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'Ark of the Covenant' about to be unveiled?
Ethiopian patriarch tells pope he will show artifact to world

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Ark of the Covenant as depicted in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (Paramount Pictures)

The patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia says he will announce to the world Friday the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, perhaps the world's most prized archaeological and spiritual artifact, which he says has been hidden away in a church in his country for millennia, according to the Italian news agency Adnkronos.

Abuna Pauolos, in Italy for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI this week, told the news agency, "Soon the world will be able to admire the Ark of the Covenant described in the Bible as the container of the tablets of the law that God delivered to Moses and the center of searches and studies for centuries."

The announcement is expected to be made at 2 p.m. Italian time from the Hotel Aldrovandi in Rome. Pauolos will reportedly be accompanied by Prince Aklile Berhan Makonnen Haile Sellassie and Duke Amedeo D'Acosta.

Abuna Pauolos, patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia

"The Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia for many centuries," said Pauolos. "As a patriarch I have seen it with my own eyes and only few highly qualified persons could do the same, until now."

Want to know more about the ancient box holding the Ten Commandments? Get "Exploring the Ark of the Covenant" – a two-DVD set!

According to Pauolos, the actual Ark has been kept in one church, but to defend the treasure, a copy was placed in every single church in Ethiopia.

He said a museum is being built in Axum, Ethiopia, where the Ark will be displayed. A foundation of D'Acosta will fund the project.

The Ark of the Covenant is the sacred container of the Ten Commandments as well as Aaron's rod and a sample of manna, the mysterious food that kept the Israelites alive while wandering in the wilderness during their journey to the promised land.

The Bible says the Ark was built to the specifications of God as He spoke to Moses. It was carried in advance of the people and their army by priests. It was also carried in a seven-day procession around the walled city of Jericho.

Sketch of Ark of the Covenant based on a description by the late explorer Ron Wyatt (wyattmuseum.com)

The idea that the Ark is presently in Ethiopia is a well-documented, albeit disputed, tradition dating back to at least 642 B.C. The tradition says it was moved to Elephantine Island in Egypt, then to Tana Kirkos Island in Ethiopia and finally to its present site at St. Mary's of Zion Church in Axum.

Ethiopians believe it is destined to be delivered to the Messiah when He reigns on Mount Zion – the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 3:16 points to a time when the Ark will vanish not only physically, but from the minds of the people: "And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more."

The Book of Revelation says the Ark is in the temple of God in heaven (Rev. 11:19). Muslim scholars say it will be found near the end of times by the Mahdi – a messianic figure in Islam.

Book Review: Abebe Bikilla – Ethiopia's Barefoot Olympian

As Mr. Vettenniemi wrote, it is true that Ethiopians have not given the attention that the many athletes of the country deserve save for a few ones. Addis Arts and Culture hopes to document the lives of as many of these athletes as possible. Recently, AAC has produced a documentary DVD on the final years of the renowned artist/singer Dr. Tilahum Gessesse, who passed away recently.

Mesfin Tadesse

_________________________

By Erkki Vettenniemi 

Considering the well-known achievements of the Ethiopian distance runners over the past fifty years or so, one is perhaps entitled to lament the lack of interest in the history of Ethiopian athletics.

While scholars have tackled innumerable Ethiopian issues in their sophisticated monographs, not a single learned paper has been dedicated to the athletes and their impact on the surrounding society.

In fact, the story of Ethiopian running is so poorly understood that the following claim can be found on the Ethiopian Athletics Federation website: “Although the exact roots of Ethiopian athletics cannot be retraced accurately, it is widely believed that the sport was widely practiced in schools and the military before 1897.”

Across the border in Kenya, the colonialists did not manage to create any support for modern sports until well into the 20th century. Yet we are to believe that Ethiopians happily adopted and mastered the jumping, throwing and running events during Emperor Menelik’s reign!

Thanks to an English journalist, the historiography of Ethiopian athletics can finally be taken seriously. Tim Judah’s Bikila – Ethiopia’s Barefoot Olympian (2008) is nominally a biography of Abebe Bikila, the 1960 and 1964 Olympic marathon champion. At the same time it is the most reliable account ever published on the origins of athletics in this country.

