Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 22, 2021
💭 Signs that Ethiopia govt using drones against rebels
☆ Washington has ‘profound humanitarian concerns’ -official
☆ Ankara says it’s urging negotiations in Ethiopia
☆ U.S. has clamped down on defence exports to Ethiopia
☆ U.S. sanctions on Turkey over sales a distant possibility
☆ U.S. authorities have taken issue with Turkey over its sales of armed drones to Ethiopia, where two sources familiar with the matter said there was mounting evidence the government had used the weapons against rebel fighters.
Washington has “profound humanitarian concerns” over the sales, which could contravene U.S. restrictions on arms to Addis Ababa, a senior Western official said.
The year-long war between Ethiopia’s government and the leadership of the northern Tigray region, among Africa’s bloodiest conflicts, has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions.
A State Department spokesman said U.S. Horn of Africa envoy Jeffrey Feltman “raised reports of armed drone use in Ethiopia and the attendant risk of civilian harm” during a visit to Turkey last week.
A senior Turkish official said Washington conveyed its discomfort at a few meetings, while Ethiopia’s military and government did not respond to detailed requests for comment.
Turkey, which is selling drones to several countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, has dismissed criticism that it plays a destabilising role in Africa and has said it is in touch with all sides in Ethiopia to urge negotiations.
Last week the United Nations agreed to set up an independent investigation into rights abuses in Ethiopia, a move strongly opposed by its government.
In September, the White House authorised sanctions on those engaged, even indirectly, in policies that threaten stability, expand the crisis or disrupt humanitarian assistance there, though there has been no indication of any such imminent action against Turkey.
The U.S. Treasury, which has broad economic sanctions authority under that executive order, declined to comment on whether sanctions could apply to Turkey.
The senior Turkish official said the foreign ministry examined how the drone sales might impact U.S. foreign policy as part of 2022 budget planning.
“The United States has conveyed its discomfort with Turkey’s drone sales …but Turkey will continue to follow the policies it set in this area,” the person told Reuters.
A second senior Turkish official, from the defence ministry, said Ankara had no intention of meddling in any country’s domestic affairs.
Turkish defence exports to Ethiopia surged to almost $95 million in the first 11 months of 2021, from virtually nothing last year, according to Exporters’ Assembly data.
DRONES IN ACTION
Ethiopian government soldiers interviewed by Reuters near Gashena, a hillside town close to the war’s front, said a recent government offensive succeeded following an influx of reinforcements and the use of drones and airstrikes to target Tigrayan positions.
A foreign military official based in Ethiopia said satellite imagery and other evidence gave “clear indications” that drones were being used, and estimated up to 20 were operating. It was unclear how many might be Turkish-made.
“Surveillance drones are having a greater impact …and being very helpful,” the person said, adding the guerrilla-warfare nature of the conflict made armed drones less useful.
Asked whether foreign countries had also supplied drone operators, the official said: “I know Turkish personnel were here at one point.”
Turkish and Ethiopian officials have not publicly confirmed the drones sale, which Reuters first reported in October, and Turkey’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for further details.
Ethiopia has also bought drones from the United Arab Emirates, which did not respond to a request for comment about possible U.S. concerns. Feltman was also scheduled to visit the UAE earlier this month.
TURKISH EXPANSION
Under President Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara has poured military equipment into Africa and the Middle East, including training of armed forces in Somalia, where it has a base.
The Turkish military used its Bayraktar TB2 drones last year with success in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting interest from buyers globally in a market led by U.S., Chinese and Israeli manufacturers. read more
In October, a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said Ethiopia was free to procure drones from anywhere. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week that engagement with Africa was based on mutual benefit.
NATO allies Washington and Ankara have strained ties over several issues including the Turkish purchase of Russian missile defences, and U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
The State Department spokesperson said Feltman had underscored that “now is the time for all outside actors to press for negotiations and end the war” in Ethiopia.
The Western official, who requested anonymity, said Ankara had responded to U.S. concerns by saying it attaches humanitarian provisions to the Ethiopia deal and requires signed undertakings outlining how drones will be used.
💭The Eclipse of June 21st, 2020 Cut Exactly over Iconic Lalibela in Ethiopia
Lalibela is one of the oldest towns in Ethiopia located in the Northern part of the country and was seat of the Zagwe dynasty that ruled Ethiopia in the 12th and 13th century.
