The Ark or Tabot is the Basis of the Ethiopian state Formation
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Eritrea: Foreign Journalists Express Deep Impression With Peaceful Co-Existence of PeopleallAfrica.com
Asmara — Germany and Kenyan journalists who arrived here to participate in the 20th anniversary of Independence Day expressed deep impression with the colorful celebrations and the peaceful co-existence of the Eritrean people.
The German journalist, Dr. Werner Zeppenfeld, stated that the fact that a number of Eritrean citizens residing abroad arrived in the Homeland to participate in the Independence Day celebrations attests to the existing strong bond between the people and the leadership, in addition to the strong attachment to the nation.
He further explained that he has visited over 30 countries in Africa, but nowhere matches to the prevailing peace and security in Eritrea. Dr. Werner expressed desire to visit other parts of the country and that he would produce a program on the German media focusing on Eritrea's 20-year journey of independence, as well as the peace and security he experienced.
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Likewise, Kenyan journalist, Mr. Jeff Koinange, who works at K-24 TV Station, stated that his visit to Eritrea is for the first time, and that he found out Eritrea to be quite unique compared to 46 other African countries that he has visited. He further noted that the development accomplishments the nation registered in a short period, coupled with the prevailing peace and stability could be cited as an example.
Moreover, Mr. Jeff Koinange stated that he is highly impressed with the colorful Independence Day celebrations, and that he came to understand that Eritreans have a strong sense of nationalism, besides being hospitable. The Kenyan journalist went on to say that he would broadcast his observations about Eritrea in the K-24 TV Station.
Israel detains Eritrean refugee for 18 months because he couldn't prove his identity - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
The head of a custody court at the Givon prison has demanded that an asylum seeker from Eritrea validates his birth certificate at the Eritrean embassy, despite the risk this would pose to him and his family, Haaretz has learned.
The asylum seeker, who can only be identified as Ibrahim, came to Israel from Eritrea in November 2009. He was arrested a month later and held at the Givon prison in Ramle for a year and a half. The prolonged detention resulted from the Population and Immigration Authority insisting that he came, in fact, from Ethiopia.
After Ibrahim finally obtained his Eritrean birth certificate, Mani Pshitizky, a judge in the custody court, decided to have the authenticity of the birth certificate verified by sending it to the Eritrean embassy.
This requirement contradicts the safety guidelines of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR ).
"UNHCR strongly recommends that the identities of asylum seekers should remain confidential. This particularly applies to sharing identities with officials of the government from where the asylum seeker originates," an opinion submitted by the UNHCR to the Interior Ministry read. "The concern is that often people seeking asylum are considered as acting against their own state by seeking asylum and could thereafter be subjected to fines and punishment, further exacerbating their asylum claim."
Four days later, the Population and Immigration Authority told the court it was impossible to fulfill its request, as "approaching the consulate is tantamount to turning him in."
Undeterred, Pshitizky reiterated his request, which was yet again refused. He then ordered Ibrahim released, under the condition he himself approaches the Eritrean embassy to confirm his citizenship there, or leave Israel by May.
Despite this request, the court did not return the birth certificate to Ibrahim, prompting the We Are Refugees non-profit organization to approach the court and ask it to extended his conditional release. In response, Pshitizky ruled Ibrahim should arrive for an interview at the Interior Ministry's infiltrators unit, which will take his case from there. At the interview, Ibrahim was arrested. The authority claims he admitted that the birth certificate was forged.
"Ibrahim's citizenship was questioned, with the Interior Ministry consistently claiming he was Ethiopian. He was released by the court, which offered him an opportunity to prove his citizenship," the Justice Ministry said in response.
The Population and Immigration Authority said that Ibrahim attempted to escape during the interview, and eventually admitted he was Ethiopian, rather than Eritrean, and was therefore immediately returned to custody.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Operation Solomon 20 Years On
Synagogue door near Gonder, Ethiopia
Twenty years after Operation Solomon – Israel's dramatic airlift of Jews out of Ethiopia – normalization has almost set in between the two countries. Not only are Ethiopian Jews now being permitted to immigrate to Israel, but those who fled are also returning to Ethiopia as Israelis.
By Shalva Weil for ISN Insights
At the end of May 1991, plane after plane brought 14,310 Ethiopian Jews to Israel within a day and a half in an amazing airlift, as the future of Jews in Ethiopia and the future of the Ethiopian government known as the Derg, hung in the balance. The pictures that appeared over and over again on the world's television screens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, dressed in white traditional costume with exquisite hand-woven embroidery, silently filing into the airplanes in order to fulfill the dream of their forefathers of immigrating to Zion, remains imprinted in collective memory. The Jews of Ethiopia had prayed for hundreds of years to return to the land of their fathers.
