Foreign Policy
In an echo of death rumors that have periodically surrounded former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe this year, there’s increasing speculation about the whereabouts of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi after a local radio station pronounced him dead. Meles hasn’t been seen in public since mid-July, and confirming his whereabouts and condition has proven difficult.
The confusion hit a fever pitch on July 30 when Ethiopian opposition radio outlet ESAT announced they had confirmed that Meles had died. They claimed to have received the information from diplomatic and international sources including the International Crisis Group (ICG).
The news spread rapidly via social media, only to be denied by ICG in a July 31 statement on their website:
“International Crisis Group has no direct knowledge about the state of health of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Crisis Group has never commented on Mr Meles’s health or his fate, and is not in a position to speculate about it. Crisis Group categorically denies any media claims to the contrary.”
Meles has ruled Ethiopia through a tighly controled autocratic regime for 21 years, and many speculate that his demise would throw the ruling establishment into chaos as his lieutenants vie for leadership.
Of course, it’s not at all clear that Meles is dead, or close to death. According to his party, he’s just on vacation. Or sick. Or tired. The latest statement from an Ethiopian government spokesperson claims Meles is on the mend from his mystery ailment:
“Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is in “a good condition and recuperating”, a government spokesman has told the BBC, dismissing reports he is critically ill.
However, Bereket Simon declined to give any details about Mr Meles’ whereabouts or what he is suffering from.
Mr Bereket had earlier been quoted as saying the prime minister, 57, was on holiday.”
ESAT is sticking with their story that Meles is, in fact, very dead indeed and that they used other sources to confirm a tip from a protected source inside ICG:
“ESAT’s decision to report that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is dead, according to reliable sources, has never been easy. It was two weeks ago that we received the news from highly credible sources in Brussels. Our sources that want to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak to the media on this sensitive matter told us that the International Crisis Group (ICG) concluded that Mr. Zenawi was deceased.
As a responsible media outlet, ESAT tried to investigate and verify the tip meticulously before it decided to broadcast the news. To be fair to the facts, we have also scrutinized the conflicting and contradictory information coming out from the ruling TPLF clique.”
Two other African presidents — John Atta Mills of Ghana and Bingu Wa Mutharika of Malawi – have passed away this year shortly after going abroad for medical treatment. However, whereas the recent death of Atta Mills was clearly reported, Mutharika’s was rife with confusion. The president at one point denied early rumors of his demise by announcing to journalists: “I’m not dead… I’m on holiday.” He passed away six months later.
Though the truth will certainly come out eventually, at present it’s not clear whether Ethiopia is in a crisis of leadership or simply has a terribly uncoordinated government communications department.
Tags: Meles Zenawi
enquyaya
August 5, 2012 at 6:35 am
Sibhat and Barakat told the world wrinkled ridden and pimple grown lies respectively that the dead zinawi is alive.If zinawi were alive,he had to come out in public and sprayed a few lies followed the rotten route as usual.
The very last time zinawi was breathing was not on his own,it was that all sorts of supportive devices that zinawi had been hooked to to kept him barely alive.That was it.
It is just a matter of time zinawi, wheather he loves it or hate it,likes it or dislikes it,will definitely sucks up the sun dead in the casket.
mikko
August 4, 2012 at 2:34 am
Meles could have gone for good or for bad but his TPLF is there and will be there for coming years. That is what the opposition parties do not want to see.
Anteneh
August 3, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Thanks God ! Not only Meles all Weyane (TPLF) will be die.
