War on Want: Africa: a continent of wealth, a continent of poverty Afrikaa: Ardii qabeetti ardii iyyeetti June 24, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, African Poor, Colonizing Structure, Corruption in Africa, Free development vs authoritarian model, Poverty.
Tags: a continent of poverty, Africa, Africa: a continent of wealth, African Studies, Developing country, Illicit Financial Flows from Ethiopia, Incidence of Poverty in Oromia and Ethiopia, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation
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Africa: a continent of wealth, a continent of poverty

By Tom Lebert, senior international programme officer (Resources & Conflict) at War on Want.

There has been much talk of an African renaissance in recent years. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s second post-apartheid president, has spoken of a ‘rebirth that must encompass all Africans’. So as African politicians and mining companies convene in London this week for ‘Mining on Top’ – Africa’s annual mining summit – where are the voices of civil society? Their absence speaks volumes.

Africa is blessed with a rich bounty of natural resources. The continent holds around 30% of the world’s known mineral reserves. These include cobalt, uranium, diamonds and gold, as well as significant oil and gas reserves. Given this natural wealth it comes as no surprise that, with the tripling of global mineral and oil prices in the past decade, mining has exploded on the African continent. Over the period 2000 to 2008 resource extraction contributed more than 30% of Africa’s GDP while the annual flow of foreign direct investment into Africa increased from $9 billion to $62 billion (most of this into extractive industries). However, despite being so richly endowed, and despite the mining boom of the past decade, Africa has drawn little benefit from this mineral wealth and remains one of the poorest continents on the globe, with almost 50% of the population living on less than $1.25 per day.

So, why is it that a continent with such vast potential wealth can remain so poor? It is in large part down to ‘illicit financial flows’: the illegal movement of money or capital from one country to another. The exploitation of mineral resources has all too often led to corruption and a large proportion of the continent’s resources and revenues benefiting local and foreign elites rather than the general population. Trade mispricing (and in particular transfer pricing and trade misinvoicing) is the most common way of transferring illicit funds abroad. Through trade mispricing, companies seek to maximize profits artificially through maximizing expenses in high-tax jurisdictions and maximizing revenue and income in low-tax jurisdictions. This enables corporations to minimize tax payments illegally and transfer the funds abroad.

Such illicit flows undermine social development and stymy inclusive economic growth. Instead of investing resource revenues into improving infrastructure, health and education, political elites, often in collusion with mining companies, have siphoned off proceeds from the continent’s mineral and oil wealth – lining their own pockets to the detriment of ordinary Africans.

Zambia presents as a wealthy country – the largest producer of copper in Africa and the 7th-largest globally. Yet Zambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 74% of the population living on less than $1.25 a day and 43% of the population being undernourished. This is in part due to a haemorrhaging of wealth, mainly to transnational mining companies. According to the Zambian Deputy Finance Minister, in 2012 the country was losing $2 billion a year from tax avoidance – around 10% of Zambia’s GDP. The mining industry was the largest culprit and the bulk of the loss was attributed to transfer pricing – where parts of the same company trade with each other at prices that they determine on their own – and to the over-reporting of costs and under-reporting of production. The situation is compounded by overly generous tax incentives provided to companies by the Zambian government.

The Zambian example is not an isolated case. Such corporate practices in the mining sector are common right across the continent. In South Africa, illegal capital flight through trade-misinvoicing (a means to evade tax) is rife in the ores and metals sector. Over the period 1995 to 2006 trade misinvoicing alone amounted to $167 million. And when it comes to fuel-exporting countries, over the period 1970 to 2008 states were losing on average $10 billion per year because of misinvoicing – the sum accounting for nearly half of all illicit financial flows from Africa during this time. Moreover, statistical data generated through the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, which was introduced in 2003, revealed that diamond production was nearly twice as large as estimated, indicating massive smuggling, under-reporting and tax evasion in the sector. The list goes on.

So, what is to be done? At the heart of any solution must be transparency. Countries need to be more open in their dealings with mining companies, put in place and enforce fairer tax regimes and anti-corruption rules, and pursue economic policies that promote diversified economies and reduce dependence on revenues from mineral wealth. International mining capital would also, of course, have to play by the rules or be held to account for its indiscretions. Such measures would go some way to ensuring that the continent’s wealth benefits ordinary people and puts Africa onto a path to greater prosperity.

Mining routinely disrupts and destroys people’s livelihoods while damaging their health and the environment. It is local communities right across the continent that are most affected by the extractives industry. ‘Mining on Top’ should be the perfect opportunity to bring these communities into the very discussions that will affect their lives. Shamefully, they’ve not been invited. So while the mining elite discuss how best to exploit a continent, ordinary Africans continue to lose out.

The ‘Mining on Top’ Africa – London Summit takes place on 24-26 June at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, 200 Westminster Bridge, SE1 7UT. On Thursday 25 June, War on Want will join London Mining Network and Gaia Foundation in protest at the failure of organizers to include civil-society representatives at the summit.

http://newint.org/blog/2015/06/24/africa-a-continent-of-wealth/

Leaked Bank Loan Record of Land Grabbers in Gambella June 21, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Africa and debt, African Poor, Colonizing Structure, Corruption, Dictatorship, Illicit financial outflows from Ethiopia, Land and Water Grabs in Oromia, Land Grabs in Africa, Poverty.
Tags: African Studies, Corruption, Land grab in Oromia & Gambella, Land grabbing, Land grabs in Africa
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Leaked Bank Loan Record of Land Grabbers in Gambella

(The Gulele Post) – The following document contains names of individuals and companies who borrowed money from a branch of Development Bank of Ethiopia located in Western Ethiopia for the purpose of investment on farm land development. We have redacted some information to protect our sources. The data shows how much money has been borrowed, by whom and where the supported farm land is located. With exception of few cases, most of the land is taken from Gambella. http://www.gulelepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Bank-Loan-for-Land-Grab_Ethiopia.pdf

Bank-Loan-for-Land-Grab_Ethiopia

78 % of land grabbers in Gambella are fascist TPLF from Tigray, evidence from Gambella state. Dhiba keessa qabxii 78 saamicha lafaa Gambella irratti kan bobba’ani woyyaanota/ ilmaan Tigreeti. Ragaa motummaa Gambeellaa irraa argame kan armaa gadiitiin mirkaneessa.

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/06/omn-oduu-waxabajjii-18-2015/

The rhetoric of #Africa’s economic ‘rise’ does not reflect reality June 19, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Africa Rising.
Tags: Africa, Africa is not rising, Africa Rising, Global Competitiveness Report, The development of Africa's Underdevelopment, The Looting Machine, Youth Unemployment
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‘African economies consistently underperform the Southeast Asian average across all the pillars. The most critical gaps continue to be seen in the areas of basic requirements of competitiveness: institutions, infrastructure, and education and skills.19 This is troubling because the majority of African economies are classified as factor-driven economies (see Table 1), so these areas are currently the most critical areas for the competitiveness of these countries. On a more positive note, Africa’s financial, goods, and labor markets function comparatively well (on par, or nearly on par, with Latin America). However, ease of entry and exit from low-wage, low-productivity jobs will not lead to improved competitiveness. It will be important to build upon the region’s comparatively efficient markets by investing in other competitiveness-enhancing reforms. A particular point of concern is the continent’s weak institutions. Although Africa’s performance is similar to that of Southeast Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean in this pillar, the institutions in all three regions receive scores below 4 out of 7. This suggests that more effort should be made to increase the capacity of the institutional framework, as it provides a critical foundation for the other dimensions of competitiveness. Indeed, the quality of institutions has actually been deteriorating in both OECD and African economies according to the GCI. This might explain in part why Africa’s competitiveness seems to have stagnated in comparison to OECD economies
(see Figure 11a). In Africa, a decline in security and government efficiency—two components of the public institutions subpillar—would appear to be at the core of this decline. Sound public institutions and governance are an important prerequisite for economic development.’- Africa_Competitiveness_Report_2015

Is Africa really rising? History and facts suggest it isn’t

Grieve Chelwa, Africa is A Country

In the year 2000, the Economist ran a cover story with the title “Hopeless Africa”. Four years later, Robert Guest, who served as the newspaper’s Africa Editor, published “The Shackled Continent”, a book that pretty much concluded that, absent any miracles, Africa’s future was bleak. The book was widely praised, not least of all by all-round Africa expert Bob Geldof who said “[it] was written with a passion for Africa and Africans”. Then in 2011, the current era of Afro-euphoria signalled its triumphant entrance with the Economist’s Africa Rising cover story. In contrast to their cover story of just a couple of years back, this one declared that there was hope for the hopeless continent (TIME did exactly the same thing in 2012).

We’ve written about the Africa Rising meme on this site, from culture to politics to music to fashion, again and again and again and again and again and again andagain and again. Now for the economics.

To be sure, African economies have begun growing again after contracting for most of the 1980s and 1990s. According to the World Bank, real GDP per capita shrank at a rate of 1% per year over the period 1980 to 2000 for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. Since 2000, real GDP per capita has grown at the more respectable rate of 2% per year. And it appears that the incidence of poverty, at least as measured by the World Bank, also declined, although marginally, during the last decade.

Many so-called Africa watchers seem to have caught the “Africa rising” bug. There is now wide expectation, undergirded of course by the likes of the Economist, that growth will continue unabated going forward. Africa’s time is now! So declared a piece in the trendy Harvard Business Review.

The “Africa rising” narrative suggests the continent is now well on its way to self-sustaining growth. The kind of growth that the East Asian “tigers” and the countries known as the West experienced during the times they were rising. The kind of growth that has led to a massive reduction in poverty in China within a generation. Unfortunately here is where reality stands at odds with the euphoria.

Africa’s current growth revival (the continent did grow, and healthily so, from the 1960s to the 1970s) seems to be largely driven by external factors: China’s spectacular growth and along with it an increase in the price of commodities, whose exports Africa relies on to a great extent. So any slowdown in China’s growth, as is likely to happen as its economy matures, is likely to impact greatly on Africa’s performance.

To be sure, there have also been some internal drivers of growth: price distortions have been reduced in agriculture, macroeconomic stability has been restored (inflation rates are low and stable across most of the continent) and political institutions have improved (democracy and elections are now more common on the continent than before). But the prospects of these internal policies to sustain long-run growth are dismal. The Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, in a highly insightful essay titled “An African Growth Miracle?”, points out that the relationship between standard measures of good policies (macroeconomic stability, reduced price distortions, etc…) and economic growth tends to be weak. At best, good policies make economic crises less prevalent but cannot sustain and drive growth on their own. The same is also true of institutions, which following the much publicized work of Daron Acemoglu and friends, has become the be all and end all of development thinking. Rodrik points out that Latin America has experienced positive institutional changes within the last 20 years with a small payoff in growth. On the other hand, impressive growth in South Korea (until the 1990s) and China (today) has occurred alongside rampant cronyism and corruption.

According to Rodrik, self-sustaining growth begins to occur when an economy undergoes a structural transformation from relying less on agriculture to relying more on industry. That is, self-sustaining growth is underpinned by large-scale industrialization. This is the historical lesson of the East Asian tigers, of China, and of even the West. Unfortunately the facts for Africa point in the opposite direction. Yes, African labour has moved out of agriculture in large numbers, but the beneficiary has not been manufacturing but services. The service sector tends not to be as “productive” as the manufacturing sector. And productivity, which is the ability to produce ever more output from the same amount of inputs, is what drives and sustains growth. The share of manufacturing in the economies of most African countries has declined from about 15% in the 1970s to around 10% today. That is Africa has in fact deindustrialized! And even the 10% of GDP that is manufacturing is mostly made up of small informal firms that are not particularly productive and are unlikely to evolve into big formal firms. Rodrik sums up his prospects for Africa thus:

“To sum up, the African pattern of structural change is very different from the classic pattern that has produced high growth in Asia, and before that, the European industrializers. Labour is moving out of agriculture and rural areas. But formal manufacturing industries are not the main beneficiary. Urban migrants are being absorbed largely into services that are not particularly productive and into informal activities. The pace of industrialization is much too slow to [spurn self-sustaining growth].”

So what can be done? Rodrik suggests that industrialization can be helped along by improving the “business climate” in Africa. But the problem with the business climate argument, apart from being vague, is that it does not confront the fact that Africa was more industrialized in the 1970s, at a time when the business climate was likely no different from what it is today. In my opinion, the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) that were administered beginning in the early 1980s are largely responsible for halting the pace of industrialization on the continent. With SAPs, Africans were told by their betters to stop supporting industry because doing so was “wasteful”. Subsidies to industry were reduced. Protective trade barriers were removed. Planning for industry was done away with. All this advice was dispensed in spite of the fact that today’s developed countries industrialized behind a veil of considerable state support. For instance, the historian Sven Beckert points out that Britain’s cloth manufacturing industry, which was largely responsible for the Industrial Revolution, was shielded from competition from India for most of the 18^thCentury. The Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang has called this phenomenon of rich countries forcing policies on poor countries that they themselves did not implement during their time of take-off as “kicking away the ladder”.

Africa needs to industrialize for it to really rise. Unfortunately the rhetoric around “Africa rising” is giving us a false sense of comfort and distracting us from the real work that needs to happen.

Source:

http://africasacountry.com/is-africa-really-rising-history-and-facts-suggest-it-isnt/

Africa’s Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth review – ‘the raping of a continent’ June 16, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Africa and debt, Africa Rising, Illicit financial outflows from Ethiopia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Political and Economic Corruption in Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth review – ‘the raping of a continent’

Ian Birrell, The Guardian, 2nd March 2015

Tom Burgis’s account of the plundering of Africa’s natural resources by huge companies and corrupt regimes is enlightening

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/02/looting-machine-warlords-tycoons-smugglers-systematic-theft-africa-wealth-review?utm_content=buffer0a30b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Laurent Kabila, the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who received ‘at least $4m a week in cash-filled suitcases from mining companies’. Photograph: Adil Bradlow/AP

Augustin Katumba Mwanke was a young banker in South Africa when persuaded to return home to help rebuild the Democratic Republic of Congo by the new government of Laurent Kabila. A year later he got a call from the president, a fellow Katangan, and was stunned to be appointed governor of an area the size of France, with control over some of the world’s most valuable mineral seams.

This marked the start of his rapid rise to power beside the president, placed at the core of a network of Congolese officials, foreign businessmen and organised criminals plundering the nation’s immense wealth. First, they transferred $5bn of state assets into the pockets of private firms with no benefit to the state, then after this was exposed, Katumba created a shadow state to steal funds, buy elections and bribe supporters. One witness says Kabila was being handed at least $4m a week in cash-filled suitcases from mining companies.

The victims, of course, are those millions condemned by the “resource curse” to conflict and poverty in a country that remains among the world’s poorest, despite the huge riches beneath their feet. As this timely book shows, similar shadow states are pillaging Africa’s immense wealth, from Angola to Zimbabwe, while corroding its societies. The result is a nation such as Nigeria, one of the world’s major oil producers, generating half as much electricity as North Korea – only enough to power one toaster for every 44 of its citizens.

After nine years reporting on Africa for the Financial Times, Tom Burgis exposes how the extractive industries have turned into a hideous looting machine, the west guilty of complicity in the raping of a continent. As he says, corruption does not end at the borders; kleptocratic regimes use avaricious allies to sell their commodities and stash illicit cash. “Its proponents include some of the world’s biggest companies, among them blue-chip multinationals in which, if you live in the west and have a pension, your money is almost certainly invested.”

Burgis shows how even the World Bank is linked to this looting, although it would have been good to see recognition of the role of aid propping up awful regimes. But the author makes an important case colourfully, convincingly and at times courageously as he confronts some of those involved in the pillaging. He examines countries cursed in similar style, whether by oil in Angola, coltan in the Congo, iron ore in Guinea, uranium in Niger or diamonds in Zimbabwe. There are lots of dodged questions and unanswered emails, but also surprising admissions, such as the Nigerian governor defending his need to “settle” payments for political survival. “If I don’t, I’ve got a big political enemy,” he says.

South Africa is home to the world’s most valuable mineral resources – yet the gap between rich and poor probably widened since the end of apartheid. This fits a pattern of inequality stemming from the resource curse, argues Burgis, pointing out how some leaders fought against racist regimes only to preside over elites that resemble in structure minority rulers they overthrew. “It’s like a virus, transmitted from the colonial regime to the post-independence rulers,” says one Nigerian critic. “And these extractors, they are the opposite of a society that is governed for the public good.”

Then there is the questionable role of China. The author is right to say there is a “distinct whiff of hypocrisy” to western criticism of the nation’s advance into Africa. Yet he grapples with the role played by the secretive Sam Pa. Burgis speculates about links to Chinese intelligence as he details Pa’s steady, lucrative cultivation of top-level contacts. His informative book ends with the words of Nigeria’s impassioned singer Nneka: “Don’t think you’re not involved.”

The Looting Machine is published by Harper Collins. Click here to buy it for £16

Discussions about the fate of Africa have long had a cyclical quality. That is especially the case when it comes to the question of how to explain the region’s persistent underdevelopment. At times, the dominant view has stressed the importance of centuries of exploitation by outsiders, from the distant past all the way to the present. Scholars such as the economist William Easterly, for example, have argued that even now, the effects of the African slave trade can be measured on the continent, with areas that experienced intensive slaving still showing greater instability, a lack of social trust, and lower growth. Others observers have focused on different external factors, such as the support that powerful countries offered corrupt African dictatorships during the Cold War and the structural-adjustment policies imposed by Western-led institutions in the 1980s—which, some argue, favored disinvestment in national education, health care, and other vital services.

At other times, a consensus has formed around arguments that pin the blame on poor African leadership in the decades since most of the continent achieved independence in the 1960s. According to this view, the outside world has been generous to Africa, providing substantial aid in recent decades, leaving no excuse for the continent’s debility. There’s little wrong with African countries that an end to the corruption and thievery of their leaders wouldn’t fix, voices from this camp say. Western media coverage of Africa has tended to provide fodder for that argument, highlighting the shortcomings and excesses of the region’s leaders while saying little about the influence of powerful international institutions and corporations. It’s easy to understand why: Africa’s supply of incompetent or colorful villains has been so plentiful over the years, and reading about them is perversely comforting for many Westerners who, like audiences everywhere, would rather not dwell on their own complicity in the world’s problems.

Reading about African villains is perversely comforting for many Westerners who, like audiences everywhere, would rather not dwell on their own complicity in the world’s problems.

One of the many strengths of Tom Burgis’ The Looting Machine is the way it avoids falling firmly into either camp in this long-running debate. Burgis, who writes about Africa for theFinancial Times, brings the tools of an investigative reporter and the sensibility of a foreign correspondent to his story, narrating scenes of graft in the swamps of Nigeria’s oil-producing coastal delta region and in the lush mining country of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, while also sniffing out corruption in the lobbies of Hong Kong skyscrapers, where shell corporations engineer murky deals that earn huge sums of money for a host of shady international players. Although Burgis’ emphasis is ultimately on Africa’s exploitation by outsiders, he never loses sight of local culprits.

GIMME THE LOOT

Sure signs that Burgis is no knee-jerk apologist for African elites arrive early in the book, beginning with his fascinating and lengthy account of “the Futungo,” a shadowy clique of Angolan insiders who he claims control their country’s immense oil wealth, personally profiting from it and also using it to keep a repressive ruling regime in power. The country’s leader, José Eduardo dos Santos, has been president since 1979, and in 2013, Forbes magazine identified his daughter, Isabel, as Africa’s first female billionaire. “When the International Monetary Fund [IMF] examined Angola’s national accounts in 2011,” Burgis writes, it found that between 2007 and 2010, “$32 billion had gone missing, a sum greater than the gross domestic product of each of forty-three African countries and equivalent to one in every four dollars that the Angolan economy generates annually.” Meanwhile, according to Burgis, even though the country is at peace, in 2013 the Angolan government spent 18 percent of its budget on the Futungo-dominated military and police forces that prop up dos Santos’ rule—almost 40 percent more than it spends on health and education combined.

Those who tend to blame Africa’s woes on elite thievery seize on such examples with relish. But Burgis tells a much fuller story. Angola’s leaders may seem more clever and perhaps possess more agency than other African regimes—and indeed, other African states seem to be eagerly adopting the Angolan model. But the regime relies on the complicity of a number of actors in the international system—and the willful ignorance of many others—to facilitate the dispossession of the Angolan people: Western governments, which remain largely mute about governance in Angola; major banks; big oil companies; weapons dealers; and even the IMF. They provide the political cover, the capital, and the technology necessary to extract oil from the country’s rich offshore wells and have facilitated the concealment (and overseas investment) of enormous sums of money on behalf of a small cabal of Angolans and their foreign enablers. Because Angola’s primary resource, oil, is deemed so important to the global economy, and because its production is so lucrative for others, Angola is rarely pressed to account for how it uses its profits, much less over questions of democracy or human rights. Burgis shows how even the IMF, after uncovering the $32 billion theft, docilely reverted to its role as a facilitator of the regime’s dubious economic programs.

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos leaves a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, April 2014.

For those who insist that foreign aid to Africa compensates for the role that rich countries, big businesses, and international organizations play in plundering the continent’s resource wealth, Burgis has a ready rejoinder. “In 2010,” he writes, “fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth $333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction.” And African countries generally receive only a small fraction of the value that their extractive industries produce, at least relative to the sums that states in other parts of the world earn from their resources. As Burgis reveals, that is because multilateral financial institutions, led by the World Bank and its International Finance Corporation (IFC), often put intense pressure on African countries to accept tiny royalties on the sales of their natural resources, warning them that otherwise, they will be labeled as “resource nationalists” and shunned by foreign investors. “The result,” Burgis writes, “is like an inverted auction, in which poor countries compete to sell the family silver at the lowest price.”

Meanwhile, oil, gas, and mining giants employ crafty tax-avoidance strategies, severely understating the value of their assets in African countries and assigning the bulk of their income to subsidiaries in tax havens such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the Marshall Islands. Some Western governments tolerate and even defend such arrangements, which increase the profits of Western companies and major multinational firms. But these tax dodges further shrink the proceeds that African states earn from their resources. According to Burgis, in Zambia, one of the world’s top copper producers, major mining companies pay lower tax rates than the country’s poor miners themselves. Partly as a result, he reports, in 2011, “only 2.4 percent of the $10 billion of revenues from exports of Zambian copper accrued to the government.” Ghana, a major gold producer, fared slightly better, with foreign mining companies paying seven percent of the revenue they earned in taxes—still a tiny amount, Burgis points out, “compared with the 45 to 65 percent that the IMF estimates to be the global average effective tax rate in mining.”

A RACE TO THE BOTTOM

African countries’ unequal relationships with powerful international financial organizations and large multinational firms help explain the “resource curse” so frequently lamented in discussions of the continent’s economies. Rather than issuing from some mysterious invisible force, the curse is to a large degree the product of greed and the disparities in leverage between rich and poor—and its effects are undeniable. Burgis quotes a 2004 internal IFC review that found that between 1960 and 2000, “poor countries that were rich in natural resources grew two to three times more slowly than those that were not.” Without exception, the IFC found, “every country that borrowed from the World Bank did worse the more it depended on extractive industries.”

A case in point is the arid, Sahelian country of Niger, which for decades has served as a major supplier of uranium to France, its former colonial master. According to Burgis, the French company Areva pays tiny royalties for Niger’s uranium—an estimated 5.5 percent of its market value. And the details of the company’s contracts with Niger’s government are not publicly disclosed. Reflecting on this situation during an interview with Burgis, China’s ambassador to Niger adopts a posture of moral outrage, proclaiming that Niger’s “direct receipts from uranium are more or less equivalent to those from the export of onions.”

Rather than issuing from some mysterious invisible force, the “resource curse” is to a large degree the product of greed and the disparities in leverage between rich and poor.

This is a telling exchange, since many Africans believed that Chinese investment and influence on the continent would offer a way to lift the resource curse. Many greeted the arrival of the Chinese as big economic players in the region, which began in the mid-1990s, with great enthusiasm—especially the leaders of states whose economies depend heavily on minerals. China’s share of the global consumption of refined metals rose from five percent in the early 1990s to 45 percent in 2010; its oil consumption increased fivefold during the same period. In 2002, Chinese trade with Africa was worth $13 billion; a mere decade later, that figure had soared to $180 billion, three times the value of U.S. trade with  the continent.

The hope was that with China directly competing with Africa’s economic partners in the West, African countries would win better terms for themselves. But as Burgis makes painfully clear, what has happened more often is a race to the bottom, in which Chinese firms focus their attention on African countries that face sharp credit restrictions or economic boycotts from the West, owing to coups d’état or human rights abuses. In many such countries, including Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Guinea, the Chinese have extended easy financing to governments, crafting secretive deals that reward Chinese investors with even more lopsided terms than Western governments and firms tend to enjoy. “Access to easy Chinese loans might have looked like a chance for African governments to reassert sovereignty after decades of hectoring by the [World] Bank, the IMF, and Western donors,” Burgis writes, but, “like a credit card issued with no credit check, it also removed a source of pressure for sensible economic management.” In addition to this, critics point out that Chinese companies frequently bring in their own workers from China, providing little employment for Africans and few opportunities for Africans to master new skills and technologies.

Some of Burgis’ strongest work follows the dealmaking of a shadowy Hong Kong–based outfit called the 88 Queensway Group, which was founded by a man sometimes known as Sam Pa, whose background is reportedly in Chinese intelligence. By tracing a complex web of corporate relations, Burgis shows how Pa’s group has put together lucrative deals in one African country after another, since starting seemingly from scratch in Angola during the early phases of China’s push into Africa.

In Burgis’ telling, one mission of Pa’s 88 Queensway Group and its associated companies, including China Sonangol and the China International Fund, seems to be offering the Chinese government plausible deniability when it comes to major transactions and contracts with some of Africa’s most corrupt and violent regimes. But some African elites at the receiving end of Pa’s entreaties have been left with little doubt that dealing with Queensway would in fact put them in contact with the highest levels of the Chinese state. Mahmoud Thiam served as the minister of mines in Guinea under President Moussa Dadis Camara, a junta leader who faced international outrage after his forces opened fire on a peaceful opposition rally in September 2009, killing at least 150 and gang-raping many who tried to flee the assault. In 2009, Thiam traveled to China at Queensway’s invitation and later told Burgis about being whisked around Beijing by Pa’s associates. “If they were not a government entity, they definitely had strong backing and strong ties,” Thiam recalled. “The level of clearances they had to do things that are difficult in China, the facility they had in getting people to see us [and] the military motorcade gave us the impression that they were strongly connected.” In the case of Guinea and other places, Burgis reports that Queensway was able to provide tens of millions of dollars to African governments on short notice, with virtually no strings attached, sometimes to help bail out leaders presiding over economic crises and sometimes merely to prove the company’s bona fides.

The hope was that with China directly competing with Africa’s economic partners in the West, African countries would win better terms for themselves. But what has happened more often is a race to the bottom.

In the hands of a less astute observer, Pa could come off as something like a Bond villain. But Burgis rightly reminds readers that it hardly takes a conniving mastermind to profit off the inequities and shortcomings of African political systems. “If it weren’t him, it would be someone else,” as a U.S. congressional researcher puts it to Burgis. The researcher adds that even if Pa’s operation were shut down, “the system is still there: these investors can still form a company without saying who they are, they can still anchor their business in a country that is not concerned about investors’ behavior overseas, and, sadly, there’s no shortage of resource-rich fragile states on which these investors can prey.”

LOSS PREVENTION

By showing how “the looting machine” is operated by people and institutions both inside and outside Africa, Burgis transcends the tired binary debate about the root causes of the continent’s misery. But if the problem is as complex as he makes it out to be, with avarice flowing from so many different sources, how can ordinary Africans—and African elites intent on leading more just, prosperous, and equitable societies—improve  their prospects?

For Africans, the answer lies in large part in insisting on more open and accountable government. Although the outside world has taken little notice, democracy has spread significantly around the continent in the last two decades, and although conflicts grab the headlines, evidence suggests that war and other forms of large-scale violence have declined during this same period. Stronger civil societies and regular, free, and fair elections would prevent leaders such as Angola’s dos Santos from perpetuating their rule for decades and might allow more responsive elites to put Africa’s resources in the service of more equitable development strategies.

For the outside world, the priority should be getting foreign powers, including China, to agree on more stringent measures to combat corrupt business practices. The U.S. Treasury Department is cracking down on foreign banks that enable Americans to evade taxes; Washington should expand its efforts to prevent illicit financial flows involving other countries as well, reducing the amount of revenue that African countries lose owing to tax havens.

Finally, as Burgis’ book strongly implies (although does not explicitly argue), international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF must be made much more accountable. In Africa, that would mean publicly measuring their programs’ performance in terms of their impact on economic growth. Over the years, such institutions have demanded rigorous compliance from their poorest clients while never holding their own performance or the soundness of their advice up to public scrutiny. The internal IFC review Burgis cites made the same point more than a decade ago. But its findings were largely ignored as the World Bank continued to promote extractive industries in Africa even when they contributed nothing to development. Today, with Africans seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea by the thousands to escape misery, a simple recommendation from that review is perhaps more pertinent than ever: World Bank and IFC staff should be rewarded not simply for allocating money to projects but for demonstrably reducing poverty. After all, whatever the causes of African poverty, any efforts to address it will fail if they are blind to their own effects.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2015-06-16/plunder-africa

Oromia: An Awesome Intro about Oromo & the Oromo Gadaa Civilization by Young African-American Scholar at Afric Network June 16, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Gadaa System, Oromia, Oromo, Oromo Nation.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Ancient black African people, Chiekh Anta Diop, Cushtic, Gadaa System, Khemetic, Oromia, Oromiyaa, Oromo, Oromo people, Oromummaa
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The poem ‘Homeland’ (Biyya too) stared in Oromia Media Network, AOA Show June 14, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Inspirational Oromo Women, Oromo Literature, Oromo Media Network.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, AOA Show, Homeland (Biyya too), Inspirational Oromo Women, Mammaaksa Oromoo, OMN
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http://https://youtu.be/56Vrt_dYgzM

Oromia: Barnoota Waaqeffannaa: Gadaan kan of ta’uu ti: The Oromo (African) ancient faith system June 13, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Humanity and Social Civilization, Kemetic Ancient African Culture, Waaqeffanna (Oromo ancient African Faith System).
Tags: Africa, African Heritage, African Studies, Oromo, Waaqeffannaa (Amantii Oromoo), Waaqqeffannaa: Oromo ancient Africa's faith System
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http://https://youtu.be/XHkSShZ3-rY

Oromia: The Oromo Heritages: Gadaa, Siiqqee and Irreecha. #Africa. June 13, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Ancient African Direct Democracy, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Rock paintings in Oromia, Ateetee, Ateetee (Siiqqee Institution), Boran Oromo, Gadaa System, Irreecha, Irreecha Oromo, Oromia, Oromo, Oromo Nation, Oromo Social System, Oromo Wisdom, Oromo women, Oromummaa, Sirna Gadaa, The Goddess of Fecundity, Waaqeffanna (Oromo ancient African Faith System).
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Ancient African Direct Democracy, Ancient African langauge, Ancient black African people, Ateetee (Siiqqee): The Oromo Women Social Power in Gadaa System, Chiekh Anta Diop, Gadaa System, Irreecha (Irreesa) Oromoo, Odaa, Odaa Bultum, Odaa Nabee, Odaa Roobee, Oromia, Oromiyaa, Oromo, Oromo Calendar, Oromo culture, Oromo people, Oromummaa, Sirna Gadaa, Sirna Gadaa Oromo
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Oromo nation and Gadaa system

The Borana Calendar REINTERPRETED

by Laurance R. Doyle

Physics and Astronomy Department, University of California, Santa Cruz,at NASA Ames Research Center, Space Sciences Division, M.S. 245-7,
Moffett Field, Calif. 94035, U.S. 20 XII 85

	The announcement of a possible first archaeoastronomical site (called Namoratunga II) in sub-Saharan Africa by Lynch and Robbins (1978) and its subsequent reappraisal by Soper (1982) have renewed interest in an East African calendrical system, the Borana calendar, first outlined in detail by Legesse (1973:180-88). I shall here reinterpret the calendar as Legesse describes it in the light of astronomical constraints. The Borana calendar is a lunar-stellar calendrical system, relying on astronomical observations of the moon in conjunction with seven particular stars (or star groups). At no time (except indirectly by way of lunar phase) does it rely upon solar observations. The Borana year is twelve lunar synodic months (each 29.5 days long), 354 days. While it will not correspond to the seasons, this may not be of primary importance for people this close to the equator. There are twenty-seven day names (no weeks), and since each month is either 29 or 30 days long, the first two (or three) day names are used twice in the same month starts on a new day name. The day names are listed in Table 1, the month names in Table 2. The first six months can be identified at the beginning of the month with a particular astronomical observation, whereas the last six months can be so identified only around the middle of the month. The first six months begin with the observation of the new-phase moon in conjunction with six positions in the sky marked by seven particular stars or star groups. Thus the phase of the moon is held constant while its position varies. The last six months are identified by a particular-phase moon seen in conjunction with the first star position. Thus, here, the lunar phase changes and the position is held constant. The seven stars or star groups in order are Triangulum (which I take to mean Beta Trianguli), Pleiades, Aldebarran, Belletrix, central Orion (around the sword), Saiph, and Sirius. They are given in Table 2 next to the months they define. The New Year starts with the observation of the new moon in conjunction with Beta Trianguli. (The term “new moon” here will be taken to be within two days of zero phase, although the Borana allow up to three “leap” days’ leeway, the astronomical observation determining the correct day to start on. This is indicated in the day nomenclature by the assignment of like prefixes to two or three day names before the approximate time an important astronomical observation is to take place.) Since the new moon can be seen only just before sunrise or just after sunset, twilight makes the observation of Beta Trianguli (a third-magnitude star) in conjunction with a new moon impossible with the naked eye.
	Assuming that such an observation, however, was possible, would the next new moon be in conjunction with the next star group. Pleiades? (Conjunction here is taken to mean “rising with” or “setting with,” having the same right ascension. Legesse says (p. 182), “Let us assume that a new moon was sighted last night and that is appeared side by side with the star Sirius, which the Borana call Basa.”) Since the sidereal period of the moon is 27.3 days long, it will arrive back at the Triangulum position more than two days before completing its synodic month. At the sidereal rate of 13.2° per day, the moon will be within 3° of Pleiades when it rises in the new phase again. However, by the time of the third month it rises, not with Aldebarran, the next star, but a little past Belletrix, the fourth star, which is supposed to start the fourth month. By the fourth month the new moon is rising past Sirius, the sixth start, and the calendar is clearly not working as described. It should be added that the right-ascension positions of the stars in the area from Beta Trianguli to Sirius change with time, at the rate of roughly 15° every thousand years. However, the stars stay in approximately the same configuration, and arguments based on their present right-ascension relationships will hold over the past several thousand years as well. What happens if we take the term “conjunction,” or “side by side,” as Legesse has it, to mean not “rising with” but “rising single-file,” that is, at the same horizon position (in other words, having the same declination)? Examining the idea that it is not the proximity of the moon to the star that is important but its horizon rising (or setting) position with respect to that star’s horizon rising (or setting) position, we immediately find that the first necessary observation, the new moon rising at the horizon position of Beta Trianguli, is not currently possible. Beta Trianguli rises (at the equator) about 35° north of the east point (0° declination), while the moon (on the northernmost average) rises at 23.5° north of east, never rising farther north than 28.5° from the East Point. The earth’s rotation axis is known to precess over the centuries, and while this does not change the lunar orbital positions significantly, it does change the apparent position of the stars. We can calculate the positions of the seven Borana stars at a time when Beta Trianguli was well within the moon’s declination limits to see if the calendar would have worked then. In 300 BC, Beta Trianguli was rising at a declination of +23° north of east. The right-ascension positions at the time still do not allow a “rising with” interpretation of the calendrical system. We can begin by defining the start of the Borana year as the new moon rising at the rising position of 300 BC Beta Trianguli. (The date of 300 BC was strongly suggested by the preliminary dating of Namoratunga II, but it was chosen because +23°, Beta Trianguli’s declination at the time, is the northern average of the moon’s monthly motion. I will take the moon’s motion, for the example here, from theNautical Almanacs for 1983 and 1984.) The next new moon rises at 14° north of east, which corresponds precisely to the 300 BC horizon rising position of Pleiades, the next Borana star. The next four new moons (starting the next four Borana months) rise at +9 degrees, +1 degree, –11 degrees, and –17 degrees declination. These positions correspond to the 300 BC horizon rising positions of the Borana stars Aldebarran. Belletrix, central Orion—Saiph (taken together), and Sirius, respectively (Table 3).
	The seventh month should be identifiable 14 or 15 days from its automatic start (about 29 days after the start of the sixth month) by a full moon rising at the Beta Trianguli position, and this is indeed the case. Each subsequent moon rises at this horizon position 27.3 days later (sidereal month) in a phase (synodic month) about two days less waxes (since it is on its way to the full phase again) each time. (Legesse has a waning moon, but this must mean waning with respect to each subsequent monthly observation, not with respect to the Phase State for that month.) On the thirteenth or first month, the moon is seen rising in the new phase again (“new” meaning within a couple of days of zero phase), and another year begins. Tracing the moon’s motion as it arrives at these positions in the sky (which are, however, no longer directly marked by the seven stars), we can derive the calendar (see Table 4). This outline is still general with respect to what is sometimes called the lunar excursion (regression of the line of nodes of the lunar orbit). The three “leap” days the Borana calendar allows for the starting of some of the months just before an important astronomical observation could account for this declination excursion of the moon (± ca. 5° from 23.5° declination on an 18.6-year basis), but this would certainly require confirmation in the field. The Borana calendrical system as described by Legesse is, therefore, a valid timekeeping system, subject to the astronomical constraints outlined here, and the pillars found in northwestern Kenya by Lynch and Robbins and preliminary dates at 300 BC could, as they suggest, represent a site used to derive that calendar. The calendar does not work in right-ascension sense, but it does work if taken as based on declination. It might have been invented around 300 BC, when the declinations of the seven stars corresponded to lunar motion as the calendar indicates, and the star names would therefore apply to the horizon positions as well. Because the horizon rising positions constitute the important observations (over half of which must be made at twilight), some sort of horizon-marking device would seem to be necessary. Since the calendar is still in use, and the horizon-making pillars can no longer be set up by aligning them with the horizon rising positions of these stars, it would seem that the Borana may be using ancient (or replicas of ancient) horizon markers and this possibility should be investigated. I look forward with great interest to a test of these hypotheses.

