Ethiopian journalist strikes Meles Zenawi like lightning

By Ethiomedia.com
Abebe Gellaw, an award-winning journalist on Friday unleashed an avalanche of indignant words and condemnations against Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who was ironically lecturing about food security at a Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.

Meles was lecturing with audacity about food security when Abebe, an ESAT program producer, brought the sky crushing down on the panicking Meles.Abebe chanted many times with a defeaning voice: "Meles Zenawi is a dictator! Free Eskinder Nega! Free Political Prisoners! Food is nothing without freedom! Meles has committed crimes against humanity! We Need freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" His voice was so powerful he brought the conference hall to a screeching halt. Meles has never been humiliated from such proximity as he lives surrounded by an army of gun-totting security guards that keep civilians at bay. 

"By humiliating Meles with such patriotic act," one analyst said, " I think Abebe has broken the ice, and more acts of patriotism would haunt the dictator till his final days in power." Abebe was escorted away by police officers the journalist admired as very respectful and understanding.But a nearby Meles security guard told Abebe, "We will kill you!" Abebe told the police that one of the security guards of Meles had threatened him with death. 

An act reserved only for the hero, Abebe's action speaks volumes about the political repression and frustration that has engulfed Ethiopia for over two decades. Abebe first challenged Meles Zenawi at a World Economic Forum in May 2010 in Tanzania, when the journalist grabbed the mike and asked a lecturing Meles why was then Ethiopia starving under his rule?