According to scripts of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Lalibela is considered as the second holy city of Christianity following Jerusalem, due to its 11 monolithic rock-hewn churches.
King Lalibela, whom the town has renamed after him, has carved 11 monolithic churches hoping to create the ‘new Jerusalem in Ethiopia”.
King Lalibela was born on the same day with Jesus Christ; he carved fascinating Churches, and Lalibela represents his spiritual devotion.
The rock hewn churches of Lalibela, which carved out of rock in the 12th century, are inscribed by UNESCO as world heritages.
This annular solar eclipse was fully visible in Lalibela. This one was viewd from the exulted surrounding of Lalibela’s 12th century rock-cut churches in Ethiopia. Observers there could experience the “ring of fire” that is characteristic for this kind of solar eclipse. This was a rare and spectacular event that could only be experienced along a relatively narrow strip on the Earth’s surface.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on August 5, 2021
💭 “Lalibela Could be Destroyed by Fascist Abiy Ahmed | ላሊበላ በፋሽስት አብይ አህመድ ሊፈርስ ይችላል”
⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️🔥 Fears that the Oromo fascist Abiy Ahmed 😈 may destroy The Sacred Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela to blame it on the advancing Tigrayan Forces – to further harden the inter-Ethnic hostility between Tigrayans and Amharas.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on July 29, 2021
⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️🔥 Fears that the Oromo fascist Abiy Ahmed 😈 may destroy The Sacred Rock-hewn Churches of Lalibela to blame it on the advancing Tigrayan Forces – to further harden the inter-Ethnic hostility between Tigrayans and Amharas.
🔥 French Military Generals Say a MILITARY COUP MAY BE NECESSARY to Save The Country From Islam
Twenty retired French generals have called for military rule if Emmanuel Macron fails to halt the ‘disintegration’ of the country ‘at the hands of Islamists’, in an open letter published ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The open letter, published in Valeurs Actuelles, a right-wing news magazine, claims a military coup might be necessary to stop a ‘civil war’ in France.
The letter has been condemned by Macron’s government, who compared it to the failed coup by generals against President de Gaulle 60 years ago.
The lead signatory was Christian Piquemal, 80, who commanded the Foreign Legion before losing his privileges as a retired officer after being arrested while taking part in an anti-Islam demonstration in 2016.
It was written by Jean-Pierre Fabre-Bernadac, a former officer, and signed by 1000 others who were in lower ranks.
The incendiary letter reads: ‘France is in danger. Several mortal perils threaten her. Even in retirement, we remain soldiers of France and cannot in the present circumstances remain indifferent to the fate of our beautiful country.’
☆ “Signed by 80 other retired officers, as well as the 20 generals.” That is no small thing. It is not something a government would want to ignore..
☆ This is actually quite serious. To actually voice these concerns and threaten action is highly unusual. People must be very concerned.
☆ A military coup in Europe. Not had one of those for a while.
☆ Dangerous times
☆ It was always destined to come to this. Weak politicians have caused untold misery.
☆ Given France’s very long history of violence in revolution, I would never discount this threat. Not ever.
☆ France is a proud nation its citizens must be devastated to stand by and watch Macron and his party ruin the country with their useless policies,I can actually see this happening they have had one revolution why not another vive la France
☆ Just get rid of the CLOWN MACRON and put Le Penn in charge
☆ Our world is becoming a huge ticking time bomb, we may already have started our road to Armageddon.
Rock-Hewn Churches Mark Old ‘new Jerusalem’ In Ethiopia | Toronto Star
I’m in Lalibela, a small town cradled in the mountains of northern Ethiopia and home to 11 rock-hewn churches. Commissioned by King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela back in the 13th century, these places of worship had been created as a new Jerusalem for Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims. Now recognized and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, they continue to pull in people by the thousands from around the world, drawn to the biggest attraction in a country where tourism is on the rise.
I start the day at the largest of them all, Biete Medhane Alem, or House of the Saviour of the World, descending from ground level and circumnavigating the structure before we enter. Melkamu explains the basics as we go. We pass portraits of devotion — an impossibly elderly woman with a red-crossed hat reciting prayers, a man folded in behind the pillars of the church, doing the same — and Melkamu notes that Ethiopia had been one of the first countries to adopt Christianity. Actually mentioned in the biblical Book of Acts, Ethiopia adopted Christianity as its official state religion in the fourth century.
