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Consumer prices in Ethiopia increased 10.4 percent year-on-year in August of 2017, following a 9.4 percent increase in July. It is the highest inflation rate since October of 2015 as food prices went up 13.3 percent, above 12.5 percent in July and non-food inflation rose to 7.1 percent from 5.9 percent in July. Inflation Rate in Ethiopia averaged 16.37 percent from 2006 until 2017, reaching an all time high of 64.20 percent in July of 2008 and a record low of -4.10 percent in September of 2009.
In Ethiopia, the inflation rate measures a broad rise or fall in prices that consumers pay for a standard basket of goods. This page provides the latest reported value for – Ethiopia Inflation Rate – plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news. Ethiopia Inflation Rate – actual data, historical chart and calendar of releases – was last updated on September of 2017.
Addis Abeba, September 01/2017 – Intense fighting between the Ethiopian Somali and the Oromo ethnic groups in the eastern Ethiopia has left “more than 30 people”, including “more than a dozen army members”, dead and several others injured, Addis Standard learned.
According to three residents of Mieso town, west Hararghe zone, who contacted Addis Standard late this evening, today’s fighting in and around the town was between several members of local residents and heavily armed members of the “Liyu Police”. “We couldn’t take the killings our men, the raping of our girls and the lootings of our cattle by bandits openly supported by the Liyu Police,” wrote Abdulatif Kererro, a resident of the town in his message. A similar attack has left seven civilians dead last week in Chinakson in east Hararghe and its environs.
The conflict has been going on for several months now. The local say it is aggravated by the presence of members of Ethiopia’s notorious police force, “Liyu Police,” a special paramilitary elite force accused of its close connection to Abdi Mohamoud Omar, president of the Somali regional state in eastern Ethiopia. Members of the “Liyu Police” are often accused of looting, rape and extrajudicial killings of civilians ever since their establishment in April 2007.
Last week, a group of elders who traveled from East Hararghe Zone, Gursum Woreda of the Oromia Regional State to the capital Addis Abeba have called for an end to the “Liyu police anarchy”.
In march 2017 weeks-long cross border incursions by armed militiamen that local say were members of “Liyu Police” into many localities in eastern and southern part of the Oromia regional state, (bordering the Ethiopian Somali regional state in eastern and south eastern Ethiopia) had left more than 100 civilians dead.
It is not clear what trigged the latest conflict. But the Oromia regional state bureau head Addisu blamed the reasons for March’s conflict as “border expansion” and “economic” in nature. The clashes happened after incursions by “armed men” from the Somali regional state into towns and villages administratively under the Oromia regional state.
In April 2017, following several attacks by Liyu police, Abdi Mohamud Omar and Lemma Megerssa, presidents of Somali and Oromia regional states respectively, have signed an agreement to end “border hostilities”. On August 19, the Oromia regional state said that as part of that agreement, of the 68 contested villages between the two regions, 48 have been returned to be under the administration of the Oromia regional state. But the deal doesn’t not seem to hold water.
Today’s heavy clash subsided late this afternoon after the “members of the federal army arrived in the scene”, according to Abdulatif, “but we are not going sit back and see this happen again,” he wrote. AS
Related:-
Oromian EConomist: Six Major National and Regional Unintended Policy Consequences of the Invasion of the Eastern and Southern Oromia by the Somali Liyu Police, i.e., the Somali Janjaweed Militia
On 23 August 2017, a Somali refugee from the Ogaden region, having been living in Mogadishu, Somalia, for three years, was arrested by the regional security of the Galkacyo, Galmudug regional state in central Somalia. Mr Abdikarin Sheikh Muse, also an executive committee member of UNPO Member Ogaden National Liberation Front, was then transferred to Mogadishu and held by the Somali National Security for a few days before being refouled to Ethiopia. This refoulement constitutes a violation of the principles laid out in the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Somalia acceded on 10 October 1978. Ethiopia is known to use torture and intimidation, including by harming members of the family, against its opponents: the transfer of a political refugee by Somalia to Ethiopia therefore disregards his rights to life and freedom and constitutes yet another attempt by Ethiopia to threaten the most vulnerable within its population. The UNPO stands by the ONLF in calling upon the international community to put pressure on Ethiopia to fully respect the rights of Mr Sheikh Muse.
