Ethiopia at an internet crisis

Israel Endale owns and operates Blue Broadband, an Internet café on the second floor of Friendship City Center on Bole Road. He provides Internet connections on 12 computers through a 256 kilobytes per second (kbs) connection he subscribes to from the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) for 4,000 Br a month. He is among the many businesspeople who have opened up Internet cafés in Addis Abeba but are complaining about the persistent problem in connectivity over the last couple of months. “I used to earn on average of 500 Br a day, which recently dwindled to 200 Br, due to bad connection,” he said. “As a result, I am only making 6,000 Br a month, which is half of the 12,000 Br I pay for rent.” The connection problem is not only limited to fixed line broadband; people who use ETC’s wireless CDMA network are also complaining. Amnon Teshome, 23, has been running an Internet café for the past six years. He recently moved his business to Little Mogadishu, on Rwanda Street, an area where a lot of Somalis reside. He also changed his connection to EVDO, one of the services offered through the CDMA network but has recently found the connection problem to be too costly to run his business. “I moved here because I thought I could get a lot of business as most of the Somalis who live here constantly keep in touch with their families and friends through the Internet,” Amnon told Fortune. “EVDO is too expensive just to have if I do not make money with it from the café.” Dialup Internet, let alone broadband, was a luxury 10 years ago. Only organisations like the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the then Organisation for African Unity (OAU), and a few non-governmetnal organisations (NGOs) with their own satellites had access to the Web. In January 1997, Ethiopia, through the state monopoly the ETC, joined the world of the Internet. Since then, a slew of customers, albeit slowly at first, have subscribed to the 56kbs connection, and gradually the broadband connection. Even this was limited to people who had businesses and owned computers. Since 2002, when ETC started allowing the establishment of Internet cafés, access to the Internet has been made available to the public from 10 cents per minute of use, depending on the establishment. Israel has been involved in Internet cafés in various locations, and even in Dire Dawa, for a number of years. He has upgraded from a dialup connection to a fixed line broadband connection in order to attract customers by offering a reduced price. He is not the only one who has moved from using dialup to broadband. Many new and existing customers of ETC have migrated to its new CDMA broadband connection that was implemented by the Chinese telecom company, Zhong-Xing Telecomunications Equipment (ZTE). In 2007, ETC and ZTE signed a contract to implement the CDMA network, which was made available to the public in 2009. “The subscription rate for the CDMA 1x and EVDO services is too fast and it has gone far beyond both ETC’s and our expectations when we signed the contract in 2007,” said Zhang Yanmeng, chief executive officer (CEO) of ZTE. Like the fixed line broadband, CDMA users have also been experiencing trouble getting the bandwidth they paid for. ETC offers two types of connections: CDMA 1x and EVDO, through CDMA. The 1x service promises on average of 70kbs, while EVDO offers a 300 to 700kbs connection. Subscribers use the 30 base transmission stations (BTSs) for the CDMA network located around the capital to share the 3.1 megabytes per second (mbs) connection available on each. “The CDMA BTS, constructed according to the original expectation, became far too little to carry so many customers,” Yanmeng told Fortune in his office, located on Sevita Building on Bole Road. “Here at the office, around 30 people use the BTS located at the Bole Airport. If you add that to the other customers currently connected through that, the connection becomes very slow.” The connection on one of the computers using EVDO at the office, which is supposed to get at least 300kbs, was connected at 56kbs - equal to what one would get on a dialup connection. By July 2010, subscribers to EVDO increased to 6,679 and CDMA 1x to 47,073 from 304 and 2,359 subscribers, respectively, a year ago, according to data obtained from ZTE. “ZTE and ETC have agreed to construct more CDMA BTSs to solve the bottleneck,” Yanmeng said. “We are sure that CDMA customers will feel much better after the BTS expansion.” At the moment, owners and customers are far from feeling good. Internet cafés used to be