In 1984-5, some of the Ethiopian Jews - then known by the stigmatic name "Falashas" meaning "strangers" or "outsiders" - had been flown to Israel from the refugee camps of the Sudan in Operation Moses. The head of the military junta, Mengistu Haile Mariam, refused to let the "Falasha" leave Ethiopia. So during the night, Ethiopian Jews stole into the Sudan and from there were airlifted out to Israel by the Mossad. But the airlift was stopped in the middle, after it became known that the Sudanese government, supposedly an enemy of Israel, was implicated. Four-thousand Ethiopian Jews had perished on the journey from Ethiopia to the Sudan, or in the refugee camps. After Operation Moses was terminated, the remaining Jews returned to their villages in Ethiopia and waited. From 1985-1991, a few thousand Ethiopian Jews tried reaching the "Promised Land" by other illegal routes. They wished to be reunited with their families in Jerusalem.
Then an obscure American woman by the name of Susan Pollack, the resident director of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ) in the capital city of Addis Abeba, an advocacy organization whose raison d'etre was "rescue", intervened. She went from village to village, primarily in the Gondar area of Ethiopia, gathering u p Ethiopian Jews and encouraging them to travel to the capital city of Addis Abeba with a view to emigrating to Israel. As the Jews streamed to the capital from 1990-1991, rebel Ethiopian forces headed by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Meles, Chairman of the Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which opposed the military junta of Mengistu Haile Mariam, were knocking at the gates waiting to take over the government. Negotiations at the governmental level involving the United States, Israel, Ethiopia and possibly other countries were held to release the Jews and airlift them to Israel.
Unsolved mysteries
Still fascinating today, 20 years after what became known as Operation Solomon, is the mystery regarding $35 million that was transferred from Israel to Ethiopia in exchange for the release of Ethiopian Jewry, in the race against time before the Marxist government of Mengistu Haile Mariam collapsed. At first, the representative of the Ethiopian government, Kassa Kebede, who today lives in Washington, provided the Israelis with an erroneous bank account number in New York; it was a bonds rather than cash account. More troublesome was the fact that the number was that of a private account and not an official Ethiopian government account.
According to Professor Stephen Spector, who wrote a book about Operation Solomon based on 200 oral history interviews conducted with experts on Ethiopian Jewry, Ethiopian Jewish activists, Israelis involved in the rescue and US Representatives of Congress, the correct bank account number may finally have been provided by Bob Houdek, Chief of Mission in the American Embassy in Ethiopia from 1988 to 1991, who then transferred the information to Israeli Ambassador Asher Naim, who later wrote: "It took Kasa more than two hours to finally come up with the correct number. We took maximum precautions to ensure that no one, but no one, except 'the legal government of Ethiopia' could touch the money. It was in an account that could only be released by the State Department's confirmation of a legal and recognized [Ethiopian] government after the London peace conference. We could only hope that the money would be spent for the benefit of the Ethiopia's [sic] poor".
In hindsight, one cannot help raising an eyebrow at the naivety of the Israeli establishment; on the other hand, without the transfer of huge sums of money to whatever source, the Ethiopian Jews would not have been transferred to Israel today. According to an Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, the money was inherited by the new Ethiopian government, and not taken by an individual.
The impact
As the last Jews flew out of Ethiopia, the Derg collapsed and Zenawi took over. In 1995, he was elected Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and re-elected for a second term in 2000. The results of the last legislative elections in 2005, were disputed by contesting parties and led to the death of 193 Ethiopians, but as opposed to some other African leaders, Zenawi managed to squash all protest. Violations of human rights are regularly reported by opposition parties, but the western world appears disinterested. The latest incident occurred on 20 April when Zenawi's representative in the Tigray region, Abay Woldu, with the aid of Federal Police, suppressed a protest with tear gas against the demolition of houses in the city of Mekele in Tigray province, which left thousands homeless. Nevertheless, against all odds, Zenawi has stayed in power for a full 20 years, and, despite the fierce war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in which thousands have purportedly been killed, Ethiopia has remained the most stable country in the Horn of Africa.
Whereas once King Solomon was visited by the Queen of Sheba, who probably originated in Ethiopia, today visits between Ethiopia and Israel are increasingly frequent. Whereas before Operation Solomon, there were no direct flights to Ethiopia from Israel, today Ethiopian Airlines has a monopoly on several direct flights per week between the two countries. Some of these flights are full of new immigrants, the so-called "Felesmura" , 8,700 of whom now have permission to migrate to the Jewish state. In the opposite direction, veteran immigrants, who may have arrived in Israel during Operation Solomon, are often flying to Ethiopia on "roots" trips, or for commercial ventures. The Jerusalem market, Mahanei Yehuda, is full of Ethiopian products from teff, the special nutritious grain grown in Ethiopia, to Ethiopian jewellery and clothes. Several Israeli Ethiopian Jews have import-export businesses, while others are embarking upon agricultural projects in Ethiopia.
Until 1991, Ethiopian Jews were not allowed by Emperor Haile Selassie, or his successor Mengistu Haile Mariam, to leave Ethiopia on the pretext that the "Falashas" were Ethiopian citizens. Today, 20 years after Operation Solomon, normalization has almost set in, and, in addition to the "Felesmura" who are now being permitted to immigrate to Israel, Ethiopians are now returning from the Ethiopian "diaspora" in Israel to Ethiopia as Israelis.
