY DYNASTIES. (From Ridpath's History.)

The Barabra or Nile Nubians are on a footing of perfect equality in Egypt because that was their plane in ancient days. Baedecker describes them as strong, muscular, agricultural and more warlike and energetic than Egyptians. Keane says the Nubians excel in moral qualities.

They are by his description obviously Negroid, very dark with full lips and dreamy eyes. They have the narrow heads which are the cranial formation of Ethiopia. Race may be told by shape of the skull far better than by color or feature, which are modified by climate.

The members of the Tartar race have perfectly rounded skulls. The head of the Ethiopian races is very elongated. Europeans have an intermediate skull. The cranial formation of unmixed races never changes. Keane concludes by saying, "All Barbara have wooly hair with scant beards like the figures of Negroes on the walls of the Egyptian temples." The race of the Old Empire approached closely to this type.


Strabo mentions the Nubians as a great race west of the Nile. They came originally from Kordofan, whence they emigrated two thousand years ago. They have rejected the name Nubas as it has become synonymous with slave.

They call themselves Barabra, their ancient race name. Sanskrit historians call the Old Race of the Upper Nile Barabra. These Nubians have become slightly modified but are still plainly Negroid. They look like the Wawa on the Egyptian monuments. The Retu type number one was the ancient Egyptian, the Retu type number two was in feature an intermingling of the Ethiopian and Egyptian types.

The Wawa were Cushites and the name occurs in the mural inscriptions five thousands years ago. Both people were much intermingled six thousand years ago. The faces of the Egyptians of the Old Monarchy are Ethiopian but as the ages went on they altered from the constant intermingling with Asiatic types. Also the intense furnace-like heat of Upper Egypt tended to change the features and darken the skin.


In the inscriptions relative to the campaigns of Pepi I, Negroes are represented as immediately adjoining the Egyptian frontier. This seems to perplex some authors. They had always been there. This was the Old Race of predynastic Egypt--the primitive Cushite type.

This was the aboriginal race of Abyssinia. It was symbolized by the Great Sphinx and the marvelous face of Cheops. Take any book of Egyptian history containing authentic cuts and examine the faces of the first pharaohs, they are distinctively Ethiopian. The "Agu" of the monuments represented this aboriginal race. They were the ancestors of the Nubians. and were the ruling race of Egypt.

Petrie in 1892 exhibited before the British Association, some skulls of the Third and Fourth Dynasties, showing distinct Negroid characteristics. They were dolichocephalic or long skulled. The findings of archaeology more and more reveal that Egypt was Cushite in her beginning and that Ethiopians were not a branch of the Japheth race in the sense that they are so represented in the average ethnological classifications of today.

Egyptians said that they and their religion had come from the land of Punt. Punt is generally accepted today to have been Somaliland south of Nubia. On the pictured plates at Deir-el-Baheri, the huts of the people of Punt were like the Toquls of the modern Sudanese, being built on piles approached by ladders. The birds were like a species common among the Somali.

The fishes were not like those of Egypt. The wife of the king of Punt appears with a form like the Bongo women with exaggerated organs of maternity. This was a distinctive Ethiopian form. The king had the Cushite profile. The products carried by the wooly haired porters were ebony, piles of elephant tusks, all African products and trays of massive gold rings.

Punt is mentioned in the inscriptions as a land of wonders. We find marvelous ruins in southeastern Africa that substantiate these reports. The inscription in the rocky valley of Hammat tells how 2000 B. C. a force gathered in the Thebaid to go on an expedition to Punt to bring back the products that made the costly incense of the ancients. The Stage Temple at Thebes showed in gorgeous pictures another expedition in 1600 B. C. We now know that Somaliland yielded the frankincense of ancient commerce, which was used in the ceremonials of all ancient kingdoms. Punt was called the "Holy Land" by the Egyptians.

In Egypt today, the most effective battalions are those commanded by black Nubians. In ancient ages the Egyptians followed the lead of the Ethiopian to battle and it is instinctive in them to do so today. Cushites were the backbone of the armies in the earliest ages. The Egyptian has no warlike qualities. It was the Cushite who was the head and brains of the foreign conquests. It was the Cushite element of the Old Empire that extended itself in foreign colonization eastward and westward around the world.

Across Arabia and southwestern Asia, even to the central highlands, inscriptions and massive images in stone stand as voiceless witnesses that they were the commanders of the Egyptian armies and that the Ethiopian masses accompanied the soldiers as trusted allies and not as driven slaves. We must remember that in the early ages they were not a subject race but that their power as a great empire was at its zenith.

The Egyptian of today much changed from the ancient whom Herodotus called black, is content to live in a mud hut beside his beloved Nile. He is despised by the prouder Nubian, who saves his earnings to buy a home and piece of ground in his native Ethiopia. Reclus tells us that the dislike between Egyptians and Nubians is carried to such a great extent that the Nubians even in Egypt will not marry an Egyptian woman and that he refuses his daughter in marriage to the Egyptian and Arab.

This could have come down alone front an age-old consciousness of superiority. He knows the proud traditions of his race. In books careless of ethnography, we find the Nubian classed with Semitic stock. They have no affinities at all with this race. Nubians are never able to speak the Arabic tongues gramatically.

Nubian women are seldom seen in Egypt. They are the most faithful to the manners and customs of the Old Race. The Egyptian of today makes little showings of ambition or the spirit for great deeds.

He squanders his earnings upon trinkets and seems content in the same mud hovel in which the masses of Egyptians primitively lived.

Prichard recognizes two branches of the Nubians, the Nubians of the Nile and those of the Red Sea. In the age of Herodotus, the countries known as Nubia and Senaar were occupied by two different races, one of which he includes under the name Ethiopian; the other was a pastorial race of Semitic decent which led a migratory life. This distinction continues to the present day. The Red Sea nomadic tribes are extremely savage and inhospitable.

The Nile Nubas or Barabra are the original Ethiopians. They are agricultural and have the old Hamitic traits. They plant date trees and set up wheels for irrigation. These are the Ethiopians mentioned in chronicles as possessing war chariots. Their allies were the Libyans. Semites at that age of the world had no possession of iron vehicles. Heeren says "that the ancestors of these Ethiopians had long lived in cities and had erected magnificent temples and edifices, that they possessed law and government, and that the fame of their progress in knowledge and the social arts had spread in the earliest ages to a considerable part of the world."

Maurice, that reliable authority on ancient remains, declares, "The ancient Ethiopians were the architectural giants of the past. When the daring Cushite genius was in the full career of its glory, it was the peculiar delight of this enterprising race to erect stupendous edifices, excavate long subterranean passages in the living rock, form vast lakes and extend over the hollows of adjoining mountains magnificent arches for aqueducts and bridges. It was they who built the tower of Babel or Belus and raised the pyramids or Egypt; it was they who formed the grottoes near the Nile and scooped the caverns of Salsette end Elephante. (These latter are wonders of Hindu architecture.)

Their skill in mechanical powers astonishes posterity, who are unable to conceive by what means stones thirty, forty and even sixty feet in length from twelve to twenty in depth could ever be raised to the point of elevation at which they are seen in the ruined temples of Belbec and Thebais. Those comprising the pagodas of India are scarcely less wonderful in point of elevation and magnitude." (Maurice's Ancient History of Hindustan.)

CHAPTER III.

ANCIENT ETHIOPIA, THE LAND.

The Nubo-Egyptian desert was once abundantly watered and a well timbered region. With the exclusion of the narrow Nile valley, all of this is generally a barren waste today. Geology reveals that in the primitive ages, this country had a moist climate like the Congo basin; but these conditions prevailed in remote geological times, probably before the creation of the delta.

The changes that turned the Sahara into a burning waste in time made Upper Egypt dry and torrid. Keane describes its climate as often fatal to all but full blooded natives. Under those brazen skies the children of even Euro-African half castes seldom survive after the tenth or twelfth year. Passing southward, we find that ancient edifices occur throughout the whole extent of Ethiopia. In the olden days, the climate there was favorable to the nurturing and development of a high type of civilization and produced an Ethiopian so superior to the later types, that they were called by the ancients, "the handsomest men of the primeval world."


The whole of the space between the Nile and Abyssinia, and northward to Lower Egypt once constituted Ethiopia. It was called Beled-es-Soudan (land of the blacks). Once Egypt extended to Lower Nubia. The ancient kingdom of Meroe was Upper Nubia and was divided into agricultural and grazing lands. Crowfoot tells us in his Ancient Meroe, p. 29, that Meroe at the height of its prosperity was established upon as broad an economic basis as Egypt or Mesopotamia.

Ancient authorities tell us that they grew grains upon lands richer and wider than the whole of Egypt, with pastures of limitless plains. Theirs were lands of heavy rains. Precious stones were there in abundance. They produced beautiful painted pottery and their princes were robed in magnificence. The yearning of the Ethiopian for all things beautiful, his love for ceremony and costly attire may not be mere imitation but springs from inheritance, from the possession of these things by his ancestors thousands of years ago.


Herodotus II, 29, says, "Meroe was a great city and metropolis." Here Zeus Ammon was worshipped in temples of the utmost splendor. The Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature explains, "The early prosperity and grandeur of Ethiopia sprang from the carrying trade of which it was the center, between India and Arabia on the one hand and the interior of Africa and especially Egypt on the other.

There was intimate connection between Egypt and Ethiopia commercially. Thebes and Meroe founded a common colony in Libya." This would prove the close relationship of Thebes, which was Nubian and Meroe. Meroe was the seat of a great caravan route from the north of Africa. Another route went westward across the Soudan. Strabo spoke of this open way in the day of Tartesus, long before the ancient Gades was built. From Meroe eastward extended the great caravan route by which the wares of southern Arabia and Africa were interchanged. The great wealth of the Cushites arose from this net work of commerce which covered the prehistoric world.