As a Finnish historian with a long-standing interest in Ethiopian running, I have been privileged to meet and interview many first-generation athletes, such as Mamo Wolde and Said Mussa, both of them deceased by now, and, of course, Wami Biratu, the ninety-year-old monument of Ethiopian sports. Not surprisingly, they all feature in Tim Judah’s text, but what is most striking about the book is the extent to which it succeeds in reconstructing the life of the founding father of Ethiopian athletics.

Although he was born in Finland, Onni Niskanen carried a Swedish passport when he arrived in Addis Ababa with hundreds of other civilian and military experts in the late 1940s. Unlike most expatriates, he devoted the rest of his life to Ethiopia, and while he busied himself with a number of humanitarian projects, he is best known as the coach of Abebe Bikila.

In 1950, Niskanen was put in charge of the Ministry of Education’s physical education department. Gradually, modern sports took root in the peasant society that Ethiopia was; and simultaneously, as the Imperial Bodyguard’s sports instructor, Niskanen cultivated the raw talent of Abebe, Wami and others.

The romantic notion of Ethiopians as natural runners will probably never die. Judging by Tim Judah’s book, however, it can surely be termed as a myth. “When I started training him, he ran like a drilling soldier,” Niskanen wrote about Abebe. Apart from disciplining their bodies, Niskanen subjected his athletes to thoroughly modern training regimes. The elite runners of this country were professional sportsmen in all but name.

Ironically, some of their rivals in the West were handicapped by the amateur ethos which still prevailed in the 1950s.

In that sense there was nothing accidental about Abebe Bikila’s first Olympic triumph in 1960. On the other hand, what may well have been accidental about Abebe was the fact that he won any gold medals at all.

Wami Biratu was generally considered as the leading Ethiopian runner in 1960, but due to an illness, he could not participate in the Rome games. Four years later Mamo Wolde was expected to challenge Abebe in Tokyo, but a leg injury forced him to pull out of the marathon. Mamo had to wait for his golden moment until 1968.

What actually counts in sport is, of course, the result sheet, and that is why Abebe Bikila will always be remembered as the greatest marathon runner of his generation. Accordingly, Onni Niskanen deserves to be acknowledged as the architect of his success, or, to quote Tim Judah’s solemn turn of phrase, as “a man who changed the history of sport”.

The author has carried out extensive interviews in Ethiopia, Sweden and many other countries. Niskanen “cared for Abebe like a baby, taking care of his massage, food, sleep,” an informant of Judah’s explains the two men’s relationship.

After the 1964 games, however, Abebe started frequenting bars and behaving more like a serial lover than a purposeful athlete. One of his girlfriends owned a restaurant. She also “had a record player and they would play the music of Tilahun Gessesse”.

Tilahun had served as a guardsman, too, and one is tempted to imagine him running alongside Abebe, sharing a joke with Mamo, and trying his hand at tennis with Wami. Sadly, Tilahun is no longer with us, but as was said at his funeral, his songs will reverberate in every Ethiopian’s heart.

Unlike singers, athletes need eloquent scribes to reach immortality, and Tim Judah has done more than that. His portrait of Abebe is alluring yet unflattering, and it provides a consistently informative history of the formative years of Ethiopian athletics.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to food recommends principles and measures to discipline “land grabbing”(GENEVA and BRUSSELS, 11 June)

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr. Olivier De Schutter, on Thursday proposed a minimum a set of principles and measures based on human rights in the elaboration of large-scale transnational land acquisitions and leases, more commonly referred to as “land grabbing”. His call comes at a time when Governments are preparing to negotiate on responsible investment in agriculture at the forthcoming G8 Summit. Mr. De Schutter identified large-scale transnational land investments as one of new trends that emerged out of the 2008 global food crisis which have not been properly addressed by the
international community.

Large-scale land investments can be opportunities for development, given their potential for
creating infrastructures and employment, increasing public revenues and improving farmers’ access
to technologies and credit. Yet they could have negative effects on the right to food as well as other
human rights. Potential impacts include: the eviction of land users which have no formal security of
tenure over the land they have been cultivating for decades; the loss of access to land for indigenous
peoples and pastoral populations, competition for water resources and decreased food security if
local populations are deprived of access to productive resources.

