So feudal
The road that leads from Yeka to the upper city centre is being expanded to add a couple of more lanes and make it more presentable as befits the neighbourhood that hosts embassies of old and respected standing. The plans foresaw that this road will have to get a piece off the land that the Kenyan embassy stands on, perhaps 4metres or so. The embassy said no. I'm not sure how many square metres of valuable Addis land and Ethiopian soil the embassy reigns over, but I'm sure it could spare a few- say 200m sq off the 1500 or even 2500 m sq it stands on. As it is, the embassy's refusal was accepted- so the road is being expanded on one side only, meaning that a whole row of houses needs to be demolished. The residents are desperate because they have no where to go apart from some vague promise of being rehoused in condominiums "soon".
Let the embassy think it can do that, let it imagine through some weird egomaniac fug that it can command over it's host country like that- but can't this spineless government even stand up to an uppity little ambassador and refuse to destroy its people's houses or make the embassy/ Kenyan government pay direct compensation to them? How can we be sold and traded with like this 60 years after the last spurt of colonialism has ended?
posted by Dina @ 7:52 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Do you mean to suggest Kenya was once a colonial power?. I hope not.
Embassies like the UK occupy the choiciest real estate in the city that is large and regal enough to house and feed the entire retinue of a king of England from the middle ages.
Derg tried to boot them out and coop them up at CMC. The arrival of Woyanes saved the ranchers. Not long after the unruly rebels flashed with newly found glory, loot and alms from the same ranchers, started building their own embassies in Addis, confusing them for real houses.(with all the immunity and security protection provided)
Now we ended up with far too many embassies than there are countries. You stand up to one, you stand up to all(and when you are part of the problem you don't stand up to no one). It is in the lease agreement. The poor is just rabble, you heap them up and smoke them all up.
Embassies, expat World Bank, UN, AU And EU workers and journalists like that damp and limp Messqel-square hack... high life in a poor African nation and lots of dinner party annectodes, but no real feeling for the people who tolerate them. It's actually all our fault for kissing their asses all the time. Love your blog but you'r keeping us on our toes with too little.
Imagine, if they cant stand up to kenya how would they stand up to western countries....
Most embassies in addis have huge compounds.. they need to take some of the land by force
Hey what happenned Ms.SLK? I'ts been quiet a long time since your last blog entry. I was expecting that you'll be blogging frequently as the rainy season is over. But am not sure if you're stranded in the flood somewhre down south.I hope not.
you're missed Dina!
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