April 29, 2018
In unprecedented CNN report by a freelance journalist from BBC siting the International Monitory Fund (IMF) and validated by the Center for Global Development (CGD), an American think tank based at Colombia University of New York that claim to ‘conduct Independent research for global prosperity’, agreed “Ethiopia is now Africa’s fastest growing economy”, according to Chris Giles of BBC posed as CNN reporter.
The CNN report that relied on ‘IMF new data’ and collaborated by Vijaya Ramachandran, an economist at CGD, and the ingenuity of Chris Giles to report the fact-nothing-but,-the-fact about Ethiopia despite Ethiopia is under two-years State of Emergency ruled by a corrupt ethnic minority apartheid oligarchy with looming foreign exchange and debt crises for 27 years is simply what is referred as living in alterative reality.
It isn’t clear whether the report is recommending an apartheid rule with State of Emergency for the rest of African nations to grow their economies as fast as Ethiopia as IMF ‘forecasted’ or simply to help
the rogue regime wither the persistent grassroot revolution to end its 27 years-old rule that defy every conceivable norms of governance and economy even by the standard of African autocracies.
But, hidden behind in a rather bubbly report are two mysterious Ethiopian national little known for an average Ethiopian. The Director of African Department Abebe Amero Selassie in Washington, DC at IMF headquarter responsible for the data sited on the article and reporter Meron Moges-Gerbi of CNN in Atlanta, Georgia headquarter where Chris Giles of BBC reporter in Washington DC collaborated previously to put out another report titled ‘Ethiopia’s parliament swears in new prime minister’.
“Before joining the IMF, Mr. Selassie worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit, specializing in sovereign credit risk issues, and then for the Ethiopian government as Principal Economist in the Office of the President”, according Addis Insight without elaborating when and which President. IMF official blog also profile him as “from 2006-2009 he was the IMF’s resident representative in Uganda. Before joining the IMF, Mr. Selassie worked for the Government of Ethiopia” but, don’t say whether he worked for the Ethiopian Government from 1991-2006 before he joined IMF nor doesn’t say what he did for the 16 years.
But, the mysterious Abebe Amero Selassie was exiled and grew in London like many Ethiopians who fled the Marxist Military Junta government of Ethiopia that killed his father in 1975 along 60 of Emperor Haileselase Government’s high level officials until he returned to join the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) led by the then President Meles Zenawi and Chairman of Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) and Isayas Afeworki, the then Chairman of Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF) representing Eritrea in 1991. Selassie – a graduated of London School of Economics earned the confidence of Meles Zenawi to recommend him for the position in IMF at undisclosed period. But, IMF blog confirmed he started with IMF in 2006 and remained so at present — rising to Directorship of African Department.
For some mysterious reason, Abebe Amero Selassie doesn’t write articles about Ethiopia and the ruling regime but, every other nation on IMF blog or anywhere else.
Director Selase who is responsible for IMF African policy is also known to Chris Giles as he quoted him on April of 2018 Financial Times’ report he published with David Pilling on “African Nation Slipping into New Debt Crises” But, Giles’ botched CNN report ignore the Director responsible for new economic forecast data as well as the actual data on “new debt crises” and the new foreign Exchange crises from the same IMF altogether and went on to site the ‘ new economic forecast data’ as follows;
“Ethiopia is now Africa’s fastest growing economy
By Chris Giles, CNN
Updated 6:31 AM ET, Tue April 24, 2018
(CNN)Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populated country, is forecast to be the fastest growing economy in Sub-Saharan Africa this year, according to new data from the IMF.
Ethiopia’s economy is predicted to grow by 8.5% this year. The figures signal continued economic expansion following a long period of impressive growth. In the last decade, Ethiopia has averaged around 10% economic growth, according to the IMF.
To boost the economy, the country is pursuing a number of large-scale infrastructure projects, including the Grand Renaissance Dam and a railway network.
“(Ethiopia) has had a very high growth rate and I think that’s a result in large part of a very concentrated effort by the government to boost industrial production and manufacturing,” said Vijaya Ramachandran.
Ramachandran, along with three academics, released a report suggesting Ethiopia can follow in China’s footsteps, and become a destination for low-wage manufacturing jobs.
However, despite sustained economic growth, in the past few years Ethiopia has experienced increasing unrest from Oromo groups in the Oromiya region. According to human rights groups, the government has suppressed basic rights and freedoms.
New Prime Minister Abiye Ahmed was sworn at the beginning of April, signaling an intent to ease tensions. …”.
First, no one knows when CNN and BBC started a joint venture reporting on Ethiopia. Apparently, the same Chris Giles according to his LinkedIn profile doesn’t work for CNN but, BBC. He must have a working relationship on the side with Meron Moges-Gerbi of CNN regarding the Ethiopian regime as they cowrote on previous article.
Second, no one also knows what “Ethiopia has experienced increasing unrest from Oromo groups in the Oromiya region” means nor what “according to human rights groups the government has suppressed basic rights and freedoms” means when in reality the ‘human right groups’ sited on the report is not only the world renown Human Right Watch that reported Ethiopians in the ‘Oromiya Region’ lost 1000s of lives and, the ruling party military force committed mass arrests, atrocities and inflicted terror throughout the nation for decades and ongoing under the second State of Emergency in the last two years. For the report to ignore the substance of HRW reported violations to reduce it as “the government has suppressed basic rights and freedoms” not only defy basic journalism standard to mislead but basic decency for human life and rights.