Biblical Literature asks these pertinent questions, "Whence did Egypt obtain spices and drugs with which she embalmed her dead? Whence the incense that burned on her altars? Whence came into the empire the immense amount of cotton in which her inhabitants were clad, and which her own soil so sparingly produced? And whence came into Egypt the rumors of the Ethiopian gold countries which Cambyses set out to seek?

Whence that profusion of ivory and ebony that Greek and Phoenician artists embellished? Whence the early spread of the name of Ethiopia celebrated by Jewish poets as well as by the earliest Grecian bards? Whence but from the international commerce of which Ethiopia was the center and seat?" These principal trade routes may still be pointed out by a chain of ruins, extending from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The cities Adule, Axum, Meroe, Thebes and Carthage were the links in the chain. The "merchandise of Ethiopia" of which the Bible so often speaks passed along this line of cities to less civilized portions of the earth.

Heeren in his Ancient Nations of Africa, tells us that commercial intercourse existed between the countries of southern Asia, between India and Arabia, Ethiopia, Libya and Egypt, which was founded upon their mutual necessities; and became the parent of the civilizations of these peoples. The fame of the Ethiopians, as a civilized people had forced its way into Greece in the time of Homer. Meroe, the hundred gated Thebes, Jupiter-Ammon, and the oracles in Lybia and Greece were woven with the most ancient Greek myths.

The Argonautic Expedition, the Triton Sea, and the Garden of the Hesperides, were flashes from this ancient Ethiopian commerce. Its introduction into Hellas must have been made at a very early period as shown by the oracle and sanctuary of Dodona. Ethiopian commerce was carried on under the protection of sanctuaries. The priests of Ammon said, that the oracles were founded in Greece from Thebes and Meroe. The Pelasgians adopted the Egyptian names of these deities and passed them on to the later Greeks.

Heeren continues, "Meroe from time immemorial had been an oracle of Jupiter. Its soil was extremely fertile. As late as 1000 B. C. it was one of the most powerful states of the ancient world. Accounts left us by the ancients have been considered fabulous but not so to those who have viewed the ruins now covering the site of this once powerful and highly civilized state. Remnants of mighty buildings covered with sculptures, representations of priestly ceremonies and battles, rows of sphinxes and colossi, give rise to the question, as to which nation Ethiopia or Egypt imparted its knowledge to the other."

Until historical times Ethiopia furnished Egypt with gold. Her ravines were worked until the middle of the 12th century. Gold was extracted by crushing, a very costly method, proving that these mines had been very rich and must have been a source of the great profusion of golden articles found in many African ruins and graves.
Keane describes the Fayum district, which grew in great profusion, roses, vine olives, sugar cane and cotton. Here the orange and lemon trees attained the size of our apple trees. The district was in more primeval times an and depression. An early pharaoh cut a deep channel through the rocky barrier toward the Nile and let in the western river.

Since the Twelfth Dynasty this lake had been one of blessing and abundance. This tract thus reclaimed from the desert was justly a wonder of Egypt. Here the marvelous Lake Moeris received the discharge of the Bahr Yusef, which was one half the volume of the Nile. It was one of the astounding engineering feats of the old world and still ranks as one of the most marvelous achievements of mankind. Notwithstanding the drying up of Lake Moeris the Fayum is still an important and fertile province.

Gold appears in the Elba Hills. Topaz mines are worked, while perhaps its emerald mines were then the oldest and most extensive in the world, and the only ones known until the conquest of Peru. Ethiopia seems to have had an inexhaustible supply of building material of the first quality, sandstone, limestone and granite were worked there for ages.


In ancient days the buildings seem to have been of red brick, now the people live in mud huts. Barth speaks of the numerous ruins of Upper Nubia, which attest the splendor of the ancient cities.

The average student does not know that in Nubia are infinitely more monuments and temples than in Egypt; besides this Arabs say that Europeans are acquainted with few of the monuments concealed by the encroaching sands in the desert. Twelve miles north of Naga is a labyrinth of ruined buildings. The Arabs call it Massaurrat. The central building is one of the largest known edifices, being 2700 feet in circumference. Its columns are fluted but without hieroglyphics. (The Earth and Its Inhabitants--Reclus. Vol. I, p. 246.)


The two temples of Jebel Arden are covered with sculpture, representing the victories of a king who bears the titles of one of the Egyptian pharaohs. One of the buildings is approached by an avenue of sphinxs. The pyramids, temples, colonades, avenues of animals and statutes are still standing at Meroe. Their sandstone was not so durable as that of Egypt.

Eighty pyramids have been damaged by sightseers. Lepius with difficulty prevented the systematic destruction of the monuments of Meroe. Cairo was built by removing the marble facing of the Great Pyramid. Thus have many ancient ruins disappeared. The pyramids of Meroe do not compare with those of Egypt in magnitude, though they are more artistic. Reclus describes the two temples at Abu Simbel, that take their place as marvels of ancient art.

They are the monuments of Ibsambul. The southern temple is hewn out of the living rock. Before the gate sit four colossi over sixty feet high, of noble and placid countenance. All these colossi. are covered with inscriptions. In the interior of the rock, follow three large halls in succession and twelve smaller ones whose walls contain brilliant paintings. If you will examine the faces of these colossi in any book of authentic cuts you will find that they are the faces of full featured Ethiopians.


"Many temples succeed these as far as the first cataract, containing burial grottoes, gateways and towers. Almost buried in the sand, travelers find the ancient town of Mabendi, whose tunnel shaped galleries like those of Crete are still to be seen passing under the houses. We see Dakka with its gigantic gateways only possible of erection by the hand of the ancient Cushite. In the sepulchral cave Beit-el-Walli are sculptures representing triumphal processions, assaults, court and battle scenes.

These have been rendered more popular by engravings than any other. The colors of these paintings are still remarkably brilliant." (The Earth and Its Inhabitants, Vol. 1, p. 306.) The temples of Dabod and Dakka were built by the Ethiopian king Ergamenes. Many of these ruins and this art appear to us as Egyptian but as Sayce points out the little temple of Amada in Nubia built by Thotmes III in honor of his young wife, in delicately finished and brilliantly painted sculpture on stone, is worth far more than the colossal monuments of Ramses II.
"An Ancient Cushite.


RAMESES II, SURNAMED ''THE GREAT.''

From a group in red granite. Tanis. Photographed by Mr. W. M. F. Petrie.
Ramses cared more for size and number of buildings than for their careful construction and artistic finish. Sayce describes the building of his era as mostly scamped, the walls ill built and the sculpture coarse and tasteless. Even here in Nubia the monument of Abu Simbel forms a striking contrast. Wrought by the hands of Nubians it forms one of the world's wonders carved in rock. It is as Sayce says the noblest monument left us by the barren wars and vain glorious monuments of Ramses-Sesostris. (Ancient Empires of the East--A. H. Sayce.)


Meroe had an army of 250,000 trained men and 400,000 artisans when her rule reached Syria. One note-worthy feature was the enormous size of the city of Meroe. It covered an almost unbelievable area. The ruins that Pliny described had disappeared in Roman times, so ancient was their origin. That is why so little can be learned about Ethiopia by the study of the country today. The period of her ancient glory was too far beyond the ages of our times.

Hoskins thought the pyramids of Gizeh magnificent and wonderful in effect and artistic design. There were pyramids used for burial places at the site of Meroe. On the reliefs on the walls of the burial chambers the rulers appear purely Cushite. Calliund thought Massaurrat, a unique place having no parallel in Egypt, to have been a great college. Heeren thought it the site of the oracle of Jupiter, at whose command colonies issued forth which carried civilization, arts and religion from Ethiopia into the Delta, to Greece and to far Nordic lands.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says, "The Nubians are supposed by some authorities to agree with the ancient Egyptians more closely than the Copts, usually deemed their representatives." According to Dr. Pritchard, it is probable that the Barabra may be an offshoot from the original stock that first peopled Egypt and Nubia. It was the Old Race of the higher civilization that ruled Egypt in the pre-dynastic ages. It was from this nation went forth the colonies that spread civilization. This old race of the Upper Nile, the Agu or Anu of the ancient traditions, spread their arts from Egypt to the Ægean, from Sicily to Italy and Spain.

Mosso Angelo says that the characteristic decorations on the pottery of the Mediterranean race of prehistoric times is identical with that of pre-dynastic Egypt. Reisner in 1899 examined 1200 tombs in the Nile valley. He found the remains of a distinct race who buried their dead with legs doubled up against abdomen and thorax. This was an old Ethiopian form of burial, which preceeded embalming and may be traced through ancient Cushite lands.

Earnest and consciencious students, seeking the facts about ancient Ethiopia, find but scanty and unsatisfactory references in modern books. Going back to ancient records we find voluminous testimony. Out of this material the modern author selects what he sees fit and rejects much authentic history about Ethiopia. One book will tell us that the Ethiopians belonged to the Japhetic stock, in fact this is the favored theory; yet the encyclopedia says that Nubians are a Negroid stock. Others say that they are Semitic. There is a world of contradiction in modern books from an ethnological standpoint.

Without the untangling of these threads one must have a narrow and twisted conception of true history., In ancient days the African nations were proud and mighty. Cambyses marched against the Egyptians because their king had refused him a daughter in marriage. A stele in the British museum shows how the fleet of Cambyses was destroyed by Ethiopians on the Nile and the land forces succumbed to famine. At this time the temples of Napata were already in ruins.


