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In February we saw ‘civil society’ start to demand corporations abandon oppressive and destructive practices. Well, that trend continued through March; unfortunately, it seems to have been more chest pounding than anything… It was as if everyone sat around a campfire, talking about far off things while a fire raged a foot to their backside. Integrity what? Responsibility who? “No, no no. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re not the problem. We’re not the enemy.”

And so, desperately clinging to myth and hypocrisy, the so-called business community pushed on, doing everything to …

The Festival of a Thousand Stars is a celebration of music and culture for Southern Ethiopia, home to more than 55 distinct Indigenous Peoples. It is held every December in Arba Minch, the centre of the Rift valley.

In the video below you will find footage from the 2005 festival which brought together 500 performers and some 40,000 visitors. According to Gughe Indigenous Art and Music Association, the festival organizers, last year’s festival “involved over 1000 performers representing more than 56 ethno-linguistic groups from all over the south of Ethiopia… Many came from very remote areas. The event attracted well over …

It was pretty much ‘business as usual’ for the month of February. Corporations continued acting as innocent third parties while Governments continued to demand indigenous People allow the theft of their lands and destruction of their cultures without question. “It’s in your best interests,” we’re told. “It’s for the greater good.”

Amidst this however, there was one important shift in the world this month–one that we can only hope will catch on in greater force. Governments began pulling back the reins of development, and a few corporations and Shareholders started withdrawing from and speaking …

Things are getting worse for the world’s indigenous people. It’s no longer a matter of a few companies doing whatever they want to gut a region at the direct expense of a culture, or about some government that’s more than willing to crush down a people so the company can do it without interruption. The problem is that it’s being done more and more and more. It’s developmental genocide on a global scale and it won’t be letting up anytime soon.

And so I echo the Zapatista call for us …

We must realize that we are infected by a widely spreading virus which requires one shot to cure–that shot is our UNITY - By Obang Metho, January 27, 2007

What lessons have we Ethiopians learned in 2006? Perhaps more than we realize! I will start with myself.

As you all know, I, Obang Metho, am not a member of any political party. As I have said it many times, party membership is not my intention, neither is it the intention of our organization, the Anuak Justice Council. However, some people may wonder why the AJC speaks regularly about the political situation in …

International Human Rights Clinic documents atrocities committed against Anuak civilians by Ethiopian military
December 18, 2006

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Soldiers in the Ethiopian military have killed, raped, and otherwise abused hundreds of Anuak civilians in the Gambella region of the country, the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program said last week.

The IHRC is releasing a report tomorrow entitled “We are now hoping for death (pdf)”: Violence and Grave Human Rights Abuses in Gambella, Ethiopia. It documents potential war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF). It also examines retaliatory attacks …