Ethiopia

“Ethnic Pride Gets a Test in Africa” (Feb. 10) was revealing. Although it is an expository of the policies of Ethiopia’s current regime, it does not tell the whole story. Ethiopia is feebly trying to emerge from the wreckage of Afro-communism. As a result of Afro-communism, the former Marxist government experimented with socialist, political and economic policies that tragically failed. And now, the Ethiopian people are in line for a second experiment. This time it is ethnocentric politics that allegedly promotes diversity. Your article documented the reckless destruction in life and property that is a natural outcome of such a policy.

But this aside, when are the Ethiopian people going to take matters into their own hands and stop being a grand social laboratory? Can the Ethiopian people be allowed to say what form of government they desire just like the rest of the world that is democratically surging forward?

SOLOMON GEBRESELASSIE

Duarte