In Ethiopia, big party looms for third millennium

On midnight Wednesday, the country, which uses a modified Julian calendar, will kick off festivities.

By Matthew Clark | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 11, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 2

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - After anticipating the event for more than a year, Ethiopians are getting ready to throw their biggest party ever.

The east African country, which uses a slightly modified version of the Julian calendar that the West moved away from centuries ago, will be ushering in their third millennium in style as the clock strikes 12 Wednesday night.

Enormous red, yellow, and green banners flutter from the sides of most major buildings in the capital, Addis Ababa, showing off the country's colors. Women in traditional white embroidered dresses dance through shopping malls while onlookers ululate. And residents are buzzing about which star-studded party they want to be at Wednesday.

Many Ethiopians are in a mood to put the country's domestic political tensions aside in the wake of the recent release of several opposition leaders who were jailed for nearly two years after protesting the 2005 elections, which international observers criticized as flawed.

And despite some concerns that rebel groups both inside and out of the country could try to derail the festivities with attacks, officials are confident that the celebrations will happen without incident.

"Addis Ababa is one of the most secure cities in the region, even the world," says information and tourism minister Mohammed Dirir. "Security has been taken care of, because we know that the government of [neighboring archrival] Eritrea in the past has tried to launch [attacks]."

Concert will no longer be free

The main event on tap for Wednesday night is a musical concert featuring The Black Eyed Peas, a Los Angeles-based pop group, as well as dozens of top Ethiopian artists.

The $1.2 million concert, which was supposed to be free to the public, has been shifted to a new $10-million conference hall that construction workers were working day and night to complete, right up until Wednesday.

Only those able to pay $170 – two months' earnings for the average Ethiopian – will be allowed to enter, but the event will be broadcast live on television and on a big screen at a stadium open to the public.

Over the past year, the government has said it hopes to attract more than 300,000 foreigners and Ethiopians who live abroad. But despite the hype, fewer than 34,000 people have come in the past month, according to immigration figures compiled by the local Fortune magazine.

Also, in a move seen by some as a boycott, several of the country's top opposition leaders are attending millennium festivities in Washington, where there's a large concentration of Ethiopians.

Three smaller concerts in the capital have been canceled, as has an international soccer tournament.

Page 1 | 2 | Next Page