a somewhat profitable business but depends on providing uninterrupted use of the service to customers. However, many owners who pay for fixed line and wireless broadband have recently been suffering due to the lack of dependability of the connection. Many of the owners have to deal with a loss of revenue, not only from the lack of connection, but the loss of their frequent customers who, being unable to get their usual service, move on to other centres. “My monthly expense is 3,000 Br but my income has been below 2,000 Br,” said Amnon, who tries to make up for the loss by doing PC maintenance, selling software, and designing some advertisements and promotions. “Had it not been for these, I would not have stayed in the Internet café business.” Unlike Amnon and Israel, Alemtsehay Solomon, owner of Sunshine Business Center, located around Mexico Square, does not have to worry about rent because the place she uses for her business is owned by her family. “My brother used to have a similar business a little farther from here, but he had to close the shop because he could not pay his rent and nor a profit due to the connection problem,” Alemtsehay, whose only expense is the 4,070 Br she pays to ETC for an EVDO connection, told Fortune. The state owned telecom monopoly has long been under fire for the voice and data services it offers customers. Over the years, it has contracted different international vendors to lay down both its mobile and Internet connections. Since 2007, ZTE has been constructing and implementing its network. ETC’s network for data and voice, which was running on Cisco’s network, whose capacity was almost used up, has been replaced with a new network called Internet Protocol Next Generation Network (IP NGN) by ZTE. This has enabled ETC to offer more services and add new customers in the past couple of years. Bottlenecks in the access layer and Internet gateway are still not solved, one reason for the complaints from customers in the speed of and access to the Web. Like the CDMA network, the fixed line broadband offered by ETC has bottleneck problems, among others. The Internet connection from Ethiopia connects to the international gateway through fibre optic cables laid to Djibouti and Sudan as well as one satellite. Although the cables have a capacity to transfer 10mb of data and voice per second, the bandwidth that ETC bought has only 2x622mb on the sea cable from Djibouti and 3x155mb on the cable from Sudan, while the satellite connection has 80mb. “Although the IP core fibre optic cable has a huge capacity, the connection from the customer to the core fibre and from the core fibre to the Internet is still narrow,” Yanmeng, who has been overseeing ZTE’s project in Ethiopia, said. The narrowness of data transmission capability on both sides has been unable to meet the demand from customers as the connection, which was established mainly to check emails, evolves. Many people, empowered through Internet cafés and ownership of PCs, are now constantly browsing the Web. Social network sites like Facebook, My Space, and Hi5 and informational ones like Wikipedia and soccer web sites are among the most popular ones outside of yahoo, hotmail, and gmail, according to the Internet café owners. Daniel Asrade frequents Sunshine Business Center to keep in touch with his girlfriend who lives in Canada. He uses Facebook to chat and Yahoo to email her. He complains that the connection problem usually has him sitting in front of the computer without an uninterrupted or fast connection. “There are times that I pay 20 to 30 Br without even having talked to my girlfriend as much as I would like to,” he told Fortune. “Even though the connection is terrible, I always insist on paying, but the owners do not let me as I am a frequent customer.” However, not all the Internet connection problems are caused by narrow bandwidth as there is an interruption in connection whenever the fibre optic cables are cut. “The cables are not buried as deep as they should be,” Yanmeng said about the fibre optic cables that were laid by a previous vendor which he claims are only buried as deep as 50cm. “The one going out to Sudan through Bahir Dar is constantly being cut by road constructions. We had to replace 200km of that cable ourselves and bury it 1.2 metres deep.” Some of the connection problems related with speed would be solved once the copper cable connections to the new IP NGN network are migrated from the previous Cisco network, according to Yanmeng. Unless the bandwidth to the international gateway is increased, the same problem might persist, he said.

