Dear Mr. President,
You will be making a state visit to my birth country Ethiopia early next month. Ethiopia and Korea had long relation and in fact many Ethiopians died during Korean war. I personally worked with North Koreans during the military dictatorship of Mengistu Hailemariam in the 1980s.
Ethiopia has been under Meles Zenawi dictatorship for the last two decades. Highly educated Ethiopians are now refugees all over the world including South Korea. You should speak out against dictatorship and for the right of Ethiopians to live in their own country as free people. South Korea attain its current economic position by hard working South Koreans and Ethiopians should do no less.
I want to alert you too that Meles Zenawi has been selling/leasing Ethiopian farmlands to foreigners to enrich himself and his close associates. According to UNDP study last month 8.4 billion dollar is siphoned out to foreign banks in the last decade alone.
South Korea should stay out of leasing Ethiopian farmlands at the expense of our farmers. Our historical relationship will be damaged if you go on and lease our land because it is considered like declaring war on our farmers. Your country experience in land lease in Madagascar should not be repeated in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia and South Korea relationship has been people to people and that relation was written in blood during the Korean War six decades ago.Tyrants has come and gone but our relationship has endured for long. Ethiopia has a lot to learn from prosperous and democratic South Korea.
Sincerely,
Tedla Asfaw
