President's
Millennium Message Dear
Compatriots, Fellow
Africans both at home and the Diaspora and friends of
Ethiopia. Today is
unique and momentous day. It is the eve of the beginning of
a new Ethiopian millennium. We are about to welcome a new
millennium which by the unanimous decision of the African
union and the consent of fellow Africans throughout the
world is also an African millennium. It is therefore with
great pride and pleasure that I wish you all a happy new
year, a happy new century and a happy new
millennium. Allow me
to at the outset to thank to all those who have made it
possible for us to celebrate the occasion in such a festive
and Joyous fashion. The council established to organize the
celebrations ably led by Deputy Prime Minister Ato Addissu
Legesse, the various councils and committees established
throughout the country and abroad have earned the gratitude
and admiration of all of us for their dedication and
excellent organizational skills. Millions
of Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia have made enormous
contributions for the success of the celebrations and I am
very grateful for their contribution. Our
emerging private sector has shouldered the lion's share of
the cost of the celebrations and we thank them all for their
contribution. In this regard I wish to recognize the unique
contribution of sheik Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi who among
many other things has built this magnificent facility in a
matter of just a few months to grace the
occasion. I would
also wish to thank our heroic athletes who have not only
added to our joy through their usual spectacular success in
international competition but also used the occasion to
introduce our millennium to people through out the world
watching their fiats of sportsmanship. I would
like to ask, Ethiopians everywhere to convey our special
thanks to all those distinguished leaders and heads of
delegations who have joined us here today. Their presence
with us here today is a magnificent reflection of their
friendship to Ethiopia. Our special thanks also to our
union, the African union and fellow Africans in the
continent and the Diasporas who have always steadfastly
stood beside us in our hours of need and who in that sprit
have decided to declare the Ethiopian millennium as the
African millennium. It is with great pride in our
pan-Africanist tradition that we thank all those Africans
from Dakar to Djibouti, from Cape Town to Cairo, and
everywhere in between who have made it a point of special
significance to celebrate the occasion in their own
countries in typically colorful and joyous African fashion.
I thank you all from the bottom of my
heart! Your
Excellency, Dear
compatriots, fellow African brothers and sisters and friends
of Ethiopia. We do not
have written records telling us how Ethiopians celebrated
the end of the first millennium and the banging of the
second one a thousand years ago. We can therefore not be
certain as to what their festivities might have celebrated
with a well deserved pride in their achievements. The after
all could rightfully have claimed to be the makers of one of
the most advanced nations of the day. After all, there is no
denying that their phenomenal achievements are here with us
today not only in the form of the historical relics that
they have left but also in the form of the uniquely African
script we still use and the very celebrations we are having
today which is the result of the African calendar they
developed. The last
few centuries of our second millennium, however, have not
been as glorious. While we can justly be proud of the fact
that every generation of Ethiopians during those centuries
have paid in blood to maintain our independence, we cannot
but feel deeply insulted that at the dawn of new millennium
ours is one of the poorest countries in the world. Over the
course of our second millennium we have gone from being one
of the most advanced nations on earth to that of being one
of the poorest. Thought this process we have not been
colonized by any foreign nations and hence we have always
been the authors of our destiny, both our successes and
failures. However,
in the last few years of the departing millennium we have
begun to fight back the darkness of poverty and backwardness
with success. Our economy has been growing at over 10
percent per annum and on current trend we should achieve our
objective of becoming a middle income country in about 20
years. In spite of lingering challenges we have made
enormous strides in establishing a democratic system in our
country a system that is rooted in our reality and one that
is central to our future. After
centuries of repeatedly aroused and dashed hopes, this
generation of Ethiopians is turning a new page. A glorious
new page of our history where poverty will merely be a
footnote in our long history is being written with the sweet
and toil of millions of farmers and pastoralist, businessmen
both small and big and workers and the intelligentsia.
Glorious new page of our history where our diversity becomes
a source of strength through tolerance and democracy rather
than a source of problems, through the patient and
methodical efforts of all our nationalities, followers of
all the great religions of our country, men and women, young
and old. A
thousands years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome
the fourth millennium, they shall say that the eve of the
third millennium was the beginning of the end dark ages in
Ethiopia. They shall say that the eve of the third
millennium was the beginning of Ethiopian
renaissance. We are
all acutely aware of the fact that a lot remains to be done
to sustain our current achievements. We are all aware of
that there are decades of hard work and toil ahead of us
before we can confidently declare that the Ethiopian
renaissance has been realized. But we also know that it can
and will be done. We know that we can do it not only because
all Ethiopian generations prior to our dark age had done it,
but also because we, our own generation of Ethiopia have
already began to do it. Dear
compatriot! It is
there fore with an acute sense of where we have been in the
past and where we are now, with a keen sense of our
historical mission that I can upon you today to stay the
course of the Ethiopian the Ethiopia renaissance, to
continue to work hard to make our current reality a mere
footnote in our long and glorious history. It is with a
sense of historical mission and total confidence in our
capacity to over come all challenges that I can upon you
today on the eve of a new millennium to join hands to
rebuild an Ethiopia that we all can be proud of. It is with
rekindled hope and confidence of the last years of the
second millennium that I call upon you to realize the
Ethiopian renaissance in all its forms poetically,
economically socially and cultural. I wish
you all happy New Year and a prosperous future in the new
millennium.