Table 1 Borana Day names (Legesse 1973)
Bita Kara	Gardaduma
Bita Lama	Sonsa
Sorsa	Rurruma
Algajima	Lumasa
Arb	Gidada
Walla	Ruda
Basa Dura	Areri Dura
Basa Ballo	Areri Ballo
Carra	Adula Dura
Maganatti Jarra	Adula Ballo
Maganatti Britti	Garba Dura
Salban Dura	Garba Balla
Salban Balla	Garda Dullacha
Salban Dullacha

Table 2 Borana Months and Stars/Lunar Phases That Define Them (Legesse 1973)
Month	Star/Lunar Phase
Bittottessa	Triangulum
Camsa	Pleiades
Bufa	Aldebarran
Wacabajjii	Belletrix
Obora Gudda	Central Orion-Saiph
Obora Dikka	Sirius
Birra	full moon
Cikawa	gibbous moon
Sadasaa	quarter moon
Abrasa	large crescent
Ammaji	medium crescent
Gurrandala	small crescent

Table 3 Declinations (Degrees) of Borana Stars, 300 BC and Present
Star	Declination
	300 BC	Present
Beta Trianguli	+23	+35
Pleiades	+14	+23
Aldebarran	+9	+16
Belletrix	+1	+6
Central Orion	–10	–6
Saiph	–13	–10
Sirius	–17	–17

Table 4 Astronomical Borana-Cushitic Calendar (1983-84)
Borana-Cushitic Day/Month	Gregorian Date	Description
Bita Kara/ Bittottessa	August 7, 1983	New moon rises at Triangulum horizon position
Algajima/ Camsa	September 6, 1983	New moon rises at Pleiades horizon position
Walla/ Bufa	October 5, 1983	New moon rises at Aldebarran horizon position
Basa Dura/ Wacabajjii	November 2, 1983	New moon rises at Belletrix horizon position
Maganatti Jarra/ Obora Gudda	December 2, 1983	New moon rises at central Orion-Saiph horizon position
Salban Dura/ Obora Dikka	December 30, 1983	New moon rises at Sirius horizon position
Gardaduma/ Birra	January 29, 1984	Full moon sets at Triangulum on February 15
Rurruma/Cikawa	February 28, 1984	Gibbous moon sets at Triangulum on March 14
Gidada/ Sadasaa	March 28, 1984	Quarter moon sets at Triangulum on April 10
Areri Dura/ Abrasa	April 26, 1984	Large crescent sets at Triangulum on May 7
Adula Dura/ Ammaji	May 25, 1984	Medium crescent sets at Triangulum on June 3
Garba Dura/ Gurrandala	June 23, 1984	Small crescent sets at Triangulum on June 30
Bita Kara/ Bittottessa	July 28, 1984	“New” moon rises at Triangulum position again, new year starts

References Cited

Legesse, A. 1973. Gada: Three approaches to the study of African Society. New York: Free Press.

Lynch, B. M., and L. H. Robbins. 1978. Namoratunga: The first archaeoastronomical evidence in sub-Saharan Africa. Science 200:766-68.

Soper, R. 1982. Archaeo-astronomical Cushites: Some comments. Azania 17:145-62

Source:

http://web.archive.org/web/20081029073246/http://www.tusker.com/Archaeo/art.currentanthro.htm

ASTRONOMY IN EAST AFRICA:Borana-Cushitic Calender

ASTRONOMY IN EAST AFRICA
The Borana-Cushitic Calendar and Namoratunga
Laurance Reeve Doyle
Space Sciences Division, N.A.S.A.
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California

“While Western thought has always prided itself on scientific objectivity, it has often been found unprepared for such surprises as an intellectually advanced yet seemingly illiterate society. In the face of apparent primitiveness, the possibility of significant intellectual development may not be fully investigated.
This was certainly the case when, in the early 1970’s, Dr. A. Legesse first found that the Borana people of southern Ethiopia were indeed using a sophisticated calendrical system based on the conjunction of seven stars with certain lunar phases. Previous calendrical investigations into the area up to this time had superficially stated that the Borana “attach magical significance to the stars and constellations,” incorrectly concluding that their calendar was based, as ours is, on solar motion.
What Dr. Legesse found was an amazing cyclical calendar similar to those of the Mayans, Chinese, and Hindu, but unique in that it seemed to ignore the sun completely (except indirectly by way of the phases of the moon). The workings were described to him by the Borana ayyantu (timekeepers) as follows.
There are twelve months to a year, each month being identifiable with a unique (once a year) astronomical observation. The length of each month is either 29 or 30 days – that is, the time it takes the moon to go through all its phases. (This time is actually 291/2 days and is called a synodic month, but the Borana only keep track of whole days). Instead of weeks, there are 27 day names. Since each month is 29 or 30 days long we will run out of day names about two or three days early in the same month. The day names can therefore be recycled and for day 28 we use the first day name again, the second day name for day 29, and start the next month using the third day name. Thus each month will start on a different day name. Whether the particular month is to be 29 or 30 days long would depend on the astronomical observations, which are quite ingeniously defined.
The seven stars (or star groups) used to derive the calendar are, from northernmost to southernmost, 1) Beta Triangulum – a fairly faint navigation star in the constellation of the Triangle, 2) Pleiades – a beautiful, blue star cluster in the constellation of Taurus the Bull, and sometimes referred to as the seven sisters, 3) Aldebarran – a bright, red star that represents the eye of Taurus, 4) Belletrix – a fairly bright star that represents the right shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter, 5)Central Orion – the region around Orion’s sword where the Great Orion Nebula may be found, 6) Saiph – the star representing the right knee of Orion, and finally 7) Sirius – the brightest star in the night sky and the head of the constellation Canis Majoris, the Great Dog.
The New Year begins with the most important astronomical observation of the year – a new moon in conjunction with Beta Triangulum. (this day is called Bitotesa, and the next month is called Bitokara). The next month starts when the new moon is found in conjunction with the Pleiades. The third month starts with the new moon being observed in conjunction with the star Aldebarran, the next with Belletrix, then the area in between Central Orion and Saiph, and finally with the star Sirius. So the first six months of the calendar are started by the astronomical observations of the new phase moon found in conjunction with six specific locations in the sky marked by seven stars of star groups.
The method is now switched and the final six months are identified by six different phases of the moon (from full to crescent) being found in conjunction with only one position in the sky – the one marked by Beta Triangulum. Thus the whole Borana year is identified astronomically and when the new phase moon is again finally seen in conjunction with Beta Triangulum the New Year will start again. Since there are 12 such synodic months of 29 ½ days each, the Borana year is only 354 days long.
Now, in the latter part of the 1970’s another interesting development was to take place regarding the astronomy of this region. In 1977 Drs. B.M. Lynch and L.H. Robbins, who were working in the Lake Turkana area of northwestern Kenya, came upon what they believed was the first archaeoastronomical site ever found in sub-Saharan Africa. At Namoratunga, it consisted of 19 stone pillars, apparently man-made, that seemed to align toward the rising positions of the seven Borana calendar stars as they had appeared quite some time ago. (their suggested date from the various archaeological considerations, which still requires corroboration, was about 300 BC). Due to precession (the slow, wobbling of the pointing direction of the rotation axis of the Earth), the stars will seem to move from their positions over the centuries, although the moon’s position would not vary on this time scale. (Such an example is the alignment of certain features of the Egyptian pyramids with the star Thuban in the constellation Draco the Dragon, which was the north polar star about 5000 year ago; today it is Polaris and in several thousand years it will be Vega). If the date that Drs. Lynch and Robbins suggested was correct, the site would then correspond to the time of the extensive kingdom of Cush, referred to as Ethiopia in the Bible but actually centered about present day Sudan. One would then conclude that the Borana calendrical system was old indeed, having been developed by the Cushitic peoples in this area about 1800 years before the development of our present day Western Gregorian calendrical system.
In 1982, a number of significant questions arose concerning the site, the calendar, and archaeoastronomy of East Africa in general. The pillars were remeasured by an anthropologist in Kenya (Mr. Robert Soper) and found to be magnetic in nature. The original measurements had to be modified but, again, alignments with the seven Borana stars were found. However, this brought up the question of whether pillar alignments are significant at all, since the Borana ayyantu certainly can recognize the phases of the moon and when it is in conjunction with the appropriate seven stars. It was time to approach the question astronomically, and ask the moon and the stars how the calendar worked.
First, we could take the New Year’s observations, a new moon in conjunction with the faint star Beta Triangulum. What is meant by the term “conjunction” which is astronomically defined as the closest approach between two celestial objects? A new moon means that the moon is very close to the sun, being at best only a very small crescent, and therefore can only be seen just before sunrise or just after sunset. Interestingly enough, it turns out that during this twilight time the sky is too bright to be able to see the star Beta Triangulum so that seeing the new moon next to Beta Triangulum, the most important observation of the Borana calendar, was impossible!
In addition, assuming that the new moon and Beta Triangulum could be somehow seen rising together, the next month’s new moon rises significantly behind Pleiades, the newt conjunction star group. The third new moon rises with Belletrix, having skipped the third star, Aldebarran, completely. This is certainly not how the Borana described their calendar. If we were to continue to try to work the calendar in this way, by the start of the sixth month the new moon would be rising almost four hours after Sirius.
How could the calendar work then? Suppose (as we did), that one takes the term “conjunction” to mean “rising at the same horizon position” instead of “rising horizontally next to at the same time.” Thus one could mark the horizon rising position of Beta Triangulum, with pillars for instance, and once a year a new moon will rise at that position on the horizon. Let us suppose that this astronomical event marks the start of the New Year. We must add that we are taking the horizon rising position of these seven stars as they were in or around 300 BC, since present day Beta Triangulum has precessed too far to the north over the centuries and the moon will never rise there. However, the position of 300 BC Beta Triangulum, as well as the other Borana stars, was quite within the realm of the moon’s orbit.
Now where will the next new moon rise? It turns out to rise at precisely the rising position of Pleiades! The next new moon, marking the start of the third month, rises at the Aldebarran horizon position, the next at Belletrix, the next in between Central Orion and Saiph, and finally the sixth new moon rises at the horizon position that Sirius rose at during the night. During the next six months one can tell what month it is only in the middle of the month, since one has to wait to see what phase the moon is in when it appears at the Beta Triangulum horizon position. During the seventh month, as described, a full moon will be observed at the Beta Triangulum position. The next month a gibbous waxing moon, then a quarter moon, and successively smaller crescents will be seen there until, at the time when the 13th or first month should start the new year again (exactly 354 days later), a new moon is again seen rising at the Beta Triangulum position on the horizon.
It is interesting that one can draw some significant anthropological results from the astronomical derivation of this calendrical system. It would appear that the calendar would have had to have been invented (to use the stars correctly) sometime within a few hundred years of 300 BC, a time when the Cushitic peoples were dominant in this part of the world. Hence we would call it the Borana-Cushitic calendar. In addition, although the seven Borana-Cushitic stars no longer rise in the correct horizon positions to be correctly marked by pillars for observing the monthly rising position of the new moon, the present day Borana people nevertheless use this system of timekeeping. The implication is that the Borana require ancient horizon markers in their present derivation of the calendar.
Concerning the site at Namoratunga, and considering that the use of pillars is apparently necessary to the derivation of the calendar, such horizon markers as are found there may, indeed, have been an ancient observatory. Petroglyphs on the pillars at Namoratunga may also hold the possibility of being ancient and, if Cushitic, may represent the alignment stars or moon. Cushitic script has never been deciphered and any hints as to the meaning of tits symbols could be significant clues with very exciting prospects indeed!

Thus, archaeoastronomy in East Africa is still quite new and many discoveries await. From coming to understand, even in a small way, the calendrical reckoning and observational abilities of the ancient and modern astronomer-timekeepers of this region, Western thought should certainly not again underestimate the ingenuity and intellect present there. As for this Western thinker, this study continues to be a welcome lesson in perspective and humility, taught to him by his astronomical colleagues of long ago.”

This is a summary of a talk delivered at Caltech for Ned Munger’s African Studies class.

http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=2194.0;wap2

Oromo nation: The Most Athletically Blessed on Earth June 13, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Culture, Fatuma Roba, Humanity and Social Civilization, Oromia, Oromiyaa, Oromo, Oromo Culture, Oromo Identity, Oromo Nation, Oromo Sport.
Tags: Abebe Bikila, Africa and Athletics, African culture, African Studies, Athletic Nation, Darartu Tulluu, Derartu Tulu, Fatuma Roba, Genzebe Dibaba, Kenenisa Bekele, Mamo Walde Dagaga, Marathon, National Self Determination, Olympic, Oromia, Oromia Sport Culture, Oromo, Oromo Sport, Oromummaa, Tirunesh Dibaba
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“The Oromo ethnic group in Ethiopia must be one of the most athletically blessed on earth. The list of long distance running champions it has produced includes Haile Gebrselassie, Abebe Bikila, and Sileshi Sihene, as well as Dibaba sisters and Derartu Tulu.” Says Olympic and World Records 2012, Keir Radnedge (Author), pp- 62-82. This is an Official London 2012 Olympic Games Publication. Wami Biratu, Mammo Dagaga, Tolasa Qotu, Fatuma Roba, Tikki Galana, Lesisa Desisa, Tsegaye Kebede, Meseret Defar, Maryam Yusuf, Gelete Burka, Tariku Bekele, Atsede Bayisa, Mohammed Aman, Gete (Gexee) Wami, Lamma Kumsa, Abebe Mekonnen, Fita (Fixa Bayyisa), Ayelech Worku, Worku Bikila, Kuture Dulacha, Elfnesh Alemu, Abebe Tola, Maru Dhaba, Mariam Hashim, Ibrahim Said, Berhane Adere, Magarsa Tullu, Abarraa Ayyano, Mohammed Kadir, Shibbiruu Raggasaa, Nugussie Roba, Markos Geneti Guta, Tigist Fufa are Oromians of world stars.

Younger sister of Tirunesh Dibaba, 24-year-old Oromo athlete Genzebe Dibaba – also hailing from Bekoji, Oromia – won the Diamond League 5K Meet in Oslo, Norway, on June 11, 2015. Among others, she was also cheered by her Oromo supporters in Norway. Oromo athletes Sinbiree and Galate Burqa completed 2nd and 4th respectively.

http://gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2015/06/exclusive-coverage-athlete-genzebe-dibaba-wins-the-diamond-league-5k-meet-in-oslo-june-11-2015/

http://www.ayyaantuu.net/genzebe-dibaba-wins-gold-medal-in-oslo-norway/

Ganzabee Dibaabaa IAAF Diamond League mt 5000 magaalaa Osloo moo’atte

Sinbiree Tafariifi Galatee Burqaanis 2ffaafi 4ffaa ta’uudhaan IAAF Diamond League Oslo 2015 xumuraniiru

Oromo athlete Genzebe Dibaba Wins the Diamond League 5K Meet in Oslo (June 11, 2015)

Fiigicha meetira 5000 dubartoota jiddutti Waxabajji 11 Bara 2015 Noorweey magaalaa Oslootti geggeeffameen atleetonni Oromoo ( Oromiyaa) injifannoo guddaa argamsiisaniiru. Wolmorkii cimaa Diamond League isa Osloo kana, akkuma tilmaamamee turetti, atleet Ganzabee Dibaabaa turte kan moo’atte. Ganzabeen daqiiqaa 14:21:19n fiigicha mt 5000 kana kan xumurte. Akka eegamee ture rikoordii obboleettii isii, Xurunesh Dibaabaa,osoo hinfooyyessin hafte, garuu.

Oromo athelete Sinbiree Teferi 2nd in the Diamond League 5K Meet in Oslo (June 11, 2015)

Fiigicha Oslotti ta’e kanaan Ganzabee qofaa miti kan milkaaye. Gootittiin atleet Sinbiree Tafariis 2ffaa ta’uun badhaafamteerti. Sinbireen daqiiqaa 14:38:57n Ganzabee hordoftee kan galte. Atleetiin beekamtuun biraas, Galatee Burqaa, waa xiqqoof sadarkaa 4ffaa irra taa’uuf dirqamteerti. Galateen yeroo daqiqaa tokko hincaalleen atleet Viyoolaa Jelegaat biyya Keeniyaatiin durfamtee sadarkaa 3ffaa kan dhabdeef. Hiree gadhee!

Dimshaashumatti, sadarkaa 1ffaa hanga 4ffaa jiru keessatti atleetota 3 qabaachuun dhugumatti bu’aa nama boonsuudha.

Sinbiree Tafarii (2ffaa)

Injifanoo atleetota Oromoo

WORLD LEADS FOR OROMO ATHLETES YOMIF QAJELCHA (KEJELCHA) AND AMAN IN ROME – IAAF DIAMOND LEAGUE. THURSDAY, 4TH JUNE 2015.

Yomif Qajelcha (Kejelcha), author of the best world performance of the season on 5000m in Eugene last on Friday, 29 May 2015 (13’10 “54), improved his own mark in Rome, on the occasion of the fourth stage of the Diamond League, Thursday, 4th June 2015. The young Oromo athlete (17) won in 12’58 “39, before the Kenyan Paul Kipngetich Tanui (12’58” 69). The world 800m champion Mohammed Aman won over two laps of the track in a world-leading 1:43.56.
Sifan Hassan was second in in 1500m women’s race.

Oromia Athletic nation World News

Oromo athlete Sutume Asefa Kebede produced a stunning performance in the BIG 25 Berlin on Sunday May 10, 2015.
Despite 60mph gusts of wind, Oromian newcomer Sutume Asefa Kebede smashed Ejegayehu Dibaba’s national 25km record at the BIG 25 Berlin on Sunday 10 may 2015.

The 21-year-old front-ran to the finish-line in the historic Berlin Olympic Stadium, smashing Ejegayehu Dibaba’s national record with a time of 1:21:55. Despite the windy conditions, Sutume was 19 seconds faster than Ejegayehu Dibaba in Chicago in 2011.

Sutum’s time is a world-lead, and the fifth fastest ever run at this distance. The Oromian was more than four minutes faster than second placed Kenyan Winny Jepkorir who clocked 1:25:59. Elizeba Cherono of Kenya was third with 1:26:59.

Sutume set two lifetime bests en route to victory: 31:05 at 10km, and 68:23 through the halfway mark.

“I am very happy to have broken the national record. I did not expect this to happen today,” said Sutume, who now intends to run the 5000 m on track. “In the autumn I will run road races again.”

At the #Shanghai #IAAF Diamond League meeting on Sunday, 17th May 2015 #Oromo athlete #Almaz #Ayana amazed the world in her shinning victory in 5000m race.

Just going faster and faster, Ayana smashed her rivals to win by about 150 metres in 14:14.32.

It was a personal best, a meeting record, an Asian all-comers’ record and an IAAF Diamond League record. Only world record-holder Tirunesh Dibaba (14:11.15) and Meseret Defar (14:12.88), both Oromo athletes, have ever gone faster and Ayana might have topped those times too had she had more competition over the last half of the race.

The 23-year-old Ayana took the bronze medal at the 2013 IAAF World Championships and last year won the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech. She has form.

Two years ago, Ayana clung resolutely to Dibaba’s heels as her more illustrious countrywoman ran 14:23.68 at the Paris IAAF Diamond League meeting. Ayana’s reward then was second place in 14:25.84, which remained her personal best coming into Shanghai.

On a cool Sunday night which inevitably suffered a little in contrast to Friday’s IAAF Diamond League opener in Doha, Ayana led after five laps and ran solo from just before the 3000m mark.

At that stage, Kenya’s Viola Kibiwot was still vaguely in contact, but in reality, her only hope of catching Ayana would have been to hail a taxi. Even then it would have been doubtful as the field was spread out all around the track.

It was never hard to spot Ayana, however; you just looked for the woman who was obviously running fast.

With Global Sports physiotherapist Joost Vollaard helping with translation, Ayana said she was not aware of how close she was to the world record.

“I was trying for 14:20, I didn’t think of the world record,” she explained. “I was surprised; it was much faster than I had in mind.”

Based in Finfinnee, Ayana is training just outside the city. She is coached by her husband, 1500m runner Soresa Fida.

#Oromo athlete #Mamitu #Daska created marathon magic at #TCS World 10k in #Bengaluru, India, 17 May 2015 on a fine Sunday.
The story of the day was the spirit of competition, as the entirety of the race was contested in the best possible manner.
Mamitu Daska produced a world-class performance, winning the run but missing the overall course record by 9 seconds. Mamitu ended the race on a high,steering ahead of the competition by a clear 13 seconds, she ended the run with an overall time of 00:31:57. Although Mamitu had pulled far into the lead, the battle for second and third was a thrilling encounter with both Wude Ayalew and Gladys Chesir exchanging positions at the 7km mark. Wude raced ahead by two seconds finishing second at 00:32:10.
Speaking about her medal-winning performance, Mamitu said “I am really happy to end the run on a winning note. Though I was comfortable for the first four kilometres, it got a bit tougher. However I took initiative to push myself after that and crossed the finish line before my competition.”

In the international category of World 10K for Elite Men proceedings as Mosinet Geremew stole the show. The race to claim top honours was tightly contested with the top three finishers separated by 2 seconds each, Geremew emerged victorious, clocking in a time of 00:28:16. His fellow countryman Fikadu Seboka finished second with a timing of 00:28:18, followed by Edwin Kiptoo from Kenya who finished his run in 00:28:20.

Oromians won both the men’s and the women’s races at Riga Marathon Course, the IAAF Bronze Label Road Race on Sunday (17 May 2015).#Oromo athlete Haile #Tolossa Smashes #Riga #Marathon Course Record in men’s race on Sunday 17th May 2015.
In a race where three men ran well inside the previous course record, Haile Tolossa triumphed with a PB of 2:12:29 to record the fastest marathon ever on Latvian soil. Beyene #Effa held on for second place in 2:12:52, also a PB. Duncan Koech of Kenya 3rd in 2:12:53.
Compatriot Oromo athlete #Meseret #Eshetu #Damedominated the women’s race, winning by more than five minutes in 2:37:04 to narrowly miss the course record by 13 seconds.
Oromo athlete Workenesh Tola and Kenya’s Ruth Wanjiru had been running side by side for the majority of the race. Having long passed the fading Chepkemoi, it was only in the final two kilometres thatOromia’s Tola began to pull away, eventually taking second place in 2:42:07.Leading resultsMen
1 Haile Tolossa 2:12:29
2 Beyene Effa 2:12:52
3 Duncan Koech 2:12:53Women
1 Meseret Eshetu Dame 2:37:04
2 Workenesh Tola 2:42:07
3 Ruth Wanjiru 2:42:29

London Marathon 2015: ‪#‎Oromo‬ athlete ‪#‎Tigist‬ ‪#‎Tufa‬ wins ‪#‎women‬‘s elite race at the 26-mile showpiece.
Tigist Tufa has won the women’s elite race at the ‪#‎London‬ ‪#‎Marathon‬.

She finished the grueling 26-mile course in 02:23:22 Kenyan Mary Keitany 2nd and compatriot ‪#‎Tirfi‬ ‪#‎Tsegaye‬ 3rd.

Oromian runner ‪#‎Aselefech‬‪#‎Margaa‬ came in fourth while Florence Kiplagat of Kenya came fifth.

Double victory for #Oromo athletes in #ORLEN #Warsaw #Martahon (#Poland), Sunday 26 April 2015. Hayile Berhanu #Lemi and #Markos #Geneti 1st and 3rd in men’s race respectively. Fatuma #sado (1st) and Chaltu Tafa #Waqa (3rd) in women’s Marathon.

Oromo athele Lelisa #Desisa is the winner of the 2015#Boston men’s #Marathon. In the Women’s race Oromo athletes Mare #Dibaba and bizunesh #Dhaaba2nd and 3rd respectively.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/the-turnstile/boston-marathon-154725203.html

World indoor champion #Oromo athlete #Genzebe #Dibaba was named sportswoman of the year at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Shanghai on Wednesday ( 15th April 2015).

DIBABA NAMED SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR AT LAUREUS WORLD SPORTS AWARDS

World indoor champion Genzebe Dibaba was named sportswoman of the year at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Shanghai on Wednesday (15).

The middle-distance runner became the first sportsperson from Ethiopia to win an award in any category at the prestigious event, which began in 2000.

Dibaba was rewarded for her 2014 season in which she set world indoor records for 1500m and 3000m as well as a world indoor best for two miles.

Outdoors, she went on to record world-leading times over 5000m and 2000m before ending her season with 3000m victory at the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech.

On a night in which Renaud Lavillenie, Valerie Adams and Jo Pavey were nominated for other awards, Dibaba was the only winner from the sport of athletics.

Adams was nominated in the same category as Dibaba, while Lavillenie was nominated for the sportsman of the year award, which was given to tennis star Novak Djokovic. Pavey was one of the contenders for the comeback of the year award, which eventually went to rugby player Schalk Burger.

But other legendary athletes played a part in the ceremony. USA’s 400m world record-holder Michael Johnson presented Chinese tennis player Li Na with the exceptional achievement award, while recently retired sprint hurdler Liu Xiang joined Chinese opera singer Liao Changyong on stage for a surprise performance.
http://www.iaaf.org/news/news/laureus-awards-2015-genzebe-dibaba

OROMO ATHLETE GENZEBE DIBABA RUNS SECOND-FASTEST 5KM IN HISTORY AT CARLSBAD 5000.

29 MAR 2015 REPORT CARLSBAD, UNITED STATES

Two-time world indoor champion Genzebe Dibaba narrowly missed out on breaking the world best at the Carlsbad 5000, but her winning time of 14:48 was the second-fastest ever recorded for 5km on the roads.

The 24-year-old owns the fastest times in history across four distances indoors, and had been hoping to add another mark to her growing collection. Just like three of her indoor record-breaking performances, she was targeting a time that had been set by Meseret Defar. The two-time Olympic champion ran 14:46 in Carlsbad in 2006.http://www.iaaf.org/news/report/carlsbad-5000-2015-genzebe-dibaba-lalang

Injifannoo gammachisaa!!!
#Oromo athlete Abera #Kuma from Oromia, pulled away from his rivals in the last seven kilometres of the 35th edition of de NN #Rotterdam #Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, to win in 2.06.46 on Sunday (12).
Kenya’s Mark Kiptoo finished second in 2:07:20 and his compatriot Bernard Koech, who did a lot of work in the second part of the race, was third in 2.08.02.
“I was waiting for the more experienced runners to make a move,” reflected Kuma after the third marathon of his career. “I did come here for a personal best but, when the pace slowed down, I decided to try to win the race.”
Oromo athlete Abdi Nageeye was the fastest in the race for the Dutch national title. He finished ninth overall in 2.12.32.

Sisay #Lemma won the 32nd #Vienna City Marathon in 2:07:31 in windy and relatively warm weather conditions at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race on Sunday (12). Kenya’s Duncan Koech was second with 2:12:14 while #Siraj Gena took third in 2:12:48.

On same day Oromo athletes #Meseret Mengistu Biru and her compatriot Amane Gobena win the Paris Womens Marathon. Seboka #Tola was 3rd in men’s marathon.
#Oromo athletes Meseret #Mengistu Biru and her compatriot Amane #Gobena win the #Paris Womens#Marathon. Seboka #Tola was 3rd in mens marathon.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2428191-paris-marathon-2015-results-men-and-womens-top-finishers

Injifannoo atileetota Oromoo.
Oromo athletes E. Shumi and B. ‪#‎Dibaba‬ were crowned champions of‪#‎Tokyo‬‪#‎Marathon‬, Sunday 22nd February 2015. ‪#‎Oromia‬. ‪#‎Africa‬
Endeshaw ‪#‎Negesse‬ Shumi clocked a time 2:05:59 to win the men’s race and to beat Olympic and World Champion Stephen Kiprotich of Uganda, who clocked a personal best and national record time of 2:06:30. Kenya’s Dickinson Chumba finished 3rd in 2:06:32.

The women’s Tokyo Marathon winner Birhane Dibaba clocked 2:23:15. Kenya’s Helah Kiprop clocked a personal best time of 2:24:03 to take second while Olympic Champion Tiki ‪#‎Gelana‬ (#Oromia) was third with a time of 2:24:26.

Men Top 10 Results Tokyo Marathon 2015

1. Endeshaw Negesse Shumi – 2:06:00
2. Stephen Kiprotich – 2:06:33 – NR
3. Dickson Chumba- 2:06:34
4. Shumi Dechase – 2:07:20
5. Peter Some – 2:07:22
6. Markos Geneti – 2:07:25
7. Masato Imai – 2:07:39 – PB
8. Tsegaye Kebede – 2:07:58
9. Hiroaki Sano – 2:09:12 – PB
10. Benjamin – 2:09:18 – PB

Women Top 10 Results Tokyo Marathon 2015

1. Birhane Dibaba – 2:23:15
2. Helah Kiprop – 2:24:03 – PB
3. Tiki Gelana – 2:24:26
4. Selly Chepyego – 2:26:43
5. Flomena Cheyech Daniel – 2:26:54
6. Yeshi Esayias – 2:30:15
7. Madoka Ogi – 2:30:25
8. Albina Mayorova – 2:34:21
9. Yukari Abe (- 2:34:43
10. Yumiko Kinoshita – 2:35:49 – PB

Congratulations to Oromia’s marathoners Angasaa and Qanani in Indore just like those in Tokyo!

INDORE: Runners from Oromia dominated the inaugural edition of Indore Marathon organised by the Association of Indore Marathoners in the city on Sunday 22nd February 2015.

While all three winners in men’s 21-km open category were Oromians (Oromos), it was their compatriots who were among two of the top three finishers in the women’s open category of the same event.

In the 21-km half marathon men’s open category,Oromia’s Angasa Ware clinched the first place clocking a time of one hour, five minutes and just over 42 seconds, while compatriot Abera Demelash was a close second. Their country mate, management graduate Belay Shimelis stood third.

In the women’s open category of the same event, Oromian Keneni Kome timed one hour, 18 minutes and 58 seconds to win the race, while Kenyan Linal Chirchir stood second and Oromia’s Adanech Jefare secured the third position.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sports/More-sports/Athletics/Ethiopian-marathoners-conquer-inaugural-Indore-Marathon/articleshow/46335388.cms

Dibaba broke her fourth indoor world record in just over a year

World indoor champion Oromo athlete Genzebe Dibaba clocked 14:18.86 to beat previous record by more than five seconds at XL Galan meeting in Stockholm, Sweden on 19th February 2015.

Netherland’s European 1500m champion Oromo athlete Sifan Hassan clocked a world-leading indoor personal best of 4:00.46 to win the women’s race. German based Homiyu Tesfaye ran world-leading 1,500 time of 3:34:13.

Oromo athlete Genzebe Dibaba is now the holder of four world indoor records or world bests after clocking 14:18.86 to break the 5000m mark at the XL Galan meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday.

With that time the two-time world indoor gold medallist beat the previous world indoor 5000m record set by her compatriot Meseret Defar – also run in Stockholm in 2009 – by more than five seconds. Her 3000m split time of 8:37 is the quickest that distance has been run so far this year.

Dibaba adds this most recent world record to the world indoor records she ran over 1500m and 3000m and the world indoor best she clocked over 2 miles all within 15 days last year. The 3000m record was run at XL Galan, with Defar the previous holder of that record, too.

On Thursday Dibaba finished more than a minute clear of her closest rival, Birtukan Fente, who ran 15:22.56. Oromo athletes filled the top three spots as Birtukan Adamu was third with 15:34.15.

Only two Oromo athletes – Dibaba’s sister Tirunesh (14:11.15) and Defar (14:12.88 and 14:16.63) – have gone quicker outdoors over the distance.
http://www.siitube.com/the-oromo-genzebe-dibaba-smashes-500…

http://www.iaaf.org/…/genzebe-dibaba-sets-world-indoor-5000

LAVILLENIE, ADAMS, OROMO ATHLETE GENZEBE DIBABA AND PAVEY AMONG 2015 LAUREUS WORLD SPORTSMAN AND SORTSWOMAN NOMINEES.
Read more as follows:

‘IAAF World Athletes of the Year Renaud Lavillenie and Valerie Adams are among the nominees for the 2015 Laureus World Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year awards.

Lavillenie, in addition to memorably breaking Sergey Bubka’s long-standing pole vault world record last February, was only beaten once during a momentous year.

Outside of athletics, the other male nominees are (in alphabetical order) Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic, British racing driver Lewis Hamilton, British golfer Rory McIlroy Spanish motorcyclist Marc Marquez and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.

Adams is joined on the list of female nominees by Ethiopian distance runner Genzebe Dibaba; as well skiers Marit Bjorgen and Tina Maze, from Norway and Slovenia respectively, and tennis players Li Na and Serena Williams, from China and the USA.

British distance runner Jo Pavey, who won the European 10,000m title in Zurich last summer at the age of 40 and just 10 months after giving birth, is nominated in the Comeback of the Year category.

The 16th Laureus World Sports Awards will recognise sporting achievement during the calendar year of 2014 and is the premier honours event on the international sporting calendar.

The winners are voted for by the Laureus World Sports Academy, which is made up of 48 of the greatest sportsmen and sportswomen of all time, and they will be unveiled at a globally televised Awards Ceremony staged in the Grand Theatre, Shanghai, on Wednesday 15 April.

“This is going to be yet another classic year. Each year we think the list of Nominees cannot get better, but then it does. The Sportsman of the Year and Team of the Year categories look amazing. You could make a case for every nominee to be the winner,” said Laureus World Sports Academy chairman and former 400m hurdles world record-holder Edwin Moses.’
http://www.iaaf.org/…/news/lavillenie-adams-dibaba-pavey-la…

February 2, 2015 (IAAF) — The world 5000m bronze medallist and Continental Cup winner Oromo athlete Almaz Ayana chats about some of the best things in her world.

Best friend in athletics

My best friend in athletics is Soresa Fida (a 3:34 1500m runner) who is also my husband and always my first source of advice.

Best achievement in athletics

My best achievement is the 5000m victory at the 2014 Continental Cup in Marrakech The other one would be winning a bronze medal in the 5000m at the Moscow World Championships, which was a real breakthrough performance.

Best piece of advice

Every one of us, wherever we live or whoever we are, must work for peacefulness in our world. We are given this world to live in for free and leave it only by the grace of almighty God.

Biggest regret

Up until this point in my life, I have no regrets.

Biggest weakness

I have a weakness in terms of the finish of my races. This is something I am working hard to improve.

Biggest disappointment

I am always highly disappointed when I cannot make a good result in top competitions, like at the 2014 IAAF Diamond League in Brussels (Almaz placed down in ninth in the 3000m). I always want to show my best and I’m unhappy if other circumstances such as illness or injury hold me back.

Best athlete I ever saw

Tirunesh Dibaba is my idol. She has shown great discipline and character throughout her career.

Biggest rival

I have many great rivals but, in the race, time is my biggest rival.

Biggest achievement outside of athletics

I was living in a very small rented room for long time, but recently I bought my own residential house where I am living with my beloved husband.

Best stadium/venue

Competing at the Moscow Olympic Stadium at the 2013 World Championships was the most exciting event in my life. It was an impressive stadium with a great atmosphere and crowd.

Almaz Ayana on her way to winning the 5000m at the IAAF Continental Cup, Marrakech 2014 (Getty Images)[/caption]Almaz Ayana in the 5000m at the 2013 IAAF World Championships (Getty Images)[/caption]

Almaz Ayana in the 5000m at the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup (Getty Images) Almaz Ayana on her way to winning the 5000m at the IAAF Continental Cup, Marrakech 2014

Source: IAAF.org and http://ayyaantuu.com/sport/personal-bests-almaz-ayana/

See more at:http://www.iaaf.org/news/feature/almaz-ayana-ethiopia-5000m

HASSAN THE STAR ON A NIGHT OF SIX WORLD LEADS IN KARLSRUHE

February 3, 2015 (IAAF) — The Netherlands’ European 1500m champion Sifan Hassan provided the outstanding performance at the first IAAF Indoor Permit meeting of 2015 when she sped to a national record and world-leading 1500m time of 4:02.57 at the Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe on Saturday (31).

Hassan moved away from Ethiopia’s 20-year-old world indoor silver medallist Axumawit Embaye off the final bend, although the latter was second in an indoor personal best of 4:02.92.

There were five other world-leading marks in the German city.

Turkey’s Ilhan Tanui Ozbilen won the men’s 1500m in 3:38.05, edging out Kenya’s Nixon Chepseba who was second in 3:38.12.

France’s Dmitri Bascou won the 60m hurdles in 7.53, having run the same time in his heat.

“Moments after the start tonight (in the final), I made a big mistake. Had this not happened, I would have run under 7.50 tonight,” said Bascou.

China’s Xie Wenjun was second in 7.62 and Great Britain’s Lawrence Clarke was third in 7.63, equalling his personal best.

Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith sped to a 60m time of 7.12, like Bascou, having run as quickly in her preliminary round.

The Briton’s route to victory was eased by the fact that the Netherlands’ European 100m and 200m champion Dafne Schippers, who had also run 7.12 in her heat, was disqualified in the final for a false start.

“I had not reckoned with this time tonight,” bubbled Asher-Smith. “I’m quite surprised how well I ran tonight.”

Spain’s Eusebio Caceres took the long jump honours with an indoor PB of 8.16m.

The Spaniard was languishing down in fifth place with 7.75m before posting his winning attempt in the final round. It spoiled a potential celebration for Germany’s Julian Howard, who actually hails from Karlsruhe and who had leapt an indoor best of 8.04m in the second round

Russia’s former European junior 3000m champion Yelena Korobkina won over 15 laps of the track in a personal best of 8:47.61, almost three seconds faster than she had ever run before under any conditions.