By HAILU TEKLEHAIMANOT and ADERAJEW ASFAW, FORTUNE STAFF WRITERS.

Ethiopia to Register 45,000 Officials' Wealth

Editors Note:In a hectic and wider move,the regime in Ethiopia is gonna start registering the wealth of its own officials hierarchically to the bottomladder of the leadership.Who would be arrested among these 45 thousand officials for '' amassing illegal wealth cum corruption''? What prognosis will this registration process have on the planned officials reshuffles(comprehensive re organisation) of the Party/regime?

Speaking on a discussion forum this morning (August 20, 2010) with the media, the Commission’s Ethics Education and Communication Affairs Director, Birhanu Assefa, noted that the registration at federal level will begin in November 2010.

“The commission has been working with a foreign consultant firm and we are now finalizing the preparation to start the registration,” he said. Birhanu who stated that registration process includes verification of the wealth of individuals, which will be registered, said the registration will take place every two years.

It was in March 30, 2010 that Ethiopian Parliament has passed the wealth registration proclamation, which has been the pipeline for several years.

According to Girma Worku, the Commission’s Head of Legal Services, all civil servants are not expected to get registered their wealth. “We only focus on the civil servants who are in positions of making decision on resources of the country,” he said.Girma in his presentation indicated that other than the high-level government officials and ministers, the commission will register wealth of lawyers, prosecutors, traffic polices and other decision makers in different government offices.

All individuals whose wealth will be registered by the commission are also expected to notify income source of their families during the registration.

Individuals who tip to the commission about the hidden wealth of government officials, employees and constituencies, the tipsters will be rewarded 25 percent value of the hidden and found property if the tips are found to be true, according to the proclamation.

The annual report of the commission for the fiscal year 2008/09 (July 8, 2008 to July 7, 2009) indicated that it has received a total of 2286 corruption related complaints (787 less than the previous year) out of which 1212 were reports within the commission’s mandate.

Although the number of reports during the reporting period dropped, the proportion that comprises corruption matter increased to 53% compared to 41% the previous budget year.

“This may be an indicator of increasing public awareness and understanding of the commission’s jurisdiction,” the report assumed. The Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission was established in May 2001.

(www.newbusinessethiopia.com).

Happy Birth Day Emyeee Menelik II

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KING !!! TO ME EMYEEE MENELIK IS THE MOST EXCEPTIONAL KING IN OUR HISTORY.MAY OUR LORD BLESS HIS SOUL AND SEND US HIS REPLICA!!!

Emperor Menelik II GCB, GCMG, (Ge'ez ምኒልክ) baptized as Sahle Maryam WAS BORN ON 17 August 1844 ,in Angolela AND DIED ON 12 December 1913. He was Negus/King of Shewa (1866-1889), then Nəgusä Nägäst of Ethiopia from 1889 to his death.

Is Huntington the source of our mess?

Samuel P. Huntington

By Ankober

How many of you know Huntington?

Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927 – December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist who gained wider prominence through his Clash of Civilizations (1993, 1996) thesis of a post-Cold War new world order. He graduated with distinction from Yale University at age 18, served in the U.S. Army, earned his Master's degree from the University of Chicago, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University where he began teaching at age 23.

The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.This theory ended up being a book in 1993,96.

The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

This guy had consulted many regimes in the world in how to draft their constitutions,polices and legislations.From Brazil to Ethiopia.In the 1970s, Huntington applied his theoretical insights as an advisor to governments, both democratic and dictatorial. In 1972, he met with Medici government representatives in Brazil; a year later he published the report "Approaches to Political Decompression", warning against the risks of a too-rapid political liberalization, proposing graduated liberalization, and a strong party state modeled upon the image of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). After a prolonged transition, Brazil became democratic in 1985.

But his advisory sounds to have brought an obliteration in our case.

As to Abiyu Geleta(2000)In a study sponsored by the USAID-Ethiopia in May 1993 to assist preparation of TPLF's constitution for Ethiopia, Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington advised the regime that "a dominant party democratic system" "might be possible and would be desirable" to maintain the regime in power. A reminder included in the Machiavellian advice by the professor was that "constitutions and the institutions they create do make difference. They have a decisive influence on the allocation of power and resources, who gets what, when and how." What the advice did not mention is that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is an internationally recognized duty of a government. Evidently, what USAID does in Ethiopia directly serves US foreign policy goal. The Agency's budget for this FY is about US$50 million, out of which about US$2 million is to assist TPLF democratization effort. It should be mentioned that, according to USAID sources, Harvard Institute (sic) of International Development is a contractor for the project implementation.

Huntington was apparently in one way or the other advising his calculated US hegemonic divide clinical political diagnosis to then confused newcomer guerrilla fighters,TPLF's in power. The dominant party democratic system that he advised (Awra Party) ,which is now endorsed by the EPRDF's executive committee meeting held just after the 2010 election and that of ruling on a difference based constitution have so far been fully implemented.

In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

This prognosis' finality came out to be his highly sold book,The Clash of Civilizations.For sure ,like other so called researchers and advisors ,he used Ethiopia as a litmus test for his book , research and US governments foreign policy.Huntington argued that the trends of global conflict after the end of the Cold War are increasingly appearing at these civilizational divisions. Wars such as those following the break up of Yugoslavia, in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as evidence of inter-civilizational conflict.This is what he advised Meles in 1993 to apply it at a national level;unarguably the Awra Party system and the difference based(cultural, language and civilization) institutions and constitutions have been deeply rooted and showing their ''down-hardening'' effect.