Pyramids were erected for a long line of queens called Candace. The high treasurer of one of these queens was converted to Christianity under the preaching of Philip. To prove how lasting is the religious impression upon the heart of the Ethiopian, Abyssinia is the only great Christian nation of any importance in the east today. The Candace queens ruled over an Ethiopia that included Abyssinia, but their center was near Meroe, where they were buried. The Scriptures spoke of the treasure of queen Candace, accumulated from the merchandise and wealth of Ethiopia. Strabo spoke of a queen warrior of Ethiopia.

This line of queens was of a race type never seen among Egyptians. They had the pronounced Bushman figure. The renowned queen of Sheba, queen of the south, who visited Solomon belonged to this line of queens.

Ethiopia furnished the perfumes of the ancient world. "From Meroe to Memphis the most common object carved or painted in the interior of the temples was the censor in the bands of the priest. They worshipped the presiding deity with gold and silver vessels, rich vestments, gems and many other offerings. Various substances were used for incense but the most esteemed came from Ethiopia.

It was from these costly products that this nation derived much of its wealth that has seemed fabulous to the thoughtless. For the embalming of the dead, spicery in vast quantities was used. The Hindu and Egyptians use incense to this day. The Hebrews burned incense. Nineveh, Persepolis, the earthenware of China, all show innumerable forms of censors; Greece, Rome and on down to our day in Catholic ceremonies we find that the incense, first necessary to allay the odors of animal sacrifice, and finally taking its place, still persists.

In ancient days when the dead were buried in churches, the burning of incense was thought necessary to preserve men's health. For these reasons; we must recognize how enormous must have been the traffic to supply such demands. Early writers said that Ethiopians had fountains with the odor of violets, and that her prisoners were fettered with gold chains.

Considering the natural products of Ethiopia, her commerce, the strength of her armies, spoken of by the Scriptures as a thousand thousand, we find them a substantial foundation for ancient traditions about that nation. Another remarkable people of these regions were the Microbians, Herodotus describes the visit of the ambassadors of Cambyses to them. He directed his expedition against them because of their reputed wealth.

His spies brought presents to this king of the Ethiopians. They were a very tall race and the king was chosen for his great stature, They were a civilized people with their own laws and institutions. The spies brought a purple robe, gold and perfumes, and a cask of palm wine.

This king looked at their presents and despised them, he inquired how long they lived and what they ate. When told that they lived eighty years, he said, "I do not wonder that you who feed upon such rubbish should live no longer.

The Microbians," he said, "lived one hundred and twenty years and sometimes longer," their chief food being flesh and milk. This diet was evidence of civilization. He sent a message to the Persian king that filled him with rage, "When you can bend the bow which I send you then you may undertake an expedition to the Microbians."

The ambassadors were shown the "Table of the Sun," a meadow at the outskirts of the city in which much boiled flesh was laid, placed there every night by the magistrates. This seems a strange custom to the unthinking, but was a part of the commercial policy of the Ethiopians, a way by which the vast trains of caravans, that swept through the country were fed. At the table of the Sun, all who wished might eat. The ambassadors were next led to the prisons, where the captives, were bound with gold fetters. This was before the iron age. Ethiopia had a skill in embalming superior to Egypt.

The Ethiopian mummy could be seen all around and they were preserved in columns of transparent glass. The Egyptian mummy could only be seen from the front. In the sepulchers the corpses were covered with plaster on which were painted lifelike portraits of the deceased. They were then placed in the cases of crystal which was dug up in abundance. his report of Herodotus proves the Ethiopians in possession of laws, prisons, commerce, knowledge of working metals and the fine arts.
2
CHAPTER IV.

THE AMAZING CIVILIZATION OF ETHIOPIA.

At the beginning of the historical period of Egypt most inhabitants of the earth were rude savages. In western Europe and northern Asia the half-human Neanderthal lived in eaves under overhanging ledges and fed upon the untamed products of the wild. Outside of Africa, we find over the earth the rude stone tools of the first barbaric inhabitants, that mark the evolution of these races, from savagery, through long stages of development to the civilized state. In Africa we mud no evidences of this slow progress of man up from the barbaric state. The Soudan shows no evidence of a stone age.

The African seems to have passed directly to the use of metals without intermediate steps. The Semitic and Japhetic races upon the more sterile lands of the east, and north, as nomadic shepherds, were slow to change to the more settled life, that developed naturally in the rich regions of Egypt and the Upper Nile. Without agriculture they could not advance to the handicraft stage. Going back only three thousand years we find these nations still very ignorant. Semites made no showings of culture until the rise of half barbarous Assyria, which copied its arts and sciences from Cushite Chaldea. The Hebrews learned agriculture and building from the Hamitic race of Canaan.

Some one civilized race of prehistoric times had tamed the domestic animals; for when the curtain of history was raised we find them in attendance upon man. With the same infinite patience, this race developed wild plants into tamed fruits and cereals.

The Cushite was the only race that could have performed this service, for the other races in historic times despised agriculture. Nomadic races are fierce and impatient, they have a nature the opposite to habits that make for patient and perseverence, which are the steps to art and literature. Before the dawn of history Cushites were working in metals and they had perfected the tools with which we conquer the forces of nature today. Our masons tools are identical with those unearthed in Egypt.

Joly calls the three significant factors of progress in the life of man: the hearth, the altar and the forge. All three of these were given to the world by the African. The ancients said that Ethiopians first taught them the worship of the gods and sacrifice. The agricultural Ethiopian developed the idea of a settled hearth and home. He developed very early the art of smelting iron, which is found in the pyramids and gave knowledge of its manufacture to the world.


Donnelly points out that in the thousands of years since the domestication of animals, the historic nations of our times have tamed one bird. In the light of these facts, is it helpful to our development, that we blazen forth the boast that from later races has come the sum total of civilization? Ancient Africans yoked the wild ox, tamed the cow, the horse and sheep.

This is why animals play such an important part in the old Cushite mythology. Africans subdued the elephant as early as the Cushites of Asia. Ancient sculptures show the African lion tamed. These indefatigable men domesticated wheat, barley, oats, rye and rice, in fact all the staple plants of our civilization were fully developed so far back in the distant ages, that their wild species have disappeared.

Think how helpless we would be today without them. Reclus declares, "We are indebted to the African for sorghum, dates, kaffir, coffee and the banana, also for the dog, cat, pig, ferret, ass and perhaps for the goat, sheep and ox. The first African explorers, found the country covered with cattle parks, in which the natives kept thousands and tens of thousands of cattle of remarkable breeds, rare skill being shown in their handling.

A botanist of the, Smithsonian Institute recently traveled nine thousand miles through Africa, finding species from which valuable grasses, grains, forage, and fruit may be obtained. We are still reaping the fruits of the earlier zeal and genius that tamed the first plants. Ancient Ethiopians were wonderful agriculturalists. The melon and sweet potato produced there are far more delicious than ours. The races to which agriculture was not native present the spectacle today of crowding their populations into cities.


Ethiopians developed long staple cotton, millet, kaffir and Soudan grass. The, unusual size and flavor of African fruits were not the result of accident but of labored perseverance and skill. Primeval man gave us the gift of language.

Myers says, "Rich and copious languages were. upon the lips of the great peoples of antiquity, when they first appear in the morning light of history." This was of incalculable value to succeeding ages. They also gave us the alphabet. Baldwin affirms that the writings used by the peoples of the first ages of history were all derived from a common source.

The Phoenicians said the art was invented by Taut.

The primitive worship of the Ethiopians was pure. They worshipped one supreme being. Their rulers were priest-kings and at death were deified. As the ages ensued this extended itself in ancestor worship, which was original with the Cushite race. It flourishes on the African continent today. Ancestor worship spread over all the countries Which the Cushites conquered.

Frobenius, the great anthropologist, says, "Ethiopia is an ancient classical land. In olden days its inhabitants were considered the most pious and oldest of mankind. In many quarters Meroe is thought to be indebted to primitive Egypt. From a standpoint of ethnology, we must unhesitatingly reject this supposition. The Nubians possessed an independent and individual religion in the earliest known times, the cult of which impressed the Egyptians, who gave an account of it to the, authors of old." (Voice of Africa. Vol. II p. 621)


Champollion, the father of Egyptology, in his valuable memoirs declared, that the Lower Valley of the Nile was originally peopled from Abyssinia and Meroe. The most ancient cities that they founded were Thebes and Edfou. In the beginning Egypt was ruled by priest-kings, who reigned in the name of some deity. This sacerdotal class were overthrown by the warrior caste, whose chiefs raised themselves to the rank of kings.

This new establishment of power took place about 2000 B, C. Thebes under them reached the height of her glory. The Old Race of the first dynasties, the race of Thot, Amen-Ra and Osiris had turned its greatest strength in wider and wider circles across North Africa and up the coast of western Europe. To the eastward they had civilized the Mesopotamian plains and had swept on to India. Their relation toward Egypt became, more and more hostile, though full blooded Ethiopians still sat upon the throne. The idols of Egypt to the last detail were gods of Meroe.

Heeren says, "The best informed travelers and the most accurate observers recognize the same color, features and mostly the same fashions and weapons in the inhabitants of the Upper Nile as they find portrayed on the Egyptian monuments. The race which we now discover in the Nubian, though by loss of liberty and religion much degenerated; yet, which was once the ruling race in Egypt. This Nubian race did not come from Arabia.

Their color, language and manner of life were different. According to their own traditions the Egyptians were originally savages without tillage or government. They lived in huts made of reeds. A race of different descent and color settled among them and lifted them to civilization. The men of this race were the ancestors of the Nubians, who planted other colonies in opposite regions of the world, in Greece, Colchis, Babylonia, and even India." All of these regions had priest-kings.


There had been a rich literature in ancient Ethiopia, which endured until the time of Christ. There are now in existence more than two thousand Ethiopian manuscripts. The early Christian missionaries who entered Ethiopia considered it a duty to destroy all the ancient pagan literature. The two thousand extant are but a remnant of olden writings, which if in the possession of me world today would unfold many a baffling mystery.

