EDITOR'S NOTE
JANUARY 1998
Ethiopian Review has completed its 7th year of publication. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our writers, readers, advertisers, and distributors, as well as our supporters and critics for helping to keep us going through thick and thin.
The objective of Ethiopian Review has been to disseminate as accurately as possible developments in Ethiopia and to provide a forum for views and opinions by Ethiopians and Ethiopianists on contemporary or historical subjects of interest and to enhance open discourse and dialogue on current issues. We look forward to continuing the job with even more refinement in focus and diversity in content.
In the English section of this issue of the Ethiopian Review our readers will find a profile of modern Ethiopian art by Professor Achamyeleh Debela, an introductory statement on the significance of Ethiopic by Dr. Ayele Bekeri, and an interview in Addis Abeba with playwright Ayalneh Mulatu on his take on plays and playwrights in Ethiopia today. Also in the Amharic section of this issue we have an article on the political development of Ethiopian youth by Dr. Negussay Ayele.
The reportage of current issues and developments in Ethiopia remain, of course, an important component of the pages of Ethiopian Review. And this issue on “The Independent Press Under Fire” by Kinfu Assefa and “Freedom of Expression: Right or Privilege?” by Dr. Meqdestarik Mesfin, devotes attention to the extra-judicial incarceration of journalists and staff members of the independent press and the recent burning down of the offices of TOBIA publication by the TPLF gendarmes.
We urge all Ethiopians and other folks of goodwill to sound their voices of protest loud and clear against the perpetrators of this act and to render moral and material support to the victims.
Elias Kifle