Such a comment to Addis Neger Online's DERESE GETACHEW

By Ankober

Dear Derese,

Selam new?

This is a remark for your article entitled " Ethiopia's Leadership Void",August 10,2010. Thanks for your yet insignificant article.My feeling when i first saw the update on your Online's FB address was that you were gonna base your opinion item on the recent leadership meeting that Barack Obama held with African upcoming youth leaders.President Obama held that forum at the White House on with 115 young leaders from Africa designed to mark the fiftieth anniversary of African independence.

Four young ''leaders'' represented Ethiopia at the forum, including Mahlet Eyassu Melkie, 29, a climate change activist; Meron Getnet Hailegiorgis, 27, an author; Salsawit Tsega Ketema, 30, Founder of Sel Art Gallery and Yohannes Mezgebe Abay, 35, Vice President of the Pan African Youth Union.

Are these really representative enough,and really upcoming youth leaders?Was the selection made fairly? Were they all neutral?Or as the Ugandan editor of The Daily Monitor,Peter Nyanzi said it,have they both the gut and intersect to involve themselves in issues that Obama and co preached them in those days such as the importance of transparency and accountability, job creation and entrepreneurship, human rights, and the use of modern technology to empower individuals and communities?

I doubt all of the above.

Mr Obama took off time from his busy schedule to sit down with – not African politicians this time – but with the young leaders of African civil society and business, in the unprecedented meeting. Over the years, the norm in the State Department and the White House has been to invite the same old men to the US to talk about similar issues but with very little results on the ground,says Peter.

“If all you are doing is talking to old men like me, then you are not reaching the people who are going to be providing the energy, the new initiatives, the new ideas,” Mr Obama said at the forum.Ideologically ,Obama did the most plausible sort of thing to help the African youth's dying political socialization and zeal.Unlike to what you crystallized in the last paragraph of this article saying the latest wisdom a la Barack Obama is that Africa needs strong institutions, and not strong men.From what President’s Forum with Young African Leaders, i learn that,Obama is also/rather focusing on ''leaders'' than '' institutions''. Approaching the problems of Africa from leaders/individual centered move is much quicker and reasonably the rightest approach to tackle Africa's (Ethiopia's ) handicaps or drawbacks.

That said so, let me delve on your inquisition on leadership voidness in our nation.It seems a proper and timely question to ask and answer at this time.It is unexceptionably crucial to plant and bear new Ethiopian politicians and leaders, at this moment of political deviance.In detachment from your previous trends,you wrote this less technically jargoned opinion. To proffer some empirically critical basis to this commentary, i will be making few jotted analysis:

1.Lack of appreciation :in our case ( both Ethiopia and Africa ), what is so immanently scarce is due recognition, appreciation and reward for accomplishments.Whatever achievement or success levels you assume,clothes you buy,innovate, initiate or trail-blaze in Africa(Ethiopia) , it is not appreciated or given a ''well done'' either by your mates or the bureaucracy.Colonial legacy and capitalism must have left this culture of jealousy,demotion and underestimation.Your first five paragraphs all revolve around the envy of American culture of regarding success at all stakes by all form of the media.The American acculturation of valuing jobs done as a domino effect of duplicating more leaders from the small community circles to the higher high tech technocratic institutions there. All non existent in our culture.Hence, there is a need from people like you involved in the academia and media to instill this culture of appreciating and respecting your fellow's bits and pieces. Madenek Mesleten new.

2.Zero Stamina :A response to the rest of the paragraphs.The last three paragraphs of this write up are begging questions into why we don't have heir leaders? What caused it and the like? What I call Zero stamina seems to answer your questions.In a diligent deterrence from your opine , I wholeheartedly declare that we have plenty of young capable leaders.If you ask me to name some three ;your colleague Abiye Teklemariam,Teddy Afro and Bertukan Mideksa would be my new generation leaders.Here, readers need to be cognizant of the dual meaning of the term ''leader''.The multidisciplinary ,humanistic and vision orientated meaning of a leader is the first context , that i am utilizing it.All the three leaders in this first definition i stated have a multidisciplinary knowledge, involvement and capacity. Humanity wise also , all the three share a good attachment and concern for and on history and philosophy.Vision is the extremely vital decipher of a leader.He,who has a great and majority agreeable,critical and buying vision , is a typical leader.All the three have it.By the same token , the second context of leader and leadership , i.e. organisational/national leadership ; these three young fellas win my endorsement.Count how many followers, these three young leaders have with values and ethics.Three theories of leadership exist today within the sociology, management and psychological fields.According to the Trait Theory, certain personality traits may lead people spontaneously into leadership roles. A difficult situation or a crisis may bring out the latent leadership qualities in a person, which is referred to as the Great Events Theory. The most widely accepted theory today is the Transformational Leadership Theory, which states that leadership skills can be mastered by people who wish to become leaders.Abiye,Teddy and Bertukan fit within at least one of these theories.