Dr Shalva Weil is Senior Researcher at the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and President of the Society for the Study of Ethiopian Jews (SOSTEJE).
Klau The ark of the Egbos
Klau The ark of the Egbos
The ark of covenant and other unexplained mysteries.
The ark of covenant, not Noah’s ark, is an important religious object. People have various theories of the where about of the ark of covenant. It is unusually for such an important symbol to miss without a trace. The ark is so important to the people of Israel because God commanded Moses to build it.
“And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: …And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: …And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat…” exodus 25: 10-22.
It is clear from the above statement that the ark is not just an ordinary object although it was made by men. This is because God said to Moses “And I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.” It means that the ark served as a point of communication between God and the Israelites yet it was an object made by man.
The mysteries and powers of the ark were mentioned in the Old Testament. The ark was so powerful that it takes special process to touch it or approach it. Even it killed the man that tried to stop it from falling down. The man only tried to hold the ark so that it will not fall yet he was killed. Some people in recent time claim that the ark was so powerful that it radiates light and because of that special clothing was used to approach it.
“And the philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer untoAshdod. When the philistines took the ark of God they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. Therefore neither the priest of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon’s house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day. But the hand of the lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with hemorrhoid, even Ashdod and the coast thereof”’ 1 Samuel 5: 1-6.
Dagon fell before the ark which shows that the ark is more powerful than Dagon. Dagon was humbled and destroyed by the ark. There are some mysteries which maybe difficult to explain. It is not an easy task to explain how the ark could be that powerful when it was made by man. Some people may claim that it is because it was commanded by God or it belongs to the Israelites. However, we know that some pagan objects are powerful and can do some unexplainable mysterious things. Those in the mysteries know that there are mysteries which are not open for all because it could not be understood or it is dangerous.
There is a small kingdom called Abiriba in Abia state Nigeria. They have a God which their fathers solely worshipped before the advent of Christianity. The name of the God is “Kalu” and because the place it is located within the community is called “Ndi Ebe” therefore the God is called ‘Kalu Ndi Ebe.” The God is said to be known by other names by other people. For instance, it is said that the Igbo call it “Amadi oha” while the Yoruba’s have their own name for it. Generally, people call it the “God of thunder” or “the God of Justice.”
During theNigeriacivil war, the Nigerian army was said to set Ndi Ebe on fire which is where the “Kalu” was situated. Every house burnt even a fresh tree close to the alter of ‘Kalu” burnt but the alter, itself, did not burn. The Nigerian army took the main object, just like the ark, which is used by the priest and which people usually see as the Kalu. The object is just irons in a type of bag so, they said. They tried to burn the bag and its content but it radiated the light and used thunder to kill the men. They abandoned it and even some of them came back after the war to admire the God.
Unfortunately the military men did not know that because the God works with light so even the owners of the God do not come close it with light. If by mistake anyone goes close to it with any form of light it will alert the people by radiating the light into their houses and the people will shout, as in unison, “who is it that goes with a light.” There are many mysteries that the God posses which has made it wise that a book be dedicate to it in due time. For instance the God, it is said, could cut down a long tree very close to it and bring it down in a way that it will not touch or spoil his alter. It can reject some eggs given to it as gift if the giver does not meet a certain demand. Normally, the through the eggs above somewhere and if it is the one he wants then he will break it will it was still on the air. But if it is an egg he wants to reject then the eggs will not break, no matter that it hits on a hard surface, rather it will bounce like a football.
People usually go to the God for justice which it does not fail to kill anyone found guilty of a crime especially if the offender fails to confess the crime. There are many such gods and mysteries in Africa and other parts of the world. It is because of the fast and immediate justice that the old African gods can grant that crime was less. That is why some African scholars are of the opinion that the advent of Christianity caused more harm than good because of increase crime rate and disrespect by the youth. This is because of the doctrine of judgment in heaven, forgiveness, and mercy which modern religion showcased. However, the writer thinks that it is not Christianity or any other religion that is the problem but the failure of the people to live in the true spirit of modern religion and what it teaches. Consequently, people commit crime while they are members of various religions because God is now slow to anger.
‘Kalu Ndi Ebe” is still in its rightful position and location even till the present day although the people of the community rarely go to it because of the modern religion. This is because it is now seen as an idol so only those few that are not ashamed of being called pagans still go to it openly while others, even members of modern religion, go to it secretly when they need justice.
The ark of covenant is a mysterious object and as such it is unusual that people do not know its way about. Maybe it is protected somewhere or it is actually lost but even if it is lost, the world should know where and when it was lost because it is one of the most powerful and mysterious religious object that is widely known .
There are many unexplained mysteries and powers like the mystery and power of the ark of covenant. Is the power actually possessed by the objects or the gods used the objects to show their powers? Let us not forget that some people have a human bullet proof by which their body can ward off bullets.That is mysteries the world ( science) has failed to explain and it explantion can only be found by going beyond science
Friday, May 20, 2011
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