More importantly, no one know why Meron Moges-Gerbi of CNN outsourced her job to Chris Giles of the BBC. After all, she is an Ethiopian national much better equipped to understand the ethnic apartheid regime’s intrigue to coverup its atrocities and corruption to ask; who is Meron Moges-Gerbi and what may be her association with the ruling party?
At the meantime, in contrast to Vijaya Ramachandran assertion, Antoinette Monsio Sayeh, a Visiting Fellow in the same Center for Global Development in the 9th Annual African Development Conference at Harvard University as Keynote Speaker held March 24, 2018 noted; the debt crises the country accumulated over the years.
Likewise, Masood Ahmed from the same Center for Global Development a week earlier in March 17, 2018 article titled “Another Debt Crisis for Poor Countries?” underscored the debt burden the regime couldn’t be able to service stating;
“When the world’s finance ministers and central bank governors assemble in Washington later this month. they would do well to focus on another looming debt crisis that could hit some of the poorest countries in the world, many of whom are also struggling with problems of conflict and fragility and none of which has the institutional capacity to cope with a major debt crisis without lasting damage to their already-challenged development prospects.”
The official external debt of Ethiopia reached 41.2 billion dollars – 441 dollars per inhabitant, according to Country Economy and 32.5 billion, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis siting IMF data as of 2016. That doesn’t include bilateral concessional loans – estimated to be at 13 billion dollars as of 2015 from China alone, according to China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Advance International Studies.
A more realistic assessment is also provided by Justin Sandefur and Divyadnshi Wadhwa of the same Center for Global Development on “Chart of the Week: A new Africa Debt Crises?”
Chris Giles and David Pilling in April 2018 Financial Times’ report on “African Nation Slipping into New Debt Crises” reinforces the impact of the crises down played by the IMF African Department Director Selase that oversees the unsubstantiated economic forecast data Giles relied on his CNN.
But yet, the world Media continue to paint rosy picture knowing well no credible data come out of the regime hellbent to falsify data out of its predicament including the data IMF under Amero Selasse and the international community as a whole relies on to ask; what may be the Director Abebe A. Selase relationship may be with the ruling party of Ethiopia.
The level of sophistication dozens of the ruling minority party operatives run Medias’ misinformation on the political and economic reality of the nation to the mainstream world Medias and wire services around the world is little understood phenomena that doesn’t help to mitigate the problem either.
Correspondents for the Associated Press, AFP, Reuters… in Ethiopia must be highly compromised to parrot the ruling party unsubstantiated information to the mainstream Media. Call it low expectation, laziness or purely corruption it makes no difference what their motive may be to surrender basic journalism standard in a nation under authoritarian apartheid regime that survives on falsifying data and the political an economic reality of the nation.
It seems there are whole lots of investigative reporting ahead for the Ethiopian Free Press to identify who may be behind covering up the crime of atrocities and corruption of the ruling party of Ethiopia — hiding behind bilateral, multilateral organization, international thinktanks, private foundations and Media to mislead the world from the reality on the ground.
At the meantime, Ethiopian Medias masquerading as independent continue to make a mockery of the lives and liberty of the people of Ethiopia pushing unsubstituted information to promote their own political, social and economic agenda.
The question of who ‘monitors the monitors’ remained unanswered as the struggle to liberate the people of Ethiopia from an ethic apartheid regime. In the absence of Media monitoring watchdogs to sort out the real from the fake and the facts from the fictions of the rogue regime’s subordinates and interest groups; to dream democracy and freedom nor economic development to come could only be true for the fainthearted who believe there is a cow in the sky to deliver milk for the people. d
After all, no people/nation achieve their freedom and liberty without knowing who deprives them their freedom and liberty to be able to put them out of their miserable exitance at the expenses of the people.
In this case, Director of African Department of IMF Abebe Amero Selassie that cooks the numbers on behalf of the regime, economist Vijaya Ramachandran of GDC that skirts the cooked numbers, Chris Giles of BBC that present the cooked numbers as real and Meron Moges-Gerbi of CNN that outsourced her journalism duty for a foreign national with little knowledge must be challenged by the Free Press and concerned institutions to end their miserable existence at the expenses of the people of Ethiopia.
Just because Ethiopians are under a lawless apartheid regime doesn’t give anyone a license to cook the numbers or skirt the cooked numbers as facts and present them as real without paying the consequences.
As to the new Prime Minister Abiye Ahmed that reportedly would “ease tensions” without addressing the ‘cooked numbers’ that brought the tensions in the first place, he is smart enough to understand; Ethiopians are far more civilized than his uncivilized regime officials think and, should know better– the truth comes first before the peace he is searching for in the wrong place to find.
After all, searching for peace without the truth is like asking for redamation without repenting that became the standard operating procedure among the regime dysfunctional elites. It might extend the rouge regime’s miserable existence a little longer but, won’t bring peace for the regime nor for the people of Ethiopia.
As the Roman Empire’s historian Gaiu Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 120 AD) put it; “A Bad Peace is even worse than a war”
This article is dedicated to the latest victim of the ruling party of patriotic Ethiopian Gezahegn Nebro in South Africa like 1000s of Ethiopian lost their lives just because dysfunctional elites refuse to abandon the rogue apartheid regime.