But one common weakness apparently exists both within our old and new generation leaders.When they encounter a small challenge/drawback like the arrest of Teddy Afro, they drift and shy away from their potential leadership capacities and dreams.This sort of zero stamina is testified in other African young/promising leaders.Bob Marley, Mohamed Ali, Mahatma Gandi, and Nelson Mandella are few of the most popular leaders in their own respective fields that were able enough to reap the fruition of their stamina full leadership.ANC Youth Wing leader Julius Malema is the new hopeful and resilient leader to anticipate.

In a nutshell,I would say that we have enough capable young leaders what they lack is resilience to fare well in times of hardship and obstacles.We should be jealous of Westerners and endeavor to empower and appreciate our citizens/children.

Why join politics?

By Ankober

Peter Gill in his just published book ''Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid'' said often in my discussions with him, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi took me by surprise. When I asked him about the western image of his country, I expected a politician’s defensiveness.

The answer I received was this: “Humiliation can be a very powerful motivation for action and therefore I don’t hate the fact that we get humiliated every day provided it’s based on facts ... if we feel we deserve to be treated like honourable citizens of the world, then we have to remove the source of that shame. There is no way round it.”

I will be doing a review of Gill's book in my coming issues.The answer that the self acclaimed prime minster gave bears two meanings.One is an undeniable philosophical conception and reality that humility becomes a source of action and motivation.True that. Accepting this fact as it is,let's delve on the other part of his sentence , he says ' if we feel we deserve to be treated like honourable citizens of the world, then we have to remove the source of that shame'.We Ethiopians as human beings and fellows of the world need to be treated and respected as a human being of whatsoever, economic,historical,cultural or any deficiency we have as a legacy.

Your Lowness Meles ,unlike your farcical statements, without even removing this so called 'shame'' we have ,the citizens of that super country,Ethiopia deserve equal and honorable treatments; God approves it,the UN approves it,human morality and virtue approve it but your mind.Poverty as to me is a phenomena that happens in our life cycles.Human beings in their biological life cycle pass through this interesting step of poverty;so do nations.Never been a country that has not been poor or has gone through relative or chronic poverty.Nonetheless,what makes poverty shameful is when the poor and poverty itself is being used or abused by interested groups.One of these groups being Meles.The young revolutionary democrat in his ever changing statements of the reason why he got into politics was quoted once saying '' poverty of my people triggered me''.Leaving aside the whoness of ''my people'' , his 'wish of eradicating poverty and lifting his people out of poverty '' has never come into fruition.His once popular motto of '' enabling Ethiopians to eat three times a day'' also perished.He rather now applied the most dubious strategy of accepting impoverishments.Meles in the advancement of this policy of accepting our poverty,has now promoted and glorified Ethiopia's signature of attraction as 'poverty' by being a member of any high level international beggary of money for climate change,fighting hunger,poverty and what have you.

My understanding, as most of Ethiopians would also, i suppose, is that albeit Ethiopia is economically poor, that is not our signature of attraction or symbolic value.We detest this fact.What prompted me to write down this memoir is a recent clip (one of the millions done ) published on twenty5ethiopia.org.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R1cnBsEfGnw&feature=player_embedded

''The Twenty5 campaign is aimed at ensuring Ethiopian people never again experience the devastating effects of widespread famine and in the 25 year anniversary have released a video. In the touching video, people recount the harsh experiences they faced during the famine and how 25 years later, they are still impacted by those who reached out and helped.'' the producers claim about the movie.

The producers of the film St Matthew's Children's Fund Ethiopia,twenty5ethiopia proudly assert that positive changes have been seen since the 1984 famine partly due to their work.Good for them.