The literature of Ethiopia that remains is almost wholly Christian. Nubia long resisted the inroads of foreigners. The Barabra knew what the entrance of aliens would mean to their land, but its confiscation and violence to their rights. Nubians mothers would drown or mutilate their daughters, that they could not carry away, to save them from dishonor. Virtue is highly prized among them today. Frobenius tells us that Nubians adopted Christianity as early as 500 A. D. Determinedly for a thousand years they refused to accept Mohammedism. When Islam began to persecute the Christians in Egypt, Nubia sent her cry, "Stay your hand," ringing down the Nile with both energy and effect. The Arab spared Egypt for fear of the Nubian.

The Barabra or Nubian hated the Turk and the Arab and were right in their determination not to let them enter their land, Which was blooming and prosperous but which later came to utter ruin. Sir Samuel Baker describing the Nile between Berber and Karthum said, that as late as 1862 the banks were crowded with populous villages.

The land everywhere was cultivated and produced heavy crops. Under the Turks in thirty years it had become a howling wilderness. Gaps in the bank show where wheels once stood, which have entirely disappeared.

Their channels have been choked for years. Budge paints a pathetic picture of the few inhabitants who remain, who are nearly naked and slowly starve for months. They lack sufficient covering at night, the cold being intense. These Nubians get up long before dawn and sit shivering, waiting for the needed warmth of the sun. They love their independence and are content to endure hardship.


700 A. D. Moslem Arabs overran the Delta and transformed the old Retu type of Egyptian into an Arab speaking fellahin. The old Egyptian intermixed with Greeks, Romans and Arabs, produced a physical type quite unlike the people of earlier days. Along the Nubian Nile ancient prestige prevented their onrush. The old Ethiopian empire with its northern and southern capitals, blocked Moslem progress for almost a thousand years. In 1316, this Christian kingdom was overthrown but the race loving Nubian peasantry clung to and still retain their Hamitic speech, which is the key to their origin.



After 1300 A. D. massacre was introduced to compel the Nubian to change his faith. Slave raiding brought inconceivable ruin. "Four-fifth of the population was destroyed and the greater part of this once best cultivated region of the world went back to wilderness. The cattle were killed, the young men slain, and the daughters of Ethiopia ravished."


A look at Ethiopia today in her ruined condition, makes it difficult for the average observer to receive the deductions of explorers, geologists and ethnologists. The great lapse of time has erased traces of a civilization that was decaying in the days of Cambyses. Many of the massive ruins and relics of those declining days as described in books are conceived by the readers to be products of the lower Nile, When they existed far up in Nubia. The museums of the world contain much of Ethiopian art that is labeled as Egyptian.

Ferlini in 1820 found in the tomb of the Great Queen of Meroe, a bronze vessel, the handles of which were ornamented with Dionysus masks, also necklaces, bracelets, rings and other articles of jewelry. Dionysus was the Bacchus of the Greeks, the Osiris of Egypt and a very famous ruler of the ancient Cushite empire of Ethiopians. These jewels and the bronze jar are in the museum at Munich. Ferlini was greatly surprised at the workmanship, which he considered finer than any to which the Greeks had attained. (Egyptian Soudan--Budge.)


In 1863, Marriette discovered at Jebel Barkal among the monuments, five columns of the highest importance, proving Ethiopia to have had a very important position among the Egyptian dynasties, in later historical times. These Ethiopian kings residing in Nubia ruled Egypt. One of these conquerors, Takarka carried his expeditions into Asia. He was doing no more than Ethiopians of earlier ages had done. European museums contain some of the monuments of Jebel Barkal. Groups of pyramids are near the temple.

In twenty-five structures at Nuri in interior vaults is a method of support, until recently thought to be an Etruscan invention. At the time of the Old Empire the population of Upper Egypt was Nubian. In the Sixth Dynasty Nubia was a part of the Egyptian Kingdom. In the inscriptions of Ethiopia the ruler is called "King of the Two Lands" and the symbol of the Uraei proves their authority over Egypt and Ethiopia. The pyramids of the Queens of Meroe show the authority of this line over the Two Lands. This was why Egyptian monarchs so often married princesses of Ethiopia. It seemed to strengthen their claim to the throne.


Late excavations of Harvard University in old Ethiopia have unearthed at Napata a royal cemetery more than two thousand years old. At Nuri they examined the tombs of twenty kings and twenty-five queens of Ethiopia from 660 B. C. to 250 B. C. The line of Candace was highly honored in Ethiopia. Their jewelry was very elaborate and purely Merotic in style and workmanship. At the feet of the Great Queen were the gods of the north and south tying the two lands together. The two lands that in their beginning had been one. The symbolic representation of the union of the north and south is found at a very early period in Egypt.

Her Pharaohs bearing the title, King of the Two Lands. Hoskins infinitely preferred the pyramids of Meroe for their elegance of architectural effect to those of Gezeh. He viewed the ruins of Meroe as the last architectural efforts of a people whose greatness had passed away. These rulers were fully Ethiopian in feature and hair. In their titles was the name Amen-Ra.


Some of the largest temples of Nubia were built by this line of kings and queens. The power of Tarkaka and Pankhi who subjugated Egypt is attested by the sculptured reliefs of the scenes of their battles. In XXII Dynasty of Egypt, the country having become so intermingled with foreign blood, the main body of the priests of Amen, who had ruled so long at Thebes, emigrated into Ethiopia. Favors shown foreigners so displeased the military class that they deserted in a body to Ethiopia, 240,000 soldiers. Pharaoh made overtures to them but they would not return. These were the former ruling class of Egypt returning to the land and culture from which they had originated.


The term Nubia was unknown to the ancients. Everything south of Egypt was called Ethiopia, the land of the dark races. Though the local traffic is small, a very large caravan trade still passes through Nubia between Central Africa and Egypt. The Nuba tribes of Kordofan seem to constitute the original stock. The Nile Nubas are closely allied to the Nubas of Kordofan who are admittedly, says Britannica (Vol. XVII. Nubia.), of Negro stock and speech, so the Nile Nubas must be regarded as essentially a Negro people. The Nile above Egypt has always hen occupied by this people.

Many Nubians are artizans, small dealers, porters and soldiers in Egypt where they are noted for their honesty and cheerful and frank temperaments. The native tongue is very sonorous and expressive. It is of distinctly Negro character. These Barbarians in Nubia are labored agriculturists, faithful, obedient, cleanly and Keane insists that nearly all of them understand arithmetic and know how to read and write.

Many Nubians recall the Retu type upon the Egyptian monuments. These people of old Ethiopia wear today the plaited turned up beard of the Egyptian gods and a style seen in Etruscan sculptures. Amen-Ra, from whom a long line of Egyptian monarchs descended, was an Ethiopian god. He was the most terrible of the Egyptian gods to look upon, with his blue-black complexion. Ancient Egyptians were so determined to represent him as black that they produced a singular black effect by laying on a dead black color and treating it with blue through which the black remained visible. The Soudan in those ancient days was considered as but a continuation of Egypt. The greatest of the Soudanese gods ranked with the Egyptian gods.

Thotmes III of Egypt called himself royal son of the land of the south. His son, Amenhotep, appears on the reliefs of the temple of Thelmes making offerings to the Nubian gods.

Reclus tells us that at Dongola, the capital of Nubia, is the ruin of one of the largest and finest specimens of ancient architecture. The columns are as elegant as those of Greek temples. The crests of the neighboring rocks are crowned with towers and strongholds and walls of ancient entrenched camps. Nubian castles differ but little from those of the Rhine. They were both built by the descendants of the Cushite dolmen builders.

These Nubian castles are the remnants of a feudal system similar to that of Europe. This system is still alive in Abyssinia today. In the Nubian castles the battlements, keeps and roofs are all broader at the base than at the summit and all the towers are conical. Ramses II built wonderful temples in Nubia, the rock hewn temple of Abu Simbel for simple grandeur and majesty is second to none in all Egypt. He built another temple to Amen-Ra at Napata. The Harvard expedition found the ancient Ethiopian kingdom had been called Seba or Sheba. It was that part of the empire from which the Queen of Sheba had come with rich gifts to Solomon. Josephus, the Jewish historian called her a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. This was in the ages when Egypt probably was the Two Lands.


CHAPTER V.
PREHISTORIC EGYPT, THE LAND OF WONDERS.

The native name of Egypt was Khem, the black land. The name came not so much from the color of the soil as the hue of the inhabitants. Egypt was called the "Gift of the Nile," because Lower Egypt was formed out of soil brought down by the mighty river. Without the Nile, Egypt would be but a desert. The ancient peoples seemed to know more about the sources of the Nile than later nations.

In our age Livingston explored the branches of the White and Blue Nile far into the highlands of the equator. The land through the ages has been raised by the deposits left by each annual overflow. Failure of the river to rise means drouth and famine. At the time of overflow Egypt is a vast sea with her cities on the tops, of continuous natural mounds. Numerous canals traverse the country connecting the natural channels. Egypt was inhabited in ancient days by two races or two distinct divisions of one race. Ancient records all testify that the ruling class in those times was the Ethiopian.

They founded the powerful priest caste. "This priesthood included the judges, physicians, astrologers, architects--in a word they united within themselves all the highest culture and the most distinguished offices of the land." (Biblical Literature.)

Calumet testifies, that from ancient accounts and from all recent research, culture and civilization spread into Egypt from the south and especially from Meroe. Egypt, ruled at first by several contemporary kings, was finally united into one great kingdom. A priesthood seemed to have governed the land.