Below is a press release published by the Ogaden National Liberation Front:
The regional security of the Galkacyo, Galmudug regional state in central Somalia detained on August 23, 2017 Mr Abdikarin Sheikh Muse, an Executive committee member of ONLF, who was residing in Mogadishu for the last three years. Mr Abdikarin Sh Muse whole family were wantonly killed by the TPLF led regime of Ethiopia. He went to Galkacyo to bring back his young niece to Mogadishu for medical treatment where he was apprehended and then transferred to Mogadishu and held by NISA, the Somali National Security for few days. The Somali government refused to let relatives of Abdikarin Sh Muse to visit him while claiming that they will release him soon.
After much effort by high level Somali Officers to secure the release Mr Sh. Muse, sources close to the Somali cabinet has informed us that the Somali government has ignored their pleas, and has forcefully handed over Mr Abdikarin Sheikh Muse without his consent to Ethiopia in violation of the principle of non-refoulement laid out in 1951 UN-Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which, in Article 33(1) provides that:
“No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
The Somali government and the current president also violated the Somali constitution which recognises the rights of all Somalis to have the right of abode regardless of which part of the Somali nation they originate.
Thus the Somali government has forcefully transferred a political refuge to Ethiopia which is known to torture and humiliate its opponents.
The direct involvement of both the Somali president and prime minister has been confirmed. It has also been intimated that Mr Abdikarin was sacrificed to Ethiopia in order to get political support from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian ambassador to Somalia who is a close relative of the prime minster and in law to the Somali president played a key role in brokering the deal.
Furthermore, in order to hide their cowardly and immoral act, the Somali regime and the Ethiopian regime resorted to cheap propaganda stunt by claiming that Mr Abdikarin Sh. Muse has an Ethiopian passport and was negotiating with the Ethiopian government by fabricating a false passport from the Ethiopian embassy in Mogadishu and claiming that he was going on his free will to Ethiopia. In addition, stories about Mr Abdikarin’s involvement with Al-shabab was also fabricated in order to get support from external forces. ONLF is a national liberation organisation that struggles for the rights of the Somali people in Ogaden and has no involvement what-so-ever in Somalia’s multifaceted conflict at all.
The current president of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo, and his accomplices, the Prime Minister Mr Hassan Ali Khayre, The National security advisor, Gen. Bashir Mohamed Jamac-Goobe, the Head of NISA Mr. Abdullahi Mohamed Ali “Sanbalolshe” have committed a national crime against the Somali nation and as such will bear the full political and moral consequences of their cowardly act. Mr. Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has set a new black record and vile precedence in the history of the Somali nation by becoming the first president of Somalia to hand over a fellow Somalis to the enemy of the Somali nation- the TPLF regime in Ethiopia. This happening shows that Somalia is still not fully sovereign and is under the suzerainty of the TPLF. TPLF is also the enemy to all the peoples in Ethiopia and the source of instability in Horn of Africa!
ONLF members and the Somali people from Ogaden are not a commodity for sale to the TPLF regime in Ethiopia and Somali patriots in all parts of the Somali nation will make sure that all those involved in this case will be made accountable. ONLF will use all available legitimate means at its disposal to protect its rights and its people.
ONLF thanks and commends the progressive forces in Somali who are busy to regain the respect of the Somali nation and the Republic and encourage them to pursue their noble endeavour
ONLF calls upon:
1. All the Somali people in the Horn of Africa to stand by the side of their brethren and hold accountable all that participated in this heinous act intended to damage the sanctity of the unity of Somali nation;
2. The Somalia parliament to take appropriate action against the failed regime of Mr Farmajo and his accomplices who have violated the trust of the Somali people;
3. The UNHRC, ICRC, HRW and the international community to secure the safety and well-being of Mr Abdi-Karin Sh. Muse and pressure Ethiopia to fully respect his human rights as stated in human rights charter and Geneva conventions;
4. All progressive peoples and organisations in the Horn of Africa and the world to condemn this heinous act.
ONLF thanks and commends the progressive forces in Somalia who are actively engaged in regaining the sovereignty of the Somali Republic and encourage them to continue to pursue their noble endeavour.