This clip is one of the numerous clips,articles,posters, campaigns produced and are still being duplicated on Ethiopia's last famine,poverty, and starvation.I was burning and seeing the dark, hopeless looking and manipulated fellows.

Likewise a promo by another ''aid'' organisation called ethiopianfoodappeal.org has this in the middle of its website as a form of collecting donation -'Ethiopian Food Appeal -- Empty Stomachs, Hungry Minds '. How in the world could your soul tolerate and live with such dehumanizing, degrading and immoral statements?

Permitted by Meles,ambitious Westerners are still engulfed 25 years after the famine in a new form of poverty based business.I feel pained to see Ethiopians being showed as helpless,poor, hungry, starved, innocent and so by these people and their media.

Ethiopia and the current leadership has served as good models and hubs for poverty oriented researches,business,NGOs and etc. Countries like Sudan and Bangladesh have both gone through poverty and famine with same level of consequences around similar times, however neither of them have allowed the portrayal of their nations as poor,starving and helpless.

After all what did the likes of St Matthew's Children's Fund and many other ''Saintly'''NGOs do for us? Did they stop our food dependency,did they change our image,or what good did they do?No any macro change have they brought.

So,how,when,where,and possibly with whom can we change these concocter's, sluggers,and appallingly complex problems of virtue and essence ? I have one answer going into politics.Westerner's with negative agenda or our own looters can only be combated if you and me enter into any form of political circle making our main mission: 'the return of ourness' .

As Meles himself said it ''if we feel we deserve to be treated like honourable citizens of the world, then we have to remove the source of that shame.'' Evidnetly, the source of our shame is You and your failed leadership that failed to take us out of poverty.There is noway round it.Period.

Where are the Gundans (ants)?

By Ankober

I miss Gundans.

Do you guys know Gundan(ant)?Not the ants of the scorpion movies of Hollywood but the ants of Addis,Ethiopia.The real gundans that creep in to your skin and bite you.Those are the gundans that I am discoursing about.But what typologies will gundan have in the current political struggle in Ethiopia?

1. The first typology in this prognosis is the hard working quality of Gundans.From the fall of dawn to dusk, Gundans work hard to feed not individually but cooperatively. They teach homo-sapiens that success and strength are not outcomes of individualistic and insular efforts but of cooperative,collaborative and mutual.They say albeit the African (Ethiopian ) society is generally described as more of communal or in the words of the famous Ghanaian philosopher,Kwame Geyke 'moderate communitarianism', realities on the ground , particularly in the case of Ethiopian politician , individualism takes the precedence and the reign.We take our individual pride,success, ascendancy than our next door or community.Do gundans do alike?

2.The second analogy has to do with the very silent,careful and integrated way of attack or combat that they afflict on their enemies or preys.Gundans never boast or bark to attack they silently enter via you trouser and say to you "who is your mami?''. You know what to say. This strategy of the gundans recounts Winston Churchill’s famous saying “An appeaser is a person who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”.Do Ethiopia's oppositions or the society in general apply this tactic?

3. The 3rd interesting analogy came from the reasoning that gundans won't touch you unless you go to thier territory.I found this reality interestingly put in one of my friends blog as such,

''I and a newly-made-friend, Selam, were discussing/rather complaining about the bites when a guy whose name, I later learned, is Sami, chipped in a very good theory of why these ants bite. He said, “Don’t tamper with these ants. Just don’t mind them even if they trek under clothes. They don’t harm you if you don’t trouble them. Otherwise, they become defensive and keep bothering you.” Isn’t it what we witness everyday with our politics? I am not arguing that we should keep our distance from politics, I am just suggesting that there is so much more to helping one’s motherland than being immersed in the politics. We can do important things (such as tree planting) without having to anger the short-tempered ants. Don’t get me wrong, by ants I mean ants. Hope you understand.''

The excrept has a double meaning.We toady's youth and politicians have this worng view that unless you touch the EPRDf/TPLF's , they won't bother you.Do we have to live slavishly in order not to be eaten by the gundans?

Similarly, as to my little understanding this same writer is stating that we can work underground,with a covert mission and action like gundans to to bite and overthrow ,the authoritarians.This is the gold of the quote. ''We can do important things (such as tree planting) without having to anger the short-tempered ants'' .