Great Britain’s Laura Muir was second in 8:49.73 with the first seven women home in indoor personal bests.

Lavillenie fails at 6.01m

Not participating in the orgy of world-leading marks was the evening’s headline act, Renaud Lavillenie.

The French vaulter initially looked a bit off his game, after going over 6.00m in Rouen last Saturday, and missed his opening jump at 5.73m.

He then recovered on his next attempt, posting a meeting record of 5.86m on his first try for the victory.

However, he was unsuccessful at what would have been a world-leading 6.01m.

“I was feeling a little tired tonight,” said Lavillenie. “It’s not easy to jump six metres every time out. I had great pleasure in breaking the meeting record, so I’m not unhappy.”

Russia’s Aleksandr Gripich finished second in an indoor best of 5.73m.

USA’s Funmi Jimoh won the women’s long jump with a 6.71m leap right at the end to beat Sweden’s Erica Jarder, who was second with 6.69m. Germany’s world-leading Sosthene Moguenara finished third, also with 6.69m.

Paul Kipsiele Koech’s win in the men’s 3000m never seemed in doubt as he cruised to a 7:45.41 win ahead of Germany’s Richard Ringer, who clocked a best of 7:46.18

US shot putters Christian Cantwell and Ryan Whiting, second and first in Dusseldorf on Thursday, swapped places as Cantwell won with 20.77m to Whiting’s 20.72m.

Susanna Kallur returned to the city of her 2008 world record in the 60m hurdles, running a competitive race over the barriers for the first time since 2010.

The Swede, in the wake of her well-documented injury woes over the past few years, posted creditable 8.14 times in both her heat and final but the competition belonged to Germany’s Cindy Roleder, who won with 8.03 in the final.

Phil Minshull and Ed Gordon for the IAAF

Oromo athletes: Lemi Berhanu surprises while Aselefech Mergia makes magnificent Marathon Comeback in the 2015 Dubai Marathon

Note: 90% of Athletes in the ranking positions are Oromo athletes from Oromia

January 23, 2015 (IAAF) — Ethiopia’s Lemi Berhanu emerged as the unexpected champion at the 2015 Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon, crossing the line at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race in a world-leading time and big personal best of 2:05:28 on Friday (23)

It was not a debutants’ triumph as has been the case for the past three years but it was definitely surprise as the 21-year-old Ethiopian – wearing a bib with his extended family name of Hayle on it – left behind some of the biggest names in long-distance running.

Lelisa Desisa, the 2013 Dubai and Boston Marathon champion, took second in 2:05:52 while Deribe Robi completed the all-Ethiopian podium with a time of 2:06:06.

Fourth was Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa in 2:06:35 followed by two more Ethiopians, Sisay Lemma in a personal best of 2:07:06 and Bazu Worku in 2:07:09. Indeed, the top 12 men were all Ethiopian runners.

Split times of 14:39 for 5km and 29:22 for 10km initially pointed towards a sub-2:04 finishing time.

However, the pacemakers could not sustain the pace and when a group of 15 runners reached the 25km mark in 1:13:57, none of them was left in the race.

Five more runners lost contact during the next five kilometres, among them Kenenisa Bekele.

It was Desisa who surged ahead at the 30km refreshment station to take his bottle. The Ethiopian kept going and five countrymen went with him: Robi, Lemma, Lelisa, Girmay Birhanu and Lemi Berhanu.

Five kilometres from the finish a duel between Desisa, who was also second in New York last November, and Lemi Berhanu developed and the latter was able to drop the much more experienced Desisa with about one kilometre to go.

Dream come true in Dubai

“I would never have thought that I could win this race,” said Berhanu, who had won his debut race in Zurich last year with 2:10:40. “It was my dream to do this in Dubai one day, but not this year! With around one kilometre to go, I sensed that I could succeed.”

He has now improved by more than five minutes and is unbeaten in two races.

“If my federation selects me then I would really like to run the marathon in the World Championships in the summer,” added Berhanu, who said he had no idea what to do with the first prize cheque of US$200,000. “I never thought about the money. I really don’t know what I will do with it.”

By contrast, Dubai proved a tough and disappointing marathon experience for Bekele.

Ethiopia’s superstar, in his third marathon, dropped out just beyond the 30km mark, appearing to suffer from a leg injury. He had been in the leading group up to the 28km mark.

“Kenenisa suffered hamstring problems in both legs,” explained his coach Renato Canova.

“But I think the real problem is in his right achilles tendon. At the end of November, he had to reduce training because of this but then it got better and, actually, his final training sessions looked encouraging. A world record was never a realistic target, but a 2:04 time seemed realistic.

“However, when I saw him running today he did not look relaxed, he looked tight. I think this is the reason why he developed hamstring problems. Something must have happened in the final few days before the race,” added the Italian coach. “We now have to solve this tendon problem but for his future marathon career I remain very confident. I think he will do really well.”

Mergia a motivated mother

Making it a marvellous day for Ethiopian runners, other than Bekele, Aselefech Mergia produced a perfect comeback in the women’s race.

Having taken an extensive break from competition to have a baby, the 2011 and 2012 Dubai champion returned to run a marathon for the first time since her disappointing 42nd place at the 2012 Olympics and won in 2:20:02, just 31 seconds outside her course record from three years ago.

In a thrilling battle right to the line, Kenya’s world half marathon champion Gladys Cherono was beaten by just one second in what was the third-fastest marathon debut.

Another Kenyan, Lucy Kabuu, was third in 2:20:21 in a race which saw 10 women run faster than 2:24.

Ethiopia’s Tigist Tufa broke clear shortly after the start and maintained a daunting pace, leading a talented chasing group by a minute at 20km, which was reached in 1:05:23 and suggested a 2:18 finishing time.

However, Tufa paid the price in the end and was caught at 34km by a five-woman group consisting of Mergia, fellow Ethiopians Aberu Kebede and Shure Demissie, Kabuu and Cherono.

The group was reduced to three with just over three kilometres remaining after Kebede and Demissie were dropped, before Mergia eventually proved the strongest in the final kilometre.

“I told myself after having my daughter that I could win a marathon again,” said Mergia, who was watched by her husband and baby daughter. “We used the prize money from my first two wins in Dubai to begin building a hotel back home, now we’ll be able to complete the job.”

Ethiopian runners took the next four places. Fourth was teenager Demissie in a world junior best of 2:20:59, and the fifth fastest debut on record; with Kebede in 2:21:17, 2014 Dubai champion Mulu Seboka in 2:21:56 and then Alemu Bekele in 2:22:51 the next three women across the line.

Men’s results:

Women’s results:

Source: IAAF

Read more at: http://ayyaantuu.com/sport/lemi-berhanu-surprises-while-aselefech-mergia-makes-magnificent-marathon-comeback-in-dubai/

Oromo Athlete Dibaba Successfully Defends Her Xiamen Title as Both Course Records Fall.

January 5, 2015 (IAAF)

Oromo’s (Oromian) Mare Dibaba won the Xiamen Marathon for the second year in succession, taking more than one-and-a-half minutes off the course record she set last year at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race, winning in 2:19:52 on Saturday (3).

For the first time since the inaugural Xiamen Marathon in 2003, both course records were broken as Kenya’s Moses Mosop set a Chinese all-comers’ record of 2:06:19 to win the men’s race on a day when runners were met with ideal conditions with temperatures in the range of 11-15°C.

The organisers had made some adjustments to the route due to some construction-related concerns in the city. Some of the more undulating parts of the course – including the Yanwu Bridge that stretches over the sea – had been taken out.

When Dibaba won in Xiamen last year, she took 61 seconds off the course record and crossed the line five minutes ahead of her nearest rival.

This time, her victory was even more emphatic.

Dibaba built up a significant lead in the early stages of the race and maintained it all the way to the finish, despite some problems with her legs after 33km.

By equalling her PB of 2:19:52, she covered the course one minute and 44 seconds quicker than she did last year, finishing almost eight minutes ahead of Meseret Legesse, who once again finished second to Dibaba for the second year running.

“I could have run faster but I felt a little bit pain in my legs in the last 10km which forced me to slow down,” said the 25-year-old who finished third in Boston and second in Chicago last year. “But I am happy with the result.”

Dibaba had also aimed to break the Chinese all-comers’ record of 2:19:39, set by Sun Yingjie in 2003, and the organisers had offered an extra bonus for achieving such a feat, but Dibaba missed that mark by just 13 seconds.

“I was trying to break the record and I missed it by a few seconds, which was a pity, but I am happy to break the race record,” said Dibaba, who represented Ethiopia in the marathon at the 2012 Olympics. “The new course is very good and the fans along the road were so supportive from the beginning to the end of the race.”

Legesse was about a minute slower than last year, finishing second in 2:27:38. In third, Kenya’s Meriem Wangari set a PB of 2:27:53. It was the second time the 35-year-old had made it on to the podium in Xiamen, having finished second on her marathon debut in 2012.

Mosop back to winning ways

Back in 2011, Mosop made a promising start to his marathon-running career, clocking 2:03:06 on Boston’s record-ineligible course on his debut at the distance and then winning the Chicago Marathon with a course record of 2:05:37 later that year.

But in recent times, the 29-year-old has struggled to recapture that form. He finished eighth at the 2013 Chicago Marathon and a distant 12th in Prague last May, clocking 2:20:37. So when he lined up in Xiamen, he was something of an unknown quantity.

Unlike the women’s race, the men’s contest was more competitive.

A pack of 10 runners ran shoulder to shoulder after 7.5km and passed the 15km check point in 44:50. After 20km was reached in 1:00:20, the leading group was trimmed to six men as Ethiopia’s world bronze medallist Tadese Tola, the fastest man in the race with a PB of 2:04:49, was left behind.

The pace maker dropped out at the 30km mark, but the pace did not slow down. Regassa tried to pull away but was soon caught by Mosop and Ethiopia’s Abrha Milaw.

The leading trio ran alongside one another for a further 5km before Milaw slowed down. Mosop seized the lead at 40km and kept extending his advantage over Regassa untill he hit the finish line in 2:06:19 to take more than a minute off the course record set in 2013 by Oromia’s Getachew Terfa Negari.

Mosop’s time was also the fastest marathon ever recorded on Chinese soil, bettering the 2:06:32 set by the late Samuel Wanjiru when winning the 2008 Olympic title in Beijing.

“I planned to run in sub-2:06 in Xiamen, but I am happy with this result,” said Mosop, who has a PB of 2:05:03. “I have been troubled with injuries – first a knee injury and than an injury in the calf – for two years. Winning in Xiamen at the start of the season is a huge boost for me.”

Mosop’s next marathon will be in Paris in April.

Regassa was also inside the previous course record, clocking 2:06:54 in second place. Milaw finished third in 2:08:09, nine seconds ahead of Kenya’s Robert Kwambai. Tola was a distant fifth in 2:10:30.

In total, more than 43,000 runners competed in the marathon and half-marathon races.

Leading results

Men
1 Moses Mosop (KEN) 2:06:19
2 Tilahun Regassa (Oro) 2:06:54
3 Abrha Milaw (ETH) 2:08:09
4 Robert Kwambai (KEN) 2:08:18
5 Tadese Tola (Oro) 2:10:30

Women
1 Mare Dibaba (Oro) 2:19:52
2 Meseret Legesse (Oro) 2:27:38
3 Meriem Wangari (KEN) 2:27:53
4 Meseret Godana (Oro) 2:36:11
5 Cao Mojie (CHN) 2:43:06

WASHINGTON, DC — Abbebee Biqilaa, ilmaan Obbo Dibaabaa, Daraartuu, Qananiisaa, Hayilee dabalee yoo dorgommii fiigichaa maqaa dhaahan yoo hedduu Oromiyumatti mooha. Dorgommii biyya keessaa fi biyya alaallee taatu yoo hedduu jaruma.

Akka leenjisaa Toleeraa Dinqaa Finfinnee dubbatetti dorgommii “Great Run” Finfinneetti qopheessan 14essoo Wuddee Ayyaalewoo tokkeessoo Netsaanneti Guddataa (Oromiyaa) irraa lammeessoo bahe.

Dhiiraan ammo Azmaraa Beqqelee tokkeesoso, Addunyaa Taakkelee lammeessoo. Maratoonii km-21 Indiitti dorgoman Guyyee Adoolaatti atileetota Keenyaa caalee tokkeessoo tahe.

Gama kaaniin ammoo Federeshiinin atileetiksii biyyoolessaa atileetota Marakaash, Morookoo fi Hiyugin Amerikaatti dorgomani moohan badhaase.

Gama kaaniin Federeshiiniin Atileetiksi Itoophiyaa naannoon Oromiyaa akka naannootti baranllee atileetiksiin mootee badhaasa argatte.

Maratooni km-21 ta Indiitti dorgoman ammo Guye Adoolaa (Oromiyaa) irraa tokkeesso bahee moohe,akka kilabiitti ammoo kilabii Poolisii Oromiyaatti moohe.

Dorgommii Waancaa Afrikaa bara 2015
Kubbaa miilaa keessaa ammo maanajera Kilabii kubbaa miilaa Masrii ya hujii irraa buusanii, Naajeriyalleen ka ufii buusuuf mudduutti jirti.

Maanajerii Naayjeeriyaa, Istfeen Keyshi Kilabii isaa Waancaa Afrikaatii jabeessee hin qopheessinee jedhanii akka innii irraa bu’u mudduutti jiran.

Bafanaa Bafaana Afrika Kibbaa, A’aarbii Ayvoorii Koosti, Hurjiin gugurraalleen Gaanaa, nyenyeecnii Kameruun Rasaasii Zaambiyaa fi walumatut biyya 16 dorgommii tanaa qophiiti jira.

Federeshiiniin kubbaa miilaa Naayjeriyaa Keeshi ulfinnaan huji irraa bu’uu wayyaa jedhe itti dhaame.Keeshiin kun durii Naayjeeriaa taphataa eegee kilabi Toogoollee leenjsiee nama ganna 52ti.

Farahoos, kilabiin kubbaa miilaa Masrii dorgommii waancaa kubbaa miilaa Afrikaatiif hin dabarre manaajera isii Shawikyii Gaharibiitti balleessaa muranii hujii irraa buusan.Gaharib nama ganna 55 bara 2013 hujii tana itti kennan. Masriin Waancaa Kubbaa Miilaa Afrikaa marroo torba mootee barana hin taaneef.

Maaliin ammo tan waliin marroo torbaaf Waancaa Afrikaatiif dabarte.Maanajerii isaanii Seydoyu Keitaatii kilabii Roomaatii taphata.Yoo akka afaan keennaatti yaamne hurjiin gugurraalleen Gaanaa jennuun kilabii Toogoo 3-1 mootee dabarte.

Woma taateefuu dorgommii waancaa Afirkaa bara 2015 ta bara dhufuu biyya 16 dabre.Kudhanii jahaanuu Afrikaa gama Kaabaa, Kibbaa, Jidduti fi Dhiyaatti dabree Afrikaan gamii Bahaa fiigichaan addunyaa dura jirtu kubbaa miilaatiin ammoo addunyaa eegee jirtu baranallee hin dabarre.

Dorgommii baranaa Iquwaatoorilyaal Giinitti qopheessan.

http://finfinnetribune.com/Gadaa/2014/11/voa-atileetotii-naannoo-oromiyaa-addunyaa-fiigichaan-moohumatti-jiran/

In a record-breaking edition of the #Airtel New #DelhiHalf-Marathon on Sunday (23 November 2014), an unprecedented nine runners ducked under the one-hour mark led by the great #Oromo athlete #Guye #Adola in a course record of 59:06.

The 24-year-old, who won a bronze medal at the #IAAFWorld Half-Marathon Championships in #Copenhagenin March, had the measure of the gold medallist Geoffrey Kamworor this time.

In the deepest race of all-time, #Adola powered to a personal best of 59:06 to defeat #Kamworor – who arrived in the Indian capital unbeaten at the half-marathon in 2014 – by one second.

“The competition was hard, but I am very happy with my podium finish. It was bit cold in the early morning. But I am happy with my timing, and more so because I broke the course record,” said Adola.

Mosinet Geremew finished third in 59:11 while further back, the world-leader Abraham #Cheroben from Kenya placed seventh, albeit in 59:21!

The women’s race was a comparatively sedate affair with world record-holder Florence Kiplagat taking the plaudits in 70:04 in a race which boiled down to a sprint finish on the track inside the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

“It was a very nice and strong field today, very tight group. I knew that if I stuck to the group, I could win and that was my strategy for today,” said the winner.

“Coming into the race as defending champion, there was no pressure on me. I just had to believe in myself and I know I could win back the title.”

World half-marathon champion Gladys #Cherono from and Worknesh #Degefa from took second and third in 70:05 and 70:07 respectively.

Oromo Athlete Amane Gobena takes the honour at the Istanbul Marathon for the third time

November 17, 2014 (IAAF) — Amane Gobena took the honours at the 2014 Vodafone Istanbul Marathon, winning at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race in 2:28:46 on Sunday (16).

The women’s race had a runner who decided to take matters into her own hands early in the race.

Local road running talent Ummu Kiraz of Turkey led from the start and passed 5km in 17:50 and 10km in 35:25. However, Ethiopia’s Emebt Etea, Amane Gobena and Salomie Getnet kept the gap to around 80 metres, with the home hope Elvan Abeylegesse, Ukraine’s Olena Burkovska and London 2012 Olympic Games bronze medallist Tatyana Petrova Arkhipova close behind.

By the halfway point, covered in 1:14:52, Kiraz was still in the lead by 29 seconds over what had become a six-women pack,

However, around 25 kilometres, race favourite Gobena decided to haul in Kiraz and increased her pace, taking the lead two kilometres later and she passed 30km at 1:46:03, 26 seconds faster than Kiraz and Getnet.

Abeylegesse was running just behind the chasing pair but Burkovska and Petrova Arkhipova were by now another 100 metres in arrears.

Gobena carried on forging ahead and remained unchallenged until the finish line, finishing almost two minutes ahead of anyone else.

Getnet was second in 2:30:36, Burkovska was third with 2:31:30 and Petrova Arkhipova took fourth place with 2:31:47.

Former 5000m world record holder Abeylegessie was fifth in 2:32:15 with the early leader Kiraz eventually finishing sixth in 2:32:52

“I’m very happy to be here for the third time and win for the first” said the 32-year-old Gobena, who was finished third in Istanbul in 2010 and second in 2012.

Her only disappointment was missing out on the course record of 2:27:25, set in 2010 by her compatriot Ashu Kasim Rabo, with race organisers having high hopes that the mark might be improved upon this year.
Hafid Chani, from Morocco, won the men’s competition, finishing the 42-kilometer course in two hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds, becoming the first athlete from Morocco to win the race in its history. Chani will a $50,000 prize for finishing first.

Oromo athlete Gebo Burka came second after finishing the course in 2:12.23, while Kenya’s Michael Kiprop followed him in a time of 2:12.39.

Burka will receive $25,000, while Kiprop is set to go home with $15,000.

Approximately 25,000 runners from 118 countries registered to compete in today’s races which also included a 15km race and a 10km race.

http://ayyaantuu.com/sport/oromo-athlete-amane-gobena-takes-the-honour-at-the-istanbul-marathon-for-the-third-time/

Oromo athlete Abarraa ‪#‎Kumaa‬ (Abera‪#‎Kuma‬) wins ‪#‎Zevenheuvelenloop‬ on Sunday, 16th November 2014.
The Seven Hills Run in ‪#‎Nijmegen‬ won Sunday by Oromo athlete Abarraa Kumaa. The big favorite and defending champion, Leonard Patrick Komon dropped out midway. He could not keep up the pace.
Kuma was part of a leading group with, among other world record holders Leonard Komon and Zersenay Tadese. These two top runners were on‪#‎Zevenheuvelenweg‬ let the leaders go when Kuma accelerated. The Oromian then fought a battle with his compatriots Yigrem Demelash, Yenew Alamirew and Tesfaye Abera. Eventually he arrived solo at the finish.

In the women’s ‪#‎Kenyan‬ Priscah ‪#‎Jeptoo‬ was the fastest. The Kenyan impressed and narrowly missed the world record she walked the 3rd time ever on the 15 kilometers in 46 minutes and 56 seconds. More read @http://www.hardloopnieuws.nl/…/abera-kuma-wint-zevenheuvele…

Gammachuu!!! Gammachuu!!! Injifannoo Atileetota Oromoof! Victory to Oromo athletes!
Amanee Gobanaa (Women’s race) and Gebo Burqaa (2nd in men’s race) took the honours at the 2014 Vodafone Istanbul Marathon, winning at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

Belayinesh Oljirraa, Emane Margaa & Muktar Idris Win IAAF Cross Country series in Burgos, Spain.

The 11th ‘Cross Internacional de Atapuerca’ marked the opening leg of this winter’s IAAF Cross Country Permit series which will reach the pinnacle with the IAAF World Cross Country Championships next March and saw victories from the Oromian duo Imane Margaa (Men’s race) and Belaynesh Oljirraa (Women’s race) on Sunday 16th November 2014.

Right from the gun, the men’s race – held in cold conditions as the thermometer barely reached 7 degrees Celsius, and with very strong winds – turned into a two-man battle between Margaa and his compatriot Muktar Edris.
Wearing identical orange vests, Edris and Margaa looked in impressive form but it was always Edris who made the pace while the former world champion Margaa ran comfortably just behind him, copying his tactics from the last three editions in Atapuerca where he had taken narrow sprint finish wins.

Oljirraa maintains the Oromians dominance!

In contrast to the men, the 7.9km women’s race opened relatively gently with Spain’s Sonia Bejarano reaching the one kilometre point in the lead while all the favourites were comfortably positioned behind her.

Oljirraa, who won bronze medals at both the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and also in the IAAF World Championships 10,000m last year, took command some five minutes into the race but there still were a large leading group of seven at halfway.

After successive laps of 6:43 and 6:30, two-time Atapuerca winner Hiwot Ayalew went to the front and the group was quickly whittled down to four with only Ayalew, Oljira, Kenya’s 2013 World Championships 5000m silver medallist Mercy Cherono and Morocco’s Malika Asahssah remaining in contention after Ayalew covered the third lap in 6:25.

With just under two kilometres remaining, Oljirraa regained command of the race and her change of speed left first Cherono and then Ayalew behind.

As Oljirraa carried on to secured her win in style, crossing the line in 25:26, Cherono caught Ayalew some 200 metres out to finish eight seconds adrift the victor.

A fading Ayalew could not even keep her third place as she was caught by Asahssah in the closing 30 metres.

“I knew Atapuerca as I already had raced here three years ago. On that occasion, I came second so I was eager to come back to what I think is the best cross country race in the world and win,” said a delighted Oljirraa.

#Oromo athlete Belaynesh #Oljirraa won the 25th edition #Bupa Great South Run.

Oromo Athletes in Germany: Tulu Wodajo Addisu wins the sovereign Rother fair run

August 13, 2014

Oromo Athletes performed superb in Roth, Bayern, Germany on Sunday, August 10, 2014. Athlete Tulu Wodajo Addisu, with Oromia National flag on his shirt (214), finished first, while Etana Getachew finished second and Badhane Gamachu fourth.

http://ayyaantuu.com/sport/oromo-athletes-in-germany-tulu-wodajo-addisu-wins-the-sovereign-rother-fair-run/

REPORT: WOMEN’S 1500M – IAAF CONTINENTAL CUP 2014

Congra! Brave ‪#‎Oromo‬ athlete Sifan Hassan wins for Europe!

Sifan ‪#‎Hassan‬ collected an impressive victory in the 1500m to further cushion Team Europe’s lead midway through the second day’s programme.

Hassan, the ‪#‎European‬ champion from the ‪#‎Netherlands‬, won by more than a second in 4:05.99 after taking command of the race from the 800m point. She didn’t hide her delight as she crossed the line, arms held high, smiling widely.

“In the last 600 metres (Seyaum) was going fast so I had to speed up,” said the 21-year-old, who ran a world-leading 3:57.00 at the ‪#‎IAAF‬ Diamond League meeting in Paris in July. “So that’s how I won. It’s fantastic!”

http://www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-continental-cup/iaaf-continental-cup-2014-4953/news/report/women/1500-metres/final

Oromo Athelete Sifan Hassan (Representing Netherlands) won gold medal in 1500 m at European Championships 2014 in Zurich.

August 15, 2014 (Google Translation from Dutch language – NOS) — Sifan Hassan won the gold medal in the 1500m at the European Championships in Zurich, yesterday, August 14, 2014. Hassan (21) was born in Adama, Oromia, and obtained a Dutch passport only last November. Later this week, Hassan was out on the five kilometers.
It is the second Dutch gold medal in Zurich; Wednesday Dafne Schippers was the fastest in the 100m.
Hassan fitted into the finals its usual tactic. She sat only at the start of the final round in the lead and accelerated, but this time she let herself overtake weather by its biggest competitor, the Swedish Abeba Aregawi. On the final straight, the 21-year-old Arnhem hit mercilessly. Aregawi had to settle for silver in 4.05,08. The bronze medal was for the British Laura Weightman in 4.06,32.
Sifan Hassan left Oromia as a refugee and arrived in the Netherlands in 2008 at age fifteen. She began running while undertaking studies to become a nurse.
Affiliated with Eindhoven Atletiek, she entered the Eindhoven Half Marathon in 2011 and won the race with a time of 77:10 minutes. She was also runner-up at two cross country races (Sylvestercross and Mol Lotto Cross Cup). She won those races in 2012, as well as the 3000 metres at the Leiden Gouden Spike meeting.
Sifan made her breakthrough in the 2013 season. She ran an 800 metres best of 2:00.86 minutes to win at the KBC Night of Athletics and took wins over 1500 metres at the Nijmegen Global Athletics and Golden Spike Ostrava meetings. On the 2013 IAAF Diamond League circuit she was runner-up in the 1500 m at Athletissima with a personal best of 4:03.73 minutes and was third at the DN Galan 3000 metres with a best of 8:32.53 minutes – this time ranked her the fourth fastest in the world that year.
She gained Dutch citizenship in November 2013 and the following month she made her first appearance for her adopted country. At the 2013 European Cross Country Championships she won the gold medal in the under-23 category and helped the Dutch team to third in the rankings. She also won the Warandeloop and Lotto Cross Cup Brussels races that winter. At the beginning of 2014 she ran a world leading time of 8:45.32 minutes for the 3000 m at the Weltklasse in Karlsruhe, then broke the Dutch record in the indoor 1500 m with a run of 4:05.34 minutes at the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix. http://ethiofreespeech.blogspot.no/2014/08/sifan-hassan-won-gold-medal-in-1500-m.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Y8n2LZDww

Olympic and World Champion, Oromo athlete Tirunesh Dibaba, awarded Honorary Doctorate from Finfinne (Addis Ababa University), July 2014 picture.

Oromian Runners Shatter Marathon Race Records.Oromo fans showed support to Oromian athlete Deressa Chimsa as he completed the fastest marathon run in Canada (Photo: Lagatafo Studio) gadaa.com/…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0Dppdcy1pyM

“The Oromo ethnic group in Ethiopia must be one of the most athletically blessed on earth. The list of long distance running champions it has produced includes Haile Gebrselassie, Abebe Bikila, and Sileshi Sihene, as well as Dibaba sisters and Derartu Tulu.” Says Olympic and World Records 2012, Keir Radnedge (Author), pp- 62-82. This is an Official London 2012 Olympic Games Publication. Wami Biratu, Mammo Dagaga, Tolasa Qotu, Fatuma Roba, Tikki Galana, Lesisa Desisa, Tsegaye Kebede, Meseret Defar, Maryam Yusuf, Gelete Burka, Tariku Bekele, Atsede Bayisa, Mohammed Aman, Gete (Gexee) Wami, Lamma Kumsa, Abebe Mekonnen, Fita (Fixa Bayyisa), Ayelech Worku, Worku Bikila, Kuture Dulacha, Elfnesh Alemu, Abebe Tola, Maru Dhaba, mariam Hashim, Ibrahim Said, Berhane Adere, Magarsa Tullu, Abarraa Ayyano, Mohammed Kadir, Shibbiruu Raggasaa, Nugussie Roba and Markos Geneti Guta are Oromians of world stars.

Following her dramatic victory in the women’s 10,000m final at Barcelona 1992, Derartu Tulu waited at the finish line for the opponent Elana Meyer, a white South African, and the two set off hand in hand for a victory lap that came to symbolise new hope for Africa. At Sydney 2000, having regained her form of eight years earlier, Tulu again won gold in the women’s 10,000m event, becoming the first woman to win two gold medals in long-distance races at Games and the only woman to win 10,000m gold twice.
Women’s long-distance track events are relatively new to the games programme. It wasn’t until 1996 that a women’s 5000m event introduced and the women’s 10,000m did not make its debut until the 1988 games in Seoul. Only one women, Tirunesh Dibaba at the Beijing games in 2008, has achieved the accolade of claiming the 5000m-10,000m double.
At the 2008 Games in Beijing, Tirunesh Dibaba became the first woman in history to complete the 5000m- 10,000m double.
Gebrselassie burst on to the scene in the 1990s and progressed to become the pre-eminent marathon runner. Bekele took over his crown as king of the men’s 10,000m in 2004 and four years latter laid claim to being the best ever at half the distance. Bekele is aslo arguably the finest cross-country performer the world has ever seen.
Men’s 5000m and 10,000m long distance races challenge an athlete’s speed and endurance. The two events were introduced at the 1912 games Stockholm and many athletes have competed in both over the years with the double achieved on seven occasions, most recently by Kenenisa Bekele at Beijing 2008.

Abebe Bikila, running barefoot, won the men’s Marathon at Rome 1960 to become the first black African gold medallist in history. When runners lined up for the men’s Marathon at Rome 1960, no one outside his own country had heard of 28-year-old Abebe Bikila. He had been drafted into his country’s team at the last moment only after Wami Biratu broke his ankle playing football. By the end of the race, he had claimed the first gold medal won by a black African in the Games’ history – in bare feet, and in a world record time of 2:15.16. Four years latter, he contracted appendicitis just six weeks before Tokyo Games but jogged around the hospital to maintain his fitness. This was his first marathon with shoes , and he won in another record time (2:12.11).
Olympic and World Records 2012
by Keir Radnedge (Author),Hardback, pp- 62-82.
An Official London 2012 Olympic Games Publication

Oromo athlete, a father of 12, Wami Biratu was once among the best long-distance runners in Ethiopia. Wami had at one point trained Abebe Bikila. In his career, Wami had won 30 gold, 40 silver and 10 bronze medals and won competitions in Egypt, Japan and Czhekoslavakia.

Oromo athlete, Mamo Walde Dagaga 1931-2002. Mexico (1968) Olympic marathon Gold medallist.

Mamo Wolde Dagaga was born in the village of Dirre Jille in Ad’a district about 60 Km from Finfinnee from his parents Obbo Wolde Dagaga and Aadde Ganame Gobana.

Mamo grew up in a traditional upbringing spending most of his childhood in Dredhele where he attended a “qes” schooling. In June of 1951, he was hired by the Imperial Body Guard. While at the armed forces, Mamo was able to further his education. In 1953, he was transferred to the Second Battalion of the Imperial Guard and was sent to Korea as part of the UN peacekeeping mission. Mamo spent 2 years in Korea where he had a distinguished military service. After returning from Korea, Mamo got married and pursued his passion of athletics quite regularly.

Mamo easily qualified to be a member of the Ethiopian Olympics team that participated in the Melbourne Olympics in 1962. He had the overall best performance of the national Olympics team by becoming 4-th in 1500 meter race. In 1968, Mamo competed in the 10000 meters race along with the then favorite Kenyan athletes Kip Keno and Naphtaly Temo. 200 meters before the end of the race, Mamo went to the lead. He maintained the lead until almost the end whence he was overtaken by Naphtaly Temo of Kenya. Mamo won his first Silver Olympic medal. One day before the marathon race, the team trainer Negussie Roba approached Mamo and informed him that the legendary Abebe may not be able to finish the marathon race due to bad health. Coach Negussie told Mamo that he was the nation’s only hope for the next day’s marathon race and orders him to prepare. The next day, October 20, 1968, 72 athletes from 44 countries started the long anticipated race. Abebe Bikila, Mamo Wolde and Demssie represented Ethiopia. Abebe later dropped out of the race at the 15-th Km after leading for the whole duration. Mamo later would muse.

Mamo Wolde completed the race victoriously giving his country a third gold medal in Marathon. Mamo became an instant hero just like Abebe. Mamo was 35 when he won the Mexico City Marathon race. In 1972, Mamo participated in the Munich Olympics at the age of 40 where he won a bronze medal in the 10000 meter. In his athletic career, Mamo had participated in a total of 62 international competitions. http://www.roadrunnersclub.org.uk/documents/196_MamoWoldeandtheRRC.pdf

http://www.kennymoore.us/kcmarticles/woldehonolulu/woldestory.htm

http://www.iaaf.org/news/news/campaign-launched-to-re-erect-bikila-and-wold

Oromo athlete Tolossa Qottuu is currently the assistant coach of the Ethiopian National Athletic team. Tolossa had his own successful career in long-distance running which earned him 18 gold, 3 silver and 12 bronze medals. His rise to national level was as a result of his near win in the 5K race in 1972 which he narrowly lost to Miruts. Tolossa had participated in the Montreal and Moscow Olympics.

Oromo athlete Eshetu Tura had won a total of 30 gold, 19 silver and 13 bronze medals in the 3000 meters hurdle race.

Eshetu Tura is a man whose career changed by a song. The famous song written by Solomon Tessema, the legendary sport journalist, to honor Abebe Bikila and Mamo Wolde (marathon li-Ililtwa) was playing on the radio after Mamo’s victory in Mexico City. Eshetu not only get inspiration but also a determination to be like Abebe and Mamo.

Eshetu joined the armed forces, the breeding-ground of athletics success in Ethiopia. His win in the 3000 meters hurdle earned him the national spot-light. Eshetu had won a total of 30 gold, 19 silver and 13 bronze medals in the 3000 meters hurdle race. Eshetu’s name is recorded in the History books as Oromia’s first athlete in the 3K hurdle.

Oromo athletes at Helsinki, 10,000m, 1983. www.oromiasports

Oromo athlete Darartu Tulluu as she won the women’s 10000 meters race in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.www.oromiasports

Derartu Tulu rose to fame and an Olympics history, when she convincingly won the women’s 10000 meters race in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. The scene of this 23 year old Ethiopian young lady winning this race and then draping herself with the national tri-color and doing a lap has placed her in the ranks of the eternal Oromo heroes Abebe Bikila and Mamo Wolde.

Dearatu was born in 1969 in the village of Bokoji in the Arsi region of central Oromia as a seventh child in a family of 10 children. Even in elementary school, Derartu excelled in horse riding competitions. Derartu’s first significant win came in a 400 meter race in her school where she out-run the school’s start male athlete. That along with a win in 800 meters race in her district convincingly put Derartu in a path of a successful career in Athletics. In 1988, Derartu represented the region of Arsi and competed in a national 1500 meters race where she won a bronze medal.

When she was 17, Derartu was hired by the Ethiopian Police Force. In 1989, she competed in her first international race of 6 kilometer cross-country in Norway but was 23rd. In a year time, though, she competed in the same race and won the Gold Medal. Derartu won international recognition and success in the 90’s. Her record-setting win in the 10,000 meter race in Bulgaria and her win in the same distance race in Cairo, Egypt are worth mentioning.

Derartu’s win in the 10,000 meter race in the Barcelona Olympics goes down in the History Books as the first gold-medal win ever by an African woman.

Darartu is the first black African woman to win a gold medal which she won in the 10,000m event at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. The race, where her and Elana Meyer (South Africa) raced for lap after lap way ahead of the rest of the field launched her career. She sat out 1993 and 1994 with a knee injury and returned to competition in the 1995 IAAF World Cross Country Championships where she won gold, having arrived at the race only an hour before the start. She was stuck in Athens airport without sleep for 24 hours. The same year she lost out to Fernanda Ribeiro and won silver at the World Championships 10,000.

1996 was a difficult year. At the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Tulu lost her shoe in the race and had to fight back to get 4th place. She also finished 4th at the Olympic Games where she was nursing an injury. In 1997 she won the world cross country title for the second time but did not factor in the 10,000 metres World Championships. 1998 and 1999 she gave birth, but came back in 2000 in the best shape of her life. She won the 10,000 metres Olympic gold for the second time (the only woman to have done this in the short history of the event). She had also won the IAAF World Cross Country Championships title for the third time. In 2001 she finally won her world 10,000 track title in Edmonton. This was her third world and Olympic gold medal. She has a total of 6 world and Olympic gold medals.

Her transition to the marathon was rewarded with victories in London and Tokyo Marathons in 2001. She finished 4th at the 2005 World Championships setting her personal best time of 2:23:30. She also won the Portugal Half Marathon in 2000 and 2003, and Lisbon Half Marathon in 2003. In 2009, at the age of 37, she won the New York City Marathondefeating of the likes of Paula Radcliffe,[1] Lyudmila Petrova and Salina Kosgei.

In 2004, she declined to enter the New York Marathon, where she would have been likely to face marathon World Record holder Paula Radcliffe, whom she has had a great rivalry with over the years, and focused instead on the Olympic Games, where she won the bronze medal in the 10 000 m behind Xing Huina and her cousin Ejegayehu Dibaba. (Radcliffe failed to finish.)

She is also remembered for her speed and her 60.3 second-last lap at the end of the 10,000 metres at the Sydney Olympics was a sprint of note. As of 2014, Derartu Tulu is still running competitively, while most of her old rivals are retired or retiring. In her short but on-going career, she has managed to win over 35 gold, 12 silver and 15 bronze medal.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derartu_Tulu

Oromo athlete Fatima (Fatuma) Roba. The first black/ African Woman to win Marathon. www.oromiasports

‘Like many other African elite runners also placed her as a child a long way to school on foot. Her first big success was a third place over 10,000 m at the African Athletics Championships in 1993 in Durban . In 1996 she won the Rome Marathon and then won the marathon of the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta , the gold medal ahead of Valentina Egorova (RUS) and Yuko Arimori (JPN). At the Boston Marathon , she won in 1997 (as the first African woman), in its 1998 personal best time of 2:23:21 and 1999. At the Tokyo International Women’s Marathon 1999, she was second and at the 1999 World Championships in Seville , she took 4th place in the marathon. In 2000, she ran the Boston Marathon in third place. In 2001 she won the Madrid Marathon Millennium and the 2004 Nagano Marathon .’