“These principles and measures are intended to assist both investors and host governments in the
negotiation and implementation of large-scale land leases and acquisitions, in order to ensure that
such investments work for the benefit of the population including the most vulnerable groups in the
host country, and are conducive to sustainable development, with the progressive realization of the
human right to food as the ultimate horizon”, Mr. De Schutter said. The measures are grounded in
principles of international human rights law, including the right to food, the right to selfdetermination
of peoples and the right to development; as well as in international labour legislation.

The Special Rapporteur highlighted several of the human rights principles at a press conference in
Brussels on Thursday: “From a human rights perspective, the negotiations leading to investment
agreements should be conducted in full transparency and with the participation of the local
communities whose access to land and other productive resources may be affected as a result of the
arrival of an investor. Any shifts in land use should in principle be made with the free, prior and
informed consent of the local communities concerned.”

Another crucial issue is the use of investment revenues. “Investment contracts should prioritize the
development needs of the local population. Arrangements under which the foreign investor provides
access to credit and to improved technologies for contract farming, or obtains the possibility to buy
at predefined prices a portion of the crops, produced may be preferable to long-term leases of land
or land purchases,” said Mr. De Schutter.

“From a right-to-food perspective, host States and investors should also establish and promote
farming systems that are labour intensive – instead of highly-mechanized operations – in order to
ensure that investment agreements contribute to reinforcing local livelihood options and provide
living wages for the local population, which is a key component of the human right to food.
Sustainable agriculture, in particular agro-ecological approaches and low external input farming
practices should also be privileged in contract agreements. A safe and productive environment is
indeed an element in the realization of the right to food for local communities”.

The Special Rapporteur recommended conducting impact assessments prior to the finalization of
the contract and later at pre-defined intervals, in order to highlight the consequences of the
investment on local employment and incomes; on access to productive resources of the local
communities and on the environment. Investment agreements should also include a clause
providing that a certain minimum percentage of the crops produced shall be sold on local markets,
with specific conditions set if prices of food commodities on international markets reach certain
levels.

The Special Rapporteur said he expects these human-rights-based measures will help bring about a
consensus on the establishment of a multilateral approach. “A multilateral approach could avoid
beggar-thy-neighbour policies, with countries competing against each other for the arrival of
foreign direct investment and thus lowering the requirements imposed on foreign investors. It could
provide increased legal certainty for the investors and shield them from the risk of reputational
losses if they comply with the principles”.

According to Mr. De Schutter, the human rights framework is thus not only an obligation for states,
but an opportunity: ‘While these measures may give the impression of representing additional
constraints, they should be seen as true success factors in the short and long term. Land represents
not only the main means to access and procure food for millions of smallholders and their families,
but it is also an essential element for the identity of certain peoples and communities. If investment
agreements work against these aspects, they may backfire. Human rights principles and standards
can, once more, guide this emerging trend.”

Press contacts: Olivier De Schutter Tel. +32.488.482004 - Federica Donati Tel. +41.22.9179496
For the full text of the Special Rapporteur’s statement, please visit: www.srfood.org or
www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm
* * *
Olivier De Schutter was appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food in 2008 by the
United Nations Human Rights Council. He is independent from any government or organization.
He teaches International Human Rights Law at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium).
The right to food. Under Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, every State is obliged to ensure for everyone under its jurisdiction access to the
minimum essential food which is sufficient, nutritionally adequate and safe, to ensure their freedom
from hunger. The obligations of the State are threefold: to respect, protect and fulfil the human
right to food. The State is obliged to refrain from infringing on individuals’ and groups’ ability to
feed themselves where such an ability exists (respect), and to prevent others - in particular private
actors such as firms - from encroaching on that ability (protect). Finally, the state is called upon to
actively strengthen individuals’ ability to feed themselves (fulfil).

Large-scale land acquisitions. According to an estimate from IFPRI, between 15 and 20 million
hectares of farmland in developing countries have been subject to transactions or negotiations
involving foreign investors since 2006. This already represents the size of France’s farmland.
Among the main target countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are Cameroon, Ethiopia, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia