New millennium in Ethiopia TheStar.com - News - New millennium in Ethiopia
13-month calendar finally flips to year 2000 and, amid celebrations, PM foresees `glorious new page'
September 13, 2007
Katie Nguyen
Barry Malone
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
ADDIS ABABA–Seven years after the rest of the world, Ethiopia entered the 21st century yesterday with parties, prayers and gestures of political reconciliation.
Tens of thousands of revellers packed Addis Ababa's main square for festivities overnight that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said should mark the vast Horn of Africa nation's renaissance.
Ethiopia follows a calendar, long abandoned by the West, that squeezes 13 months into every year.
Meles said the occasion heralded a "glorious new page" in the history of a country that, from the 1980s, became internationally synonymous with hunger and conflict.
"A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the fourth millennium, they shall say the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia," he said.
"They shall say that the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the Ethiopian renaissance."
Whistles, car horns and sirens shook the air at midnight.
At dawn, worshippers wrapped in traditional white robes flocked to church, crossing paths with partygoers returning from a once-in-a-lifetime celebration.
"I've come for God's blessing," said Michele Fantaye, smearing ash on his forehead. "I hope the next 1,000 years will deliver peace and unity."
Banging drums, Orthodox Christian priests sang of the importance of the occasion in Ethiopia's ancient Ge'ez language in churches choked with incense.
As home to the 3-million-year-old "Lucy" skeleton, Ethiopia and its 81 million people claim to live in the cradle of humanity, the birthplace of coffee and the only African nation not to be colonized.
But "the darkness of poverty and backwardness" had dimmed Ethiopia's proud reputation, Meles said. "We cannot but feel deeply insulted that at the dawn of the new millennium ours is one of the poorest countries in the world," he said.
He was speaking at a new exhibition hall where U.S. hip-hop act Black Eyed Peas performed for dignitaries and the capital's elite.
Many stayed away from the official event, regarded by critics as a government project. They preferred to party for free in sports fields rather than pay $170 – two months' wage for many – to rub shoulders with the wealthy.
Some in Addis Ababa, an opposition stronghold, were angry at the government's campaign to clear the streets of thousands of beggars, and at the spiralling cost of food for the millennium.
"I don't think much will change," said resident Belai Kassa. "Most of us will stay poor." (HAiDER Comment: At least the guys being realistic)
Most Ethiopians spent a rainy New Year's Day with their families. Sweeping away ashes of bonfires lit the night before, many held a day's fasting to be broken today by a meal of njera, spongy Ethiopian bread, and roasted goat.
A host of millennium events were delayed or dropped because of security concerns in Ethiopia which is embroiled in Somalia's conflict, locked in a bitter border row with Eritrea, and fighting separatist rebels in its Ogaden region.
Criticized internationally for an opposition crackdown after disputed 2005 elections, the government released nearly 18,000 prisoners this week. There were 230 political prisoners, including 35 Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) rebels.
HAiDER Says: Get with the times, that was so 7 years ago. When only a small groug hated America (Bin Ladin).