Roba started running in her elementary school in the Arsi region that was once home also to Derartu Tulu and Haile Gebrselassie, 10,000-meter Olympic gold-medalists in 1992 and 1996 respectively.

Fatuma Roba was the fourth of eight children of subsistence farmers living in the rural countryside outside Bukeji, Derartu Tulu’s hometown. Roba began winning 100-meter and 200-meter races and was chosen to represent her school in regional competitions.

“I knew of (1960 Olympic marathon winner) Abebe Bikila and (1968 winner) Mamo Wolde from the radio, so I thought I’d try it, too,” she says. Unlike many rural women runners, Roba says she faced little objection from her Muslim family when she decided to take up the sport. Four years later, she moved to Finfinne became a runner on the prison police force.

‘Fatuma Roba did not take the usual path to becoming a living legend in the sport of marathon running. She was a pioneer, becoming Africa’s first ever female to take the sport’s most prestigious prize at Atlanta in 1996 when she won the Centennial Olympic Marathon. Who would have thought it, when she had only a 2:39 PR coming into the Olympic year!’http://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/fatuma-roba-twisted-path-living-legend

‎Oromo and ‎Kenyan‬ girls dominated ‪‎5000m‬ final race, IAAF Moscow 2013. Bronze medal winner Almaz ‪ ‎Ayana‬ of Oromia, gold medal winner Meseret ‪Defar‬ of Oromia and silver medal winner Kenya’s Mercy ‪#‎Cherono‬, from left, compete in the women’s 5000-meter final Saturday, Aug. 17, 2013. Photo: David J. Phillip,www.sfgate.com/

Maryam Jamal was born in the Arsi Zone in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, an area famous for distance runners, including Haile Gebreselassie, Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba. She is Muslim Oromo. At the 2012 Olympics, Maryam Yusuf Jamal Represented of Bahrain and became the first Gulf female athlete to win a medal when she won a bronze for her showing in the 1,500m race.

Oromo athlete Tikki Galana, as she wins the 2012 Women’s marathon in London.

Tikki Galana, London Marathon 2013.

Tikki Gelana Erba (born 22 October 1987) is an Oromian long-distance runner who competes in marathon races. Her personal best of 2:18:58 hours is the Ethiopian national record for the event. She won the 2011 Amsterdam Marathon and the 2012 Rotterdam Marathon. She won the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics with a time of 2:23:07, a new Olympic record.

A cousin of 2000 Olympic marathon champion Gezahegne Abera, Tiki was born in Bekoji, a town renowned for producing top runners. She began competing in road races in Ethiopia and came fourth at the 2004 Great Ethiopian Run.^[1] She went to Cataloniain Spain in 2006 and made her debut over the half marathon distance, including wins in Mataró and Terrassa.^[2] She won the San Silvestre Barcelonesa 10K race at the end of the year.^[3] She travelled to Japan in 2007 and won the 10K at the Sanyo Road Race – her time of 31:54 minutes made her the third fastest Ethiopian that year.^[4]^[5] She won the 2008 Women First 5K in Addis Ababa in March,^[6] then came fourth at the high-profile World 10K Bangalore in May.^[7] She debuted on the European track and field circuit that summer and set a 5000 metres best of 15:17.74 minutes at the Internationales Stadionfest and a 10,000 metres best of 31:27.80 minutes at the Ostrava Golden Spike.^[8]

In late 2008, she took sixth place at the Delhi Half Marathon with a time of 1:10:22 hours,^[9] but she was two minutes slower at the 2009 RAK Half Marathon, finishing 16th.^[10] but managed second place behind Abebu Gelan at the Virginia Beach Half Marathon in her American debut.^[11] Her marathon debut followed in October at the Dublin Marathon and in a close finish she took third place on the podium.^[12] In 2010 she came fourth at both the Los Angeles Marathon and the Dublin Marathon, although she improved her best to 2:29:53 hours.^[13]

The 2011 Amsterdam Marathon marked a breakthrough for Tiki as she won the race in a time of 2:22:08 hours – almost eight minutes faster than her previous best and an improvement upon Gete Wami‘s nine-year-old course record.^[14] At the end of that year she returned to Ethiopia, where she came runner-up at the Great Ethiopian Run and third at the Ethiopian Clubs Cross Country Championships.^[15]^[16] She improved her personal best at the Kagawa Marugame Half Marathon in February 2012, going unchallenged to win the race in 1:08:48 hours.^[17]

She broke the Ethiopian record at the 2012 Rotterdam Marathon, completing a solo run of 2:18:58 hours to win the race almost five minutes ahead of runner-up Valeria Straneo.^[18] This made her the fourth fastest woman ever over the distance.^[19] She was selected to represent Ethiopia in the Olympic marathon as a result. At the London 2012 Olympics she won the gold medal at the marathon with an Olympic record time of 2:23:07 hours, in spite of rain throughout the race and a fall at the water station.^[20] After the Olympics she ran a personal best for the half marathon, recording 1:07:48 for third at the Great North Run,^[21] then ran a 15 km best of 48:09 minutes at the Zevenheuvelenloop (finishing behind Olympic 10,000 m champion Tirunesh Dibaba at both races).^[22] She was chosen at the AIMS World Athlete of the Year Award for her performances that year.^[23]

In her first outing of 2013 she held off Kim Smith to defend her Marugame Half Marathon title.^[24]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiki_Gelana

Oromo Athlete Dr. Tirunesh Dibaba

https://fbexternal-a.akamaihd.net/safe_image.php?d=AQD8qM-5DKK70EhR&w=130&h=130&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi1.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FaL_mRBl8LVA%2Fhqdefault.jpg&cfs=1

Oromo athlete, Genzebe Dibaba 1500m world Champion

Oromo Athlete Genzebe Dibaba breaks 3000m indoor record in Stockholm

http://www.pinterest.com/oromtichaoromo/athletes-of-oromia-olympians-and-world-champions/

Injifannoo gammachiisa!!!!
Oromo athlete Genzebe Dibaba wins the women’s 3000m for ‪#‎TeamAfrica‬ in 8:57.54. The fourth w3000 win in a row for Africa at the IAAF‪#‎ContinentalCup‬, 13th September 2014.

Ibrahim Jeilan (Oromia, silver) and Mo Farah (Britain, gold) in 10,000k Moscow World Athletics 2013 final race.

Ibrahim Jeilan Gashu an Oromo long-distance runner who specialises in the5000 metres and 10,000 metres on the track, as well as cross country running. He is a former world champion in 10,000 metres.

After winning silver at the 2005 World Youth Championships, he rose to prominence in 2006 by winning the Ethiopian 10,000 m title and a gold at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics. He then ran a world youth best of 27:02.81 over 10,000 m – also the second best ever run by a junior after Samuel Wanjiru.^[1]

After an underwhelming 2007 season he scored greater success in 2008, becoming the 2008 World Junior Cross Country Championand then taking the 10,000 m silver at the African Championships. He also won the long-running Giro di Castelbuono road race in Italy.

Oromo athlete Mohammed Aman Geleto (born 10 January 1994) is Oromian middle distance runner. Born in Asella town in Oromia. He is the winner of the 800-meter final at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow. He displayed an impressive victory in 800m, runs 1:43.79 in Ostrava in 2013. He also won consecutive 800 m titles at the 2009 and 2011 African Junior Athletics Championships. Aman was the inaugural winner of the 1000 metres race at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore. He won a silver medal in the 800 m at the2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics, finishing behind Leonard Kirwa Kosencha who set a world youth best. In September he improved his Ethiopian record to 1:43.37 minutes (also a world youth best) behind David Rudisha at the Rieti Meeting, then ended Rudisha’s 34-meet winning streak at the Notturna di Milano, beating him by seven hundredths of a second in a time of 1:43.50 minutes.

He won 800 m final in the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul as the youngest gold medalist athlete.

Winner of the Boston Marathon, Oromo athlete Lelisa Desisa with United States Secretary of State John Kerry at the American Embassy in Oromian Capital, Finfinnee.
In a somber ceremony at the American Embassy on Sunday, 26th May 2013, Lelisa Desisa, the men’s winner of this year’s Boston Marathon, said he intended to donate his medal to the people of Boston.“Sport holds the power to unify people,” Desisa said.

Oromia’s Tsegaye Kebede won the men’s London 2013 Marathon race in an unofficial time of two hours six minutes three seconds after chasing down runaway leader Emmanuel Muta.

Kebede’s late surge saw him pass the Kenyan in the final mile, having been 49 seconds adrift in fifth place at the 35km mark.http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/21/london-marathon-david-weir-finishes-down-in-fifth-place-as-mo-farah-completes-his-half-3660432/

Oromo athletes Buzunesh Daba is 2nd in 2013 New York Women Marathon and TigistTufa has demonstrated great performance as debutante. Both were leading the 1st 35 km. Priscah Jeptoo of Kenya is the 1st. The favorite Tsegaye Kebede is 2nd in the men’s race as Kenyan was the 1st.

http://www.tiruneshdibaba.net/#prettyPhoto

http://tedjaleta.com/

Oromo athlete Mare Dibaba wins the 2014 Xiamen Marathon

DIBABA SHAVES XIAMEN MARATHON WOMEN’S COURSE RECORD BY MORE THAN A MINUTE

http://www.iaaf.org/news/report/mare-dibaba-xiamen-international-marathon-iaa

Oromo athlete Negari Terfa wins the 11th Xiamen International Marathon, an IAAF Gold Label race (2013), and set a course record in the men’s race while while Oromo athleteFatuma Sado made it an Oromiann double by winning the women’s race. Eyarusalem Kuma is 3rd in the women’s race.

http://www.iaaf.org/news/report/terfa-breaks-course-record-in-xiamen

Oromo athlete Markos Geneti (born May 30, 1984 in Gute, a small township about 10 km east of Nekemte in Eastern Wollega, the State of Oromia) is an Oromian long-distance runner who previously competed in track running, but now is a road specialist.

He won the 3000 metres title at the 2001 World Youth Championships in Athletics and stepped up a level to take the silver medal over5000 metres at the 2002 World Junior Championships in Athletics the following year. Turning to senior competition, he was the runner-up in the 5000 m behind Hailu Mekonnen at the 2003 Afro-Asian Games and went on to claim the bronze medal in the 3000 m at the2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships. He competed in that event twice at the IAAF World Athletics Final, in 2004 and 2005, but failed to win a medal on either occasion.

He made his global outdoor debut at the 2005 World Championships in Athletics, where he reached the semi-finals of the 1500 metres. Geneti ran a 3000 m best of 7:32.69 minutes at the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix in February 2007.^[1] The following month he then made his debut at the 2007 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, where his 15th place finish was the second best performance by an Ethiopian (after Tadese Tola).

In March 2011, he won the Los Angeles Marathon, breaking the record by almost two minutes in his first marathon attempt. His time of 2:06:35 was the sixth fastest ever for a race débutante at that point. In his second race at the 2012 Dubai Marathon he ran a personal best time of 2:04:54 hours, but in one of the fastest races ever, he took third place behind Ayele Abshero and Dino Sefir.He did not return to competition until December, when he ran at the Honolulu Marathon and placed second to Wilson Kipsang.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markos_Geneti

Oromo Athletes win Great Manchester Run

May 18, 2014, Manchester, England – Oromian athletics legends Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba eased to victory in their respective races in the Great Manchester Run on Sunday.

World and Olympic 10,000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba earned a comfortable victory in the women’s competition, finishing the 10km course in 31:09.

Bekele, a three-time Olympic gold medalist on the track, raced alongside world marathon record holder Wilson Kipsang of Kenya for much of the 10 kilometres course.

However, the 31-year-old – who indicated he may have an equally glorious career ahead of him in road racing when he won his debut marathon in Paris in April – kicked away in the final 400 metres to finish in a time of 28 minutes 23 seconds.

Kipsang, also fresh from a marathon triumph in London where he set a new course record, came in five seconds back while South Africa’s Steve Mokoka was some distance back in third.

“I’m very happy to win here after having run the marathon recently,” said Bekele.

“There was a lot of wind so I tried to hide behind Kipsang and save my energy.”

A beaming Kipsang was delighted with his showing.

“This is a short distance for me but I still showed I have the speed.

“We shall meet again and over the longer distance (the marathon),” said the 32-year-old, who took marathon bronze in the 2012 Olympics.

Bekele, also a four-time 10 000 metres world champion as well as once the 5 000m titleholder, said that he and Kipsang would face many battles over the marathon distance in the years to come.

“I will run some races on the track still but Wilson and I are the same age and the same level so we will be competing against each other for years to come,” said Bekele.

Dibaba, a three-time Olympic champion and five-time world champion on the track, was never troubled and came home over a minute clear of her nearest rivals Gemma Steel of Great Britain and Polline Wanjiku of Kenya.

“The course was very good but the wind was a problem,” said 28-year-old Dibaba

http://ayyaantuu.com/sport/oromo-athletes-win-great-manchester-run/

Bishaan Amboo sana dhugdeeti.
The winner of Dubai and Houston Marathon, #Oromo athlete #Mamitu #Daska is unquestionably the current queen of the #Bolder Boulder’s elite women’s 10K race.

The Oromian won her fourth title Monday 26th may 2014 well ahead of the rest of the field, finishing in 32 minutes, 21.63 seconds. She also won in 2009, 2010 and 2012 and was the runner-up in 2011. Only Portugal‘s Rosa Mota has more career Bolder Boulder victories with five.

Even with temperatures in the high 60s, and even with a hard early pace from Deena Kastor, Daska felt the pace was too slow. So she took off down the left side of a long straightaway before the first mile while the rest of the women followed the inside curve of the road.

The champion “did good training and felt the pace was easy at the beginning,” Daska said through a translator.

That set the tone: If you want to win, prepare for bold moves and a long grind over the scorching pavement of this rolling, high-altitude course.

Congratulations!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamitu_Daska

5th June 2014, Rome: Injifannoo boonsaa fi gammachiisaa atleetota Oromoo. Baga gammaddan. Congratulations!

‪#‎Oromo‬ athletes Genzebe ‪#‎Dibaba‬ (1st) & Almaz ‪#‎Ayana‬(2nd) win the women’s 5000m at the ‪#‎Rome‬ ‪#‎Diamond‬ League 2014. Mohammed Aman vince gara 800m maschile. Viva! ‪#‎Oromia‬ the athletic nation.

Congratulazioni!

Atleti #Oromo Genzebe #Dibaba (1 °) e Almaz #Ayana (2 °) vince 5000m delle donne alla ‪#‎Roma‬ #Diamond League 2014.Viva! #Oromia la nazione atletica.

Congratulations!to #Oromo athlete Mohammed #Aman as he wins 800m IAAF #Diamond League #Rome 2014 http://konjovideo.com/v/iaaf-diamond-league-rome-mohammed-aman-mohammed-s-post-race-interview

July 26, 2014 (IAAF) —World youth 3000m champion, Oromo athelete Yomif Kejelcha led for most of the last kilometre to win the men’s 5000m in 13:25.19, his best ever clocking.

Kejelcha’s team mate Yasin Haji, with whom he shared pacing duties in the last third of the race, finished in 13:26.21 for silver. Moses Letoyie of Kenya took bronze in 13:28.11.

Oromo athlete: Almaz Ayana Ebbaa

Injfannoo atleetota Oromoo (Almaaz & Ganzabe).

Oromo women Athletes Almaz Ayana Ebbaa & Genzebe Dibaba win (1st & 2nd) African Athletics championship, 12 August 2014 in 5000m, Morocco. Janet Kisa of Kenya 3rd. http://ayyaantuu.com/sport/almaz-ayana-surprises-genzebe-dibaba-at-african-athletics-championship-in-morocco/

Oromo Athletes Bonsa Gonfa (men) and Adanech Mamo (Women) won Bonn Marathon April 2014

http://www.runnersworld.de/bonn-marathon-2014

Marathona Bonn/Germany-tti Gaggeeffame Oromootni Injifatan.

Oromo Athletes Fiqiruu Ajjamaa and Badhaanee Gammachuu won the 2011 Bonn mens Marathon. See Picture below:

http://gadaa.com/oduu/8895/2011/04/17/maraatoon-bonn-injiffanoo-oromotaatin-xummurame/

http://gadaa.com/Atleetoota.html

http://www.pinterest.com/oromtichaoromo/athletes-of-oromia-olympians-and-world-champions/

http://gadaa.com/Atleetoota.html

Who are the Oromo People?

Population:
The Oromo people are the native inhabitants of Eastern Africa. Their population is estimated at 40 million people, which comprises the single largest ethnic group in East Africa. There are thousands of Oromo people living in diaspora, largely residing in countries including the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Norway, England and Sweden.

Where is the Oromo land?
The land of the Oromo people is called Oromia. Oromia is bordered by Ogadenia and Somalia in the East, Kenya in the South, Gambella and Sudan in the West and Abyssinia in the North. The capital city of Oromia is called Finfinnee (pronounced fynn-fynn-neh), otherwise referred to as “Addis Ababa”.

Language:
The Oromo people speak Afaan Oromo. They belong to the Cushitic-speaking group of Eastern Africa. The Oromo language is the 4th most spoken language in the continent of Africa.

Religion:
The Oromo people practice three main religions Waqeefanna (Traditional Oromo beliefs), Islam and Christianity.

History:

Since the late 19th century, the Oromo have been under colonization by successive Ethiopian governments. Assisted by European colonial powers with modern weaponry, many Oromo people were killed and during 1870 until 1900s. Bloodshed was intense as the Oromo population was reduced from 10 million to 5 million people. Since the forced incorporation of Oromia as part of present day ‘Ethiopian’ empire, the language and culture of the Oromo people was banned by the Ethiopian government and punishable as a crime, until 1991. Oromo attempts to preserve the Oromo culture and language exist despite open attempts at Oromo ethnic cleansing.

Since the official penalty for speaking the language has been lifted in 1991, many Oromo people are still identified as “Ethiopian”; a title is largely resented because of the because of the historically traumatic connotations for Oromo people.

Notable Oromo movements, particularly in the 1960′s include the Oromo Raayya revolt, the Caalanqo and Aanoole Wars and The Afran Qalloo movements. Other Oromo groups and movements include the Maccaa Tuulama Association, the birth of the Oromo Liberation Front, the Oromo Student movements in 2005.

The Oromo people refer to themselves as Oromo and their land as Oromia.

Historical and cultural information about Oromo people:

Gadaa System:
The Oromo people live by a democratic and egalitarian political system, called the Gadaa system. The Gadaa system consists of Gadaa grades, these grades have individual titles and responsibilities and are also grouped in 8 year periods. Each Gadaa title teaches the young male from birth to develop skills and knowledge about culture, governance, family values and leadership qualities. At the age of 40, Oromo men can be elected as Gadaa officials.

Siinqee Institution:
Like Oromo men, Oromo women have an incorporated institution. Siinqee is one of the pillars of Gadaa, an indigenous system of thought and practice which forms the foundations of Oromo society. As the bride steps out of the door of her mother’s house, she would be handed the Siinqee (a traditional and sacred Oromo stick) by her mother. She walks, imbued with the majesty of Siinqee, shoulder to shoulder with her bridegroom, who carries a spear. The role of Siinqee in Oromo society is to keep the peace and moral sanctity of the society. Warring groups would have to immediately halt their hostilities once the womenfolk wielding Siinqee appear on the battle scene. Most importantly, when in justice is committed, the women in the vicinity would come out in the the morning hours bearing their Siinqee and baring their hairs. According to Oromo custom, the testimony of a woman is not to be doubted. It takes only the testimony of a woman to convict a man. However, it would take the sworn testimony of three men to convict a man as guilty.

Coffee:
Coffee was first found in Oromia, in the city of Kaffa, South Western Oromia. Oromo people began using coffee for nutritional use in the beginning of the 5th century.

Athletics:
The Oromo people have some of the fastest athletes in the world. These athletes include Abbabba Biqilaa who ran barefoot at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Other famous Oromo athletes include Derartu Tulu, Fatuma Roba, Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba and many others.#OromoProtests
http://oromoprotests.com/who-are-the-oromo/
http://www.oromoliberationfront.info/press/Oromo-flyer-ver.4.0.pdf
http://www.pinterest.com/oromtichaoromo/oromia-in-pictures/
https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/?s=athletic+nation&searchbutton=go%21

The Politics of Representation and State Violence in Ethiopia: The Oromo Colonial Experience June 11, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Aannolee and Calanqo, Africa, Ethiopia's Colonizing Structure and the Development Problems of People of Oromia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Because I am Oromo, Genocide against the Oromo, Oromia and Ethiopia, The colonization of Oromia and the violence against Oromo people, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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The Politics of Representation and State Violence in Ethiopia: The Oromo Colonial Experience

Published by oromopress on Jun 10, 2015

Authors: Gemetchu Megerssa & Aneesa Kassam. Scanned by Oromo Press staff with the permission of one of the authors (Dr Gemetchu Megerssa).

Read from the following:-

http://www.scribd.com/doc/268210782/The-Politics-of-Representation-and-State-Violence-in-Ethiopia-The-Oromo-Colonial-Experience

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Darajjee Goobanaa, Oromo national and 3rd year student at Bule Hora University is murdered by fascist TPLF Ethiopia (Agazi) forces: Barataa Waggaa 3ffaa Yuuniversitii Bulee Horaa Kan Ta’e Sabboontichi Darajjee Goobanaa Rasaasa Poolisoota Wayyaaneen Wareegame. June 9, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Amnesty International's Report: Because I Am Oromo.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Because I Am Oromo: Amnesty International Report, Darajjee Goobanaa, Genocidal killings against Oromo people, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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Barataa Waggaa 3ffaa Yuuniversitii Bulee Horaa Kan Ta’e Sabboontichi Darajjee Goobanaa FDG Qindeessite Jedhamuun Rasaasa Poolisoota Wayyaaneen Wareegame.

June 8, 2015 By Qeerroo

Waxabajjii 08,2015 Gabaasa Qeerroo Bulee Horaa

Gaafa Caamsaa 24,2015 Fincila Diddaaa gabrummaa Yuuniverstii Bulee Horaa keessatti ka’een wal qabatee baratoota Oromoo irratti loltoota Wayyaaneen dhukaasi banamuun kan yaadatamu dha. Haala kanaan barattaan Oromoo ganna 3ffaa Yuuniverstii Bulee Horaa irraa baratu barattoota Oromoo adda durummaan fincilaaf qindeessiteetta jedhamee adamfamuun rasaasa Wayyaaneen yeroo rukutamu iyyaa fi diddaan barattootaa waan itti hammaateef jecha loltooti barataa rasaasaan rukutan achitti gatanii deeman,haala kanaan gootichi barataan Darajjee Goobanaa gargaarsa barattootaan Hosptala Xiqur Ambessaatti ergamee osoo waldhaanamuu Waxabajjii 05,2015 lubbuun isaa uummata Oromoof jecha wareega qaalii kaffaltee jirti.

Barataa Darajjee Goobanaan godina Wallaggaa Horroo Guduruu aanaa Jaardagaa Jaartee jedhamutti kan dhalatee guddate ta’uu fi amal qabeessaa fi qaroo ilma Oromoo akka ta’e barattooti Yuuniverstii Bulee Horaa dubbatu.

Oromia’s lyrical stanza: Haacaaluu Hundessaa’s music video:“Maalan Jira …?”:Diiganii gaara sanaa, gaara diigamuu hin mallee, nu baasaan addaan baanee, nuu addaan bayuu hin mallee June 9, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, African Beat, Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, Muscians and the Performance Of Oromo Nationalism, Oromo Artists, Oromo Culture, Oromo Music.
Tags: Africa, Africa Beat, African Studies, Artist Hacaaluu Hundessaa, Musicians and the Performance of Oromo Nationalism, Oromia, Oromia's lyrical stanza, Oromo music and Oromo identity, Oromo people, Oromummaa
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Laal Galoo too,
Gullaalleen kan Tufaa
Laal Galoo too,
Gaara Abbichuuti turii
Laal Galoo too,
Galaan Finfinnee maar….. seeee
Laal Galoo too,
Silaa akka jaalalaa wal irraa hin fagaannuu
Laal Galoo too,
Jarati nu fageessee……!!!
………………………………………………………………….2x..
Diiganii gaara sanaa, Gaara diigamuu hin-mallee,
Nu baasaan addaan baanee, nuu addaan bayuu hin-mallee.
…………………………………………………………………….
Soorettii haadha sooree, irbaanni-rra-buusa qabaa
Seeqanii sesseeqanii, kan gar gar nu baasan jaraa—yii
………………………………………………………………………
Koo Galaanee tiyyaa,
Qotiyyoon abbaan didaa, yaa didaa harqootaa keessaa,
Koo Galaanee tiyyaa,
Qorra baraan dadhabee, morma kee jalattan dheessaaa…!!
Koo Galaanee tiyyaa,
Sululta loon hin tiksuu darabaatti galchiisaa,
Koo Galaanee tiyyaa,
Yooman dhufee si argaa ani si irraa fagoon jiraa.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Maalan jiraa, maalan, jiraa, maalan jiraa,
Yaa Gaa-laa-nee
Maalan jiraa maalan, maalan jiraa caccabsee na nyaatee jiraa
Ani hin jiruu… Ani hin jiruu,
Yaa Gaalaane,
Kukkutee na nyaate xurii
Qotee qotee namichi qotee namichi sanyii darbatee
Yaa Gaalaanee,
Qotee qotee namichi qotee qotee sanyii darbatee
Yaa Gaalaanee
Rafee hin buluu namni waan ormaa abdatee,
………………………………………………………………………………….
Koo Galaanee tiyyaa,
Farda siidaaf kaafanii, siidaa dabaliif suurii
Koo Galaanee tiyyaa
Erga nu dangeessanii barri turee buubbulee
Koot Galaanee tiyyaa,
Woddeessi ciraa gubee, Amboo irraa calaaqqisee
Narraa fagaattee jedhee si yaaduun kiyya yoom hafee??
……………………………………………………………………………….
Maalan hafee, maalan…hafee, maalan hafe
yaa Gaalaanee..
Maalan hafee, Caccabsee na nyaate lafee…….!!
Ani hin jiruu, ani, hin jiruu, Ani hin jiruu, Anii
Yaa Gaalaane
Kukkutee na nyaate xurii
Yaa Gaalaane
Cuwwaa cuwwaa jettii, simbirrooni halkanii,
Yaa Gaalaanee,
Cuwwaa cuwwaa jettii simbirroon halkanii
Nama garaan dhaane dirmammuu hin arganii
Yaa Gaalaanee
Maalan jiraa maalan jiraa caccabsee na nyaatee jiraa…..2x
Ani hin jiruu, Ani hin jiruu.. yaa Gaal-aanee
Ani hinjiruu maalan jira kukkutee na nyaatee xurii…
Qotee qotee namichi,
yaa Gaalaane,
Qotee qotee namichi sanyii darbatee
Rafee hin buluu namni waan ormaa abdatee….
Yaa Gaalaanee
Maalan jiraa, caccabsee na nyaatee jiraa….

30 Still Frames (Photos) from Haacaaluu’s “Maalan Jira …?” Music Video by Director/Editor Amansiisaa Ifaa & Cinematographer Tasfaayee Afuwarq

Waxabajjii/June 5, 2015 · Finfinne Tribune, Gadaa.com

In addition to the lyrical and melodic richness of the recently released Haacaaluu Hundessaa’s “Maalan Jira …?” Oromo music video, imagery has also played a powerful role in making the music video become an instant hit. The following are the cinematographically rich 30 still frames (screen captures) from the music video by Director/Editor Amansiisaa Ifaa and Cinematographer Tasfaayee Afuwarq.

Solar power to the people: Rap-artist Akon smacks that kerosene out of #Africa, with solar academy June 6, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, African Poor, Energy Economics.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Akon and Solar academy for Africa, Developing country, Development and Change, Economic development, economics, poverty, Solar power and Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
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“Politics is at the heart of Africa’s energy crisis. The continent’s power utilities are notoriously inefficient. This is partly down to mispricing and underinvestment. But it’s also because utilities are vehicles for political patronage and, in some cases, institutionalised theft.” “The sheer scale of Africa’s energy deficit often fuels a sense of fatalism and paralysis. Yet on the flipside of this crisis are enormous opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the world’s most abundant and least exploited renewable energy sources, especially solar power. With the price of solar panels plunging, there are opportunities for firms and governments to connect millions of poor households to affordable small-scale, off-grid systems. This would help the poorest most.” The Guardian, 5 June, 2015.

Rap-artist Akon smacks that kerosene out of Africa, with solar academy

By Sam Parkinson, RenewEconomy Free Daily Newsletter, 4 June 2015

If you haven’t heard any of Akon’s music such as his hit Smack That, you may missed the pun in the headline, and you may have also done yourself a service (depending on your music taste). However, it is outside of music that Akon is really helping humanity. Having already set up his Lighting Africa initiative, Akon, 42, is now setting up a solar academy in Mali, and will enlist the assistance of European solar technicians and experts to supply training programs, equipment and guidance. Solektra International is to partner on the project. The solar academy will teach students how to install and maintain solar powered electricity systems and microgrids. “We have the sun and innovative technologies to bring electricity to homes and communities,” said Akon Lighting Africa co-founder Samba Baithily. “We now need to consolidate African expertise.” “We expect the Africans who graduate from this center to devise new, innovative, technical solutions,” added Niang. “With this academy, we can capitalize on Akon Lighting Africa and go further.” Akon’s Lighting Africa scheme is present in 14 African countries and continues to expand in an effort to help subsidise the cost of installing solar on households who want to switch from the polluting kerosine lamps (which are currently used by almost 250 million people in Africa without electricity), to solar energy. Read more at: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/rap-artist-akon-smacks-that-kerosene-out-of-africa-with-solar-academy-85077

Solar power to the people: how the sun can ease Africa’s electricity crisis

Kevin Watkins, The Guardian, 5 June 2015

The scale of the continent’s energy deficit often fuels a sense of fatalism and paralysis. Yet on the flipside of this crisis are enormous opportunities

Solar power in Guinea-Bissau — A solar panel on a roof in Guinea-Bissau. Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the world’s most abundant and least exploited renewable energy sources, especially solar power. Photograph: WestEnd61/Rex

“We shall make electric light so cheap that only the wealthy can afford to burn candles,” said Thomas Edison, inventor of the modern lightbulb. That was almost a century and a half ago. Today in Africa, 621 million people – two-thirds of the population – live without electricity. And the numbers are rising. A kettle boiled twice a day in the UK uses five times as much electricity as someone in Mali uses in a year. Nigeria is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters but 93 million residents depend on firewood and charcoal for heat and light. On current trends, there is no chance Africa will hit the global target of energy for all by 2030.

Sudanese refugees stand around solar stoves during a training session in Iridimi camp, north-eastern Chad. Photograph: Corbis

Unlike droughts, health epidemics and illiteracy, Africa’s energy crisis seldom makes the headlines. Yet the social, economic and human costs are devastating. Inadequate and unreliable electricity undermines investment. Power shortages cut economic growth by 2-4% annually. The toxic fumes released by burning firewood and dung kill 600,000 people a year – half of them children. Health clinics are unable to refrigerate life-saving vaccines and children are denied the light they need to study. Politics is at the heart of Africa’s energy crisis. The continent’s power utilities are notoriously inefficient. This is partly down to mispricing and underinvestment. But it’s also because utilities are vehicles for political patronage and, in some cases, institutionalised theft. Some $120m went missing from the Tanzanian state power utility last year through a complex web of offshore companies. The sheer scale of Africa’s energy deficit often fuels a sense of fatalism and paralysis. Yet on the flipside of this crisis are enormous opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the world’s most abundant and least exploited renewable energy sources, especially solar power. With the price of solar panels plunging, there are opportunities for firms and governments to connect millions of poor households to affordable small-scale, off-grid systems.

This would help the poorest most. The latest Africa Progress Panel report, published this week, estimates that 138 million households living on less than $2.50 a day spend $10bn annually on energy-related products, including charcoal, candles and kerosene. Measured on a per-unit cost basis, these poor households pay 60-80 times more for energy than people living in London or Manhattan. Off-grid solar power could slash these costs, releasing resources for productive investment, health and education, driving down poverty and raising life expectancy. If you think this is a pipedream, think again. Bangladesh has installed more than 3.5m off-grid solar power systems, and the figure is set to double over the next few years. The key to success? Financial and technical support from government, allied to new business models. In Africa, a vibrant off-grid solar industry is poised for takeoff. The only thing missing in most countries is government action to support, encourage and enable this investment. Supporting the development of large-scale renewable energy is not just the right thing to do for Africa. It is also the smart thing to do on climate change. One of the symptoms of Africa’s energy poverty is the destruction of forests to produce charcoal for rising urban populations: fewer trees means the loss of vital carbon sinks.

Small-scale solar energy can provide millions of people with a first step on the energy ladder. But it cannot in the medium term fill the energy void left by large-scale utilities. African governments must aim for an annual growth rate in power generation of 10% a year for the next two decades – about five times current levels. Countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda have demonstrated this is possible. Both have simultaneously increased public investment while attracting large-scale foreign investment. Aid donors can help by providing bridging loans and helping to reduce risk.

Throughout history electricity has fuelled the growth that has created jobs, cut poverty, and improved the quality of life. Now, almost 150 years after Edison developed the lightbulb, it is time to spark an African energy revolution. We lack neither the finance nor the technologies to do so: all that’s needed is the vital connection of international cooperation and political will.

Kevin Watkins, director of the Overseas Development Institute, is lead author of the 2015 Africa Progress Panel report, Power, People, Planet.

Durammee : Dhufeeraa Birraasaa : Walaloo Keenya (Afaan Oromoo) June 6, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Afaan Oromoo, Africa, Musicians and the Performance of Oromo Nationalism, Oromo Literature, Qubee Afaan Oromo.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Durammee : Dhufeeraa Birraasaa : Walaloo Keenya, Oromo Literature
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ETHIOPIA SPYMASTER INFILTRATES KENYA POLICE June 4, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Janjaweed Style Liyu Police of Ethiopia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, ETHIOPIA SPYMASTER INFILTRATES KENYA POLICE, Kenya, Kenya’s Reprisals Against Ethiopia
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ETHIOPIA SPYMASTER INFILTRATES KENYA POLICE

By Kasembeli Albert

David Kimaiyo, Kenyan Inspector General of Police. COURTESY PHOTO

(Radio mw Afrika) — Anxiety has gripped the Kenyan corridors of power and the National Police Service Commission (NPSC) after it emerged that Ethiopian National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) has infiltrated the Kenya police service and established a unit within, which pays allegiance to NISS and executes orders from Addis Ababa.

Security pundits consider this an act of treason on the part of Kenya police officers involved.

Despite notification from the Kenya spy-master – National Security Intelligence Services (NSIS), sources intimated to The Sunday Express that nothing had been done to avert the lurking threat to the national security by such infiltration by a foreign agency.

“This guys are operating with impunity as though they are no longer officers of the National police Service,” said a senior police officer at Vigilance House.

When contacted the Inspector General, David Kimaiyo denied knowledge of such a unit operating under his arm bit. “Am not aware of that. In fact am hearing it from you,” said Kimaiyo.

Though officials at the Ethiopian Embassy in Nairobi declined to comment on the matter only referring as to Addis Abba, our sources within the embassy divulged that 50 polices officers are on the pay roll of the Ethiopia Government.

The officers under the command of senior police officer based in Nairobi received a total monthly payment of 900,000 Ethiopia Birr (KSh4.5 million) monthly minus the allowances and money meant to facilitate specific operations. The officers are said to live a lavish life and are accessible to top of the range cars.

Even as Ethiopia appears to be using the old spying system. Questions are emerging as to why the government has never taken stern measures against officers involved including charging them with treason because it is clear espionage.

Security analyst Simiyu Werunga attributes this to poor pay and deplorable working conditions, leaving the officers more vulnerable to corruption and bribery. “The government should take a stern action against the suspects for having taken part in criminal activities against their country even after taking an oath,” he said.

It is worth noting that NISS is a very powerful and dreaded organ of Ethiopia’s totalitarian government. It is to protect national security by providing quality intelligence and reliable security services. Under the plans presented, it is accountable to the Prime Minister. The agency has a wide permit to lead intelligence and security work both inside and outside Ethiopia.

“The unit specifically compiles intelligence reports as to specifics missions as requests made by Addis,” said a source privy to operations of the unit. The unit too specifically monitors the operations of Ethiopian dissidents and refugees living in Kenya.

The unit is also said to be responsible for kidnappings of Ethiopian refuges and dissidents and their subsequent repatriation to Addis Ababa where they face death, brutality and long prison sentences. The unit has specific detail to trail their eyes on Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Oganden National Liberation Front (ONLF).

Last week, two police officers appeared in court charged with alleged abduction of two ONLF leaders in Nairobi. On January 26, two top officials of ONLF were abducted from outside a popular restaurant in Upper Hill, Nairobi. The two who were identified as Mr Sulub Ahmed and Ali Hussein were members of the ONLF negotiation team that was in Nairobi for a proposed third round of talks.

It is claimed security agencies from Ethiopia and Kenya were involved in the kidnapping. They were abducted by men who were in three waiting cars. One of the cars, a black Toyota Prado was seized and detained at the Turbi police station on Monday but the two were missing amid speculation they had been taken across to Ethiopia. The ONLF officials were invited by the Kenyan government for peace negotiations.

The two officers charged, a Chief Inspector Painito Bera Ng’ang’ai and Constable James Ngaparini are attached to Nairobi Area CID. He added the officers had been identified by witnesses as having participated in the abduction of Mr Sulub Ahmed and Ali Hussein who were members of the ONLF negotiation team that was in Nairobi for a proposed third round of talks.

Last week, the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) wrote to President Uhuru Kenyatta expressing its deep concern regarding the safety of four Oromo refugees from Ethiopia who were arbitrarily arrested by Kenyan anti-terrorist squad from Isili area in Nairobi on different dates of operations and taken to unknown destinations.

According documents in our possession, Mr. Tumsa Roba Katiso, (UNHCR attestation File#: NETH033036/1) was arrested by people claiming to by a team of Kenyan police, who arrived at the scene in two vehicles, on February 1, 2014 at around 10:00 AM from 2nd Avenue Eastleigh Nairobi on his way home from shopping. The other three refugees, Mr. Chala Abdalla, Mr.Namme Abdalla, and the third person whose name is not known yet were picked up from their home which is located in the same vicinity.

They are alleged to have been picked by the special police squad on the payroll of Addis Ababa. The whereabouts of those Ethiopian-Oromo refugees is unknown until the time of going to press.

The HRLHA is highly suspicious that those Ethiopian-Oromo refugees might have been deported to Ethiopia. And, in case those Ethiopian-Oromo refugees have been deported, the Ethiopian Government has a well-documented record of gross and flagrant violations of human rights, including the torturing of its own citizens who were involuntarily returned to the country.

The government of Ethiopia routinely imprisons such persons and sentences them to up to life in prison, and often impose death penalty. There have been credible reports of physical and psychological abuses committed against individuals in Ethiopian official prisons and other unofficial or secret detention centres.

Under Article 33 (1) of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (189 U.N.T.S. 150), to which Kenya is a party, “[n]o contracting state shall expel or forcibly return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his . . . political opinion.”

This obligation, which is also a principle of customary international law, applies to both asylum seekers and refugees, as affirmed by UNHCR’s Executive Committee and the United Nations General Assembly. By deporting the four refugees and others, the Kenyan Government will be breaching its obligations under international treaties as well as customary law.

Though some government officials denied it is official government policy, the Kenyan Government is well known for handing over refugees to the Ethiopian Government by violating the above mentioned international obligations. Engineer Tesfahun Chemeda, who died on August 24, 2013 in Ethiopia’s grand jail of Kaliti due1 to torture that was inflicted on him in that jail, was handed over to the Ethiopian government security agents in 2007 by the Kenyan police.

Tesfahun Chemeda was arrested by the Kenyan police, along with his close friend called Mesfin Abebe, in 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya, where both were living as refugees since 2005; and later deported to Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government detained them in an underground jail in a military camp for over one year, during which time they were subjected to severe torture and other types of inhuman treatments until when they were taken to court and changed with terrorism offences in December 2008. They were eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2010.

“The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) is highly concerned about the safety and security of the above listed refugees who were recently arrested by the Kenyan anti-terrorist forces; and for those who are still living in Kenya,” said a communiqué petitioning President Kenyatta to intervene.

It urges the government of Kenya to respect the international treaties and obligations, and unconditionally release the arrested refugees, and refrain from handing over to the government of Ethiopia where they would definitely face torture and maximum punishments. It also urges all human rights agencies (local, regional and international) to join the HRLHA and condemn these illegal and inhuman acts of the Kenyan Government against defenseless refugees.

HRLHA requests western countries as well as international organizations to interfere in this matter so that the safety and security of the arrested refugees and those refugees currently staying in Kenya could be ensured.

In the recent past, the rendition of Oromo refugees has been in the news. Kenyan authorities have been accused of illegal rendition of Oromo refugees to Ethiopia under the pretext of cracking down on the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) militias. While in Ethiopia, the individuals are allegedly arraigned before special courts where they are handed heavy jail sentences ranging from death to life in prison.

The fundamental objective of the Oromo liberation movement is to exercise the Oromo peoples’ right to national self-determination and end centuries of oppression and exploitation. The OLF believes the Oromo people are still being denied their fundamental rights by Ethiopian colonialism. According to Terfa Dibaba, head of the Oromo Relief Association (ORA) based in Germany, 21 Oromo refugees have been adducted in Nairobi and Moyale and illegally shipped to Addis Ababa where they have been locked in custody.

Some of the people abducted in Nairobi and Moyale and clandestinely whisked to Ethiopia and languishing in jail include: Jatani Kuuno, Liban Wario and Milki Doyo. These, ORA alleges, were abducted in a friend’s house in Moyale by Kenyans enlisted by the Ethiopia authorities and ferried in two Kenya government’s Land Rovers to Ethiopia.

Others are Dabaso Kutu, Libani Jatani and Deban Wario. They are currently on trial in Ethiopia. Impeccable source have confided that a Kenyan, Abrhim Dambi, the head of the head of Ethiopian Spy network detailed to track down political dissidents has now fled to Addis Ababa where he is hosted by the government after he was exposed.

Grand developmentalism: MDGs and SDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa June 3, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Development & Change, Development Studies, Economics: Development Theory and Policy applications, Poverty, UN's New Sustainable Development Goals.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Development and Change, Grand developmentalism: MDGs and SDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty, Sub-Saharan Africa, UN's New Sustainable Development Goals
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“Development should be all about satisfying the needs of the people and improving their livelihood patterns. Development should be what the people actually want or need, and not what national governments or global institutions think that the people need or want. The MDGs – as aresult of modernization and neo-liberal ideologies – were articulated and presented by the international agencies as “real development’’ or as legitimate solutions to the development problems of people in the respective countries of the Global South. But in reality, they did not capture the priorities and problems facing the people in those contexts. The issue of sustainability is embedded in what people actually want and people are at the centre of sustainable development. The authors of the MDGs do not find out what the people really want – instead, they designed and formulated the goals on different assumptions, thus reinforcing the existing power relations in the global structure of power.”

“The argument that the Global South is facing problems of development may be generally true, but the problems are not actually defined and understood within the context of situations and everyday realities in the respective countries. It is thus important not to make general statements of development, but to concretise them in relation to the contexts and settings where they are to be applied. Both the MDGs and the SDGs, as general or universal frameworks for global development practice, fail to acknowledge how this general problem finds its expression in the concerned countries.”

“…An independent development commission should be inaugurated by the United Nations General Assembly in each country that is signatory to the post-2015 development agenda. The commission should be allowed to perform its responsibilities independently without undue interference from national governments and international institutions. The composition of the commission should include: local activists and NGOs, a national government official, local academics, development experts, a UNDP official and a representative of global financial institutions. The commission should be saddled with matter relating with global development financing, fund disbursement, monitoring, evaluation and implementation of development projects. The commission must also ensure that funds are channelled to approved projects, projects are executed according to approved standards and reflect the real costs of the projects. In evaluating the projects, the commission should develop its own yardstick for measuring whether targets and indicators outlined to actualise (a) particular goal(s) are achieved or not. This will help to checkmate the griming reality of weak state institutions, corruption and mismanagement that undermined the performance of the MDGs especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.” – A. Bayo Ogunrotifa, Pambazuka News, Issue 728

Grand developmentalism: MDGs and SDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa

A. Bayo Ogunrotifa*, Pambazuka News, Issue 728

INTRODUCTION

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, international development efforts have been coalesced around the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are a set of ambitious goals and national targets put forward and ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger – however, a significant progress towards reaching the targets has been notably achieved or deemed successful in some countries but in others, especially in sub-Sahara Africa, the progress has been marginal or deemed unsuccessful. A variety of factors has been attributed to this failure: over-ambitious goals themselves and unrealistic expectations (Clemens & Moss 2005); aid dependence over growth and self-reliance (Manning 2010); lack of ownership and commitment (Amin 2006; Ogunrotifa 2012); limited state capacities and governance incapabilities (Mishra 2004; Oya 2011); non-emphasis on sustainable development (Sachs 2012); evaluation and implementation problems (Fukuda-Parr & Greenstein); and the failure to take into account different national realities, capacities and development levels (Rippin 2013).

The outlined factors are just symptoms and not the real issue that undermine the achievement of the MDGs in Africa. The fundamental trouble associated with the MDGs is the way in which goals, targets and indicators articulated in the programme of the MDGs are conceived, defined and formulated, which are in sharp contrast to the real world situation and do not reflect the true picture of what is on ground in Africa. This is regarded as ‘’grand developmentalism’’—the general and narrow way in which development issues are defined and problematized takes priority over questions posed by the empirical world.

This has important implications on international discussions on the post-2015 development agenda that emphasises the incorporation of visionary indigenous and independent development paths and ideas on the successor agenda to the expiring MDGs (the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs) that is currently in discussion.

WHAT IS ‘GRAND DEVELOPMENTALISM?’

The term ‘grand developmentalism’ was coined from the notion of conceptual fetishism articulated by C. Wright Mills in his treatise on sociological imagination (1959). Mills argues that abstracted empiricism loses its grip on social reality by prioritising methods rather than the problems of the empirical world. Mills posits that grand theory engages in a fetishization of abstract concepts in place of genuine and substantive problems of the empirical world.

In other words, it is the concepts rather than the actual problems that are of paramount importance to grand theorists. However, grand theory is particularly relevant to this paper because of its engagement with development discourse. Grand developmentalism is the dialectical engagement of grand theory but goes beyond the remit of the later. In grand developmentalism, development issues are problematized on the basis of narrow or general definition without adequate empirical grounding, such that the conceptual frames and schemes are created on the basis of a narrow problem definition. If the problem definition is flawed, the conceptual schemes, variables and methodology to interrogate the issue and arrive at workable solutions, will also be flawed, while the evaluation and implementation process will be problematic.

Development I define in this paper as solving the social problems of the people (citizens) in socio-culturally appropriate and locally sustainable ways, as they [problems] are experienced, perceived and understood by the people. This definition is in sharp contrast to the western-centric development paradigm that conceived the global north as ‘’developed’’ and the Global South as “underdeveloped’’ and that the latter needs to be more modern and develop by catching up with the former. International agencies (as appendages of the western imperialistic establishment) reinforce this development paradigm by ensuring that they control the aspirations of the Global South, and redefine their problems, priorities and realities in a way that has nothing to do with the actual situations.

Grand developmentalism lost all contact with the social, cultural and historical dimension of development of the societies it purports to offer solutions because it works at a high level of generality and superficiality. Given the degree of generality in its problem definition, grand developmentalism creates concepts that are suitable to the narrowly defined problem, whereas concepts should have been derived from the empirical world. This therefore negates the contextual and specific problem of development it seeks to analyse and proffer solutions.

MDGS: A FORM OF GRAND DEVELOPMENTALISM

The Millennium Development Goals are an outcome of the United Nations Millennium summit held in the year 2000. The origin of the MDGs goes back much further in time, and some of the most important components will be discussed in this paper. In fact, it is important to strip the MDGs naked in order to flesh out their basis, compositions and essentials. The MDGs comprise of 8 goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators. The goals and targets have been set (mostly) for 2015, using 1990 as a benchmark or baseline. They evolve out of the ‘resolutions of 23 international conferences and summits held between 1990 and 2005’ (Rippin 2013). They are clearly worked out by an ‘’Inter-agency and Expert Group on the Millennium Development Goal Indicators (IAEG), consisting of experts from the DAC, World Bank, IMF and UNDP’’ (Manning 2009; c.f. Hulme 2009; Hulme 2010). The development as understood in the MDGs is a reflection of neo-liberalism and a modernisation approach that seeks to reinforce the hegemony of the Western economic model in the Global South, and strengthen their mainstream development discourse. The 8 goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators articulated in the MDGs programme are quantitative in nature, design and outlook. They are designed to be evaluated and measured in a statistical format[1] .

The most obvious shortcomings associated with the quantitative approach are that they do not reveal the real life situations or subjective dimension of the life world of the people, context and settings under study. These goals, targets and indicators are the perfect example and reflections of grand developmentalism as they imply that development “research starts with a concern for numbers or measurement, which it elevates over the specific qualities of the empirical world it is attempting to analyse’’ (Gane 2012: 154). Technocrats of the respective agencies are unduly rigid towards the use of quantitative methodology and techniques – which is not wrong in itself, but in this case implies the impositions of quantitative techniques on all aspects and dimensions of development issues and problems regardless of the specific contexts and demands of the empirical world. The sort of difficulties inherent in the MDGs stemmed from the philosophical and methodological foundations that underpin the conception of the programme itself. The MDGs as a form of grand developmentalism can be expressed exemplary in the following ways:

POVERTY REDUCTION AND HUNGER

The targets and indicators used to define, measure and tackle poverty and hunger obscure the nature of reality or real life experience of poverty in developing countries. Questions that need to be asked instead are: what are the natures of poverty in different countries of the Global South (but also Global North)? Is the poverty situation in Nigeria the same as the nature and level of poverty in Bangladesh and Vietnam? How is poverty seen and defined by the people in developing countries? What are policies that generate and engender poverty? Does the poverty situation transcend the global yardstick of US$1 per day [1993 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)], or rather, what are the cultural, social, historical and moral dimensions of poverty? The established targets of reducing by half the proportion of people whose income is less than US$1 a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger is a one-size-fit-all yardstick that cannot adequately measure poverty and hunger. This is a danger of grand developmentalism.

GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN

The issue of gender and women empowerment features prominently in the third goal of the MDGs, and this intersects with primary education with respect to equality between boys and girls in terms of primary school enrolment. However, it is unclear what forms and shape gender takes in developing countries as far as the MDGs are concerned. Inability to understand how gender is entrenched and shapes the everyday lives of people in different places will affect efforts being made to address gender inequality in access to education and women empowerment. The MDGs failed to adequately capture the social, cultural and historical contexts that underpinned and shaped gender in developing countries; and the sorts of cultural beliefs and practices that promote gender inequality in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In fact, without delving into the questions of what sorts of cultural practices inhibit girls’ education and what forms of national policies promote gender inequality in education enrolment and attainment, achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment will remain unrealistic and vague.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

The most important targets to achieve environmental sustainability—which is the seventh goal of the MDGs—is to integrate the principles of sustainable development into national and global policies; reduce-by-half the proportion of people who have no access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; and to improve the living conditions of slum dwellers. The indicators to achieve these targets seemed unrealistic and unworkable. This stems from the fact that the MDGs did not take into consideration the low level of industrialisation, the contribution of carbon emission to global carbon emission, and the policies and programmes that undermine the sustainable provision of clean drinking water in the Global South. The complexities inherent in the local realities of environmental sustainability make the targets and indicators impracticable. Furthermore, it is problematic that the western world, which is entirely responsible for the environmental problems the Global South is facing, is not mentioned in this goal and, even more remarkable, is not even asked to reduce their emissions or to make drinking water available by not letting firms like Nestlé etc. privatise the drinking water of the world! As a form of grand developmentalism, the issue posed by environmental sustainability in the MDGs did not address the nature of capitalistic policies that promote environmental problems in the Global South. This indicates that the important targets responsible for environmental problems in the Global South as far as the MDGs are concerned are neglected while unrealistic targets are put forward.

UNRELIABLE SOURCE OF FINANCING

The implementation of programmes and projects required a guaranteed financial war chest to achieve its overall targets and objectives. Yet, as far as the MDGs are concerned, there is no guaranteed financial outlay or specialised savings and international gold reserve for their attainment. The means to finance MDG measures are based on financial pledges and commitments from the Global North. The financial commitment from developed countries is premised on the condition that recipient countries must operate openly and non-discriminatory towards the global trading and financial system. This is meant by the “global partnership for development’’. Basically, it determines that poorer countries must be part of a neo-liberal system that requires recipient countries to open their markets for all goods from the North before they can receive Official Development Assistance (ODA), aid and grants, and debt relief from the latter. This is not only problematic because donor countries may experience financial crises and economic recession and may not be able to fulfil their financial commitment and pledges. It may render aid dependent relationships futile and put the attainment of the MDGs into serious challenges. As the source of financing is not based on the size of the economies and the GDP of the respective LDCs but depends on foreign aid as the main source of financing, there is no independent financial pathway for developing countries to achieve the MDGs other than ODA, debt relief, aid and grants articulated in the eighth goal.

EVALUATION, IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF MDGS

The millennium declaration that paves way for the endorsement of the MDGs in the global space was made in 2000 while the benchmark of its implementation was backdated to 1990. Technically, there was a period of 15 years to implement the MDGs across different societies in the LDCs. But it is unclear how the MDGs would be implemented in the Global South within the said period. Are the MDGs producing the intended effect? Are there targets set for each year? How are the targets going to be achieved? How much does it cost to achieve the targets? Whose agencies or institutions are saddled with the responsibility of monitoring, evaluating and implementing the MDGs? Do beneficiaries of development projects talk back about the effects of the projects? When they do, are their voices reflected as ‘’native’’ point of view or disciplined and translated to institutional points of view?

While in some settings in the Global South, measurement, evaluation and implementation are being taken seriously inability to take these questions in some settings into consideration constitutes a problem for measuring the progress and performance of the MDGs’ progress such that “even in the case of countries with a perceptible acceleration of progress consideration doubt has been raised whether this acceleration is the result of real national commitment or rather an effort of ‘speaking the language’ in order to secure donors’ support’’ (Rippin 2013: 19). This problem of evaluation and implementation makes the MDGs a form of grand developmentalism.

SUSTAINABILITY DEFICIT

The third critique is the huge sustainability deficit inherent in the MDGs. Development should be all about satisfying the needs of the people and improving their livelihood patterns. Development should be what the people actually want or need, and not what national governments or global institutions think that the people need or want. The MDGs – as aresult of modernization and neo-liberal ideologies – were articulated and presented by the international agencies as “real development’’ or as legitimate solutions to the development problems of people in the respective countries of the Global South. But in reality, they did not capture the priorities and problems facing the people in those contexts. The issue of sustainability is embedded in what people actually want and people are at the centre of sustainable development. The authors of the MDGs do not find out what the people really want – instead, they designed and formulated the goals on different assumptions, thus reinforcing the existing power relations in the global structure of power. Sustainability here is linked significantly to ownership, participation and power-relations. The centrality of sustainable development indicates that people’s ownership and participation in the development conception and design will promote the sustainability of such project. I believe that people protect and sustain development projects that emanate from them and address their needs and wishes. The MDGs are suffering from sustainable deficits because there is no provision for how the projects would be sustained by the people who are the end-users.

A NOTE ON THE PROPOSED SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS)

The UN and other international (development) agencies are currently working on post-2015 development agenda. Following the UN conference in Rio de Janeiro (2012), an Open Working Group was established to develop a set of sustainable development goals that will be part ofthe UN development agenda beyond 2015.[2]

From the outline of the SDG proposal, it is already clear that the basic premise underlying development is still unchanged. The development paradigm is still a top-down approach; implying that the Global South is incapable of facilitating its own development without external assistance and seeks to foster aid-dependent relationships. The SDG proposal implies the notion that the respective countries of the Global South are incapable of driving and engendering their own developmental initiatives. The SDG proposal as a development programme is founded on the basis of modernisation and neo-liberal approaches whose rendition serves as the prism that shapes the orientation and mandate of international agencies towards acting as a sole repository of ‘legitimate’ development solutions that will ensure that development in the Global South is fast-tracked to the pace of development in the global north without having to undergo latter’s historical circumstances and processes. This imposition of development strategies and ideas on the Global South is the basis of grand developmentalism as people in the Global South are not allowed to control their development destiny and define their problems and priorities in relations to their respective local realities. This inhibits the ability of the Global South to develop according to their own pace, capacities and realities.

What is questionable in the proposal is how different national priorities and realities are taken into consideration. The SDGs set global targets for measuring development, with the authors of the SDGs assuming that those goals and targets are the legitimate solutions to development problems faced by the respective countries in the Global South, which they will not object to. What will be problematic in the proposed SDGs is that the definition of development problems and priorities will be put together in some capital city of the Global South where “policy is thus bureaucratised and depoliticised through ‘commonsense’’ practices such as planning and strategies” (Escobar 1991: 667) which are exogenous to social and political situations or been derived vis-à-vis grassroots movements.

Third, the SDGs are the rehash of the MDGs in terms of financing. Huge development projects and programmes implicit in the SDGs require guaranteed levels of financing for them to be executed and implemented. So far, it is not clear at all how guaranteed financial outlay or specialised savings and international gold reserve for the attainment of the SDGs are spelt out – and whether the third conference on financing for development in July 2015[3] will see an end to this.

Finally, the notion of ‘’sustainability’’ in the SDGs document is vague. What sorts of social relations to the grassroots are involved in the design, planning and implementation of development projects? What forms of power do the SDGs foster or undermine? The fundamental crux of the proposed SDGs is that international agencies’ notion of development articulated in the document prioritised and privileged bureaucratic and institutional definition of the problem rather than the actual problems obtained in local contexts. Sustainability in the SDG case is non-existent because people in the Global South are not the driver nor are they at the centre of such sustainable development initiatives, and as such, they are incapable of sustaining development projects that are not of their own making.

CONCLUSION: TOWARDS A POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

The argument that the Global South is facing problems of development may be generally true, but the problems are not actually defined and understood within the context of situations and everyday realities in the respective countries. It is thus important not to make general statements of development, but to concretise them in relation to the contexts and settings where they are to be applied. Both the MDGs and the SDGs, as general or universal frameworks for global development practice, fail to acknowledge how this general problem finds its expression in the concerned countries.

As far as the discussion on the post-2015 development agenda is concerned, a participatory process must urgently be facilitated. It must start from grassroots development research where local activists, anthropologists, sociologists and NGOs are engaged with a view to mapping out the real development problems faced by the people and identify sustainable solutions to them. The participatory process should proceed towards national consultations where policy makers, economists, and development experts are engaged in debates, deliberations and discussions about the findings of grassroots development research. Through this participatory medium, national capacity, the characteristics of the economy (i.e. GDP), and a country’s financial state would have to be taken into consideration and formulated into national priorities, targets and indicators for achieving national development goals. Thereafter, a thematic consultation between the national governments and global institutions should be facilitated. This would ensure that important national development issues with differentiated targets that reflect a universal goal framework are derived in a participatory process.

Secondly, an independent development commission should be inaugurated by the United Nations General Assembly in each country that is signatory to the post-2015 development agenda. The commission should be allowed to perform its responsibilities independently without undue interference from national governments and international institutions. The composition of the commission should include: local activists and NGOs, a national government official, local academics, development experts, a UNDP official and a representative of global financial institutions. The commission should be saddled with matter relating with global development financing, fund disbursement, monitoring, evaluation and implementation of development projects. The commission must also ensure that funds are channelled to approved projects, projects are executed according to approved standards and reflect the real costs of the projects. In evaluating the projects, the commission should develop its own yardstick for measuring whether targets and indicators outlined to actualise (a) particular goal(s) are achieved or not. This will help to checkmate the griming reality of weak state institutions, corruption and mismanagement that undermined the performance of the MDGs especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Finally, a fundamental re-examination of global development financing from aid dependent relationship (over-reliance on ODA as enshrined in the MDGs) to available domestic fiscal affordability is needed. This will help to create independent financial pathways for LDCs to achieve the development goals at their own pace and level of development. Rather than relying on donor’s agencies and international institutions in implementing all development goals and targets, the financial gap between country’s fiscal capabilities and national priorities has to be plugged through debt relief, ODA and financial aid from international institutions.

Conclusively, the ideas and practices of global sustainable development that would come after 2015 should be developed in relation to the complexities of development issues in the LDCs and not on abstract agendas and strategies that are constituted in a universalistic frame. This will incorporate the perspectives of the North and the Global South in the participatory process of drawing up a new agenda that will reflect a win-win situation where strategic ‘’engagement of local mobilization with global discourses, and of local discourses with the global structure of power’’ as Cooper (1997: 85) brilliantly captured, are entrenched.
* A. Bayo Ogunrotifa teaches at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

REFERENCES

1. Amin, S. (2006): “The Millennium Development Goals: A Critique from the South.” Monthly Review, March 2006, accessed January 6, 2015,http://monthlyreview.org/2006/03/01/the-millennium-development-goals-a-critique-from-the-south
2. Clemens, M. & Moss, T. (2005): What’s Wrong with the Millennium Development Goals? CGD Working Paper. Accessible at http://tinyurl.com/orrpjgk
3. Clemens, M.A., Kenny, C.J & Moss, T.J. (2007): ‘The Trouble with the MDGs: Confronting Expectations of Aid and Development Success’.World Development, 35 (5): 735–751,
4. Cooper, F. (1997): Modernizing Bureaucrats, Backwards Africans, and the Development Concept in Cooper, F. & Packard, R. (eds) International development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
5. Escobar, A. (1991): Anthropology and the Development Encounter.The Making and Marketing of Development Anthropology. American Ethnologist, Vol. 18 (4): 658-682.
6. Fukuda-Parr, S. & Greenstein, J. (2010): How should MDG implementation be measured: faster progress or meeting targets? Centre for inclusive growth working paper 63. Accessible at http://tinyurl.com/ortwhn6
7. Gane, N. (2012) ‘Measure, value and the current crisis of sociology’. The Sociological Review, 59(S2) 151-173.
8. Hulme, D. (2009): The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): a short history of the world’s biggest promise, BWPI Working Paper 100, 2009
9. Hulme, D. (2010): Lessons from the making of the MDGs: human development meets results-based management in an unfair world, IDS Bulletin 41(1), 15-25
10. Manning, R. (2009): Using indicators to encourage development: lessons from the Millennium Development Goals, DIIS Report
11. Mills, C.W. (1959): The Sociological Imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
12. Mishra, U. (2004): Millennium development goals: whose goals and for whom? BMJ. Sep 25, 2004; 329(7468): 742
13. Ogunrotifa A.B. (2012): ‘Millennium Development Goals in sub-Saharan Africa: A critical assessment’. Radix International Journal of Research in Social Science, 1(10): 1-22
14. Ojogwu, C.N (2009): The challenges of Attaining Millennium Development Goals In Education in Africa, College Student Journal.
15. Oya, C. (2011): Africa and the millennium development goals (MDGs): What’s right, what’s wrong and what’s missing. Revista De Economia Mundial, 27, 19–33. Retrieved from http://www.semwes.or
16. Rippin, N. (2013): Progress, Prospects and Lessons from the MDGs. Background research paper submitted to High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Accessible at www.post2015hlp.org/…/Rippin_Progress-Prospects-and-Lessons-from-t..
17. Sachs, J. D. (2012): From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals.Lancet, 379, 2206–2211.
18. Sahn, D.E and Stifel, D.C. (2003): Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in Africa. World Development, 31 (1): 23-52.
19. Sumner, A., Lawo, T. (2010): The MDGs and beyond: pro-poor policy in a changing world, EADI Policy Paper
20. UNDP (2003): Indicators for monitoring the MDGs. Accessible atwww.undp.org/content/dam/aplawas/publications

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

The lesser known story of India’s role in Ethiopian land deals June 2, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Land Grabs in Africa, Land Grabs in Oromia, Omo Valley.
Tags: Africa, land and water grabs in Oromia, Land grabs in Africa, Land Grabs in Oromia, Omo Valley, The lesser known story of India’s role in Ethiopian land deal
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The special killing squads of the Ethiopian Regional Administration in Ogaden called the Liyu Police destruction of Somalia communities along the Somali border June 1, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Ethiopia's Colonizing Structure and the Development Problems of People of Oromia, Ethnic Cleansing, Janjaweed Style Liyu Police of Ethiopia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Janjaweed in Darfur Liyu Police of Ethiopian in Oromia, Victims of Politics – Women in Ogaden and Oromia
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Ethiopian Regime Destruction of Somalia communities along the Somali Border

ONLF Press Release

May 31, 2015

The Special killing squads of the Ethiopian Regional Administration in Ogaden called the Liyu police, which is funded, trained and armed by the Ethiopian government has committed genocide in the villages near Shilaabo district of Ogaden along the Somali border, killing hundreds of civilians and burning several villages. Among the dead are more than 50 women, children and the elderly, who were wantonly cut into pieces. The epicentres of these massacres were the villages of Lababaar, Xaadh Xaadh, Xindhowreed, and other villages towards the Barmagoog and the Somali border near the Gal-Mudug region. The killings started on the May 26 and are still on going.

The Liyu police, which routinely conducts these heinous massacres in other Ogaden villages, went to Lababaar and demanded money from livestock at the village well. The people, who had no money, told the Liyu police commanders that they could not afford the exorbitant prices levied against them. The Liyu Police leader ordered the beheading of several elders. The people resisted and several members of the community were summarily executed. Then the Liyu police started spraying the remaining civilians with bullets.

The people decided to resist and then, the Liyu police started attacking all the villages in the area and shooting every one on sight, specially targeting women and children who are defenceless.

These communities, who reside on both sides of the border, are now a target for the Liyu police. The Ethiopian regular army closed the border crossings between Somalia and the Ogaden and is assisting the Liyu police with ammunition and medical support, while cornering and killing the wounded and escaping civilians to Somalia in order to obliterate any evidence.

ONLF condemns the Ethiopian government in the strongest term possible for unleashing these Gestapo-like killing squads on the Somali people in the region and calls the international community to send a fact-finding mission to the Ogaden to investigate the current incidence and the general conduct of the Liyu police in the Ogaden. The Ogaden is closed to international independent media and no independent local media is allowed.

ONLF informs the Somali people in Somalia that the Liyu Police is an Ethiopian regime created army that is being used to suppress all Somalis in Ogaden and is not the army of any Somali clan in Ogaden. Therefore, they shall hold the Ethiopian regime responsible for this catastrophe.

Finally, ONLF calls all Somalis in Ogaden and Neighbouring Somalia to unite against the Ethiopian regime that is responsible for the current malaise in the Horn of Africa and avoid the clan animosities being kindled and sponsored by the Ethiopian regime.

Issued by

ONLF,

May 31, 2015

Read more at:-

http://onlf.org/?p=735

A week of clashes with Ethiopian paramilitary unit in Somalia leaves 35 dead

Mail & Guardian, 1st June 2015

Ethiopia has been in quite some cross-border controversy lately; two weeks ago its security forces entered and took over a Kenya police station.

***In this handout pictured released by the African Union-United Nations Information Support Team, Ethiopian soldiers ready themselves. (Photo via AFP).***

FOR the second time in two weeks, Ethiopians security forces are being accused of unauthorised or heavy-handed action in neighbouring countries.

In the latest incident at least 35 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in a week of clashes in villages near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia, officials and traditional elders said Sunday.

The sources said the clashes involved Somali clan militia and members of the Liyu police, an Ethiopian paramilitary unit operating in Ethiopia’s ethnic Somali region.

“The Liyu Police Unit launched an attack on innocent civilians. They are attacking villagers and killing people who keep livestock,” Hussein Weheliye Irfo, the governor of the Galgadud region in central Somalia, told reporters.

He said the Somali government was aware of the clashes and also called for the intervention of Ethiopia’s government and the African Union force in Somalia, AMISOM.

On May 18, Kenya security forces were put on high alert after about 50 heavily-armed Ethiopian soldiers and police officers crossed the border and reportedly took over a police station.

According to Kenya’s leading newspaper Daily Nation, police said the incident at Illeret Police Station in North Horr came just a week after surveyors had completed demarcating the Kenya-Ethiopia border.

The Ethiopians disembarked and took strategic positions around the police station.

They inspected the area and took photos of the area, which is 16 kilometres from the border.

“Their intention is not clear,” read a brief from Kenya’s Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet’s office in Nairobi.

Week of Galgadud fighting

Speaking on the Galgadud incidents, sources in the region said fighting started a week ago and escalated on Friday.

“It is effecting a vast area and the casualties are very high, 35 dead bodies have been counted so far,” Mohamed Garane, a traditional elder in Guricel district where the wounded are hospitalised, said by telephone.

Another elder in the region, Daud Moalim Ise, said the Liyu force had used “excessive force” and said up to 45 had been killed.

“We have received around 29 wounded, most of them civilians. Many others are unable to reach here,” added Ali Omar, director of the main hospital in Guricel district. “Among them are women and children with severe gunshot wounds.

It was not apparently clear what sparked the clashes, which are separate from ongoing battles between African Union troops and Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab insurgents in the far south of the country. Several sources said the fighting may surround allegations that a Liyu police member had raped a local woman.

Irreechaa Arfaasaa was celebrated under the theme of “Moving Forward: Restoring the Good Spirit of Humanity” May 31, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Irreecha Arfaasaa, Irreecha Oromo, Oromia, Spring Celebration.
Tags: Africa, African culture, African Studies, Irreecha, Irreecha Oromoo, Irressa Arfaasaa, Oromia, Oromiyaa, Oromo culture, Oromo people, Oromummaa, Spring Celebration
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Advocacy for Oromia

(Advocacy4oromai, Melbourne, 30 May 2015) The Oromo Irreecha Arfaasaa festival, held on 30 Mya 2015 for the first time in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at Mount Dandenong.

The ceremony was celebrated at Mount Dandenong to promote the Oromo Good Spirit tradition of respect for nature and gratefulness for life.
It was celebrated under the theme of “Moving Forward: Restoring the Good Spirit of Humanity” in which it aimed to celebrate Irreechaa festivals to follow our tradition and religion in society, to create public awareness where Oromo cultural and religious issues was discussed.

According to the organisers the festival was designed to provide a better understanding of Oromo culture, history and humanity, to pave the way for promotion of the Oromo culture, history, and lifestyle.

The Celebration of Irreechaa Arfaasaa, a national Spirit Day, is held yearly both to thank Waaqaa for the blessings and mercies we have received throughout the past…

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ETHIOPIA: AUTHORITARIAN OVER SPEECH AND THE ASCENDANCE OF “DEVELOPMENT FETISHISM” May 28, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Free development vs authoritarian model.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, economics, Free development vs authoritarian model, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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THE ASCENDANCE OF “DEVELOPMENT FETISHISM”

Taye Negussie (PhD) ADDISSTANDARD, MAY 27, 2015

In its literal definition, the term development is generally understood to mean an intentionally conceived course of action that aims to realize the full potential of a given population. Though previously the notion of planned development was largely confined to communist countries, it now seems to have drawn some attention across the board.

Probably, the reason why the word has attracted attentions outside the communist block was partly due to the phenomenal success registered with US Marshal Plan and “Reverse Course” program to rehabilitate the war-torn Europe and Japan respectively in the aftermath of World War II.

Later on, several attempts have been made to replicate the success of the aforementioned planned development interventions in most developing countries after they won their political independence. Nevertheless, unlike the European and Japanese case, an all-out success with planned development in many of the developing countries, with the exception of a handful of Asian and Latin American countries, had remained until very recently quite a distant dream.

To the contrary, the net outcome of long years of planned development interventions in many of these countries for the most part ended in creating unbridgeable income gap between the rich and the poor, pervasive poverty, environmental degradation, chronic political dictatorship, civil wars, insecurity and instability.

The ever changing economic models and strategies which these countries have opted to on various occasions such as economic growth approach, centrally planned socialist economy, growth and transformation plan, structural-adjustment program, poverty alleviation program, participatory development and all that could well be symptomatic of the crisis of planned development in the past decades.

Of course, in speaking the adoption of a development model, it is worth noticing that there may be several internal and external factors that directly or indirectly impact the choice made by a given country. The competing major international ideological orientations, the fashionable development discourses, the leverage and influence of hegemonic powers, the influence of global financial and economic institutions, bilateral and multilateral diplomatic relationships between and among countries and the political and ideological orientations of the powers that be are to mention but a few.

Be that as it may, in this article I would like to argue about Ethiopia’s adoption of the ‘developmental state’ ideology that can largely be attributed to the incumbent’s political interest to mend legitimacy crisis and carry on with its repressive rule. And for this to happen it has apparently resorted to different political strategies as briefly discussed below.

Mystifying development

One of the biggest lessons learned from the failure of the first ever attempted ‘economic growth’ model that sought only to enhance the national economic wealth of the nation – GDP – was that a true and sustainable development must give due attention to all-round development which includes, among others, the economic, social, moral, intellectual and spiritual needs and demands of the larger population.

Subsequently, this has led to the new concept of an inclusive, participatory and human-centered development that has found wide currency since the 1980s. Such concepts of development also compel the need to make citizens active and conscious actors in a development process that ultimately determines their destiny.

Contrary to this, what is now transpiring in Ethiopia largely looks a full-blown psychological campaign to instill false-consciousness among the people by elevating the notion of development to a mystique and idol stature. The intention behind this clearly lies in making people unconscious and unquestioning actors who would readily submit to everything that comes in the name of development.

Consider the unrelenting media propaganda which scarcely misses mentioning development in the course of the day. Now, each and every government initiation comes wrapped with the tag of development. While a view or an action that aligns with the government would soon receive the honorific title of ‘developmental’, in contrast, any dissenting view or action would quickly be admonished as ‘anti-development’. In short, observing how the term development is used today in Ethiopia, probably one gets the impression that it might have acquired a new meaning which approximates something ‘sacred’.

Just imagine for a moment what a message of a sticker commonly put on the door of a soon-to-be-demolished shop that reads, “Sealed for Development Purpose” implicitly implies. In this connection, it is also worth to recall the occasion some years back when the top religious leaders had appeared on the public media to ‘consecrate’ the “Great Renaissance Dam” whereby they pronounced any non-consenting gesture towards the construction of the dam to be viewed as a kind of blasphemy that deserves some sort of admonition.

When people attempt to make the things that they themselves have created an object of worship, in the Marxist economic discourse, it is often said to be a form of fetishism. Thus, the unrelenting effort that the Ethiopian government has been waging supposedly to mystify and idolize the notion of development could be none other than “development fetishism”.

Development as a pretext

One major reason for instilling the attitude of “development fetishism” among the people seems to lie in the government’s ambition of attaching itself with a rather eye-catching infrastructural and building construction activities now underway in the country irrespective of its effect on the living realities of the ordinary mass and thereby portray itself as an indispensable actor without which Ethiopia’s development would be impossible to think of.

In this regard, it’s worth looking back at the circumstances that led the government to proclaim the status of ‘developmental state’ some few years back. Apparently, the government switched to the idea of ‘developmental state’ following the infamous 2005 election when it lost its credibility with the larger public. Furthermore, it was followed by the time when it kept itself busy with issuing some draconian laws. From this it follows that the declaration of ‘developmental state’ was but a tacit act of openly installing an authoritarian system.

After all, the notion of ‘developmental state’ is often associated either with those Asian countries with a communist political system or naked authoritarian regimes that have clung to power for so long, except Japan.

