By Tedla Asfaw
The Koka Lake I know has turned green thanks to the chemicals damped into the lake. Fertilizers, Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorus heavily used to grow commercial flowers and the untreated water from factories surrounding Addis Ababa are the main causes. The less than thirty minutes video on Al Jazeera, “People and Power and Green Lake,” aired on Feb 21 is now posted on EthiopianReview.com and is a must see, what I call another terror by regime of Tigray People Liberation Front (Woyanne) in Ethiopia — an environmental terror that feeds the algae while killing our people.
The carcinogen that is now contaminating Lake Koka is killing children. That was not the case with the Koka I know more than twenty years ago. Al Jazeera billed the program as a cost of the heavy growth of Addis Ababa and its surroundings and avoid to blame the government that ownes most of the these polluting industries and flower farms.
Except one European owner of the flower farm around Lake Ziway, far from the Green Lake of Koka, no owner comes in public to be interviewed. The Ethiopian tyrant, while was addressing the Youth in Addis Ababa few weeks ago, there was one question of water related hazard for which he blames the hide industry and that was a one minute question and answer and so much for the concern of the government.
Ethiopia has no government that is accountable for the health and the safety of its citizens and that is the bottom line. Human lives are secondary and Al Jazeera, if it zoomed its lenses, could have shown children, young and elderly with no home begging in the surrounding government owned high rises.
The sad thing is foreign partners of this regime do also miss the Green Lake. Haven’t they seen or took pictures on their cell phone on their weekend driving to Sodere? Polluted rivers in Europe and USA are now back to life supporting fish and become a recreational area after years of toxic damping and poor Ethiopia is encouraged to destroy its water resources by pumping loans for a regime that is making fast money at the expense of poor Ethiopian farmers ? Why are we not learning from other countries or we have to first grow by destroying our ecosystem and then start cleaning the mess ?
In a country where there is not any law that protects the public, it might be considered a luxury to look for environmental law. However, this is a criminal case where the harm is done to our people purposely and the Meles regime officials have to be held accountable.