CivicSmarts

Dedicated to strengthening Ethiopian civic societies 

The Ethiopian CivicSmarts group fully and happily endorses the March 4 Freedom that will be held Sunday, September 13, 2009 in Washington DC. 

This is a freedom march that is designed to help stop the genocide and illegal incarceration of innocent citizens that has been going on in Ethiopia for the last eighteen years. It is an opportunity for all of us Ethiopians who want the unelected, brutal and ethnic based clique of the current Ethiopian dictatorship do the following:

• stop its misguided, destructive and inhuman governance of our country,
• re-asses the historical but sadly missed opportunity of lifting our country from  the depth of poverty, sickness and backwardness it has been subjected to for so long,
• introduce an active democratic governance and the rule of just law into the land,
• institute the assignment to public offices only through democratic means and the consent of the people,
• disband all forms of the current economic, cultural and geographical stratification by ethnic lines
• distribute the means of economic development equally across the land, and as a starter by removing ownership of business in any form or shape by any political party, ruling or otherwise 

We want you all to recognize this March 4 Freedom as our coming together to show the current ethnic based dictators that we will not rest until our country and our people are free to choose their own destiny. Towards this goal The Ethiopian CivicSmarts group, a team of forward-looking Ethiopians dedicated to the strengthening of Ethiopian civic societies are encouraging every able-bodied Ethiopian currently residing outside Ethiopia to provide their support for this freedom march in any way they can. 

We encourage you so that this is just the next logical chapter of the struggle for a free and democratic Ethiopia and that we wish to make sure we all appreciate that:

• our struggle will only go on and will not stop until our goal is achieved,
• our fight will only get stronger by the day until Ethiopia is the land of the free,
• our effort will only widen its scope until we reach all nations that somehow are supporting the current Ethiopian dictatorship and we make them clearly understand their actions will but embolden a regime that is bent on destroying not just Ethiopia but the East African region as well ,and this is not good for anyone including their own interests in that region,
• everyone of us do what we can to make this event a success and we see this as a team effort, the launch towards the fulfillment of a dream that we all had for our country for a long time.
• henceforward we all learn how to work together as a team so that the dictators in Addis Abeba take notice of what is coming,
• henceforward we learn the many benefits of operating as a team so that donor countries and anyone that wants to hear us gets a clear, concise and unequivocal  message of our intentions – a free, prosperous and democratic Ethiopia for all its citizens irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, and gender, 

Please visit the website http://www.march4freedom.org/ to get all the information you want on what this March 4 Freedom is all about, what you can do to help or to ask questions or to voice your concerns to the organizers. 

One day soon Ethiopia will be free through the hard work, coming-together and complete dedication of its children.  May God bless you all. 

Submitted by The Ethiopian CivicSmarts group on this day of September 4, 2009