Evidently, all the messages and actions that now emanate from the ruling party in connection with the upcoming election also well signify how the ruling part is determined to use development as an excuse to cling to power indefinitely without any serious contender. Ironically, all this is not only against the unrelenting rhetoric of democracy and freedom but also in flagrant contradiction to the spirit of the constitution that itself has given birth to.

Fought for the sake of development or justice?

While proclaiming the status of developmental state which is in many ways repressive, the present day rulers seem to have forgotten why in the first place they had fought a bitter war against the former repressive regime, the Dergue. Surely, it was not so much for the sake of primarily economic development as it was for social justice.

As a matter of fact, development – especially that of material and physical – is just one among many other important duties and functions that a just government is required to carry out. This is not to say, however, for poor countries like ours the issue of development is not an imperative one. Yet, to promote development at the expense of justice, the rule of law, freedom and democratic rights, which in fact are crucial for sustainable development, presumably by virtue of being a ‘developmental state’ is very much unbecoming of such a sort of government.
Above all, the essence of a truly democratic government lies in its commitment to advance the freedom and democratic right as well as the welfare and security of its citizens. Indeed, the prime difference between authoritarian and democratic government rests on the fact that in the latter such great questions as development that evidently bears great stake in the life of people are to be decided not by whims and illusions of an individual or a group of tyrannical rulers but by well-informed, rational needs and demands of the larger citizens. Certainly, no thoughtful and rational government would attempt to reduce citizens to be blind worshipers of an idol that is created for political purpose. As the eminent classical sociologist Emile Durkheim had put it, “A healthy political system requires good faith and the avoidance of force and fraud. It requires, in a word, justice.”
Ed’s Note: The writer can be reached at tayesosa@yahoo.com

Ethiopia’s May 24 Parliamentary and Regional Elections May 27, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Sham elections.
Tags: 2015 Sham Elections: Marred by rampant electoral fraud, Africa, African Studies, Freedom House in response to comments by Under Secretary for Political Affairs, UNPO
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Ethiopia’s May 24 Parliamentary and Regional Elections

May 27, 2015

Press Statement

Marie Harf
Deputy Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

May 27, 2015

The United States commends the people of Ethiopia for their civic participation in generally peaceful parliamentary and regional elections on May 24. We acknowledge the National Electoral Board’s organizational efforts and the African Union’s role as the only international observer mission on the ground. We also note the importance of the nine televised party debates as progress in fostering open public discussion of the challenges facing the country. We encourage all candidates, political parties and their supporters to resolve any outstanding differences or concerns peacefully in accordance with Ethiopia’s constitution and laws.

The United States remains deeply concerned by continued restrictions on civil society, media, opposition parties, and independent voices and views. We regret that U.S. diplomats were denied accreditation as election observers and prohibited from formally observing Ethiopia’s electoral process. Apart from the election observation mission fielded by the African Union, there were no international observer missions on the ground in Ethiopia. We are also troubled that opposition party observers were reportedly prevented from observing the electoral process in some locations.

A free and vibrant media, space for civil society organizations to work on democracy and human rights concerns, opposition parties able to operate without impediment, and a diversity of international and domestic election observers are essential components for free and fair elections. The imprisonment and intimidation of journalists, restrictions on NGO activities, interference with peaceful opposition party activities, and government actions to restrict political space in the lead-up to election day are inconsistent with these democratic processes and norms.

The United States has a broad and strong partnership with Ethiopia and its people. We remain committed to working with the Ethiopian Government and its people to strengthen Ethiopia’s democratic institutions, improve press freedom, and promote a more open political environment consistent with Ethiopia’s international human rights obligations.

Déjà vu in Ethiopia’s May 24, 2015 Sham Elections: Marred by rampant electoral fraud, malpractice and violence by the ruling TPLF to stay on and maintain the 24 years tyrannic rules May 24, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Ethiopia's Colonizing Structure and the Development Problems of People of Oromia, Sham elections.
Tags: 'BECAUSE I AM OROMO’: SWEEPING REPRESSION IN THE OROMIA, Africa, African Studies, Because I am Oromo, Ethiopia's sham elections, Freedom House in response to comments by Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Genocide against the Oromo, OLF, Oromia, The Tyranny of Ethiopia, UNPO
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BREAKING NEWS: Video: Oromo University Students Rally Against Vote Rigging in Oromia (Ethiopia)

https://youtu.be/KzUWhLxSAhY

http://https://youtu.be/h590XbxlGzg

“90% of MEDREK election observers in Oromia are harassed & aren’t on election observarion.”

-Obbo Bekele Naga

“BREAKING NEWS | OFC/Medrek Leaders Report Election Irregularities (OMN).”

“Merera Gudina (PhD), a candidate of MEDREK, told Fortune that observers of his party are being massively harassed. #EthiopiaElection2015.”

-Addis Fortune

‏@addis_fortune

In Hadia Zone, Mehar Kerga-“Ha” Polling Station,the ballot box got moved to a nearby health centre due to power outage.#EthiopiaElection2015

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/omn-oduu-amma-nu-gahe/

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/marii-filannoo-caamsaa-242015/

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/omn-london-election-special-part1/

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/omn-london-election-special-part2/

VOA: Mr. Elias Hadero, Hadiya National & Medrek Candidate in Southern Region, Claims Vote Rigging.

VOA: Mr. Elias Hadero, a Hadiya National and a Regional Parliament candidate of the Ethiopian Social Democracy-Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Union (a Medrek party), explains the vote rigging in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region. http://gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2015/05/voa-mr-elias-hadero-hadiya-national-medrek-candidate-in-southern-region-claims-vote-rigging/

-Souce: Caamsaa/May 25, 2015 · Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com

VOA Afaan Oromoo: Guyyaa Filannoo (Qophii Addaa)

http://www.voaafaanoromoo.com/content/article/2788607.html

http://gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2015/05/voa-afaan-oromoo-guyyaa-filannoo-qophii-addaa/

Oduu Owwituu!!! Oduu Owwituu!!!!!! ================================ ////////Filannoon osoo hin jalqabamiin xumurameeee!!!!!!//////// Godina Harargee Bahaa Aanaa Giraawaa Araddaa Raasaa Nagayaa je’amanitti filannoon…xumuramee tahu maddeen oduu gabaasan.

Naannoo oromiyaatti Godina Harargee Bahaa aanaa Giraawaa araddaa Raasaa nagayaa Akka maddeen keenya nuf gabaasanit Hawaasa naannichaa humna waraansatin eega waliti qaban booda Kaardi filannoo eega irra sasaaban booda Wanta irraa hafe nutu guuta jechuun ummanni gara mana isaati akka gale beekun dandayameera . Mootummaan wayyaane yeroon filannoo osoo hin gahiin humna woraana issat fayadamuudhan Gandoota baadiyyaa adda addaati gochoota akkas ni geggeeysa jedhame kan sodaatama ture yommuu tahu , akkuma jedhameeti Haraarge bahaa Aanaa Giraawwa ganda raasaa keeysati filannoon yeroo isaa male akka geggeeyfame xumurame madden keenya nuf gabaasaniiru . Akkasumaas bifuma walfakkaatuun Naanoo oromiyaa Godina Arsii Aanaa Balee Ganda Xaqqetti Waraqaan Kaardi filannoo Qaamota mootumaatin haawaasa doorsisuudhan kaardi filannoo hunda isaan irra guurani akkaxumuran madden gaabasiniiru .

Roorroo Falmataa Roobsan

ODUU GADDAA AKKA ODUUN NU GAHE IBSUTTI HOJJATTOONNI FILANNICHAA SEERA QABSISOOTA TURAN AKKA IBSANITTI MAGAALAA DIRRE DHAWAATTI HARKA 100%90 MADAREK TAHUU YEMUU ARGAN HOJJATTOOTUMA ISAANII WAAMANII WARAQAA 300 IRRATTI OFUMAA MALLEEFFATANII SANDUUQA KEESSA GALCHAN JEDHAN ODUU 100%100tti DHUGAA TAHEEDHA OF QOPHEESSAA KAN LAMMIIF HADOODDAN WANTI TOLAAN DHUFTU HIN JIRTU

– Social Network ( Facebook)

No Democracy in Ethiopia. No fair and free election in Ethiopia. Caamsaa 24/2015 Mooraan Yuunibarsiitii Jimmaa, Mattuu, Wallaggaa, Amboo, fi Dirree Dawaa addatti humni waraanaa guddaan itti seenee jira.

May 24, 2015By Qeerroo

Caamsaa 24/2015 Gabaasa Qeerroo Jimmaa,

Qeerroon Bilisummaa Oromoo barruulee warraaqsaa belbetuu qabxiiwwaan armaan gadii of irraa qabduu Mooraalee Yuunibarsiitii biyyaatti hundarra facaasuun mootummaa Wayyaanee raafama guddaa keessa galche jira. waraanni wayyaanees bifa lamaan mooraa Yuunibarsiitii seenaa jira, inni tokko uffata sivilii uffachuun, inni lammaffaa immoo hidhannoodhan, barruulee qeerroon facaasaa jiruu adamsuufis lafa waranni kun hin seeniin hin jiru, qabxiiwwaan barruu qeerroo irra jiru muraasni isaa: 1. Dimookiraasiin hin jiru, filannoon hin jiru (No Democracy in Ethiopia and no fair and free election in Ethiopia) 2. Gaaffii mirga abbaa biyyummaa uummata Oromoof deebiin kennamuu qaba. 3. Ilmaan Oromoo jumlaan hidhaman gaaffii tokko malee hiikamuu qabu. 4. Mootummaan Ce’umsaa hundeeffamee, filmaanni demookiraatawaa ta’ee fi haqaa fi bilisa irratti hundaa’ee akka gaggeeffamu jabeessinee gaafatna. 5. Nuti Qeerroon dargaggootni barattootni Oromoo bilisummaa fi dimookiraasii barbaadna, hanga Oromoon bilisoomuu fi Oromiyaan Walaboomtutti FDG jabaatee itti fufa. 6. Waranni nagaa biyyaa,fi daangaa biyyaa eeguuf ijaarame malee dhaaba siyaasaa tokkitti EPRDF/TPLF eeguuf hundeeffame diigamuu qaba. 7. Humni waraanaa Mooraa Yuunibarsiitii seenee barattoota gooluun yakka. waraannii uummata keenya irra qubsiifame kaafamuu qaba, barruun jedhuu mooraalee dhaabbilee barnootatti raamsuun wal qabatee wayyaaneen lafa seentuu dhabuun humna waraanaa guddaa mooraalee Yuunibarsiitiitti ol seensisuuf dirqamtee jiraachuun gabaafame.. gabaasaan itti fufa!!

Ethiopia’s May 24, 2015 election in Oromia Special Zones near Finfinnee voters were not allowed their phones

https://www.cpj.org/blog/2015/05/with-limited-independent-press-ethiopians-left-vot.php

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONxRVwmOIzk

http://https://youtu.be/1VHNcrTO5Lc

http://https://youtu.be/FqVecaIFQJ0

http://https://youtu.be/ziG9AeSyo6A

OLF Statement: The Ethiopian sham election serves only the dictatorial government. #Oromia. #Africa May 24, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, OMN, Oromia, Sham elections.
Tags: 'BECAUSE I AM OROMO’: SWEEPING REPRESSION IN THE OROMIA, Africa, African Studies, Ethiopia's sham elections, Freedom House in response to comments by Under Secretary for Political Affairs, OLF, UNPO
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OLF Statement: The Ethiopian sham election serves only the dictatorial government

The Ethiopian sham election serves only the dictatorial government

The Tigray dictatorial ruling class was built on excessive military power. The regime indulged the country into extreme poverty. The corruption of the ruling class was one of the main machinery that put the country into the highest level of economic inequalities where the few members of the ruling class became the richest and the majority of the citizens are unable to even earn their daily bread. This high level of inequality resulted into absolute poverty, migration and loss of lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Today hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian people are living in hunger and insecurity in their own country. Some are cherished in Sahara desert and Mediterranean Sea while they were trying to escape from unfair and abusive government. For the last 24 years, since the Tigray ruling class came to power, the corruption, displacement of people and human rights abuses have increased with the tremendous speed. This misery darken the political space and eradicated people’s hope for democracy. The Ethiopian people have been denied political freedom and rights of expression of their opinions. In this current regime, it is a crime to have different political opinion rather than supporting the Tigray ruling class’s party. The Ethiopian regime recorded highest level of Human rights abuses, killings, and intimidations not only in African continent but also in the world. The Tigray ruling class came to power with military force; it has built its dictatorial regime on military power and will continue to do so. One party dictatorship rule was the vision they had from the very beginning. They proved their vision within the last 24 years. In the future, they want to rule Ethiopia under one party dictatorship rule. The Tigray ruling class never listened to the Ethiopian people, nor willing to listen in the future. The responses to peoples’ questions were imprisonments, tortures and killings. The main priority for the Tigray ruling class is to stay on power. One of the strategy they designed to stay on power is to carry out fake election every five years. The last four elections proved that the ruling class is the most dictatorial regime on the planet. This 5th election that will take place on May 24, 2015 is not different from the previous elections. This election will not make any change to the political system and democracy in the country but it is only to renew the power of the ruling class for the next 5 years. This election is not democratic and not expected to fulfil the interest of the Ethiopian people. The election board is established by the current ruling class; the so called participating political parties are not treated fairly; the members of the opposition parties are arrested, harassed and beaten; the election process do not follow the democratic principle. Therefore, one can easily to judge the outcome of such unfair and sham election. The Ethiopian people was struggling for peace and democracy for several years. Among the people struggling for their rights the Oromo people was on the forefront. The Oromo people was struggling for many years and made huge sacrifices to regain their freedom and democracy. The Oromo people is not struggling to gain nominal seats in dictatorial government system but to become free from a century long political, economic and social domination. This objective cannot be achieved through participating in the election organised by the dictatorial ruling class. Particularly to the Oromo youngsters and students, you have made significant sacrifices to move the Oromo struggle forward. In order to make your sacrifices yield a fruit, you must continue your struggle for freedom and democracy. Participating in this fake election means that you forget the sacrifices your brothers and sisters made. Participating in this election means that you’re building the power of your perpetrators. From many years’ experience, the OLF knows the plan and behaviour the Tigray ruling class. The OLF knows that this regime is not prepared to leave its position even if they lose the election, which is unlikely within the current election process. Therefore, the OLF wants to inform the Ethiopian people in general and the Oromo people in particular, that this election stands only to serve the Tigray ruling class and to keep them in power for the next 5 years. This election does not fulfils the interest the Ethiopian people and do not lead to peace, stability and economic development of the country. The OLF wants to remind the Oromo and other people in Ethiopia that it should not mislead by this sham election. Particularly to the Oromo people, you are the first target of the Tigray ruling class. The power and strength of this regime works against you. So the OLF remind you to stay away from any activity, including the current election that build the Tigray regime and keep them in power. Victory to the Oromo people! Oromo Liberation Front May 23, 2015

Filannoon Fakkeessaa fi Kijibaa Abbootii Irree malee Ummatoota hin Fayyadu.

Filannoon Fakkeessaa fi Kijibaa Abbootii Irree malee Ummatoota hin Fayyadu. Bittaan gita bittoota Tigraay ummatootaa Itophiyaa irratti humna qawween of irroomse Itophiyaa tarree biyyoota hiyyeeyyii keessaa baasuu hin dandeenye. Kadhaa gargaarsa alagaa irraa argamuun jireessuu keessaa baasuu dadhabee har’as taanaan Impaayerittiin hiriira biyyoota gargaarsaan jiraatan keessatti akka hiriirtetti jirti. Saaminsi daangaa dhabe murna aangoo irra jiruun adeemsifamu abbootii aangoo duroomsee lammiilee sadarkaa of jiraachisuu dadhabuu fi abdii dhabuu irraa, kanneen osoo jireenya barbaadanii galaana keessatti dhuman, biyyoota gara garaa keessatti haala suukanneessaa fi gaddisiisaan ajjeefaman lakkoobsi guddaa dha. Bilisa tahanii gurmaa’uun, yaada qaban ibsatuun guutummaatti yakkatti fudhatamee hidhaa, ajjeechaa fi roorroo gosa gara garaa lammiilee irraan gahuun Itophiyaan biyyoota Afriikaa irra dabree sadarkaa addunyaatti iyyuu tarree duraa keessatti argamuun haala qabatamaa biyyattii keessaa ibsa. Saaminsi, cunqursaan, buqqa’insi fi dhiittaan mirga dhala namaa waggoota 24 dabraniif adeemsifamee fi sadarkaan har’a irra gahe egeree biyyattii kan dukkaneesse, ummatoota kan abdii dhabsiise dha. Wayyaaneen qawween dhufe. Qawweenis jiraate. Fuula duras Itophiyaa abbaa irrummaa paartii tokkoo jala tursuun murtii isaa bosonaa qabatee dhufe tahuun kan shakkamu miti. Ammas kana ifaan labsatee jira. Mootummaan Wayyaanee, ummatootni maal barbaadan? maal gaafataa jiran? Maalis hawwan? jedhee yaada ummatootaa hubatee gaaffii isaaniif deebii kennuuf kan fedhii hin qabne tahuu irraa gaaffiin ummatootaa deebii hin argatiin jiran. Kan Wayyaaneetti fardii, akkaataa itti aangoo humnaan argate tiksatuu danda’u irratti bobba’uu qofa. Waan taheef aangoo isaatti iggitii godhatuuf mala adda addaatti fayyadama. Tooftaalee aangoo irra ittiin of tursuuf itti gargaaramaa turee fi jiru keessaa filannoon kijibaa waggaa shan shanitti adeemsifamu isa tokko. Filannoon Caamsaa 24, 2015 itti baallamamee jirus Wayyaanee aangomsuun alatti faydaa biraa argamsiisu hin qabu. Sababootni isaas haalli filannoon kun ittiin adeemsifamu kan ulaagaa filannoo dimokraatwaa hin guutne tahuu qofa osoo hin taane murni Wayyaanee sagalee ummataan aangoo kan gadi hin dhiisne tahuu murteeffatuu irraa ti. Filannoon 5ffaa kun filannoota kanaan duraa irraas addummaa hin qabu. Kan filannoo kana mataa itti tahuun geggeessaa jiru boordiin filannoo kan sirnichaan sirnichaaf utubame dha. Kana waliin dorsisii fi dinniinni, hidhaa fi dhaaninsi mootummaa Wayyaaneen ummatoota irratti raawwatamaa jiru nageenya isaa kan gaaffii jala galche, bilisummaa isaa haqee sodaa itti bulche dha. ABOn akeekaa fi amala Wayyaanee bareechee waan beekuuf, akkasumas, itti bahi filannoo iftoomina hin qabnee, haqa irratti hin hundoofnee fi dimokraatawaa hin taanee maal akka tahu waan hubatuuf filannoo Caamsaa 24, 2015 hawwii fi fedhiin ummatootaa ittiin guutamaa irraa hin eegu. Kana irraa ka’uudhaanis yeroo gara garaatti ummatootni Itophiyaa addatti ammo ummatni Oromoo filannoo fakkeessii Wayyaanee akka lagatu waamichaa kan dabarsaa ture. Har’a Itophiyaa keessatti jibbinsa Wayyaanee fi sirna cunqursaa Wayyaaneen durfamu irraa ummatootni qabsoo hadhaawaa geggeessaa fi gaaffiilee adda addaa kaasaa jiran. Kanneen sirnicha irratti mormii finiinsaa jiran keessaa ummatni Oromoo durummaan hiriiree argama. Ummatni Oromoo kan ilmaan isaa wareegaa jiru, qabeenya isaa itti dhabaa fi baqaaf saaxilamee mankaraaruu irratti argamu, filannoo kijibaa keessatti hirmaatee barcuma lamaas tahe kudha lama argatuuf miti. Rakkoo siyaasaa, dinagdee fi hawaasummaa jaarraa tokkoo oliif irratti saare dhabamee walabummaan isaa dhugoomee bilisa tahee jiraachuufi. Akeeknii fi hawwiin ummata Oromoo kun ammoo filannoo sirna abbaa irrummaa jalatti geggeeffamuun tasa hin argamu. Waan taheef ummatni Oromoo haqa kana hubatuun furaan dhibdee isaa qabsoon malee kan hin argamne tahuu beekee, filannoo kijibaan akka hin dagamne ABO irra deebi’ee gadi jabeessee hubachiisuu fedha. Filannoo kana keessatti hirmaatuun mootummaa irratti qabsaawaa jiru seeressuu qofa taha. Filannoo mootummaa farra ummata Oromoo irroomsu keessatti qooda fudhatuun haada sirnichi mormatti nu kaa’ee jiru ofitti jabeessuu qofa taha. Addatti ammo dargaggoon Oromoo qabsoo bilisummaa Oromoo fuula dura tarkaanfachiisuu keessatti wareegamni baasaa turtanii fi jirtan akka firii godhatu dandeessisuuf Fincila Diddaa Gabrummaa jabeessuun filmaata isa duraa akka tahetti itti fufsiisuun murteessaa dha. Morkaa fi xiqiin ykn jibbiinsa Wayyaanee qofa irraa ka’uun filannoo kijibaa jala gugatuun wareegama kanaan dura baafame irratti bishaan naquu taha. Waan taheef ummatni keenya sochii aangoo mootummaa Wayyaanee seeressuu kamuu lagatuun mirga isaa qabsoo isaan harka galfatuuf akka qabsoo isaa finiinsu ABO gadi jabeessee waamicha isaa haaromsa. Injifatnoo Ummata Oromoof! Adda Bilisummaa Oromoo Caamsaa 18, 2015

http://www.oromoliberationfront.org/News/2015/Ibsa-ABO-Filannoo-Wayyaanee-2015-ilaalchisee.pdf

http://www.oromoliberationfront.org/

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/omn-oduu-amma-nu-gahe/

Is the age of #Africa’s political ‘ big man syndrome’ nearing an end? Burundi’s turmoil points to a shifting social and political landscape. #Ethiopia. #Oromia May 21, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Africa Rising, Burkina Faso.
Tags: Africa, Africa's big man, Africa's cheetahs versus hippo, African Studies, Burkina Faso, Burundi, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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Burundi’s turmoil points to a shifting social and political landscape

Clár Ní Chonghaile, The Guardian, Thursday 21 May 2015
Analysts see the upheaval in Burundi as symptomatic of a public craving for principled politics and an end to the era of the autocratic statesman

The upheaval in Burundi may bear many of the hallmarks of a classic African military coup but, for some analysts, the crisis is indicative of a newfound public hunger for good governance, and a reaction against administrations run by political strongmen who cloak repression in the trappings of democracy.

As global leaders work on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), a blueprint for governing development over the next 15 years, young people in Burundi are making their own demands, of their leaders as well as international donors.

Their appeals for democracy and abuse-free institutional processes mirror the call in SDG 16 to promote the rule of law, ensure equal access to justice, and develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions.
Burundi refugees say there is no turning back as fears grow of reprisals at home.

Burundi’s crisis began in late April after the ruling CNDD-FDD party nominated President Pierre Nkurunziza to run for a third term in the country’s June elections, despite a two-term constitutional limit. Protesters took to the streets and clashed with police.

Then, on 13 May, Major General Godefroid Niyombare told reporters that he had dismissed the president. The attempted coup was short-lived, however, and Niyombare is now on the run. Nkurunziza is back in charge, and fears of reprisals are widespread.

Rights groups say at least 20 people have been killed and more than 110,000 Burundians have fled to neighbouring countries, raising fears of a “severe humanitarian crisis”.

Some observers predict a drawn-out period of uncertainty and violence, with particular risks for opposition activists and the media. Protests continued on Wednesday, while the government said local and parliamentary elections would be delayed for a week but the presidential elections would go ahead as planned on 26 June.

Some elements of the crisis – the timing of the coup to coincide with the president’s absence at a regional summit, the fear of ethnic tensions exploding – seem to hark back to Burundi’s unstable past. But Jesper Bjarnesen, senior researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, says the dynamic is different this time.

Bjarnesen visited the Burundian capital Bujumbura recently and met with young activists who style themselves “the Arusha generation”, a nod to the peace accords that, in 2005, brought an end to a 12-year civil war between Hutu rebels and the mainly Tutsi army.

For these activists, ethnicity is no more the issue than Nkurunziza himself: rather, they feel the president has violated the constitution.

“It’s about political principles,” says Bjarnesen. “That is remarkable. It’s not that long ago that ethnicity was in many ways the … defining split. What I got from [the activists] was this sense that formal politics are just not a useful medium for those not in power.”

Yolande Bouka, a researcher in conflict prevention and risk analysis at the Institute for Security Studies, says Burundi’s government has long shown a disdain for the Arusha peace accords that has chipped away at trust between political actors.

The protestors and the opponents to Nkurunziza’s third term are trying to evoke an African spring
Jesper Bjarnesen, senior researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute
“Should the conflict drag on and erode inter-ethnic trust … it is possible to see a flare-up of ethnic tensions,” says Bouka, adding that the international community should have acted sooner on warning signs that the authorities were cracking down on dissent after the 2010 elections.

Nkurunziza is not alone in attempting to use almost absolute political power to extend his rule. Next door, Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, is said to be considering another term despite a two-term limit. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, already one of Africa’s longest serving leaders, has already changed the constitution to allow him to run again.

There are more cautionary tales. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila was forced to withdraw a bill seen as an attempt to extend his term after protests in January. Nkurunziza may also be mindful of Burkina Faso’s former president, Blaise Compaoré, one of Africa’s longest serving leaders, who was forced from office after he tried to change the constitution and run for another term.

End of Africa’s ‘big men’?
The idea that the “big man” model of rule is running out of steam may be gaining traction among the continent’s leaders.

At a regional summit this week, west African heads of state discussed a proposal to limit presidential mandates. The proposal was rejected because of opposition from Gambia and Togo, where there are no term limits, Reuters reported. But the discussion did not go unnoted.

“The protestors and the opponents to Nkurunziza’s third term are trying to evoke an African spring, with Burkina Faso setting the precedent. They are trying to use public protests to end a regime that has used both legal and illegal ways of reinforcing its grip on power,” says Bjarnesen.
Burundi unrest leaves 50,000 refugees facing dire conditions in Tanzania.

Thierry Vircoulon, project director for central Africa at the International Crisis Group, says Burundi’sproblems are in the 2010 elections, which most opposition parties boycotted.

“The first mandate of President Nkurunziza was about the consolidation of his power within the ruling party, and his second mandate was about the consolidation of his grip over the institutions and the preparation of his third mandate. This is a pattern that we see in a lot of post-conflict regimes in the region,” says Vircoulon.

A former Belgian colony, Burundi is one of Africa’s poorest countries, ranking 180 out of 187 states in the 2014 UN human development index. It relies on foreign aid for half its national budget. Britain’s Department for International Development ended bilateral aid in 2012, and has been criticised by a parliamentary committee for doing so.

Bjarnesen says that while donors are in a catch-22 situation, suspending assistance will only hurt the poorest. This month, the EU said it would withhold €2m ($2.2m) of aid, while Belgium also announced a suspension of electoral aid.

“Cutting aid in itself just does not work,” says Bjarnesen. “The threat now of cutting funding to the elections, who is that serving?”

For Bjarnesen, elections now would be devastating for the opposition but perhaps palatable to international partners – a situation that encapsulates an ideological tug-of-war between the merits of stability versus true democracy.

“To a large extent, the international community would rather have some sort of elections and then relative stability rather than continued political instability with the threat of conflict,” he says.

“That’s the biggest weakness of the response from the international community: it’s so short-sighted and focused on visible symptoms … whereas what is actually keeping the status quo is this kind of structural violence that has been in place since Nkurunziza came to power.”

Bjarnesen is critical of “international lenience” towards African governments. “The argument would be these are young democracies, they need time to develop … I think that moment has passed. I don’t see any reason why you would measure democracy in Burundi against standards other than those you use in the UK or Sweden.”

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/may/21/burundi-turmoil-shifting-social-political-landscape#comments

Ethiopia among the 10 poorest performers in the World Economic Forum Report for Human Capital May 18, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Developed country, Development & Change, Economics, Ethiopia the least competitive in the Global Competitiveness Index.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Economic development, economics, Human Capital Index 2015, Human development Index, Human Development Index for Oromia and Ethiopia, World Economic Forum
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Ethiopia Ranks 115 out of 124 countries in Human Capital Index 2015 Rank

Ethiopia ranks at 115 out of 124 countries in the ‘Human Capital Index’ because of its poor performance on educational outcomes, says the Human Capital Report 2015 issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The index is dominated by European countries with two countries from the Asia and Pacific region and one from the North America region also making it into the top 10.

Finland topped the ranking of the Human Capital Index in 2015, scoring 86% of its human capital, followed by Norway, Switzerland, Canada and Japan.

Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Belgium also seized the places in the top 10 list. Ethiopia scored 50.25 out of 100.

The leaders of the index are high-income economies that have placed importance on high educational attainment and a correspondingly large share of high-skilled employment.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released the Human Capital Report 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday 14 May 2015.

The WEF prepared the report in collaboration with Mercer, an American global human resource and related financial services consulting firm.

The report elaborates the status of different countries across the world on the Human Capital Index and provides key inputs for policy makers to augment capacities of human capital in 124 countries it has surveyed.

In the index, WEF highlighted Ethiopia’s scarcity of skilled employees, poor ability to nurture talent through educating, training and employing its people.

“Talent, not capital, will be the key factor linking innovation, competitiveness and growth in the 21st century,” said WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab releasing the report at a news conference in Cologny, near Geneva, Switzerland.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritius (72) holds the highest position in the region. While another six countries rank between 80 and 100, another 17 countries from Africa rank below 100 in the index. South Africa is in 92nd place and Kenya at 101. The region’s most populous country, Nigeria (120) is among the bottom three in the region, while the second most populous country, Ethiopia, is in 115th place. With the exception of the top-ranked country, the region is characterized by chronically low investment in education and learning.

Human Capital Index 2015 regional Ranks

Except Yemen (40.7) all the 10 poorest performers are African Countries: Ethiopia (50.25), Burkina Faso (49.22), Ivory Coast ( 49.02), Mali (48.51), Guinea (48.25), Nigeria (48.43), Burundi (46.76), Mauritania (42.29) and Chad (41.1).

The countries are ranked on the basis of 46 indicators that track “how well countries are developing and deploying their human capital focusing on education, skills and employment”.

The index takes a life-course approach to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment available to people in five distinct age groups, starting from under 15 years to over 65 years. The aim is to assess the outcome of past and present investments in human capital and offer insight into what a country’s talent base will look like in the future.

http://reports.weforum.org/human-capital-report-2015/press-releases/

Scientific Research: Iodine deficiency and women’s health: Colonialism’s malign effect on health in #Oromia May 18, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Micronutrient deficiency in Oromia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Health, Hunger and Micronutrient deficiency in Ethiopia, Iodine deficiency and women’s health in Oromia, medical services issues in Oromia, Micronutrient deficiency in Oromia
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Iodine deficiency and women’s health: Colonialism’s malign effect on health in Oromia region, in Ethiopia

http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=31970#.VVo8N7lVikp

Author(s), Begna Dugassa

Affiliation(s), Toronto Public Health, Toronto, Canada

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Iodine is an essential nutrient needed for the synthesis of hormone thyroxin. Hormone thyroxin is involved in the metabolism of several nutrients, the regulation of enzymes and differentiation of cells, tissues and organs. Iodine deficiency (ID) impairs the development of the brain and nervous system. It affects cognitive capacity, educability, productivity and child mortality. ID hinders physical strength and causes reproductive failure. The objective of this paper is to explore if the health impacts of ID are more common and severe among women. Design: Using primary data (notes from a visit) and secondary data, this paper examines if the effects of ID are more common and severe among Oromo women inEthiopia. Findings: The health impacts of ID are more common and severe among women. Conclusions: ID is an easily preventable nutritional problem. In Oromia, the persistence of ID is explained by the Ethiopian government’s colonial social policies. Preventing ID should be seen as part of the efforts we make to enhance capacity building, promote health, gender equity and social justice. Implications: Iodine deficiency has a wide range of biological, social, economic and cultural impacts. Preventing ID can be instrumental in bringing about gender equity and building the capacity of people.

KEYWORDS

Iodine Deficiency Disorders, Women’s Reproductive Health, Capacity Building, Gender Equity, Health in Oromia,Ethiopia, Colonialism and Public Health

Cite this paper

Dugassa, B. (2013) Iodine deficiency and women’s health: Colonialism’s malign effect on health in Oromia region, in Ethiopia. Health, 5, 958-972. doi: 10.4236/health.2013.55127.

References

[1]	Dugassa, B. and Negassa, A. (2012) Understanding the ecology of iodine deficiency and its public health implications: The case of oromia region in Ethiopia. Journal of Community Nutrition & Health, 1, 4-17.

[2]	UNICEF (2008) Sustainable elimination of iodine deficiency, progress since the 1990. World Summit for Children. http://www.childinfo.org/files/idd_sustainable_elimination.pdf

[3]	Iodine Network (2012) Country profiles Ethiopia. http://iodinenetwork.net/countries/Ethiopia.htm#6

[4]	WHO (2007) Iodine deficiency in Europe: A continuing public health problem. In: Anderson, M., De Benoist, B., Darnton-Hill, I. and Delange, F., Eds., France. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241593960_eng.pdf

[5]	WHO (2010) Ethiopia: Health profile. http://www.who.int/gho/countries/eth.pdf

[6]	WHO (2010) Kenya: Health profile. http://www.who.int/gho/countries/ken.pdf

[7]	Stewart, G., Carter, J., Parker, A. and Alloway, B. (2003) The illusion of environmental iodine deficiency. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 25, 165-170. doi:10.1023/A:1021281822514

[8]	Meletis, C. and Zabriskie, N. (2007) Iodine, a critically overlooked nutrient. Alternative & Complementary Therapies, 13, 132-136. doi:10.1089/act.2007.13309

[9]	Hetzel, B. and Mano, A. (1989) A review of experimental studies of iodine deficiency during fetal development. Journal of Nutrition, 119, 145-151.

[10]	Ingenbleek, Y. and Jung, L.B. (1999) A new iodized oil for eradicating endemic goiter. In: Abdulla, M., Bost, M., Gamon, S., Arnaud, P. and Chazot, G., Eds., New Aspects of Trace Element Research, Smith-Gordon, London.

Human rights organization appeals to UNHCR for lifesaving assistance to #Oromo refugees in Yemen. #Africa. #UN May 18, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Human Rights Watch on Human Rights Violations Against Oromo People by TPLF Ethiopia, Oromo Refugees in Yemen.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Because I am Oromo, Genocide against the Oromo, Macha-Tulama-USA: Urgent Letter to UNHCR About Conditions of Refugees, Oromo refugees in Yemen, Urgent Concern for Oromo Refugees
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Human rights organization appeals to UNHCR for lifesaving assistance to Oromo refugees in Yemen

The following is a statement from the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA), “a non-political and nonpartisan organization which attempts to challenge abuses of human rights of the peoples of various nations and nationalities in the Horn of Africa. HRLHA is aimed at defending fundamental human rights, including freedoms of thought, expression, movement and organization. It is also aimed at raising the awareness of individuals about their own basic human rights and that of others. It has intended to work on the observances as well as due processes of law. It promotes the growth and development of free and vigorous civil societies.”

——-

May 16, 2015

HRLHA’s Appeal to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Mr. Antonio Guterres
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR)
Case Postale 2500
CH-1211 Geneve 2 Depot Suisse
Emails: infoDesk@ohchr.org; GUTERRES@unhcr.org

Attention To:
Mr Amin Awad
Middle East and North Africa Bureau
UNHCR, Geneva

Dear Mr. Guterres,

The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa/HRLHA is very concerned about the current humanitarian crisis in the Republic of Yemen following the internal conflicts and political instabilities that have broken down the social services in the country. Many nongovernmental and humanitarian organizations are reporting that the crisis in Yemen has highly affected refugees and asylum seekers who came from the Horn of Africa to Yemen to escape the volatile situations in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and other places. Among the most vulnerable are Oromo refugees and asylum seekers residing in Sanaa, Aden and other areas in Yemen.

According to the letter disseminated by the Oromo refugee community in Aden-Yemen under the heading “Only Oromo refugees are still caught up under the fire and critical circumstance and also expecting an imminent danger”, Oromo refugees are desperately seeking attention and lifesaving assistance of the UNHCR. The UNHCR’s Middle East and North Africa branch office confirmed its commitment to providing life–saving assistance for the needy people under its strategy’s priority: “UNHCR’s strategic priorities in 2015 are: to deliver innovative operational responses, including lifesaving assistance; to ensure protection for all people of concern with a particular focus on the most vulnerable, especially those in urban areas; to seek durable solutions, including resettlement as a protection tool; and to continue to respond to ongoing emergencies.” (UNHCR, Middle East and North Africa – http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a02db416.html)

Dear Mr. Guterres,

HRLHA, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported and are still reporting that the Oromos are fleeing their country to escape persecutions by the current Ethiopian government led by the TPLF/EPRDF. The recent research document released by Amnesty International – “Because I am Oromo” – Sweeping Repression in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia – exposes that how Oromos have been regularly subjected to arbitrary arrests, prolonged detentions without charges, enforced disappearances, repeated tortures and unlawful state killings since 1991, when the current Ethiopian government came into power, as part of the government’s incessant attempts to crush dissidents.

Dear Mr. Guterres,

Thousands from other nations and nationalities in Ethiopia have also been killed, kidnapped and arrested by the TPLF/EPRDF government because of exercising their fundamental rights or holding political opinions different from TPLF/EPRDF’s political agenda.