The head of the state was a priest. The sacred books of the Hindu speak of an "Old Race," that came down from Upper Egypt and peopled the delta. They mentioned the Mountains of the Moon and the Nile flowing through Barabra. Herodotus says in his Second Book, "They say that in the time of Menes all Egypt except the district of Thebes was a morass, and that no part of the land now existing below Lake Myris was then above water.

To this place from the sea is seven days passage up the river." Diodorus Siculus says in Book Three, "The Ethiopians say that the Egyptians are a colony drawn out of them by Osiris; and that Egypt was formerly no part of the continent; but a sea at the beginning of the world, and that it was afterwards made land by the river Nile."

This testimony is corroborated by geology. Rennel after scientific investigation says, "The configuration and composition of the low lands of Egypt leave no room to doubt that the sea once washed the base of the rocks on which the pyramids of Memphis stand; the present base of which is, reached by the inundations of the Nile at an elevation of seventy or eighty feet above the Mediterranean." How remote, must be the period when Egypt was not the gift of the Nile. Renan declares that Egypt had no infancy because, its first colonists had been civilized in Ethiopia.
Sayce thinks Egypt did not begin with Menes, that when Abraham went down in Egypt 4000 years ago, the origin and meaning of the Sphinx was lost in mystery.


The Sphinx and the pyramids were symbols of some form of religion of the Old Race. Baldwin quotes from Diodorus Siculus, "The laws, customs, religious observances and letters of the ancient Egyptians closely resembled the Ethiopians, the colony still observing the customs of their ancestors." Egyptians in later days affirmed, that they and their civilization came from the black tribes of Punt. Some scholars seek to derive Egyptian civilization from some Oriental source. There is evidence that the culture of Egypt was not developed in Egypt from their traditions and their earliest remains.

It did not come from the north or east but must have been imported from the south for as Budge affirms, Egyptians had all the characteristics of an African race. Sergi shows that the discoveries of Flinders Petrie and De Morgan prove that prehistoric Egypt was not influenced by any Oriental civilization.
The primitive people of Egypt, as revealed by archaeology, dressed in skins and used rude stone implements of the stone age men.

They lived in mud and reed buts and hunted wild animals. We do not And any such rude beginnings for the race of the Soudan. From these people of Punt, came Cushite colonists bearing to the children of Mizraim knowledge of copper, bronze, cereals, oxen, sheep, goats, and brickmaking. The historic Egyptian rose probably from the union of the aborigines and the invaders. Sayce says that the ancient Egyptians had the elongated type of skull.

With the intermixture of later times the heads of the Egyptians have widened. The race of today has returned to the aboriginal mud hut on the bank of the Nile. In the days of Egyptian supremacy the cranial formation was Ethiopian. James Henry Breasted, world famous archaeologist, discovered in Egypt the studio of an Egyptian sculptor of 1400 B. C. It was called the house of the chief sculptor Thutmos. All the portraits were remarkable in that they were unmistakably African.

The early population of Thebes was Nubian. The reign of Menes was no nearer our time than 4000 B. C. One of the temple records call him a Theban. Thebes was settled from Meroe. Menes had been a priest of Upper Egypt, the older of the two countries. He made a change in the channel of the Nile. Many ages of civilization had preceded him.

Bunsen believed that the time preceeding Menes was greater than since. Lepius says, "Under the Fourth Dynasty, six thousand years ago, the nation had approached the highest development at which we find her, of which the ruins still bear witness. The admirable system of monumental writings showed its highest perfection in the oldest ruins. This certainly indicated a long previous development." This was the age when Egypt was under domination of the Ethiopians. The farther back we go the more perfect the art and the purer the ideals. The ancient temples were almost covered with inscriptions. So universal was education that even workmen wrote upon the stones.


Chronology as we have computed it, makes no allowance for the many ages through which Egypt must have passed to have reached the high stage of culture which she had obtained at the dawn of recorded history. The chronology of Berosos, Mantheo, and the Hindu sages, include ages of which other races possess no history and seem incomprehensible to us. These were Cushite races, the first men, and bring over a record of ages preceeding the Deluge. Their chronology is backed by the findings of science, which has shown that the earth is older than the puny period allowed by Usher's Chronology.

The Bible says that a thousand years with our God is as a day. Examination of prehistoric culture, reveals bat the rich languages, complex systems of religion, and astounding architectural achievements, which appear when the curtain of history was lifted, are proof that the earth is older than we perceive.


The priests of Sais said to Solon, "You Greeks are novices in all the knowledge of antiquity. You are ignorant of what passed here or among yourselves in the days of old. The history of eight thousand years is deposited in our sacred books, but we can ascend to much higher antiquity and tell you what our fathers have done for nine thousand years.

I mean their institutions, their laws, and their brilliant accomplishments." Baldwin points out that neither Solon nor Plato thought this improbable. The Greeks could tell nothing of their progenitors and but little of the Pelasgian race that preceded them in Hellenic lands. "There can be no doubt," says Baldwin, "that the Egyptians preserved old records of the early period of their history extending beyond Menes." This knowledge was lost to our times by the destruction of the Alexandrian library and the fanatical zeal which destroyed all pagan manuscripts.

Again the significant questions arise, why were the Greeks so ignorant as to their ancestors, and why did Egypt hold the knowledge of earlier Hellenic life? It must have been that the historic Greeks were but emigrants into Hellenic lands; that in prehistoric ages had been filled with the rich culture of another race Akin to the Egyptians. That the deluge did not reach this portion of the human race, may be the reason why Ethiopia was able to introduce civilization to the other races.

All of the races of the earth have their traditions of a universal deluge but the African. They may have brought over to us the knowledge of the arts and wisdom of the ante-diluvian world.. Reclus also declares, "All the marvels of Egypt were not tire work of the Retu. Neither Usher's. chronology nor the little country Phoenicia can suffice to explain that mighty and widespread influence of the Cushite race in human affairs, whose traces are visible from Farther India to Norway."

Egypt falls into natural divisions, Lower and Upper. Lower Egypt stretches from the Mediterranean to the limit of the Delta. Upper Egypt extends six hundred miles south of the Delta to the first cataract. The broad plains of the Delta and the comparatively narrow valley higher up, make up the divisions of Egypt.

In the primitive days Upper Egypt was wholly Ethiopian. Bunsen says that the early monuments reveal the primitive Egyptian, with head low and elongated, the forehead not amply developed, the nose short, thick, the lips full and large, the chin short and receding. In those days the rulers of Egypt were wholly Ethiopian.


Look at authentic plates of early Egyptian Pharaohs, they are undeniably Cushite. The Great Sphinx, emblematic of an earlier king, is the full featured Ethiopian type. Look at the astounding countenance of Cheops. The counterpart of such a face can only be found among Ethiopians today. He is a perfect representation of the Cushite Ethiopian race, that cast such giant shadows on time's dawn.

The Delta is a rich cultivated plain, which travelers describe as dotted with lofty mounds, under which lie buried cities. Here and there on the mounds are villages in groves of palm, where they may be above the flood waters of the Nile. Dews as well as rains are more copious toward the sea. At Alexandria, after sunset, clothes exposed to the dew become soaked as if it had rained.

When rain falls in Lower Egypt there is general rejoicing. The people assemble in the streets and sing. From the middle of spring one sees nothing but grey dusty soil full of cracks and chasms. At the time of the autumnal equinox, the whole country presents an immeasurable surface of reddish yellow water out of which rises date trees and villages. After the water retreats, we may see only black and slimy mud. In winter nature puts on all her splendor. Egypt is then a beautiful garden, a verdant meadow, sown with fields of waving grain.


Upper Egypt is a rich narrow valley hemmed in by mountains. It has a clear dry climate and is much healthier than Lower Egypt. The atmosphere has a brilliance, which is almost intolerable, and the torrid sun is unrelieved by any shade. This is all right for the races that can bear great heat.

Rain rarely ever falls up the Nile valley. Because of this scarcity of moisture, agriculture depends upon canals much below the level of the land. Their greatest need lies in proper machines by which the water may be lifted. This extreme difference in Upper and Lower Egypt accounts for the physical difference in the two race types of the land. The bronzed hues are in the Delta but the black hues are under the brazen skies of Upper Egypt.

In the Delta many diseases are prevalent, due to the weakness and poverty of the people and the insufficient food because of the exploitation of a rapacious government. The plague and dissentry cause many deaths. In Upper Egypt all is different.

Disease is not prevalent and the natives are comely, kindly and thrifty.
The Egyptian in general is simple, cheerful and hospitable. These are genuine African traits. The fellahs are a quiet, contented, submissive race. Amrou says, that they have always been toiling for others never for themselves. The love of the fellah for his native Egypt is deep and absorbing. Remove him and he perishes. He would rather die than revolt.

The whole family fortune is lavished upon diadems and necklaces of true or false gems. They have no other wealth. The Egyptian was made for peace, not for war, though his patriotism is intense, he has no spirit for conquest. The miseries of soldiers is a favorite subject for satire with Egyptian literary men. At the first rumor of war, half the tribe takes refuge in the mountains, until the recruiting agents are gone.

The armies of ancient Egypt were led and very largely manned in the days of her supremacy by the Ethiopian element, which today is much more warlike than the fellah. Egyptians make themselves cripples to escape military service. This would also lead us to decide that it was the Old Race, not these, who extended themselves over so great an area of the ancient world.

Because of mistreatment the Egyptian of today resorts to fraud, trickery, and subterfuge, that is easily detected. Nubians are frank and honest. We have every reason to see why the nature of the Egyptian can be no better.