The churches here had been constructed at the direction of King Lalibela after the sultan Saladin captured Jerusalem in 1187. Carved from grey basalt and volcanic red scoria, “these were built by Ethiopians — with the help of the angels, of course,” Melkamu says.
It seems wherever we go, we see the faces of angels — Ethiopian ones —with beautiful round faces flanked by wings, staring at us from the ceiling, or from frescoes on the walls.
At Biete Maryam (House of Miriam), Melkamu pauses to kiss the doors before entering, then shows us the icons inside, which include ancient frescoes depicting the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt.
We also see priests everywhere, their heads wrapped in turbans and a wooden staff always at the ready. They gather together and walk past, reading and talking and, like everyone else, praying.
We see deacons, too, clustered and crouched against the round wall of a traditional tukul, with mud walls and a thatched roof, a mantra falling from their mouths like a sort of song, a stream of foreign words being lifted from the little scripture books held before them to the heavens above. “They’re speaking in Ge’ez, the ancient language of Ethiopian liturgy,” Melkamu explains. “These boys are considered deacons. If they pass the exams and get married, they will one day be priests in the church.”
In single day, we tour all 11 churches, clamouring up and down stone steps and crouching through tunnels and even once climbing up on a roof for a panoramic view of Biete Golgotha Mikael, which is said to contain the tomb of King Lalibela himself. We cross the Jordan River, now at the end of the dry season, just a sliver of green, filmy water. We make our way through dark tunnels and even visit Biete Lehem — literally, Bethlehem — the House of Bread, where loaves were baked for Holy Communion.
Exhausted, we make one final descent into the carved rock, the sun casting long, warm rays on top of Biete Giyorgis, the Church of St. George, the jewel in Lalibela’s crown, named for the patron saint of Ethiopia. We make our way down a small path into the crevices that surround the cross-shaped and intricately hewn church, slipping our shoes off, one last time, as we ascend the steps. We enter a church devoid of tourists, the priest’s chants cutting eerily through the silent space.
As I sit down next to him, Melkamu calls out to the man, asking him to give me a blessing. And just like that — before I expect it — his cross is on my face. I react poorly, giving a quick start, before getting hold of myself and settling down. I thank the priest and, at his encouragement, slip him a small bill for his efforts. No, it wasn’t a good blessing, but is there such thing as a bad one? Slipping my shoes back on, I decide that, either way, I’m relieved — after all, now, there’s no way I will have to go (back) to hell.
When you go
Do this trip: A boutique firm based in Addis Ababa, FKLM Tours (fklm-tours.com), provides tailor-made itineraries all over Ethiopia. Using local guides who know the lay of the land, as well as top-notch equipment that includes luxury Land Cruisers, many of its itineraries include at least two days in Lalibela.
Get there:Ethiopian Airlines (ethiopianairlines.ca) provides the only direct air service between Canada and Africa. About 13 hours (flying east, from Toronto to Addis Ababa), the trip is undertaken in Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, whose Cloud Nine business-class cabin includes spacious seats that fold into fully flat beds.
Stay: With both traditional rooms and large, rather luxurious tukul with patios that overlook a valley, Sora Lodge (soralodgelalibela.com) in Lalibela provides comfortable nights and good meals at its on-property German-themed restaurant.
Eat: In Lalibela, try excellent local or international cuisine at Ben Abeda (benabeba.com). Crowning a small mountain with a structure that looks straight out of The Jetsons, lunch or dinner here comes with 360-degree views of the surrounding landscape.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 3, 2015
“You see a society in which profound spiritual belief (Christianity came here in the fourth century) is interwoven into every aspect of life. Most people here have very little, but those you meet and talk to – and having a guide makes it easier to do that – seem rich in ways that many of us in the developed world have lost.”
Christian belief is woven into every aspect of life in Ethiopia, as Anna Murphy discovers when she joins one of the country’s most important religious festivals
You know you are somewhere very special when even a drive to the airport is enrapturing. It was our last day in Ethiopia, and we were on our way to catch an internal flight from Lalibela to Addis Ababa, en route to London.