Therefore, the HRLHA politely urges the UNHCR to:

1. Provide food and shelter assistance to vulnerable Oromo and other refugees in Yemen

2. Move them to safer neighboring countries in the Middle East or beyond.

Sincerely,

Garoma B. Wakessa
Director, HRLHA

Contact Addresses:
– 994 Pharmacy Avenue, M1R 2G7 Toronto Ontario, Canada
– Tel:- (416) 492 2506 or (647) 280 7062
– E-Mail:- hrldirector@mail.org
– Web site:- www.humanrightsleague.org

Oromo Federalist Congress: Dr. Mararaa Guddinaa & Ob. Baqqalaa Garbaa Jointly Campaign for OFC/Medrek in Gudar, Oromia May 18, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Oromo Federalist Congress, Sham elections.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Ethiopia's sham elections, Gudar, Oromia, Oromo Federalist Congress, Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) Criss-crossing Oromia with Huge Turnouts at Campaign Rallies
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Dr. Merera Gudina & Ob. Bekele Gerba Jointly Campaign for OFC/Medrek in Gudar, Oromia

Caamsaa/May 18, 2015 · Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com

Dr. Merera Gudina, Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek), and Ob. Bekele Gerba, former prisoner of conscience and OFC’s top official, jointly campaigned in Gudar, western Oromia, on Sunday, May 17, 2015, for the upcoming General Election, scheduled to be held on May 24, 2015. Thousands of supporters joined the OFC leaders in Gudar. http://gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune/2015/05/photos-dr-merera-gudina-ob-bekele-gerba-jointly-campaign-for-ofcmedrek-in-guder-oromia/

The Global African: Land Grabs in Ethiopia & The Legacy of Belgian Colonization May 18, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Amnesty International's Report: Because I Am Oromo, Ethiopia's Colonizing Structure and the Development Problems of People of Oromia, Afar, Ogaden, Sidama, Southern Ethiopia and the Omo Valley, Ethnic Cleansing, Land and Water Grabs in Oromia, Land Grabs in Oromia, Omo Valley.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Because I am Oromo, Ethiopia's colonizing structure and development problems in Oromia and Omo Valley, land and water grabs in Oromia, Land grab in Oromia & Gambella
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The Global African looks at land theft in Ethiopia & the connection between Belgian colonization and HIV in the Congo.

Bio

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a columnist, activist, author and labor organizer. He is the executive assistant to the national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees. Bill is an editorial board member of BlackComentator.com, as well as the chairman of the Retail Justice Alliance. He is also the co-author of “Solidarity Divided”; and the author of the newly released book, ‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty Other Myths about Unions . He is a co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal, and has served as President of TransAfrica Forum and was formerly the Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO.

Transcript:

BILL FLETCHER, HOST, THE GLOBAL AFRICAN: Today on The Global African, we’ll talk about the legacy of Belgian colonization in the Congo and a recent report on land grabs in Ethiopia.That’s today on The Global African. I’m your host, Bill Fletcher. Thanks for joining us again. And don’t go anywhere.

~~~FLETCHER: According to a new report from the Oakland Institute entitled We Say the Land Is Not Yours, the government of Ethiopia has been forcibly removing many Ethiopians from their native lands through a so-called village-ization program. The program, supposedly intended to modernize the East African nation, has sold off millions of hectares of land to foreign investors. These investors, often large-scale agriculture companies, are buying very valuable land at a cheap price. Instead of cultivating land and producing food for the people, most of the yields are being used to export to other nations.After being forced off their land, natives are cut off from access to fertile land, health care, and educational opportunity, languishing in poverty.The country’s villagization program has faced allegations in the past of torture, political coercion, imprisonment, rapes, and disappearances against those attempting to form resistance.We’re joined now with our guest from the Oakland Institute in California, Anuradha Mittal, who is the executive director and founder of the institute, which aims to create opportunity for public participation and democratic debates on key issues worldwide. Under her leadership, the Institute has unveiled land investment deals in Africa and around the world.Thank you very much for joining us on the program.ANURADHA MITTAL, EXEC. DIR., OAKLAND INSTITUTE: Thanks for having me.FLETCHER: So I just read this report that you issued concerning land theft in Ethiopia. And I had not seen anything about this in the mainstream media. And I was curious. Let’s start with how did you uncover this situation and what brought it to your attention.MITTAL: Well, in the case of Ethiopia we at the Institute have been working since 2007, 2008, when we were contacted by the communities both within Ethiopia as well as people who are now in the diaspora, people who have been forced to live in exile, who have fled the country because of the political oppression. And what we started hearing about was that in the name of development, vast tracts of land are being cleared where ethnic groups, indigenous communities have been living as agropasturalists, or growing their food, or using the forest for their medicines, for their farms.And with this displacement, you’re seeing large-scale plantations of cotton, of sugarcane coming into being in the name of development, that this will lead Ethiopia to the next century and make it a renaissance state.So we were really concerned by the kind of displacement that is happening. The government plans to give away 7 million hectares of land, leading to the displacement of over 1.5 million people. And there’s no consultation, there is no free prior informed consent. The way communities are being moved is through forced displacement, and we were very concerned about it.FLETCHER: When the Ethiopian regime that currently is in power took over in the ’90s, overthrowing Mengistu, their program seems to be completely antithetical to what we’re witnessing right now, where the regime seems to be serving the interests of global agricultural capitalists.MITTAL: You’re right on, I mean, what had happened earlier, the so-called villagization, when people were forced off their lands and the so-called villages were supposed to be created where better social services would be provided. And that was challenged. But not today. It is the same pretext that is being used that better social services would be provided, better education opportunities would be provided to communities who are being moved. And so this is the whole rhetoric of development. But our research on the ground shows that the lands which have been cleared, actually then given away to foreign investors who are coming in from India, from Malaysia, from Turkey and just about everywhere, especially in areas such as Gambela or Lower Omo, and leading to forcible displacement of people.The other shocking thing, Bill, that–I think it’s important to remember is that this kind of development, which leads to eviction of people against their choice from their homes and lands, is happening thanks to donor countries. It is happening because it has the blessings of financial institutions such as the World Bank.FLETCHER: I’d like you to explain that a little bit more. Why–what are the, what’s the interest of the World Bank in all of this?MITTAL: Well first of all, there is this belief that large-scale plantations, large-scale agriculture will lead to development and the benefits of which will somehow trickle down to those at the bottom. We have seen that trickle-down does not really ever happen.Secondly, you have these loans that are being provided. When you look at Ethiopia, over 60 percent of its budget comes from outside. Some of the key donors are United States, United Kingdom, the World Bank.And also we have another relationship. In the United States, Ethiopia is our closest ally in Africa. It is our ally in the war on terrorism. So we tend to turn a blind eye to the repression that is happening on the ground.FLETCHER: Is there an ethnic side to what’s going on? That is, are there certain ethnic groups in Ethiopia that are disproportionately affected by this? Or is this pretty much across the board?MITTAL: Well, this is happening across the board, and it’s happening to the ones who are in minority. So, for instance, in Lower Omo you have the Bodis, the Suris, the Mursis, the Nyangatoms, the Hamars who are being impacted. In case of Gambela, Anuaks are predominantly targeted. So it is a country which is ruled by a minority, the Highlanders, or the Tigrayans. And their control is being maintained through political and economic repression by displacing people from their lands, which makes their livelihoods even more difficult. And secondly, it helps to control the country politically and stay in power.FLETCHER: There’s two questions here. One is: what is happening to the populations that are being displaced? In similar situations around the world, there’s a tendency for people to move into the urban centers. Is that what’s happening here? Are people leaving the country? And the second question is about resistance. What kind of resistance is building?MITTAL: Well, both are great questions. I think Ethiopia is a little bit unique, because given the kind of political oppression you have, given there is no political space to be able to speak out as you hear from the testimonies presented in the report, which we basically felt we had to do because our fieldwork, when we have put out in reports, has been challenged by the Ethiopian government, and this time we could say it is not some Western NGO challenging the Ethiopian government, these are the voices of people within Ethiopia.So it is a very, very dire situation.In terms of resistance, again, when we look around the world, given we work around the world, we see resistance on the ground, but it is pretty appalling. In Ethiopia, again, because of the lack of civil society, lack of freedom of media, and the fact that you can be arrested, the fact that Ethiopian security forces are not just arresting people within Ethiopia, but taking away people from Kenya and South Sudan who might have challenged government’s policies, we are finding very little resistance on the ground.The resistance is more of having the courage to storytell groups such as Human Rights Watch or tell groups like the Oakland Institute what the reality is on the ground. So the resistance is of people who refuse to give up and refuse to move from their lands. And in return they’re facing persecution, they’re facing arrest, intimidation, beatings. You know, the prisons of Ethiopia are full of people who have challenged government’s development strategy.FLETCHER: Is there any sense of global support for the peoples that are facing these evictions? Or are they pretty much on their own?MITTAL: Well, I think more and more of the world knows what is happening in Ethiopia. There are groups from International Rivers, Human Rights Watch, Oakland Institute, Survival International who have been supporting the communities on the ground who have been putting out information to inform and educate. For instance, the U.S. Congress just recently deferred–UK’s development agency stopped financing PBS, the program for basic services, which was linked to the villagization scheme of the Ethiopian government. So this pressure from outside is resulting in kind of taking away some of the resources from the Ethiopian government that is financing and is facilitating displacement of people.But, of course, a lot of work remains to be done. Because of our research, it was exposed by Channel 4 in Sweden that H&M was sourcing its cotton from Lower Omo, these plantations which have come into being by displacing indigenous agropasturalists from Lower Omo. And because of the pressure, H&M had to announce that they would not source cotton from Lower Omo. So I think it is very important to keep spreading the word, to keep educating, and to keep exposing that development strategy which is based on a denial of human rights–and not just denial, but abuse of human rights cannot be a development strategy for any nation.FLETCHER: Ms. Mittal, thank you very, very much.MITTAL: Thank you. Pleasure to speak with you.FLETCHER: Absolutely. I look forward to it in the future.MITTAL: Same here. Take care. Bye-bye.FLETCHER: Bye-bye, now.And thank you for joining us for this segment of The Global African. I’m your host, Bill Fletcher. And we’ll be back in a moment, so don’t go anywhere.

~~~FLETCHER: One of the greatest holocausts of the 19th century, indeed of all time, was the murder of 10 million Congolese when the Congo, then known as the Congo Free State, was the personal property of King Leopold of Belgium–more than 10 million Congolese murdered in order to enrich this monarch of Europe.The legacy of that holocaust lives with us today and is detailed in an excellent piece by Dr. Lawrence Brown. The impact of that holocaust and the colonization of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in conditions that were fertile for the development of what came to be known as HIV and AIDS. HIV-AIDS first surfaces in what is now Kinshasa, which was at that time, in the 1920s, Leopoldville, in 1920, and spread as a result of the practices that were carried out by the Belgians as they tore the country apart.The Ghost of Leopold Still Haunts Us is the title of an essay written by our next guest, Dr. Lawrence Brown from Morgan State University, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management.Dr. Brown, thank you for joining us again.DR. LAWRENCE BROWN, ASST. PROF., DEPT. HEALTH POLICY AND MGMT, NSU: Absolutely. Pleasure to be here.FLETCHER: Great. I was really struck by this article. It’s the connection that you make between Belgian colonialism and the development of AIDS. I had not seen anything like that before. And it was so different from the conspiracy theory pieces that people read, the utter denial that we see. What inspired you to write it?BROWN: Absolutely. I really had been doing a lot of thinking and studying around colonization, how that impacted health of populations and how enslavement, how these historical traumas impact the health of populations. So when I ran across this article that basically found the authors conducting a genetic analysis of the virus itself and tracking it down, through this sort of forensic process, to Kinshasa in the 1920s, I was really fascinated, because I had been looking at the Democratic Republic of Congo and its history. And so when I ran across the article and I began to read it, I noticed the word Belgium really didn’t come up in the article at all. And I was familiar with Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, and the story of how King Leopold and his Force Publique, this military regiment, had brought such terror and devastation to the Congolese populations, killing up to 10 million of the Congolese people, that I was really fascinated by the sheer absence of the mention of Belgian colonization.So that got my mind to thinking, and I decided I needed to write something to sort of understand, help people understand how the social determinants of health would have impacted the development and the ignition of HIV.FLETCHER: And you’re describing the Congo Holocaust.BROWN: Essentially, yes.FLETCHER: I mean, more people were killed in what was then the Congo Free State, right?BROWN: Right. It started out as the Congo Free State.FLETCHER: ‘Cause it was the personal property of King Leopold.BROWN: Absolutely. King Leopold II of Belgium.FLETCHER: That’s right.BROWN: He owned it for about 26 years.FLETCHER: That’s right. More people were killed there than the Nazis killed in their Holocaust.BROWN: Absolutely. It was terrible.FLETCHER: Now, one of the things that I was struck by then is that there are those that have tried to dismiss the issue of HIV and AIDS as being related to a virus by simply saying that it’s because of poverty.BROWN: Right.FLETCHER: President Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, was one who was very much in that direction. But you’re making a very different argument.BROWN: Absolutely. You know, the World Health Organization defines social determinants of health as the conditions in which we live, play, work, and pray. And so the social determinants of health help contribute to a disease’s spread, how it evolves, how it is able to infect and spread among human populations.And so what happened in the Belgian Congo in the 1920s is that–this article says it started in 1920s in Kinshasa. So it gives us a starting point. So we know, for instance, that the CIA starts in 1947, so the CIA didn’t create this virus. We know that certain things–we can basically say we can rule out some of the conspiracies based on this analysis.But what we do need to know and figure out is that in the ’20s it wasn’t called Kinshasa, it was called Leopoldville.FLETCHER: That’s right.BROWN: This was part of King Leopold’s domain and the Belgians’ domain by the 1920s. They had built an extensive railway system in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as we know it today, using free African labor–or forced African labor of the Congolese. They had thousands and ten thousands of men and women carrying the supplies and materials that were needed to create this railroad. They had folks who lived and died under the strain of the push to create this sort of transportation. And the railroads were used to extract ivory, and then rubber, from which King Leopold II became rich, to extract those resources from the African people.And so in the article it mentions that having this railway was critical to the spread of the virus because it allowed the transportation from places like Kinshasa, as we know it today, to /kəngɑːli/ and different cities within the nation. And so, understanding that the railways did help the spread of the virus is important, but it’s also important to understand the forced African labor that was used to build that railway and to transport the laborers, even later, after the real railroad was built, along those railways, so the transportation of people back and forth, all in the service of colonization.FLETCHER: Let me go back for a second, 1920 Leopoldville, when they say that that’s when HIV-AIDS emerged. It didn’t pop out of the air.BROWN: No.FLETCHER: So what happened?BROWN: Well, you have the animal-to-human transmission. It’s just like we’ve been talking about the Ebola virus recently, a zoonotic disease that emerges out of animal-human contact. So, in this case the theory is that chimpanzee meat in some form or fashion was consumed by an African Congolese, and thereby transmitting the simian form of that virus.Well, how might that have happened? People in that region maybe had been eating that meat on and off for several hundreds of years. They’d known how to eat that meat very properly, cooked it quite well. But under the conditions that the Belgians were putting the Congolese under, they totally disrupted the Congolese food supply to such that witnesses say that laborers were starving because they couldn’t grow their own food. So now they’re importing food from Belgium, they’re importing food so that the Congolese can eat other people’s food to survive, but they’re sending them into the forest to go and extract rubber down from the vines, they’re sending them into the forest, and folks have to climb up the trees to extract this rubber from the tree, many of them falling asleep and dying or injuring themselves in the process. And so, in this environment of extreme hunger, I could see someone saying, I don’t have anything to eat right now, maybe there is a dead chimpanzee somewhere, I’m going to take that and not cook it properly because I’m so hungry under these conditions, and then you have the transmission from animal to human in this case.FLETCHER: Fascinating. So forgive the very basic questions, but I’m not a scientist. Nineteen-twenty.BROWN: Right.FLETCHER: Okay. Then it seems to emerge publicly around 1980.BROWN: Right. So where was the virus hiding?FLETCHER: Where was a virus? Right.BROWN: Well, you know, I think that from what we understand there, really sort of this article gives three primary vectors. We’re talking about the railway that we talked about earlier. It allows for humans to travel up–the host for the virus to travel across the country, transmitting the virus. It talks about–so you have host, you have the transportation.Then you also have another vector they talk about, commercial sex workers, and so what we know as or what people commonly referred to as prostitutes. And so there are Congolese scholars that say, well, even the commercial sex work is rooted in colonization, because the Belgians would take Congolese women and exploit them in various ways. They would exploit them in terms of helping–using them to please the workers in vile ways. They would use women to–they took some of them as their second wives in the Congo Free State and later the Belgian Congo. So they perverted the very being and the spirit of the Congolese women, and as such created a sort of commercial sex work industry that allowed the virus to sort of proliferate originally.Now, in terms of spreading beyond the borders, the analysis basically says that by the ’60s or ’70s there were Haitian workers that were working in the Belgian Congo. And by the ’60s, of course, the Congo becomes Zaire under Mobutu. And so the Haitian workers working there, professionals, they go back to Haiti having contracted the virus, and then maybe a few Haitians go to New York or go to the United States, and the virus sort of emerges there in the 1980s. But it had been sort of percolating all along. I think you see in the medical literature there were people dying that they can sort of trace back and say, this was probably the disease. In the ’60s and ’70s they were starting to see something’s going on and it’s not right.FLETCHER: But what did the Belgians see between 1920 and 1960, when the Congo became independent? Is there any evidence that they even noticed that there was a problem?BROWN: I don’t think they knew that there was a specific problem with this particular disease. Now, they did have public health campaigns to help stop, like, sleeping disease and other diseases that are infectious diseases that were there at the time.Now, the important thing to know is that they were reusing syringes to sort of inoculate people against certain diseases that they knew about at the time. And so, inadvertently, I believe, you’re reusing needles, and that could have helped proliferate the spread of the virus as well at the time. So those are the kind of dynamics that even in terms of the colonial public health system, the Belgians could have played a role in terms of helping to proliferate the virus. So, whether it’s the colonial public health system, whether it’s animal-to-human transmission, whether it’s commercial sex workers or the railroads, the Belgian colonization system, first with King Leopold and then under the Belgian government, played a role in the transmission of this disease.FLETCHER: When the Belgians left the Congo in 1960, they did nothing to help in any kind of transition. They were trying to actually Balkanize the Congo, as you know, the whole fight around the Katanga province and trying to separate it off. There’s no indication that there was–I’m assuming that there was no indication of any effort to deal with any medical issues when they moved out.BROWN: Yeah, not to my knowledge. But the Belgian government did collaborate with the CIA in terms of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. So the Belgian government plays a very powerful role, in terms of even after they leave, determining, charting the future course of the Democratic Republic of Congo, so that it’s much more likely to move in a less Pan-African direction and more so in a much more brutal dictator direction.And why is that important? Of course, if you have someone who’s in your stead managing in a neocolonial arrangement, that continues the facilitation of extracting resources from the country. And so you have critical minerals that are predominant all over the country–copper, diamonds, or coltan that’s in our smart phones and cell phones, right? And so people are fighting over those resources today. There’s been a tremendous civil war that’s been going on. Up to 5 million Congolese people have been killed in this civil war.And you see under King Leopold people’s hands being cut off because they didn’t produce enough rubber. And then in this civil war you see sort of the same thing, people’s hands being cut off as a form of punishment. And it sort of–you know, we look at how people tend to reproduce the trauma that they have experienced under these sort of extreme, harsh forms of brutalization and oppression. And that’s what I think is important to know is that so much of what’s going on in the Congo today finds its root in that period when King Leopold II–.FLETCHER: Dr. Brown, thank you very much for joining us on The Global African.BROWN: My pleasure.FLETCHER: And thank you for joining us for this episode of The Global African. I’m your host, Bill Fletcher. And we’ll see you next time.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13873

Oromia: Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek), KFO/OFC Madrak/Medrek Filadhaa 2015 Campaign May 16, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Sham elections.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Ethiopia's sham elections, Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) Criss-crossing Oromia with Huge Turnouts at Campaign Rallies
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‘OFC/MEDREK’S Election Symbol (“Five Fingers with the Open Palm”/”High Five”) Goes Viral. As Medrek’s campaign for the upcoming General Election (to be held on May 24, 2015) continues in the State of Oromia led by Dr. Merera Gudina’s Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), and in the Southern State led by Dr. Beyene Petros’ Ethiopian Social Democratic Party (ESDP) – both member parties of the Medrek democratic multinational coalition, the election symbol of Medrek (“five fingers with the open palm,” or shortly the “high five”) has gone viral on the social media as well as on the campaign trails, and “give me high five” has also become a catchphrase to indicate a democratic multinational.’ Gadaa.net/FinfinneTribune

‘Filannoon Wayyaaneen dhandhaaraa jirtu jijjirama qabatamaa homaatuu akka hin finne namuu ni beeka. Garuu ummanni Oromiyaa garayyuu buqqa’ee bahee paartiiOromo Federalist Congress cinaa maaf hiriire? Sababni tokko waliigalatti sabboonummaan Oromoo biyyaafi alattis dadammaqiinsa cimaa agarsiisaa jira. Waltajjiilee dhimma Oromoofi Oromiyaa irratti hirmaannaa hoo’aa agarsiisaa jira. Kan lammataatifi sababni cimaan ammoo, ummanni keenya hiree filannoon sababasame gadi bahuuf argate kanatti fayyadamuun hawwii bilisummaatifi jibba sirna cunqursaa kanaaf qabu agarsiisaa jira. Akkuma yeroo duula filannoo kana fedhiifi jibba isaa agarsiise, sagaleen isaa akka hatamu beekus, yeroo korojoo filannoo san bira gahe sagalee isaa paartii kittilayyoo hoongessee kan qabsaa’otaatif laatun ejjannoo isaa lammata beeksisa jennee abdanna. Wayyaanee sagalee filannootin kuffisuun dadhabamus, sagalee dhoowwachuun sirni sun hammam akka tufame kitallayyoo isaanii agarsiisuun faaydaa qaba.’

Jawar Mohammed

Oromia: Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek), KFO/OFC Madrak/Medrek Filadhaa 2015 Campaign Video

http://https://youtu.be/cE8yblCtyO4

https://youtu.be/cE8yblCtyO4

In Pictures: Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek) Continues Campaigns in Arsii and Harargee Zones, Oromia

Source: Caamsaa/May 15, 2015 · Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com

http://finfinnetribune.com/Gadaa/2015/05/in-picturesoromo-federalist-congress-ofcmedrek-continues-campaigns-in-arsii-and-harargee-zones/

The Oromo Federalist Congress’s (OFC/Medrek) trailblazing campaign tour for the upcoming General Election (to be held on May 24, 2015) has continued in Oromia; over the week, the campaign train has passed through small and big towns in Arsii and Harargee Zones. In East Harargee, Dr. Merera Gudina, chairman of OFC, was presented with a plaque with photos of Mr. Nelson Mandela, Gen. Tadesse Birru and Dr. Merera Gudina (see below).

Here’s also a video of the Naqamtee OFC campaign meeting from last week:

http://http://gadaa.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/OFC_Naqamtee2015.mp4?_=1

http://gadaa.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/OFC_Naqamtee2015.mp4?_=1

OFC at West Arsi, Oromia:

Ciroo Town, West Harargee, Oromia

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/omn-oduu-caamsaa-14-2015/

https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/the-oromo-federalist-congress-ofc-medrek-continue-campaigns-in-oromia-the-south-and-elsewhere-despite-harassment-by-ethiopian-tplf-regime/

ELECTIONS IN ETHIOPIA: BEYOND WINNING (AND LOSING) May 12, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Sham elections.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Ethiopia's sham elections, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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ELECTIONS IN ETHIOPIA: BEYOND WINNING (AND LOSING)

By Tsegaye R Ararssa* in ADDIS STANDARD

http://addisstandard.com/elections-in-ethiopia-beyond-winning-and-losing-2/

Part I
1 . Introduction
Election fever is gaining momentum in Ethiopia. It is ‘Election 2015’, the 5th general election since Ethiopia’s formal adoption of the more (or less) liberal constitution of 1995 that ended the hesitant ‘transition’ from the Derg’s military rule to a western-style representative democracy[1]. The projected aim of the transition was to liberalize and pluralize the politics, to reform and resuscitate the economy, to restructure the state (through democratization and decentralization), and to transform the hitherto tenuous state-society relations. Through the constitution, the regime provided itself the legal edifice on which to ensure that transitional project is attained and a liberal democracy (expressed through representative and participatory institutions) is formally instituted. In a gesture of transforming the state, the constitution recognized national diversity, legalized collective rights such as the right to self-determination[2], and institutionalized federal non-centralization. Having ostensibly demilitarized politics [3], electoral contestation became the formal mode of contending for political power. The election fever that is steadily gripping the nation now is the symptom of that contention.
Over the last few weeks, controversy has progressively raged over the politics and the logistics of the upcoming election. Decisions pertaining to recognition by the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) of political parties with the ‘right’ leadership [4], registration of ‘qualified’ candidates [5], and ensuring the proper adherence to the relevant rules of constitutional, electoral, and political party registration laws have provoked a lot of ire among some of the parties seeking to partake in the election. Rulings over who is qualified as a candidate and which party is qualified as a contestant have unleashed a conversation over the process and speculations over the outcome of the election. In the first election debate conducted live on public television, the major ideological fault lines between the three major political parties were outlined. In the same week, we heard that some of the parties (such as the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum, alias Medrek in Amharic) were denied access to the state media (Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, EBC) on the pretext that the parties’ criticism of the media’s bias towards the incumbent is an attempt to undermine the impartiality of the media. Their petition to the NEBE has not found a response yet. Not entirely unexpectedly, tension has started to build up.
As anyone familiar with Ethiopia and its histories knows, the tension around elections is only symptomatic of deeper issues that have roots in—but never contained by—the political contestations of the past. In this piece, I offer a reflection on what election means to the various sectors of the population in the Ethiopian polity in the light of that past. I will thus reflect on what election means to the incumbent, the opposition political parties, and to the electorate, north and south. Along the way, I will also reflect on the mood in the context of which the election takes place. By drawing historical parallels between 2015 and 1915 (historical moments when two dead leaders—Meles Zenawi and Menelik II, respectively -rule from the grave in spite of the place holders whose genealogies make them unlikely successors, namely Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and Emperor Eyasu II, alias Lij/Abeto Eyasu, respectively), I will point to the continuity in the nature of the State in which the election takes place, irrespective of the appearance of change. Lastly, I will offer my points on what is beyond winning and losing this particular election, and how it affects the nature of the Ethiopian state.
The starting point of this reflection is that election is a language. It is the new language one speaks in order to secure democratic legitimacy. Posited within the confines of liberal constitutionalism, it is a particular language with the idiom and vernacular of modern representative democracy. Whoever is proficient in this language technically ‘wins’ the election. In this piece, in a rather iterative manner, I reflect on the ‘facility’ or ‘proficiency’ of the contestants in this language within the context of Ethiopia in order to imagine what is beyond winning (or losing) this election.
The thrust of my argument is that there is much more work to do about the state than partaking in the motion of election. There is more to Ethiopia than mastering the language of election. I suggest that to EPRDF election is a mode of securing a technical legitimacy. To its adversaries, it is a mode of resistance to hegemonic oppression. Some of its adversaries resist its hegemonic position if only to replace it with their own. Others resist it and the State form it embodies and represents. For this latter group, the election is, more than anything else, a gesture of negating the status quo, it is a talking back to power, an utterance of societal pain long suppressed and contained. It is a way of sustaining a lamentation. It is yet another moment of reminding Ethiopia that all is not well. For the protagonists in this election saga, especially for the ruling EPRDF, the election is merely war by other means. As such, for EPRDF, it is a mode of entrenching its power by eliminating its opponents through the technology of election. Consequently, the election has little to do with the desired transformation of the state-society relations in Ethiopia.
As a result, I argue, there is little the election can do to tackle outstanding political issues that are contained in the unfinished business of state-building. In particular, there is little it can do to expand citizenship to the subject peoples of the wider South. EPRDF’s anti-democratic posture to disallow a political space where deeply political issues can be discussed (by reducing everything down to the technicalities of law and economic governance) is a proclamation of closure of politics by relegating the discussion to the realm of techniques. Election is thus reduced to a mode of enhancing what the French philosopher Michel Foucault calls ‘governmentality’, a technical-ideological apparatus of controlling and regulating the population by eliciting acquiescence in their own control and regulation. EPRDF’s adversaries, especially the north-central ethio-political class, also play their own role in this proclamation and enactment of closure of politics by aestheticizing a heavily contested political issue. As I shall argue in subsequent sections, they engage in exoticizing and aestheticizing an essentially political issue of the past and the future. They engage in a double movement that also politically demonizes – and excludes – the essentially political questions (such as the question of diversity [sameness and difference], historical political violence/injustice, misrecognition, inclusion-in-citizenship, and co-equal (re)founding of the polity. They thus aestheticize the inaugural violence by iconizing the leaders of the past through a raft of artistic products (images and lyrics, pictures and songs, etc) thereby rehabilitating them from the tyranny and oppression they represented, the tyranny and oppression they were once criticized for. At the same time, they demonize what could probably be the most important political question of modern Ethiopia—the question of diversity—by presenting it rather negatively as “politicized ethnicity.”
By so doing, i.e., by removing the important issues from the realm of the political to that of the aesthetic, they do their own bit of closing the political space for discussing the irreducibly political questions politically. The combined effect of these closures (by both groups)—born chiefly out of insecurity of EPRDF as a Government, only symptomatic of the greater insecurity of the ever more fragile Ethiopian State it runs, manages, and embodies—causes our judgement of the process and consequence of the election to be pessimistic. The insecurity of the ‘eternal kingdom’ assumed to have been established by Menelik, Haileselassie, and Mengistu; the insecurity born out of the incomplete nation-building project, prompts EPRDF’s opponents of the Amhara constituency to aspire for similar closure of the political space through aestheticization and exoticization of the infinitely political questions.
2. The Mood: Hope and Anticipation, or Angst and Despair?
Election is time-bound. Its temporality is its essence. The intensity or lack thereof is the function of its being limited in time. As a result, its process, outcome, and significance are dependent on the ‘political ecology’ of the time. It is dependent on what is ‘in the air’, what is troubling the polity, and what is exercising the large majority of the electorate. This is because election needs a particular kind of ‘democratic ambience’, as it were, a (more or less) festive atmosphere imbued with hope and anticipation (the subtext of which is fear and anxiety). Election has its own ‘mood’, sort of a national ‘political labor’. Understanding the mood – capturing the pulse of the polity in the electoral moment – helps us situate the election (the process, the result, and the context) in proper perspective. This underscores the supreme importance of a ‘right’ ‘political ecology’ that can engender hope (of winning) and of security (in the event of losing).
Hope and anxiety attend to all elections, the hope of winning and the angst of losing. However, in as much as possible, it is important that a proper balance is stricken between hope and fear, anticipation and despair. After all, the hope of renewal – the promise of exercising creative agency among the electorate – is an important ingredient of a healthy electoral democracy.
What attends Election 2015 in Ethiopia? Two areas of the public life of Ethiopia must be considered in order to map the electoral mood, namely the civic-political space for active citizens who can engage in politics on the one hand and the ‘nature’ of the state and its relation with the society on the other.
2.1 Civic-Political Space in Decline
The civic-political space has been a subject of controversy, especially since the 2005 election, the election that revealed not only the outer limits of the public sphere but also the foundational cracks in the State form in Ethiopia. In the wake of the 2005 election, the regime started to stiffen the rules of procedure in the parliament thereby limiting the discursive space even within the EPRDF-dominated parliament. That was followed by a raft of legislations on the civic/public space available for dissent, or its discursive and institutional articulation. These legislations constrained freedoms that are instrumental for, and constitutive of, democracy at a time. The Freedom of Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation (Proclamation N0. 590/2008), the Anti-terrorism Proclamation (Proclamation No. 652/2009), and the Charities and Societies Proclamation (Proclamation No. 621.2009) were the three major legislative acts deployed by the Ethiopian government to (re)occupy the already limited space for political dissent and consequent pluralism. These laws, for all their preambular commitment to expand and implement constitutional right to freedom of expression, press and association rationalized and perfected the pre-existing streak noticed in the regime’s intolerance of expressed dissent. Self-censorship has become a way of being, a way of life, among journalists and other writers as a result. The prohibitive punishment/fines in the media and press laws and the expansion of the anti-terrorism law to press products (art 6 of Proc. 652/2009) [vi] have effectively muted an overt criticism. The extensive use of surveillance [vii], the blocking of several websites (perceived to be in opposition to the regime in power), jamming of other press/media outlets has contributed to the increasing undermining of the expression of robust dissent.
The challenge of financial self-sustenance faced by civil society organizations working on causes related to human rights, democracy, and conflict, among otbers, owing to the prohibition of external funding above the 10 % maximum has not only forced such bodies to close or re-organize themselves as purely humanitarian organizations or relocate themselves as foreign or ‘resident’ NGOs, it also severely limited their voice as an alternative articulation of socio-economic challenges of the people from the perspective of daily lived experience [viii]. The government increasingly became the only source of information on vital socio-economic and political issues of various sectors of the society.
The invocation of the anti-terrorism law for trivial reasons such as having a contact with foreign journalists, international non-governmental human rights organizations (such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch), or foreign diplomats and embassies has effectively smothered people into watching their contacts and relationships. People feel that their relationships and exchanges (physical and electronic) are monitored. The invocation of the anti-terrorism law in relation to the Muslim activists protesting government intervention in religious affairs [ix]and the ‘Zone 9’ [x] bloggers and journalists jailed and currently standing trial has unveiled to us how the law can be strategically deployed against those the government perceives as opponents. This and other cases have shown the extent to which one can freely and peacefully express dissent without harassment, intimidation, and the terror of standing trial under the anti-terrorism law.

The pattern of government denial of the right of assembly and peaceful political demonstrations, especially when organized by political groupings perceived as fierce opponents of the regime (such as the Semayawi Party), selective permission of such meetings to factions of parties the government seeks to weaken (e.g. the faction within Unity for Democracy and Justice, UDJ), denial of meetings even within the premises of private organizations such as hotels to some groups (e.g. UDJ at the Imperial Hotel, 2009), the constant outlawing of meetings and demonstrations by unreasonably exploiting the “notification” duty under the Freedom of Assembly Proclamation (Proclamation No-3/1991) – where the duty to notify the municipality is interpreted as the duty to seek and secure prior permission – have all contributed to the practical stifling of freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration. Through this strategy – and the rhetoric of averting “street action” and “color revolutions” [xi] – the government has effectively silenced political protest to its decisions, policies, and laws. This in turn has weakened and subverted participatory democracy envisaged in the constitution (art 8(3)). In practice, such violation of the right to assembly and peaceful demonstration has been repeatedly witnessed in the Muslim protest to the government’s unconstitutional intervention in the choice of leadership of, and doctrines for, the Muslim population (since 2011).
Freedom of association of political parties has repeatedly been violated in the process of political party registration by the NEBE. The recent intervention by the NEBE to ‘recognize’ the leadership of factions within the UDJ and the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP) is not only meddling with the internal issues of political parties, but also unconstitutionally limiting the freedom of association of members and their right to a choice of the leaders they deem fit to lead them.
Apart from this, one can say that there is a healthy ‘electoral climate’ only when – in addition to the right to vote and be elected – citizens have the right to administrative justice, i.e., the right of access to justice in a free, fair, and impartial court or tribunal, in the event that these rights are violated or threatened. The voter intimidation historically observed in the process of voter-registration by the kebeles (often suggesting possible deprivation of vital social and public services sought from local offices) are violative of the very basic political rights that are constitutive of the very essence of democratic practice. At times such intimidations tend to forget that their right to elect includes the freedom not to vote. They forget that in Ethiopia, voting is a right, not a duty.
The enhanced developmentalist gestures of the incumbent which views individual civil and political rights as less important in the face of the colossal “war on poverty”; the unabashed emphasis on growth (even in the Growth and Transformation Plan, GTP); its increasing turning away from its ‘original’ (1991) commitment to liberal policies (also charted out in the constitution); its continued neglect, or deliberate weakening, and strategic and manipulative use of democratic institutions (i.e., institutions of representation [House of Peoples’ Representatives, HPR, and House of Federation, HOF], empowerment [NEBE, Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Ombudsman], and of accountability and monitoring [e.g. the judiciary, Anti-corruption Commission, Auditor General] are not helping to create an environment conducive for a free and fair election. To that extent, there are complaints, grumblings, and disaffection among most of the opposition political actors who have a stake in the election. So, the rules and rulings around the process suggest that the mood is less than ideal. But a more complete account of the mood is revealed only when we examine the contradictions that come from the state form in Ethiopia. In the next sub-section [which will come in the form of a second instalment in this series of reflection around Elections 2015], I will turn to considering these contradictions that emanate from the state form and the constraints they impose on electoral democracy.

Endnote

*Tsegaye R Ararssa is a Constitutional lawyer currently in the process of completing his PhD studies at the University of Melbourne Law School. He can be contacted at tsegayer@gmail.com.

[1] The Transitional Charter of July 1991 starts with recognition of the supreme importance of the UDHR, especially civil and political rights such as freedom of expression, assembly, association. It explicitly made assertions about the need for comprehensive restructuring of the state by ensuring equality and sovereignty of the ‘nations, nationalities, and peoples” of Ethiopia and by foregrounding the right to self-determination as an organizing principle. It was negotiated principally among ethno-national liberation fronts (most centrally TPLF, OLF, EPLF but also others) who referred to themselves as “the peace-loving forces of Ethiopia”. See, Provisional Government of Ethiopia, ‘Transitional Period Charter,’ Negarit Gazetta, Proclamation No. 1/1991.

[2] Art 39 (1-3) entitles every “nation, nationality, and people” to the right to political, cultural, and economic self-determination.