Niebhur says, "When we reflect that Egypt has been successively subdued by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and Turks, and has enjoyed no interval of tranquility or freedom but has been constantly oppressed and pillaged, we need not be surprised that agriculture has been ruined or that her cities have declined. The population is decreasing and the inhabitants of this fertile country are miserably poor. The exactions of the government leave him nothing remaining to lay out in the improvement or culture of his land, and many unhappy restraints render it impossible for him to engage in any lucrative occupation. They are reduced to a small number compared to the Arabs who have poured like a flood over the country." The mass of Egyptians live in a mere hut or heap of clods dug out of a neighboring ditch. A few cakes of durrah suffice to nourish him.


Reclus says, "The Retu still greatly resemble their fathers, in spite of interminglings, the Copts are still known as the people of Pharaoh. Under the Ptolemies they must have been greatly mixed. The Copts concentrate chiefly in Upper Egypt. They possess whole villages to themselves. In the towns they are artizans, money changers, and employers. They marry later than other Egyptians and regard more the family ties and their children.

The old Coptic language, key to the hieroglyphics, is no longer spoken anywhere. Since the seventeenth century, Arabic is the general language throughout Egypt, simply the language imposed upon them by conquerors. Scribes and notaries are found among the Copts. They constitute the lower official class, and are decidedly voracious and more corrupt than the Turkish officials themselves. Copts are somewhat darker than Arabs. Their hair is of a soft wooly texture, their noses short and their lips wide. They are supposed to be the direct descendants of the Pharaohs and are about one sixteenth of the population of Egypt. Reclus thinks they do but little credit to those ancient sovereigns. (Africa, Vol. I, Reclus.)


Modern research is leading us to the belief that culture was spread in Egypt from the south, especially from Meroe. The country was first ruled over by contemporary kings, who were at war with each other. At last the common difficulties in harnessing the Nile united them under Menes 5500 years B. C. For a thousand years the capital remained at Memphis.

This was the Old Kingdom, the period of the Pyramid builders. Sayce found the shape of the skulls subsequent to the Sixth Dynasty different from those that preceded it. This was a period of absolute decadence and must represent the domination of some other race in which time the monuments are silent as to any true achievement.

It must have been during this silent period that Ethiopia turned from continued colonization in Egypt to send her swarms westward into the European continent and spread out into that broad band of nations that extended from India to Spain and in whom Huxley said there was a common origin. Sayce tells us in Ancient Empires that with the passing of the Old Empire the religion of Egypt became gloomy and that in art the light-hearted freedom of the Ethiopian was gone.

2400 to 2000 B. C. was the beginning of the, Middle Kingdom. This period is represented by the rise of Thebes, with its magnificent temples and its introduction of mysteries. A new deity Amen-Ra, god of Thebes presides.

It had been thought that Amen was not one of the gods of Egypt until this 11th Dynasty, but when the pyramids of the 5th and 6th Dynasties were opened Amen was there. The Pharaohs claimed to be literal and lineally descended from Amen-Ra. This was implicitly believed by their subjects. Let us seek to trace who Amen-Ra was. He was originally the god of Ethiopia.

Amen-Ra was Cush, the son of Ham from whom the Cushites sprang. He was not one of the oldest deities of Egypt because he was preceeded by the gods of the ages of Noah (Saturn) and Ham. About the time of the rise of Thebes his name from his worldwide conquests must have been entered into the cycle of gods; for Africans deified their dead kings. Undoubtedly descendants of the great Cush sat upon the throne of Egypt This is why his name and form appear in the 11th Dynasty and its line of kings assumed his name.

His became the predominent shrine of Egypt and its enrichment became the chief object of the Pharaohs. Amen or Cush was recognized by Egypt as its chief god. All the mummery of the world which tries to resolve the gods of old into anything else presents the height of folly. The ancients looked upon Zeus, Apollo and Osiris as persons. Amen-Ra was the Zeus of Greece, that was why they said the gods banqueted with the Ethiopians. He was the Jupiter of Rome. Zeus was king of kings because he was chief ruler in Ethiopia and over the lesser kings in his wide domains stretching from India to farther Norway.

Horus, Apollo, Belus and Nimrod his son, were recognized and worshipped by all Cushite colonies. In the sculptures the Negro types of Africa are the assistants at the festivals in Amen's honor. He, himself, was of the same ancestry. In the later chapters of the Egyptian ritual his name is in the language of the Negroes of Punt.

Women from Bedroom to Board Room

Women's Lib, From Bedroom To Boardroom
by Glenn C. Altschuler


When Everything Changed
By Gail Collins
Hardcover, 480 pages
Little, Brown and Company
List Price: $27.99

Read An Excerpt.Related NPR Stories
Author: Economic Changes Opened Doors For Women

Oct. 14, 2009Little, Brown and CompanyGail Collins was the first editorial page editor of The New York Times.
text sizeAAAOctober 14, 2009

In 1964, Rep. Howard W. Smith of Virginia, an 80-year-old ardent segregationist, tried to torpedo the Civil Rights Act then moving through Congress. To render the legislation absolutely absurd, the Democrat proposed an amendment adding women to the groups to be protected from discrimination.

The joke was on him. The amendment passed — and so did the bill. To make sure the ban on sex discrimination was enforced, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded and, in the blink of an eye, a women's liberation movement began attacking the traditional social roles assigned to the sexes.

In When Everything Changed, Gail Collins traces the transformation of the lives of women in the United States — in boardrooms and bedrooms — that ensued. It was, she argues, imperfect, incomplete and astonishing.

The first editorial page editor of The New York Times and the author of America's Women (2003), Collins is a masterful storyteller. Supplementing archival research with well over 100 interviews, she uses the memories "of regular women who lived through it all" to illuminate the public dramas of the last half century. Although she's clearly pleased with the progress women have made, Collins engages highly charged subjects, from "The Pill" to Palin, without grinding axioms.

She suggests, for instance, that the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was not ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures because supporters had "only vague explanations" for the actual good it would do. Nor did they effectively refute conservative Phyllis Schlafly's claims that it would result in unisex bathrooms, a merger of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and inclusion of females in the military draft.

Collins makes a compelling case, however, that although many women these days shy away from the label "feminist," the big story is not backlash. In 1960, women accounted for 6 percent of doctors, 3 percent of lawyers and less than 1 percent of engineers. Today, about one-third of the physicians, thirty percent of the lawyers and 9 percent of the engineers in the United States are women. College women now think about the work they want to do, not the men they want to catch.

Although women have come a long way, baby, Collins acknowledges that — in 21st century America — they haven't figured out how to raise children and hold down a job at the same time, or to keep marriages from cascading into divorce. Nonetheless, her splendid book reminds us that their moms created a world their grandmas "did not even have the opportunity to imagine."

Excerpt: 'When Everything Changed'
When Everything Changed
By Gail Collins
Hardcover, 480 pages
Little, Brown and Company
List Price: $27.99Chapter One
1. Repudiating Rosie

"Some of you DO wear a cautious face."

In January 1960, Mademoiselle welcomed in a new decade for America's young women by urging them to be ... less boring. "Some of you do wear a cautious face," the editors admitted. "But are you really — cautious, unimaginative, determined to play it safe at any price?" Mademoiselle certainly hoped not. But its readers had good reason to set their sights low. The world around them had been drumming one message into their heads since they were babies: women are meant to marry and let their husbands take care of all the matters relating to the outside world.

They were not supposed to have adventures or compete with men for serious rewards. ("I think that when women are encouraged to be competitive too many of them become disagreeable," said Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose baby book had served as the bible for the postwar generation of mothers.) Newsweek, decrying a newly noticed phenomenon of dissatisfied housewives in 1960, identified the core of the issue: menstruation. "From the beginning of time, the female cycle has defined and confined woman's role," the newsmagazine wrote. "As Freud was credited with saying: 'Anatomy is destiny.'

Though no group of women has ever pushed aside these natural restrictions as far as the American wife, it seems that she still cannot accept them in good grace. Most girls grew up without ever seeing a woman doctor, lawyer, police officer, or bus driver. Jo Freeman, who went to Berkeley in the early '60s, realized only later that while she had spent four years "in one of the largest institutions of higher education in the world — and one with a progressive reputation," she had never once had a female professor. "I never even saw one.

Worse yet, I didn't notice." If a young woman expressed interest in a career outside the traditional teacher/nurse/secretary, her mentors carefully shepherded her back to the proper path. As a teenager in Pittsburgh, Angela Nolfi told her guidance counselor that she wanted to be an interior decorator, but even that very feminine pursuit apparently struck her adviser as too high-risk or out of the ordinary. "He said, 'Why don't you be a home-economics teacher?' " she recalled. And once Mademoiselle had finished urging its readers to shoot for the sky, it celebrated the end of the school year with an article on careers that seemed to suggest most new college graduates would be assuming secretarial duties, and ended with tips on "pre-job hand-beautifying" for a new generation of typists.


Whenever things got interesting, women seemed to vanish from the scene. There was no such thing as a professional female athlete — even in schools, it was a given that sports were for boys. An official for the men-only Boston Marathon opined that it was "unhealthy for women to run long distances." When Mademoiselle selected seven "headstrong people who have made names for themselves lately" to comment on what the 1960s would bring, that magazine for young women managed to find only one headstrong woman to include in the mix — playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who did double duty as the panel's only minority.

"Women used to be the big stars, but these days it's men."
Nothing sent the message about women's limited options more forcefully than television, which had just finished conquering the nation with a speed that made Alexander the Great look like an underachiever. In 1950 only about 9 percent of American homes boasted a set, but by 1960 nearly 90 percent of families had a TV, and those who didn't were feeling very deprived indeed. Beverly Burton, a Wyoming farm wife, had been estranged throughout the 1950s from a mother who had once told her she was sorry Beverly had ever been born.

When her mother decided to mend fences, she sent Burton a note saying, "I hope this will cover the past" — attached to a television set. And it did indeed become a turning point in the relationship.