Tatek
August 3, 2012 at 2:09 pm
TPLF Communications Minister Bereket Simon was telling us the true colors of the TPLF and their puppet party EPRDF, WHEN HE SAID his party didn’t want to make the sickness of his boss a public relations instrument, and rather wanted to keep this a personal matter. But Ethiopians are footing the bill for their highest paid employee, in the name of Meles Zenawi, and by virtue of the fact that they are employers, they have every right to know what ailment the tyrant is suffering from and how long it would take him to get back to work, if applicable. Secrecy is a recipe of corruption and corruption is a way of life under the TPLF ranks and they are telling us what they are made of and I think we need to understand that.
bandnet berhane
August 3, 2012 at 10:52 am
Meles very likely died at St. Luc Hospital in Brussels
By Waltenegus Dargie | July 20, 2012
Applying the techniques of probabilistic reasoning inevitably leads to the conclusion that the Prime Minister of Ethiopia must have died on Sunday, July 2012, in Saint-Luke Hospital, Brussels, Belgium.
In the fields of probability and stochastic processes, the term reasoning refers to the ability to arrive at a conclusion in the presence of incomplete and, potentially, noisy observation. Noisy observation, in turn, refers to an observation (measurement) in which the fact (truth) is mixed with an uncorrelated and erroneous input that may stem from the source of the observation as well as the channel.
In general, we apply three established techniques to reason about an observation. They are called smoothing, filtering (estimation), and prediction. Which of these techniques are suitable for a given observation depends on whether you want to reason about the past, the present, or the future. If it is about the present, the technique we apply is called filtering (estimation).
If we apply some of the fundamental techniques of smoothing and estimation to reason about the Prime Minster of Ethiopia, we will conclude with reasonable confidence that he was pronounced dead on Sunday, July 15, 2012 or even before that. The most probable time, however, is Sunday, July 15, 2012, between 4:00 and 5:00 AM. Likewise, the location of his death would be Saint-Luc Hospital in Brussels, Belgium.
Some of the facts pertaining to the observations I used in my analysis are summarised as follows:
The sources which delivered the news regarding the illness of the Prime Minster and the hospital in which he received treatment proved themselves remarkably reliable. Hence, they should also be given some credibility when we consider their assertion concerning the type of his illness, which is blood cancer.
None of these sources were official sources or sources close to any government (Belgium, Ethiopia, US, British, etc.). In probability and stochastic reasoning, this truth has a significant value.
The government of Ethiopia has so far refused to reveal the type of illness as well as the place where the Prime Minster is allegedly receiving treatment. Apparently, one of the reasons for this is to hinder reasoning; in the presence of this knowledge, one can very easily draw a conclusion.
In fact, no one claims knowledge of the whereabouts of the Prime Minster.
The morning of July 15, 2012 (Sunday) is the richest day in the generation of the observations.
The government of Ethiopia is unable to deliver a proof about the existence of the Prime Minster.
The Wife of the Prime Minster returned to Ethiopia over the weekend (without her husband). Unless his recovery or death was irrefutably convincing to her, it is beyond human reasoning that she would be strong enough to leave him in uncertain condition and be swayed to return to Ethiopia. Looking into the past, his recovery could not have appeared to her certain. Hence, the reasonable assumption is that she was convinced of his death.
The video footage showing the confrontation of journalist Abebe Gellaw with the PM on May 18, 2012, at a Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., visibly shows that the PM experienced an untimely intense internal pain and was struggling to moderate his breathe. A close scrutiny of this evidence is revealing. To begin with, even though the Prime Minster received the pain unexpectedly, he did not appear to be altogether surprised by it. People who suffer from a sudden attack (for example, a cardiovascular attack), will usually be unable to temporarily control their breathing, gaze, and gesture. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, took time to nurse the pain and to regulate his inhalation. From this, one can assume that the Prime Minster was suffering a prolonged pain which could easily be aggravated by an emotional stimulus or as sudden release of body chemical.
The relationship between (3) and (9) leads us to another irresistible proposition, namely, the Prime Minster could have been suffering from a gastric tumour called adenocarcinomas (in other words, stomach cancer), possibly, level 3 (5 or more than 5 invaded lymph nodes in the resected specimen).