[3] EPRDF was quick to work on disarming the army of the Derg and the fighters of the other liberation fronts that negotiated the Transition with it. It also proclaimed its TPLF fighters to serve as the Ethiopian Defence Force of the transitional period. The demobilization of some of the soldiers came later after the formal inauguration of the FDRE as per the Constitution. It is interesting that the first government-like institution set up everywhere immediately after the arrival of EPRDF on the scene was the “Peace and Stability Committees”. Most meetings it held in its attempt to build rapport with the people was invariably called “Peace and Democracy Conference”. The people who negotiated the Transitional Charter referred to themselves as “the peace Loving Forces of Ethiopia.” There was a rhetoric that privileged peace even in the leaders’ speeches/interviews on why relinquish Ethiopia’s right/interest over Eritrea without a fight. The climactic moment in this series of peace-venerating rhetoric came when a line is inserted even in the preamble of the FDRE Constitution to the effect that the constitution-makers are “determined to consolidate, as a lasting legacy, the peace and the prospect of a democratic order…” This flourish in rhetoric never matched with reality. The fact that TPLF’s army became the State’s national army and substantially remained to be so to date indicates not only the partisan nature of the army but also the fundamentally militarized nature of EPRDF’s politics that keeps a politicized guerilla fighters for a national army. Obviously, the needed separation of politics from (military) force in a democracy is absent in Ethiopia.

[4] The NEBE made a blunder around the election of the leadership of the All Ethiopian Unity p party (AEUP), the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ).

[5] Some candidates of parties such as the UDJ and Semayawi (notably its leader Engineer Getinet Yilikal) were excluded allegedly because of the overcrowding of candidates that are running for elections in one electoral district.

[vi] Art 6 entitled “Encouragement of terrorism” reads as follows: “Whoever publishes or causes the publication of a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public to whom it is published as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission or preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism stipulated under article 3 of this proclamation is punishable with rigorous imprisonment from 10 to 20 years.” This article has been almost routinely (ab) used to arrest persons who run photocopy shops both in Addis Ababa and other towns.

[vii] Claire Lauterbach, “Ethiopia expands surveillance capacity with German tech via Lebanon” (23 March 2015). https://www.privacyinternational.org/?q=node%2F546

[viii] The law on Charities and Societies limits the amount of foreign money that goes into the budget of an Ethiopian (activist) NGO to a maximum of 10 % of the total. The reason given is to limit an external influence on the local organization’s agenda of promoting human rights, democracy, peace and security, etc. In principle, the argument goes, these issues of governance are a matter under the sovereign jurisdiction of the government of Ethiopia and are not items to be shaped by financing external forces. In order to get more funding, one should be registered as a ‘resident’ or a foreign/international NGO who, if it seeks to work on issues of political governance (e.g. elections, democracy, human rights, conflict resolution, constitutionalism and rule of law, prisons, access to justice, minorities etc), should get a specific permission from the government. This has made it necessary for many of the NGOs to recast the focus of their work shifting mostly from human rights to humanitarian causes and their approach from human rights based approach (HRBA) to needs-based approach (NBA).

[ix] The Muslim activists have been protesting peacefully against the government’s interference in their religious affairs. They particularly called on the government to desist from assigning teachers and determining the content of the teachings to be delivered in Mosques. They also sought to exercise their right to select their own religious leaders without any influence by the government. After the arrest and indictment of the leaders of these protests (and those government claims are associated with them), the protestors continued to demonstrate demanding the release of their leaders. Their peaceful protest has been met by a series of violence, arrests, and various forms of intimidation by the government’s police and security forces. The arrested leaders have been tried for terrorism since. Their case has gone has been debated before regular and constitutional tribunals (CCI/HOF) and is even presented to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Muslim protestors relentlessly insisted on a peaceful resistance throughout; when they are unlawfully forced to face trial, they tried to exhaust all the possible legal remedies both national and international with a hope that the government will have no excuse in accusing them of any form of violence let alone terrorism. By so doing, they are in effect putting the entire system on trial.

[x] In March 2014, six bloggers (whose blog is known as Zone 9) and three journalists were suddenly arrested and are now being tried for terrorism.

[xi] The term “Color Revolution” is often mockingly used in Ethiopia to invoke the memory of the Rose Revolution (of Georgia) and Orange Revolution (of Ukraine) and deny their possibility in Ethiopia. It is also used by EPRDF to suggest that, unlike the regimes in Georgia and Ukraine, they are too strong to be unseated by such street actions and unarmed/civilian struggles

http://addisstandard.com/elections-in-ethiopia-beyond-winning-and-losing-2/

The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) & Medrek Continue Campaigns in Oromia, the South and Elsewhere Despite Harassment by Ethiopian TPLF Regime May 12, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Ambo, Oromo News, Oromummaa, Sham elections.
Tags: Africa, Africa's cheetahs versus hippo, African Studies, Against Tyranny, Ethiopia's sham elections, Oromo Federalist Congress, Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) Criss-crossing Oromia with Huge Turnouts at Campaign Rallies, Oromos in Ambo defied TPLF’s ban of Oromo’s freedom of assembly
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Wayyaaneen Tarkaanfi Abdi Kutannaa itti fuftee

Caamsaa 12 bara 2015 yeroo 2ffaaf kadhimamaa KFO kan ta’e Ob. ‪#‎Geetuu‬ Dhaadhii kabnoota fi hidhatoota OPDOtin Aanaa Warra Jaarsoo ganda Bobee Liban keessatti odoo duula filannoo gaggeessaa jiru sa’atii 6:30 irratti reebicha sukkaneessaa irratti raawwatamee! Miseensota keenya 1 Ob Salamoon Jimaa 2 Ob Tufaa Hundee kan jedhamanis reebicha cimaa irraan gahaniiru ! Gochaa kana kan qindeesse immoo kaabnee opdo kan ta’e Ob Iyyaasuu Gammadaa ta’un isaa bubatameera ! Akka waliigalatti dulaa filannoo Aanaa kanatti gageessuu hin dandeenyee. Haalumaa wal fakkaatun, Garee KFO kan gara Wollaggaatti bobba’an ilaalchisee humni woraana Woyyaanee tarkaaffii humna irratti fudhachuudhaan midhaa irraan ga’uun himameet ture. Garee gara Wollaggaatti bobba’e kana keessa 1. Ittii aanaa dursaa dura taa’aa (the first vice chairman) Baqqalaa Garbaa 2. Itti-aanaa paartii Ob Mulaatuu Gammachuu 3. Barreessaa Liigii Dargaggootaa Darajjee Margaa fi 4. Gazeexessaa Badhaasaa Hayiluu kan keessatti argaman yeroo Naqamte dhaqqanan a) woraanni woyyaanee fi poolisoonni federaalaa magaala keessatti bobba’uudhaan akka uummanni wolgayii hin baane Daandii cufanis uummanni reebichaa isaanii osoo hin sodaatin cabsee wolgayiirratti baayyinnaan argame. B) uummanni baayyinnaan hirmaachuu barraan ammoo videon akka hin woraabbamne video gazeexessa Badhaasaa Hayiluurraa saamuudhaaf yaalanis kunis hin milkoofneef. KFOn kora ajaa’baa kan uummanni 40,000 ol itti hirmaate jedhamee tilmaamamu gaggeesse. C) jila KFO kanaaf siree akka hin kireessine ajaja dabarsanis barbaasaa yeroo dheeraa booda siree qabataniiran. D) Kanaan milkaawuu dadhabnaan ammoo dargaggoo Darajjee Margaa fi gazeexessaa Badhaasaa Hailuu bakka isaan siree qabatamatti deemuudhaan meeshaa woraanaa qabdu / meeshaa barbaanna sababa jedhuun daree isaan kireeffatan keessaa baasuudhaan sakattaa irratti gaggeessan. Garuu womaa hin arganne. E) Gochi sossodaachisaa Kun sabboontota keenna duubatti hin deebifne. Daran qabsoo DNF finiinsuudhaan Gimbiirrattille kora aja’ibaa gaggeessuun himameera. Wayyaaneen hawaasaa Oromoo ofitti kaakafti malee qabsoo keenyaa duubatti hin deebiftu jedha KFOn. Isin hoo maal jettu? Source: Social media network

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/omn-oduu-caamsaa-11-2015/

Ummanni Aanaa Midaa Qanyii Godina Lixa Shaggar,Gita Bittuu Mootummaa TPLF Jalatti Hin Bullu Jechuun Gamtaan Diddaa Dahgeessisan,Barattooti Oromoo 7 Ol Ta’anis Mana Hidhaatti Darbamuu Qeerroon Gabaase

Gabaasa Qeerroo Aanaa Midhaa Qanyii

Caamsaa 9,2015 Godina Lixa Shaggar Aanaa Midaa Qanyitti uummatni Oromoo gita bittaa mmootummaa Wayyaanee Abbaa irree EPRDF/TPLF/ jalatti hin bulluu jechuun mormii isa jabeesse, Mootummaan Wayyaanee Qeerroo barattoota Oromoo qabee hidhaatti darbuun dararuu itti fufe.
Goototni barattootni Oromoo Aanaa Midaa Qanyii M/B Baallammii sadarkaa 2ffaa fi qopha’ina Oromummaan yakkamanii wajjiraa Poolisii Aanaa Midaa qanyiitti humna poolisaan qabamanii darbamuun dararama jiraachuun walqabatee diddaan uummata qonnaan bultoota haalan jabachuun dabbaalloota wayyaanee EPRDF/TPLF/OPDO gandoota baadiyaa keessa adeemuun nu filadhaa jechuun maqaa filannoo kijibaan uummata afaan faajjeessuuf walga’ii garaagaraa uummata baasuuf karoorfatan, uummatni mormii guddaan jaladhabbachuun f irraa arii’achaa jira.

Uummatni Aanaa Midaa Qanyii ifatti wayyaaneedhaan isin nu hin bulchitan nuti isinitti hin bullu, uummata Oromoos OPDO’n bakka bu’uu hin dandeessuu, nuti bilisummaa fi dimookiraasii dhugaa barbaadna jechuun dabballoota OPDO of irraa arii’ate jira. Ergamtootni Wayyaanee diddaa uummataa nu mudachaa jiru kanaaf sababaan guddaan Qeerroo barattoota Oromooti jechuu barattoota Oromoo dararuu fi hidhatti darbuu itti fufte jiraachuun ibsame.

Haaluma kanaan Qeerroon barattootni Oromoo badii tokko malee yeroo amma kanatti hidhatti darbamuun dararama jiran:
1. Barataa Addunyaa Birhaanuu barataa kutaa 9ffaa
2. Barataa Boruu Badhoo
3. Barataa Fayisaa Badhoo
4. Barataa Guutaa Girshaa
5. Barataa kuubaa Taakkalaa
6. Barataa Taarikuu Gusoo
7. Barataa Haptamuu Haptaamuu Caalchisaakanneen keessatti argaman
yeroo ta’u. Barattooti kuniswajjira poolisii Aanaa Midaa qanyii Baallammiitti hidhamuu madden Qeerroo Baallammii irraa gabaasan. Ummatni Oromoo hidhaa fi ajjeechaa, barnoota irraa arii’atamuu fi Oromummaan yakkamuun dimookiraasii miti, Mootummaan maqaa dimookiraasii jedhuun lafa dimookiraasiin hin jirreetti mirga keenyaa ukkamsaa na filadhaa jechaa jiruu dhaabuun yakka dalagaa jiruuf seeratti nuuf dhiyaachuu qaba jechuun kaabinoota ergamtuu wayyaanee uummata goolaa jirtu gaaffiin mataa hadoochaa jirachuun ibsame jira.

http://qeerroo.org/2015/05/11/ummanni-aanaa-midaa-qanyii-godina-lixa-shaggargita-bittuu-mootummaa-tplf-jalatti-hin-bullu-jechuun-gamtaan-diddaa-dahgeessisanbarattooti-oromoo-7-ol-taanis-mana-hidhaatti-darbamuu-qeerroon/

The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek) campaigning: Dambi Doolloo, Oromia, 12 May 2015.

Caamsaa 12 bara 2015, Magaalaani ‪Dambi Dolloo‬ akka waan bakkalchii biliisummaa irrattii bateetti callaqqiftee cululuqaa ooltee. Angaasuu KFO abbaa quba shani waliin. Uummataa kana hundatuu magaala kana keessa jira jechuun namatti ulfaata. Dargaggoo, shamarran, jaarsa jaarti tokkichi manatti hin hafne. Dhadannoofi sirbaan deeggarsa KFOf qaban ibsachuun diina Oromoo afaan qabachiisan. Akkasi ijoollee Dambi!
Viva Dambi Dolloo! Viva KFO!

Aangawoonni Tika Mootummaa Wayyaanee(TPLF) Magaalaa Naqamtee Keessatti Walgahuun Akkaataa Uummata Oromoo Shiraan Miidhan Irratti Marihachuun Isaanii Saaxilame.

Caamsaa 11,2015 Gabaasa Qeerroo Naqamte

Wayyaaneen filmaata sobaa dhufutti uummati Oromoo narratti ka’a sodaa jedhuun kan baarage guyyaa har’aa Caamsaa 11,2015 sa’aatii saddeetii hanga kudhaniitti barattoonni Yuunivarsiitii Wallaggaa FDG narratti qindeessu sodaa jedhuun deeppoo magaalaa Naqamteetti argamu keessatti wal ga’ii caasaa basaastotaa geggeesse.

Qaamni Qeerroo caasaa mootummaa keessaa fi kan magaalaa Naqamtee icciitii fi ijoo marii tikoota Wayyaanee kana akka saaxiletti, namooti lama man maqaan isaanii Yohaannis Abebee fi Beekkataa fi akkasumas barattoota keessaa basaasaa beekamaan Yuunibarsiitii Wallaggaa nama Tsaggaa Ashaabbir jedhamu ta’anii namooti shan waltajjicha kan geggeessan yeroo ta’u, walgahicha irratti kan akeekamee fi irratti mariyatamee kan murtaaye ukkamsitooti fi humni federaalaa uuffata sivilii uffatee uummata basaasus magaalaa Naqamtee fi Yuuniversitiilee irra akka tamsa’u irratti ta’uu Qeerroon saaxilee jira.

Kanuma waliin kaayyoon ijoon biro naannoo Yuunivarsiitichatti walga’uus barattoota Mootummaa Wayyaanee TPLF irratti FDG kaasan ykn falmaniin akkaataa itti adamsanii uummati Oromoo utuu hin dhaga’in barattoota ukkamsanii fi kanneen jajjaboon hawaasa magaalaatiin qunnamtii qaban hidhamuu qaban,kana malees yaada barattootaa qoranii ilaaluu fi FDG(Gaaffii Mirgaa) yeroo hunda tasgabbeessuu dadhabameef kallatti maddichaa qoranii ilaaluuf akka mariirra turaniif dhumarratti eegumsa guddaa naannoo dhaabbilee barnootaatti akka taasisan irratti waliigaluu waltajji kana Warren hirmaatan ibsaniiru.http://qeerroo.org/2015/05/11/aangawoonni-tika-mootummaa-wayyaaneetplf-magaalaa-naqamtee-keessatti-walgahuun-akkaataa-uummata-oromoo-shiraan-miidhan-irratti-marihachuun-isaanii-saaxilame/

The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek) campaigning for the upcoming General Election (scheduled to be held on May 24, 2015) has continued in the State of Oromia. On Saturday, May 9, 2015, elder statesman Bulcha Demeksa and OFC Chairman Dr. Merera Gudina were in Naqamtee and Shashamane, respectively, to campaign for OFC with an unprecedented huge turnout at each location.

Naqamte Gadaa Otaa

Shashe Town

Over the last several weeks, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) has been criss-crossing Oromia to campaign for the upcoming General Election on May 24, 2015; despite intimidation and harassment of voters as well as candidates by the TPLF regime (as reported here: http://wp.me/p4JW8b-3d5), there has been a huge turnout at each campaign rally, including Ambo (as reported here: http://wp.me/p4JW8b-375)

Here are some photos from Adama (dated May 8, 2015), and Ginchi and Gedo from the last week.

UPDATED (May 9, 2015): The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek) campaigning for the upcoming General Election (scheduled to be held on May 24, 2015) has continued in the State of Oromia. On Saturday, May 9, 2015, elder statesman Bulcha Demeksa and OFC Chairman Dr. Merera Gudina were in Naqamtee and Shashamane, respectively, to campaign for OFC with an unprecedented huge turnout at each location.

UPDATED (May 11, 2015): The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC/Medrek) campaign tour has continued in small and big towns in Oromia. Most recently, the campaign train made a stop at Dodola in central Oromia; yet again, the OFC rally drew a crowd of thousands of potential voters, who braved the constant harassment and intimidation of Ethiopia’s TPLF regime to express their solidarity with OFC/Medrek. It is to be noted that Dr. Beyene Petros of the Ethiopian Social Democratic Party (ESDP/Medrek) revealed once again the ongoing abuses by the TPLF regime on Medrek voters and candidates, as reported by OMN over the weekend: https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/05/amharic-news-may-9-2015/

http://https://youtu.be/sQY_V1Oxtbg

Dr. Beyene Petros of the Ethiopian Social Democratic Party (ESDP)/Medrek speaks about the unprecedented levels of intimidation and harassment his organization’s candidates are facing ahead of the May 2015 General Election (April 2015)

https://youtu.be/XJRvKxW7aPU

Africa Rising: From Burkina Faso to Burundi, Africa’s Cheetah Generation rises against corrupt and failed rule. #TPLF. #Ethiopia May 12, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Corruption in Africa, Dictatorship.
Tags: Africa, Africa Rising, African Studies, Against Tyranny, Ambo, Burkina Faso, Burundi, George Ayittey, George Ayittey: Africa's cheetahs versus hippo, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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The greatest crisis facing Africa is a leadership crisis in all areas of people activity.In terms of natural resources, Africa is the world’s richest continent. It has 50% of the world’s gold, most of the world’s diamonds and chromium, 90% of the cobalt, 40% of the world’s potential hydroelectric power, 65% of the manganese, millions of acres of untilled farmland, as well as other natural resources. Yet, despite this vast resource the bulk of African people live as if they were citzens of deserts. Despite being home to millions of skilled and talented innovators, African leadership struggles to stimulate and retain it strongest resource — the people: They either live in unnecessary frustration, hopelessness and poverty, die of preventable disease, or run to the West to gain appreciation. The greatest crisis in Africa is not due to HIV, religion, or famine, or even war. Because all of those things are tied to leadership in some capacity. The failure to produce an African brand from the billions of tons of raw material Africa exports to the West, is primarily due to the Faustian, myopic, selfish, backward type of non-progressive leaders who are planted as candidates in post-colonial empires. Top traits are either naive, vision-less, proxy implants, opportunistic/parasitic and totally compromised.

– African Holocaust Society

http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/africanleadership.html

“The Cheetah Generation refers to the new and angry generation of young African graduates and professionals, who look at African issues and problems from a totally different and unique perspective. They are dynamic, intellectually agile, and pragmatic. They may be the ‘restless generation’ but they are Africa’s new hope. They understand and stress transparency, accountability, human rights, and good governance. They also know that many of their current leaders are hopelessly corrupt and that their governments are contumaciously dysfunctional and commit flagitious human rights violations.” George Ayittey, the distingushed Ghanaian economist.

http://theafricaneconomist.com/ethiopia-2013-year-of-the-cheetah-generation/#.VVHnoI5Viko

From Burkina Faso to Burundi, jobless young Africans rise against corrupt and failed rule

Pauline Bax, Bloomberg

TALL ORDER: An extra 450 million jobs need to be created in the next 20 years to match expansion in the number of working-age people in the region.

Young people without opportunities are getting angry all over Africa - and there are hundreds of millions of them. (Photo/AFP). — *Young people without opportunities are getting angry all over Africa – and there are hundreds of millions of them. (Photo/AFP).*

PROTESTS from Burkina Faso to Burundi have been sparked by youthful populations with little hope of employment and by leaders who have in some cases ruled for decades.

The discontent, which began in Burkina Faso in October, spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in January, and has now crossed the continent to Burundi, prompting regional leaders to call an emergency meeting after two weeks of protests and at least 14 deaths. Mass demonstrations in Burkina Faso ended Blaise Compaore’s 27 years in power.

“Underpinning a lot of these protests is anger about stalled development, rising food prices and cutting fuel subsidies,” Clive Gabay, an expert on African politics at the Queen Mary University of London, said. “You have this youthful, unemployed population that has been sidelined.”

While sub-Saharan Africa has grown faster than every region except developing Asia in the past 10 years, there aren’t enough jobs for the 1 billion people on the continent. An extra 450 million jobs need to be created in the next 20 years to match the expansion in the number of working-age people in the region, the International Monetary Fund said last month.

About 40% of people in Africa are under 15 years old, the most of any region, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The unemployment rate for people 15 to 25 years old living in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, is three times higher than the rest of the working population, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Rwanda President Paul Kagame has warned that the violence in neighbouring Burundi threatens stability in East Africa. Youth have led two weeks of protests to prevent President Pierre Nkurunziza from seeking a third term in office next month. The Constitutional Court approved his request, despite the opposition claiming it violates a 15-year-old peace agreement that sets a two-term limit.

Protest risk

The nations that will likely watch closely what happens in Burundi are those with elections scheduled in the next two years, Yolande Bouka, a researcher on conflict prevention at the Institute for Security Studies in Johannesburg, said. Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania and Uganda all have polls during that period.

There is “serious discontent with the type of governance offered by the leaders,” Bouka said. Given the large youth population and unemployment rate “it is not surprising that people take the street to address unresponsive government.”

Burundi ranks eighth-lowest on the United Nations Human Development Index, which measures indicators such as income, child mortality and education. Congo is second-to-last on the 190-member list.

“In many countries it’s a risky thing to go on a protest and you’re not going to risk getting arrested or shot unless there’s something real at stake,” Gabay said. “There’s something else that’s propelling people onto the street and for me they’re economic issues.”

https://magic.piktochart.com/embed/6055699-africa-bombUsing social media like Twitter and Facebook, young activists can mobilise faster than in years gone by and can collaborate across borders. The movements in Congo and Burkina Faso draw inspiration from Senegalese artists, who began protests in 2011 against power outages. The Senegalese movement was key in mobilising youth to vote President Abdoulaye Wade, who had ruled for 12 years, out of power a year later.

Demonstrations erupted in Congo in January when lawmakers tried to change electoral laws in a way that could have delayed elections. That would have extended the 14-year rule of President Joseph Kabila, who took over when his father was assassinated in 2001.

Congolese activists met with artists and musicians from Senegal and Burkina Faso in March. The police arrested them in the Congolese capital and accused them of “promoting violence.” Kabila, who faced criticism from Human Rights Watch, said he will not run for office next year.

Presidents for life

While there are countries in sub-Saharan Africa with leaders who have been in power for more than three decades, including Zimbabwe, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, political opposition there says they are suppressed.

Rwanda’s Kagame, who has been president since 2000, also hasn’t faced popular opposition as he says he is open to staying another term. Parliament is reviewing a petition signed by 2 million people who support changing the constitution to allow for a third term.

“African people are tired of presidents who aren’t delivering to their people and they’re tired of presidents who want to stay for life,” Thierry Vircoulon, Central Africa director for the International Crisis Group, said by phone. “There’s a sort of exasperation because governments aren’t delivering.”

-With assistance from David Malingha Doya in Nairobi and Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa.

http://m.mgafrica.com/article/2015-05-11-from-burkina-to-burundi-jobless-young-africans-rise-against-corrupt-and-failed-rule#.VVHSKY5Vikp

Viva Oromia: Oromo Students at St Could State University May 12, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Meroetic Oromo, Viva Oromia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Oromo people, Oromo Student at St Could State University, Oromummaa, Viva Oromia
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http://https://youtu.be/vLtYO5X7FbI

http://https://youtu.be/MdcaKL16hV8

Urgent Appeal on Behalf of Oromo Refugees Stranded in Yemen May 11, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Oromo the Largest Nation of Africa. Human Rights violations and Genocide against the Oromo people in Ethiopia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Genocide against the Oromo, Macha & Tulama Association, Macha-Tulama-USA: Urgent Letter to UNHCR About Conditions of Refugees, Open letter to UNHCR from the Oromo Community Services of Seattle, Oromo refugees in Yemen
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The following is a statement from the Oromo Community of Minnesota.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
94 rue de Montbrillant
Geneva, Switzerland

Subject: Urgent Appeal on Behalf of Oromo Refugees Stranded in Yemen

The Oromo Community of Minnesota (OCM) is sending an urgent appeal to all governmental, non-governmental and UN humanitarian agencies, on behalf of Oromo refugees stranded in Yemen due to the ongoing fighting in that country.

The Oromo in Minnesota, the largest Oromo community outside East Africa, is following the plight of refugees in Yemen with great trepidation. Our compatriots make the difficult decision to flee from their beloved homeland due to rampant and persistent persecution by successive Ethiopian regimes. Their choices are either to stay in their country and remain silent over the daily injustices or speak up and get sent to prisons for the simple reason of asserting their inalienable rights; dare to oppose violations of human rights and face disappearance, long incarceration without trial, and extra-judicially killings simply because, to use the words of Amnesty international’s recent report, they are Oromo.

These refugees had to cross through harsh environments to get to the Gulf of Aden and then board overcrowded boats. They took these risky steps to escape more serious dangers at home. As the situation in Yemen deteriorates, most of the Yemenis have moved out to the relative safety of the countryside, while other refugees have left to other countries. The only helpless ones still stranded in urban centers are Oromo refugees. We are gravely concerned for their safety.

Our urgent appeal is for the protection of their critically endangered lives based on humanitarian grounds and their evacuation to a safer country. We humbly request that repatriation to Ethiopia not be an option as they are going to face persecution by the Ethiopian government, which is what drove them to make the excruciating choice of becoming refugees in the first place.

Therefore, the Oromo Community of Minnesota is appealing to all humanitarian agencies and all individuals of goodwill to do all things in their means to assist our brothers and sisters caught up in the present tragic situation in Yemen. Our community is ready and on standby to cooperate with humanitarian agencies in their concerted efforts to save the lives of our people.

Sincerely,

The Oromo Community of Minnesota

CC:
– International Organization for Migration
– International Red Cross and Crescent Societies
– American Refugee Committee
– European Union
– US Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
– American Red Cross Society
– MN Congressional Delegation
– Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton

https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/letter-to-un-from-oromo-community-in-seattle-on-plight-of-refugees-in-yemen-open-letter-to-unhcr-from-the-oromo-community-services-of-seattle-ocss-oromia-africa-un/

AU urges African leaders to handover power peacefully. #Africa May 10, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Sham elections.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Ethiopia's sham elections, Governance issues, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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‘My Home, My Land’- Land Grabs and Development Lies. #Africa. #Oromia May 7, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Land Grabs in Oromia, Omo Valley.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Because I am Oromo, Genocide against the Oromo, land and water grabs in Oromia, Land grabbing, Land grabs in Africa, Omo Valley
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My Home, My Land

My Home, My Land is a graphic representation of much of the Oakland Institute’s work on land grabs. Illustrated by the Institute’s Intern Scholar, Abner Hauge, this publication dismantles the many myths promoted by so-called donor countries, development agencies, and corporations about the positive effects of foreign direct investments through large-scale land acquisitions.

Over the past seven years, the Oakland Institute has exposed the actual impact of the land grabs on indigenous, pastoralist, and smallholder farming families around the world. The powerful illustrations of My Home, My Land remind us of the beauty and complexity of the world’s ecosystems and indigenous cultures, and call upon us to take action now to stop exploitative land grabs internationally. My Home, My Land

http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/my-home-my-land

Voices: Traveling to Africa? Think twice about using the word ‘tribe’ By McKenzie Powell, Ohio University May 7, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, African American, Ancient African Direct Democracy, Ancient Rock paintings in Oromia, Chiekh Anta Diop, Muscians and the Performance Of Oromo Nationalism, Oromo, Oromo Nation.
Tags: Africa, African culture, African Studies, Decolonizing Development, National Self Determination, Oromia, Oromo, Oromo people
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Oromo culture from ancient to present, Irrechaa time

Oromo nation and Gadaa system

Please do not call the Oromo people (the Oromians) a tribe and by extension all African nations and nationalities:

You know Why?

Read the following: What Achebe wrote referring to his Igbo people is equally applicable to the Oromo.

Chinua Achebe the renowned African novelist and poet, the author of Things fall apart, the best known and best selling novel ever in his book Home and exile (Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.3-5) says the following:

“The Igbo people of south eastern Nigeria are more than ten million and must be accounted one of the major peoples of Africa. Conventional practice would call them a tribe, but I no longer follow that convention. I call them a nation. ‘Here we go again!,’ You may be thinking. Well, let me explain. My Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines tribe as follows: ‘group of people (esp. primitive) families or communities linked by social , religious or blood ties and usually having a common culture and dialect and a recognized leader.’ If we apply the different criteria of this definition to Igbo people we will come up with the following results:

a. Igbo people are not primitive; if we were I would not be offering this distinguished lecture, or would I?;

b. Igbo people are not linked by blood ties, although they may share many cultural traits;

c. Igbo people do not speak one dialect; they speak one language which has scores of major and minor dialects;

d. and as for having one recognized leader, Igbo people would regard the absence of such a recognized leader as the very defining principle of their social and political identity.

Therefore, all in all, Igbo people would score very poorly indeed on the Oxford dictionary test for tribe.

My little Oxford dictionary defines nation as, ‘ a community of people of mainly of common descent, history or language, etc, forming a state or inhabiting a territory. This may not be a perfect fit for the Igbo, but it is close. In addition I like it because, unlike the word tribe, which was given to me, nation is not loaded or derogatory, and there is really no good reason to continue answering a derogatory name simply because somebody has given it to you.”

https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/decolonising-developmentthe-political-and-cultural-locations-of-nationalism-and-national-self-determination/

Voices: Traveling to Africa? Think twice about using the word ‘tribe’

By McKenzie Powell, Ohio University

We see the word everywhere: throughout news reports of African struggles, in old films and on the latest television shows. You’ve probably even heard it used in a recent class covering topics related to history or anthropology.

“Tribe” has become a well-known, frequently used word to describe a particular group of people, specifically within a non-Western nation. The word seems to predominantly flood media outlets when an African ethnic group is involved in conflict or famine.

According to the Oxford Dictionaries’ newest definition of the word, a tribe is described as, “A social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.”

But what exactly are we implying when we use the word “tribe?” In an African context, when did this word originate and what words can we use as alternates?

Assan Sarr, assistant professor of history at Ohio University, says the word tribe first began spreading throughout Africa during the Scramble for Africa, or the period of European colonization of the continent.

“For much of Africa it seems that the word tribe became associated with the continent more during the 19th century, which means that it coincided with European imperialism,” Sarr says. “So, for Africans, the use of the word is really wrapped up in colonialism and that is one of the major reasons why Africans, or scholars who work on Africa, do not prefer the use of the term tribe to describe Africans.”

With a powerful history and past, the word “tribe” reflects social theories of the 19th century regarding stages of evolution and primitivism.

Even today, many negative connotations and falsities have continued with the use of the term to describe certain peoples within continents like Africa. The fallacies provoked by this pejorative language can include visuals of ethnic groups as clusters of half naked, barbarous, uncivilized and uneducated individuals with long feathers in their hair or spears in hand.

Definitions of the word also seem to point toward a society that exists outside of the state, one that is simple, small and static, and without the same structure as that which may be found in other complex societies and civilizations.

Sarr says the discrepancies are easily noticeable when comparing a commonly labeled tribal group, such as the Igbo, with that of Flemings, or the Flemish. The Igbo and Flemings are similarly categorized by their language and culture, and the Igbo are actually drastically greater in size — yet only the Igbo are considered a tribe.

“You don’t hear of the Irish tribe, or the Italian tribe, or the Spanish tribe. It’s always the various Arab tribes, or the Indian tribes, or the African tribes and that, for me, is one of the most potent issues that we need to be aware of. Here we are essentializing these people, we’re making them look distinctive,” Sarr says. “You are using it to refer to a group of people that share a certain historical experience, certain cultural traits, a language. This seems to me to be the perfect definition of an ethnic group, so why use the word tribe?”

Americans and Westerners are not the only people using this term, as some Africans refer to themselves as a part of a tribe. However, Sarr says that Africans do not use this word with the same assumptions and implications as those who brought it to the continent in the 19th century, or as those who may use it today in Westernized states.

In fact, as mentioned in Talking About Tribe by Africa Action, when some Africans are taught English, they are told that the correct, recognizable word to describe their ethnic group is “tribe.” In their own language, such as Zulu, the word used to describe their ethnic group actually translates to “people” or “nation.”

People and nation are two alternatives of tribe that can also be used in English to portray these multifaceted groups. Using the term “ethnic group” is also acceptable, or just simply calling them by their names – the Mende, the Wolof, the Hausa and so on.

“If they call themselves Igbo that means that word itself has a cultural meaning that the people themselves can associate with, rather than this foreign concept, this idea, that is used by others to describe them that does not capture all of their complex sets of ideas and histories and relationships,” Sarr says.

Using words like tribe and continuing to view places such as Africa as one place with one culture and one type of people is common, yet very detrimental. It is vital to be conscious of the history of the language we are using, and what our words may be negatively implying or stereotyping.

“How do we talk about Africa in a more intelligent, culturally sensitive, and helpful way? It’s this idea of unpacking all of the things that one acquired and grew up with,” Sarr says. “You have all these assumptions, these Eurocentric views, but once you start unpacking that and seeing that this is not true, then you begin to see some real interesting facts about the world.”

http://college.usatoday.com/2015/05/06/voices-travelling-to-africa-think-twice-about-using-the-word-tribe/

How to Overcome Creativity Roadblocks May 6, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in 10 best Youtube videos, 25 killer Websites that make you cleverer, Africa, Ideas.
Tags: 10 best youtube videos, 25 killer Websites that make you cleverer, How to Overcome Creativity Roadblocks, Ideas
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There’s always going to be space for reading, curating and cheering on others’ work. But there should also be a space for building on it and creating stuff of one’s own. Each of us has something to say, and we have the responsibility and privilege of adding to the discourse. It’s up to us to find and nurture the right balance and feel inspired by—not intimidated by–the work that others do. After all, everything is a remix.

Elections, Ethiopian style. #Africa. #Oromia May 5, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Africa, Sham elections, The Ethiopian government’s systematic repression of independent media, The Tyranny of TPLF Ethiopia.
Tags: Africa, African Studies, Because I am Oromo, Eth, Ethiopia and Internet censorship, Ethiopia's sham elections, The Tyranny of Ethiopia
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Opinion: Elections, Ethiopian style

By Felix Horne, Horn of Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Since the last election, the ruling party has exerted more control and increased its repression of basic liberties.

Dissent of any type, particularly in rural areas, is dealt with harshly. The long-standing 5:1 system of grassroots surveillance – under which one individual is responsible for monitoring the activities of five households – has let local officials clamp down on dissent before it spreads beyond the household level.

This is what an election campaign looks like in Ethiopia, where the ruling coalition took 99.6 percent of parliamentary seats in the last national elections, in 2010.

Jirata, who asked that his real name not be used, is a 19-year-old student who was campaigning for a legally registered opposition party recently, when security officials arrested him.

They told him that he was working for a “terrorist group” that sought to forcibly bring down the government. He was badly beaten over the course of three nights and released on the condition that he end his involvement in politics. He is still limping from his injuries, and he told me he no longer has any interest in getting involved in politics. He says he will vote for the government party “because life is easier that way”.

Jirata was working for an Oromo party, representing an ethnic group long targeted by the government. But as Ethiopians go to the polls in late May, the prospects for opposition parties to fully and fairly campaign are grim.

Since the last election, the ruling party has only exerted more control and increased its widespread repression of basic liberties, including the rights to free expression, assembly, and association.

The courts provide no justice in cases of political importance. While election day is unpredictable, it’s clear that the avenues by which opposition parties can fully function and citizens can engage on political issues are largely closed.

While there are 75 registered opposition groups, several of the largest parties have talked of boycotting the elections because of flawed electoral processes. Challenges with registering candidates, acquiring the funds they are legally entitled to, mobilising their supporters, and keeping their members out of prison have taken their toll.

In short, there is limited space for government critics to play a peaceful and constructive role.

Suppression of non-governmental voices

The Ethiopian media provides little coverage of relevant political issues ahead of the election since what vestiges of independent media existed have largely been eliminated since 2010.

Reporters critical of the government are regularly harassed, threatened and detained. In 2014 alone, over 30 journalists fled Ethiopia and at least six publications were closed down.

Sources providing information to media and human rights groups are regularly targeted. Many diaspora media websites, while heavily politicised, remain blocked in Ethiopia. Journalists must choose between self-censorship, harassment, imprisonment, and exile.

The situation hasn’t been much better for opposition parties that want to organise peaceful protests and rallies ahead of the election. The Semayawi party (Blue Party), for example, is one of the newcomers in Ethiopia’s electoral landscape, and since 2013 has tried to hold regular and peaceful issue-based protests.

Protesters and organisers have frequently been arrested and harassed, their equipment has been confiscated, and permits unfairly denied. One of their leaders is on trial on trumped-up terrorism charges.

The lone opposition parliament member is not running this time due to a split in his party, the Union of Democracy and Justice, in which Ethiopia’s national electoral board played favourites. The net effect is that the government awarded the party name to an offshoot of the party that is more closely aligned to government policies and interests.

No dissent allowed

There are few ways for Ethiopians to peacefully express dissent or to contribute to the national political dialogue. Dissent of any type, particularly in rural areas, is dealt with harshly. The long-standing 5:1 system of grassroots surveillance – under which one individual is responsible for monitoring the activities of five households – has let local officials clamp down on dissent before it spreads beyond the household level.Telephone surveillance is commonplace, and the ongoing trial of a group of bloggers called Zone 9 has resulted in increased self-censorship online.

In short, there is limited space for government critics to play a peaceful and constructive role. The only international observers to the election will be the African Union. The European Union is not sending observers, noting that Ethiopia has not implemented recommendations by previous election observers. As Human Rights Watch documented after the 2010 elections, those who complain about election irregularities risk arrest and harassment.

“If we have an issue with government where do we go?” an Ethiopian who lives in a rural area recently told me, summing it up: “There is no media that will write our story, there are no more organisations that work on issues that the government does not like, if we take to the streets we are arrested, and if we go to their office to question we are called terrorists. If we go to the courts, there is no independence – we go to jail. There are no large opposition parties to vote for in the election, and even if there were, if we vote for them our lives then become very difficult. So what can we do? The elections are just another sign of our repression.”

Felix Horne is a Horn of Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/04/elections-ethiopian-style-150430084220440.html

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