The postwar generation that was entering adolescence in the 1960s had grown up watching Howdy Doody, the must-see TV for the first wave of baby boomers. Howdy was a raucous puppet show in which the human performers interspersed broad physical comedy with endless pitches for the sponsors' products. "But all the slapstick stopped when they brought out Princess Summerfall Winterspring," remembered Stephen Davis, a childhood fan whose father worked on the show. The princess, played by a teenage singer named Judy Tyler, was the only long-running female character in Howdy Doody's crowded cast.

The role had been created when a producer realized "we could sell a lot of dresses if only we had a girl on the show," and the princess spent most of her time expressing concern about plot developments taking place while she was offstage. Adults approved. "The harshness and crudeness which so many parents objected to in Howdy Doody now appears to have largely been a case of too much masculinity," said Variety. But the stuff that made kids love the show — the broad comedy and bizarre plots — was all on the male side of the equation. Princess Summerfall Winterspring sang an occasional song — and watched.


The more popular and influential television became, the more efficiently women were swept off the screen. In the 1950s, when the medium was still feeling its way, there were a number of shows built around women — mainly low-budget comedies such as Our Miss Brooks, Private Secretary, and My Little Margie. None of the main characters were exactly role models — Miss Brooks was a teacher who spent most of her time mooning over a hunky biology instructor, and Margie lived off her rich father.

Still, the shows were unquestionably about them. And the most popular program of all was "I Love Lucy," in which Lucille Ball was the focus of every plotline, ever striving to get out of her three-room apartment and into her husband Ricky's nightclub show.

But by 1960 television was big business, and if women were around at all, they were in the kitchen, where they decorously stirred a single pot on the stove while their husbands and children dominated the action. (In 1960 the nominees for the Emmy for best comedy series were The Bob Cummings Show, The Danny Thomas Show, The Jack Benny Show, The Red Skelton Show, The Phil Silvers Show, and Father Knows Best.)

When a script did turn its attention to the wife, daughter, or mother, it was frequently to remind her of her place and the importance of letting boys win. On Father Knows Best, younger daughter Kathy was counseled by her dad on how to deliberately lose a ball game. Teenage daughter Betty found happiness when she agreed to stop competing with a male student for a junior executive job at the local department store and settled for the more gender-appropriate task of modeling bridal dresses.

In dramatic series, women stood on the sidelines, looking worried. When Betty Friedan asked why there couldn't be a female lead in Mr. Novak — which was, after all, a series about a high school teacher — she said the producer explained, "For drama, there has to be action, conflict. ... For a woman to make decisions, to triumph over anything, would be unpleasant, dominant, masculine." Later in the decade, the original Star Trek series would feature a story about a woman so desperate to become a starship captain — a post apparently restricted to men — that she arranged to have her brain transferred into Captain Kirk's body. The crew quickly noticed that the captain was manicuring his nails at the helm and having hysterics over the least little thing.


Cowboy action series were the best-loved TV entertainment in 1960. Eleven of the top twenty-five shows were Westerns, and they underlined the rule that women did not have adventures, except the ones that involved getting kidnapped or caught in a natural disaster. "Women used to be the big stars, but these days it's men," said Michael Landon, one of the leads in Bonanza, the long-running story of an all-male family living on a huge Nevada ranch after the Civil War. Perhaps to emphasize their heterosexuality, the Cartwright men had plenty of romances.

But the scriptwriters killed their girlfriends off at an extraordinarily speedy clip. The family patriarch, Ben, had been widowed three times, and his three sons all repeatedly got married or engaged, only to quickly lose their mates to the grim reaper. A rather typical episode began with Joe (Landon) happily dancing with a new fiancee. Before the first commercial, the poor girl was murdered on her way home from the hoedown.

"All the men become lawyers and all the women work on committees."

TV created the impression that once married, a woman literally never left her house. Even if the viewers knew that this really wasn't true, many did accept the message that when matrimony began, working outside the home ended. In reality, however, by 1960 there were as many women working as there had been at the peak of World War II, and the vast majority of them were married. (Young single adult women were, as we'll see, as rare as female action heroes at this point in history.) More than 30 percent of American wives were holding down jobs, including almost 40 percent of wives with school-age children.


Yet to look at the way Americans portrayed themselves on television, in newspapers, and in magazines, you'd have thought that married women who worked were limited to a handful of elementary school teachers and the unlucky wives of sharecroppers and drunkards.

Marlene Sanders, one of the very few women who managed to do on-the-air reporting for network television, left in 1960 to give birth to a son. "After about six weeks, I thought, 'I will go crazy,' " she recalled. She hired a housekeeper and offered a male college student free room and board in return for filling in when she, her husband, and the housekeeper were all unavailable. It seemed to work, but Sanders had no idea whether the arrangement was normal or bizarre. She knew no other working mothers, and there was, she said, "no public discussion of the child-care problems of working couples." One of the first articles she ever saw on the subject, she added, was one "about how I had this male babysitter."


If all the working women were invisible, it was in part because of the jobs most of them were doing. They weren't sitting next to Sanders in the network news bureaus. They were office workers — receptionists or bookkeepers, often part-time. They stood behind cash registers in stores, cleaned offices or homes. If they were professionals, they held — with relatively few exceptions — low-paying positions that had long been defined as particularly suited to women, such as teacher, nurse, or librarian. The nation's ability to direct most of its college-trained women into the single career of teaching was the foundation upon which the national public school system was built and a major reason American tax rates were kept low.

The average salary of a female teacher was $4,689 at a time when the government was reporting the average starting salary for a male liberal-arts graduate fresh out of college as $5,400. (Women graduates' salaries were significantly lower, probably in part because so many of them were going into teaching.)

Another reason the nation ignored the fact that so many housewives had outside jobs was that working women tended not to be well-represented among upper-income families. The male politicians, business executives, editors, and scriptwriters who set the tone for public discussion usually felt that wives not working was simply better.

After the war, Americans had a powerful and understandable desire to settle down and return to normal. Since they were doing so in an era of incredible economic growth, it was easy to decide that stay-at-home housewives were part of the package. Women could devote all their energies to taking care of their children and husbands (politicians, businessmen, and editors included). If some of them wanted a break from domestic routine, they could volunteer to work on the PTA or, if they were wealthy enough, the charity fashion show. ("It is a tradition in the Guggenheimer family that all the men become lawyers and all the women work on committees," said a story in the Times about some well-to-do New Yorkers.) Men were supposed to be the breadwinners.

A woman who worked to help support her struggling — or striving — family might want to downplay the fact rather than make her husband look inadequate. As late as 1970, a survey of women under 45 who had been or were currently married found that 80 percent believed "it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family."

The limited options for women who did work, and the postwar propaganda about the glories of homemaking, convinced the young women who were graduating from high school and college in the early 1960s that once you married, the good life was the stay-at-home life. Prestige lay in having a husband who was successful enough to keep his wife out of the workplace.

Esther Peterson, the top-ranking woman in the Kennedy administration, asked an auditorium full of working-class high school girls in Los Angeles how many expected to have a "home and kids and a family," and the room was full of waving hands. But when Peterson wanted to know how many expected to work, only one or two girls signified interest. She then asked how many of their mothers worked, and, she recalled later, "all those hands went up again." The girls were disturbed by the implicit message. "In those days nine out of ten girls would work outside the home at some point in their lives," Peterson said. "But each of the girls thought that she would be that tenth girl."

"I'd know we were getting the wrong kind of girl. She's not getting married."
Employers happily took advantage of the assumption that female college graduates would work for only a few years before retiring to domesticity. They offered up a raft of theoretically glamorous short-term jobs that were intended to end long before the young women would begin to care about things like health care or pensions or even salaries.

The sociologist David Riesman noted that instead of contemplating careers in fields such as business or architecture, "even very gifted and creative young women are satisfied to assume that on graduation they will get underpaid ancillary positions, whether as a Time-Life researcher or United Nations guide or publisher's assistant or reader, where they are seldom likely to advance to real opportunity."

First and foremost among these mini-career paths was being a stewardess. Girls in the postwar era had grown up reading books such as Julie with Wings, in which beautiful and spunky young women beat out the massive competition to become flight attendants. Along with teenage fiction about Cherry Ames, the inexhaustible nurse, the stewardess novels were virtually the only girls' career books around — unless you counted the girl detectives, who didn't seem to get paid for their efforts. Winning your "wings," readers learned, might require leaving behind an unimaginative boyfriend.

("Tug, there's a whole world for me to discover before I marry and all its people for me to know. I must follow the silver path for a while. Alone.") There would be difficult passengers and — according to the novels — an extraordinary number of airborne criminals. But the rewards were great. Within a few chapters, the heroine of Silver Wings for Vicki had attracted two new boyfriends, met a movie star, and helped the police arrest a smuggler.

In the real world, the job was a lot more mundane, but it was still virtually the only one a young woman could choose that offered the chance to travel. As a result, the airlines got more than a hundred applicants for every opening. Schools sprang up, offering special courses that would improve the odds of getting into a flight attendant training program. (The Grace Downs Air Career School breathlessly asked potential clients to envision themselves being able to "greet oncoming passengers at lunchtime in New York and say farewell before dinner in Minneapolis!")


Despite the fact that the American experience was built around women who ventured off to create homes in an unexplored continent, there had always been a presumption that a proper woman didn't move around too much, and there was certainly a conviction that sending a woman on a business trip raised far too many risks of impropriety.

Georgia Panter, a stewardess for United Airlines in 1960, noticed that except for the occasional family, her flights were populated only by men. One regular run, the "Executive Flight" from New York to Chicago, actually barred female passengers. The men got extra large steaks, drinks, and cigars — which the stewardesses were supposed to bend over and light.