We had been to Lalibela – one of the most celebrated stops on the so-called northern circuit of the Ethiopian Highlands – to see its stone churches. And remarkable they were, carved into and out of the pink-hued rock between the 12th and 15th centuries, both delicate and monumental, and still very much alive – full of priests and monks and nuns and hermits and worshippers, all of them wrapped in white, as every good Ethiopian Christian is when he or she visits church.
Virtually every day of the year there will be a church somewhere in Ethiopia celebrating its saint’s day, but it’s best to time your visit to coincide with one of the great Orthodox Christian festivals, such as Easter. Known as Fasika, it usually occurs a week to two weeks after the Western Church’s Easter. It follows eight weeks of fasting from meat and dairy, and culminates in a church service on Easter eve lasting several hours and ending at 3am. Afterwards, worshippers break their fast and celebrate the risen Christ.
My own visit coincided with Timkat, in January, one of the most important festivals of the year. It’s a kind of mass baptism in which locals gather early in the morning by their church’s pool (each church has one) to be splashed and sprayed with holy water. It was such a joyous thing to witness, as everyone – from very young to very old – excitedly waited en masse for jugs of water to be thrown out over the crowd.
But it is that drive that sticks in my mind. It was market day in Lalibela and, as our charming and indefatigable guide Sammy Tilahun told us, people walked from more than 12 miles away to attend. At 8am the road was packed, not with vehicles – driving around this vast, beautiful, often mountainous country, you usually have the road to yourself – but with people and animals on the move. Many of the women and children were dressed in the traditional embroidered cotton dresses, the men wrapped in large swaths of cotton, or – on a couple of occasions – bath towels (evidently something of a step up). Some were herding goats, others cattle with enormous horns, others heavily loaded pack mules. Some – usually women – were carrying vast Byzantine bundles of twisted firewood on their backs, or unidentifiable bunches on their heads. For them it was a long walk, hard work, but it was also a social occasion – people were talking, smiling, hanging out, step by step, hour by hour.
Those 30 minutes from the window summed up much that is wonderful about Ethiopia. You see a life largely untouched by this century, and a couple of earlier ones. You see a society in which profound spiritual belief (Christianity came here in the fourth century) is interwoven into every aspect of life. Most people here have very little, but those you meet and talk to – and having a guide makes it easier to do that – seem rich in ways that many of us in the developed world have lost. Of course it is easy, and distasteful, to be dewy-eyed. Poverty is everywhere. But so too is a kind of peace, contentment. This is a country that makes even an atheist like me ponder organised religion as a force for good.
But there were other, much quieter experiences that also helped make my time in Ethiopia so remarkable. Here is a country with incredible cultural riches, including religious art that to me in its sublime colour and creativity matches the Byzantine churches of Ravenna and the Chora Church of Istanbul. And it allows you an intimacy with art that is an impossibility in the developed world. In the Nakuta La’ab monastery, for example, built into a cave in the cliffs near Lalibela, we were alone with the priest, who showed to us and only us the pages of a beautifully illuminated 700-year-old manuscript with wide-eyed Madonnas and horse-riding martyrs, all rendered in dazzling reds and blues.
Again, at the incredible Ura Kidane Mihret monastery, on the shores of Lake Tana, we were alone in what was, quite simply, one of the most remarkable places I’d ever been. A circular building, one of the two favoured structures in the Ethiopian Orthodox church, its interior walls are covered with… well, where to begin? With the Madonna again, or saint Mary as the Ethiopians call her; with assorted other saints; with the two archangels-cum-dudes complete with Afros (looking straight out of Earth, Wind and Fire); with martyrs (40 of them, their heads in a row in the sea); with leopards and lions; with the disembodied heads and wings of a choir of angels; with the three Kings. The paintings are between 100 and 250 years old, and were designed to be “read” by the illiterate worshippers. They tell stories we know from our own Bible, but also those from the additional 14 books in the Ethiopian bible. One of my favourites, and one of the most important to Ethiopians, is of the saint Abune Gebre Menfes Kidus. He is pictured with fur on his body, flanked by the lions and leopards that are his friends; beside one eye is a little bird who drinks from the tears he sheds whenever he prays.
I could go on. And indeed one day I hope to: Ethiopia is such a fascinating country that I am already planning to return. To be continued…
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