I assigned to the above propositions some conditional probabilities and employed a Bayesian Network to compute the Likelihood of the death of the Prime Minster. Even by the strictest assignment of probabilities, the outcome strongly indicates that it is highly probable that the Prime Minster of Ethiopia died on Sunday, July 15, 2012 between 04:00 and 05:00 AM. In contrast, the collective conditional probability for the propositions: “he is alive”, “he is recovering”, “he has recovered”, and “he hasn’t been ill” was significantly small.
ይህን ተጨባጭ የሆነ ወሬ (ዜና) የተገኘው ከዛው ካለበት ሀገር ሲሆን ያለው የስራዓቱ አጎብጋቢዎች እውነቱን ለማውጣት የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝብ መስማት የሚገባውን በመከልከል አንድቸውም የመምራት እውቅቀት ይሁን ችሎታ የሌላቸው በአንድ ሰው ሲመሩ የቆዩ ለመሆናቸው ሞቶ በፍራቻ ተብረክርከው ስለሱ መናገርና ተተኪ ለመፍጠር ባለመቻላቸው በውስጣቸው የተፈጠረውን ሽኩቻ ለመፍታት ባለመቻላቸው በዝምታ ያለው ሕዝብ እንድሚበላቸው በመረዳት የሽሽት መንገድ እያበጁ በመሆኑ ሁልም ዜጋ በንቃት የሀገርና የሕዝብን ሕላዌ መጤበቅ እንድለበት ራሱን አዘጋጅቶ ካላው የትግል አጋር ሁኖ መቆም ይኖርብርታል
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Bekana Bekafa
August 3, 2012 at 2:28 am
Melese’s death is 100% sure, do not get panic TPLF tugs. Take your breath until you go to Kaliti presion for mas murder, mas looting rampant mis apropriation the public life and fund.
You were jailing many Ethiopians during Meles era but now it is the TPLF thiefs Turn to visit Kality,Zeway and Shewarobit prisions.
BE ready TPLF looters and killers for any appropriate jail tems for the worst job you have done for the last 21 years without the consent of the Ethiopian people.
Woyane you are on the verge of your grave waiting soil to sprinkle on you body for mass killing and looting resources.
Be awake for any eventuality that may happen soon . Do not move from your present and tighten the rope that is prepared you to go hanging.
Looters (TPLF) dig your grave at your own expense no one could do the job for you.
Tamerat
August 3, 2012 at 1:50 am
Meles is dead and evaporated like stolen kefa coffee.
Walelgne mekonnen
August 3, 2012 at 1:01 am
We have to focus on why the TPLF gangsters want to hide the dead or alive bods of Meles Zenawi, even his voice?? All information sources leads to conclude “Woyane’s terrorist minister Meles Zemawi is permanently disabled or sleep in deep-freezer”.
Listener Ethiopia
August 2, 2012 at 10:37 pm
TPLF doesn’t have any more plain ground to lie Ethiopians. No one trusts your garbage talks. Apparently, you are adding on your loss of credibility . To disprove Meles’s death news, just let Meles’ speak his condition either in person with TV screen or with radio. But we Ethiopains trust ESAT news with no precondition. Good job ESAT , keep the good work moving.
Desta
August 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Meles is dead. I have checked it with the national archive of Belgium death records.He passed away on 18/07/12
Selamawit Solomon
August 2, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Ethiopian Satelite Net Work(ESAT) Stated that Dictator Zenawi is DEAD
Now its up to the TPLF Regime to convince us otherwise ,The burden of proof is on Ethiopian Government or TPLF authorites not on ESAT
Muller
August 2, 2012 at 3:47 pm
What is the secret behind “what’s ever”??
tazabi
August 2, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Reasoning and logical thinking tell one he, MELES ZENAWI, IS DEAD OR PERMANENTLY INCAPACITATED finally!
Total
August 2, 2012 at 12:54 pm
“….terribly uncoordinated government communications department.”
Good observation b/se his demise is unexpected by the weyane gujile gave contradictory information.To mention by Sebhat,Bereket,Addis Admas,Reporter etc.And Bereket’s rusted mind takes a lot of time to produce fubricated news. though luck.