Women had been eager participants in the early years of flying, when things were disorganized and open to all comers. But any hopes they had for gaining a foothold in commercial aviation were dashed when the Commerce Department, under pressure from underemployed male pilots, exiled women from the field by prohibiting them from flying planes carrying passengers in bad weather. Instead, they got the role of hostess. The airlines originally hired nurses to serve as flight attendants, but by the postwar era, trained health-care workers were long gone and the airlines were looking for attractive, unmarried young women whose main duty would be to serve drinks and meals.

Georgia Panter and her sister — who also became a United stewardess — grew up in Smith Center, Kansas, a Plains town so remote "we used to run outside if a car went by to see who was in it." When the Panter sisters joined United, they became celebrities back home, and the local paper ran a picture of them in their uniforms.

They quickly learned the downsides of the job, from the very low salary to the indignity of constantly being weighed and measured by "counselors" watching to make sure they kept their slender figures. "We had inspections often," Georgia said wryly. "Everybody seemed to think they should inspect us. Every department." (Besides limits on weight and height, stewardesses were required, according to one promotion, to have hands that were "soft and white" — a hint as to how welcome African-American applicants were at the time.) But despite the "appearance police" and pay that was lower than she had received working as a clerk for the University of Denver, Panter loved having the chance to travel.

She and her sister gradually accumulated enough seniority to allow them to fly around the world on their airline passes, and they found that single-women tourists were about as rare as female businesswomen on airplanes. "People were fascinated. They'd come up to us, talk to us, invite us to their homes. They thought it was so unusual."


The airlines tried to make sure their stewardesses didn't stay around long enough to become dissatisfied with their benefits or acquainted with their union. The average tenure when the Panter sisters arrived was about eighteen months, thanks to a rule requiring the women to quit if they got married. In an era that was breaking all records for early weddings, that was all it took to ensure very rapid turnover. If a stewardess was still on the job after three years, one United executive said in 1963, "I'd know we were getting the wrong kind of girl. She's not getting married."

Supervisors combed through wedding announcements looking for evidence of rule breaking. They discovered one stewardess was secretly married while the young woman was working with Georgia Panter on a cross-country flight. When the plane was making its stop in Denver, a supervisor met the flight. "He pulled that poor woman off," Panter said, "and we never saw her again."

"Hell yes, we have a quota."
Women were vigorously discouraged from seeking jobs that men might have wanted. "Hell yes, we have a quota," said a medical school dean in 1961. "Yes, it's a small one. We do keep women out, when we can. We don't want them here — and they don't want them elsewhere, either, whether or not they'll admit it." Another spokesman for a medical school, putting a more benign spin on things, said, "Yes indeed, we do take women, and we do not want the one woman we take to be lonesome, so we take two per class."

In 1960 women accounted for 6 percent of American doctors, 3 percent of lawyers, and less than 1 percent of engineers. Although more than half a million women worked for the federal government, they made up 1.4 percent of the civil-service workers in the top four pay grades. Those who did break into the male-dominated professions were channeled into low-pro?le specialties related to their sex. Journalists were shuttled off to the women's page, doctors to pediatric medicine, and lawyers to behind-the-scenes work such as real estate and insurance law.


Since it was perfectly legal to discriminate on the basis of sex, there was no real comeback when employers simply said that no women need apply. A would-be journalist named Madeleine Kunin, looking for her first reporting job, applied to the Providence Journal and was rebuffed by an editor, who said, "The last woman we hired got raped in the parking lot." She applied to the Washington Post and was told she was a finalist, then later was notified that "we decided to give the job to a man." After going to Columbia Journalism School for further training, she applied to the New York Times, hoping to become a copy-editor. "We don't have anything in the newsroom for you, but I could see if we could get you a waitressing job in the Times cafeteria," said the personnel director.

Sylvia Roberts graduated in the late 1950s from Tulane Law School, intent on having a legal career in her beloved home state of Louisiana. But the placement officer was opposed to women lawyers, Roberts recalled. Furthermore, "there weren't any firms in New Orleans that would allow a woman to apply." She eventually did find a job that the Louisiana legal community considered particularly suited to a woman — the clerk to the chief justice of the state supreme court. These days, we think of a law clerkship as a high-prestige post, but back then in Louisiana, people took the word "clerk" literally.

"My judge felt all women lawyers should take shorthand and should type," Roberts recalled. She lasted a year and then embarked on another job search, which landed her a starting position with a small law firm — as a secretary.

The belief that marriage meant an end to women's work life provided an all-purpose justification for giving the good opportunities to young men. Joanne Rife, a college graduate in California who was interested in industrial psychology, had a job interview in which she was pitted against a man with an inferior college record. "They asked me very pointedly if I was going to get married ... and you know I probably waffled around a little," she recalled. In the end, the male student got the opening and Rife was offered a secretarial job. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the future Supreme Court justice, went to Harvard Law School, the dean held a dinner for the handful of women in the class. He jovially opened up the conversation by asking them "to explain what we were doing in law school taking a place that could be held by a man."

Once hired, women had virtually no hope of moving up. A report on women in management by Harvard Business Review in the 1960s said there were so few such women that "there is scarcely anything to study." The idea that men were supposed to be in charge went beyond conventional wisdom; it was regarded by many as scientific fact. A federally funded study of college students' career objectives concluded that the typical coed "most easily finds her satisfaction in fields where she supports and often underwrites the male, such as secretarial work or nursing, or in volunteer work which is not paid and is clearly valued by the sentimental side of community attitudes."

"My name wasn't even on it."

Not long ago Linda McDaniel, a Kansas housewife, came across the deed to the house she and her husband had purchased when they were married in the 1960s. "It was made out to 'John McDaniel and spouse.' My name wasn't even on it," she said.


Men, in their capacity as breadwinners, were presumed to be the money managers on the home front as well as in business, and women were cut out of almost everything having to do with finances. Credit cards were issued in the husband's name. Loans were granted based on the husband's wage-earning ability, even if the wife had a job, under the theory that no matter what the woman said she planned to do, she would soon become pregnant and quit working.

A rule of thumb that banks used when analyzing a couple's ability to handle a mortgage or car loan was that the salary of the wife was irrelevant if she was 28 or under. Half of her income was taken into consideration if she was in her 30s. Her entire salary entered the calculations only if she had reached 40 or could prove she had been sterilized. Marjorie Wintjen, a 25-year-old Delaware woman, was told her husband's vasectomy had no effect on the matter "because you can still get pregnant."

Even when a woman was living on her own and supporting herself, she had trouble convincing the financial establishment that she could be relied upon to pay her bills. The New York Times was still reporting horror stories in 1972, such as that of a suburban mother who was unable to rent an apartment until she got the lease cosigned by her husband — a patient in a mental hospital.

A divorced woman, well-to-do and over forty, had to get her father to cosign her application for a new co-op. Divorced women had a particular problem getting credit, in part because of a widely held belief that a woman who could not keep her marriage together might not keep her money under control, either. (Insurance companies held to the same line of reasoning when it came to writing policies for car owners, theorizing that a woman who broke the marital bonds would also break the speed limit.)

Joyce Westrich, a program analyst, wanted to buy a house in New Jersey for herself and her two children after she and her husband legally separated. All the banks she approached turned her down, to Westrich's befuddlement, until her real estate broker "whispered ... in the manner of a character in a deodorant commercial, 'Maybe it's your marital situation.' " Although her about-to-be ex-husband's income was much lower than hers, once he agreed to cosign, Westrich had no further troubles.
"Men needed faster service than women."

The presumption that women needed men's protection in every aspect of life led to a kind of near-infantilization. Looking back on her life as a housewife in the 1960s, the writer Jane O'Reilly recalled that she had "never earned my own living, never taken a trip alone, never taken total responsibility for a single decision. The only time I tried to give a speech, I fainted. I had been divorced once, and lasted only four months before I remarried in a fit of terror. I had never gone to a party by myself, never gone to the movies by myself. I wanted to run away from home but I felt I had to ask permission."

When women ventured into the outside world, they often felt tentative, unsure of their welcome. And it was no wonder. The Executive Flight to Chicago was not the only service that barred them at the gate. The world was full of men's clubs, men's gyms, and men's lounges, where the business of business was conducted. Even places that were theoretically open to the public reserved the right to discriminate.

The public golf course in Westport, Connecticut, would not allow women to play during prime weekend hours, claiming that men deserved the best spots because they had to work during the week. Heinemann's Restaurant in Milwaukee banned women from the lunch counter because "men needed faster service than women because they have important business to do." Many upscale bars refused to serve women, particularly if they were alone, under the theory that they must be prostitutes.

Early in the 1960s, a freelance writer from New York, traveling to Boston to interview a psychologist for a book she was working on, stopped by the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and ordered a drink at the bar. "We do not serve women," the bartender said, and whisked her off to a little lounge off the women's restroom, where he brought her the whiskey sour. It was a moment Betty Friedan recalled with humiliation decades later, long after she helped spark a movement that made sure nobody ever got consigned to that lounge again.

Excerpted from When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. Copyright 2009 by Gail Collins. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.


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Recent FirstOldest FirstMost RecommendedHelen Gillespie (HGillespie) wrote:

I was deep into the era this book covers which taugh me that legislation is only part of the answer. Change and societal advancement are a result of individuals who are willing to push out of envelopes and smash glass ceilings. My pesonal heroine and ceiling smasher was Ms. Roxcy Bolton (Coral Gables, FL)

In 1971 I was barred enlistment to the US Army due to a sexist regulation. Due to her high-ranking military connections and media savvy, she was was able to change the Army Regulation and I entered the Army to encounter more sex/sexist challenges and eventually retire. Yes, baby...We've come a long way. Push on sisters!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 11:33:19 AM