ONLF will never be deterred by such a cowardly act and will continue to struggle for the right of the Somali people in Ogaden.
The days of TPLF is numbered and those who ally with them are doomed to fail with them.
Kenya’s supreme court has declared the results of last month’s presidential election invalid and ordered a new vote. Incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta won 54% of the now-nullified vote, defeating opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Chief justice David Maraga said the presidential election held on Aug. 8 “was not conducted in accordance with the constitution… rendering the declared results invalid, null and void.” According to Maraga, the court found “irregularities and illegalities” in the transmission of results. He ordered the electoral commission to hold a fresh presidential election within 60 days.
Cheers outside the courtroom and across Nairobi could be heard, with crowds chanting, “Uhuru must go!”
Odinga, claiming Kenya’s electronic electoral system was hacked to rig the results in favor of Kenyatta, had petitioned the court to examine the election. The electoral commission denied the results were hacked and international observers said they witnessed no signs of manipulation. The court invalidated the election with a majority of five of seven judges. The dissenters, Jackton Ojwang’ and Njoki Ndung’u, said none of the irregularities “occurred deliberately and in bad faith.” The court said it would deliver its full judgment within the next 21 days.
The court’s decision throws Kenya into a state of uncertainty. It’s not clear whether the current members of the electoral commission will need to be replaced. The Nairobi Securities Exchange halted trading for half an hour after an index of its 20 largest companies fell by more than 5%.
Kenya’s sixth election since introducing multi-party democracy in the 1990s, has been marred by widespread public mistrust, fake news, and violence. This is the first time a court has annulled an election in Kenya.
A week before the election, a senior election official was found dead, apparently tortured, outside of Nairobi. After election results were released, police cracked down on protesters in parts of Nairobi and Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold, killing at least 28 Kenyans, including a 10-year old girl and a six-month old baby. Locals and foreign observers worry about a repeat of Kenya’s 2007 election, when disputed results ended in post-election violence that claimed the lives of at least 1,600 people and displaced more than half a million.
Today, Odinga said that the court’s decision was “a first in the history of African democratization.” Odinga, surrounded by supporters in front of the supreme court offices in Nairobi, called the ruling “a triumph for the people of Kenya.” Kenyatta’s lawyer, meanwhile, dismissed the court’s move as a “political decision.”
In other ways, the election was a success. Voter turnout was high, with more than 15 million out of 19.6 million registered voters casting their ballots. Two-thirds of local legislators were voted out, and 25 of 47 governors did not win a second term.
Kenya’s supreme court has declared the results of last month’s presidential election invalid and ordered a new vote. Incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta won 54% of the now-nullified vote, defeating opposition leader Raila Odinga. Chief justice David Maraga said the presidential election held on Aug. 8 “was not conducted in accordance with the constitution… rendering the declared…
Capital Flight? Bank account records of the 56 corruption suspects who run multi-million dollar projects in Ethiopia shows only a balance of few hundreds of dollars.
Bank accounts of corruption suspects who run multi-million dollar projects in Ethiopia shows only few thousands of dollars in balances, according to a source, who said the money might have been sent offshore.
The Ethiopian Satellite Television ESAT learnt that the largest money available in the balances of the over 50 suspects was about 15,000 dollars.
The assets and bank accounts of the suspects have been frozen by the authorities when the crackdown against them began last month.
Fifty six businessmen and government officials have so far been put behind bars accused of squandering and pocketing millions of dollars.
Balances on the bank accounts of Aser Construction shows only about 4,500 dollars. Aser is a share company established by a group of engineers, with the main shareholder being Arkebe Oqubay, a member of the inner circle of the TPLF, who, as a board member of the Ethiopian Airlines, has allegedly awarded Aser millions of dollars contracts for the construction of condominiums and other airport constructions.
The accounts of DMC Construction and Yemane Girmay Construction show about 6,500 dollars. DMC Construction, owned by Daniel Mamo, is allegedly a business partner of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who ESAT’s source said has helped Daniel Mamao get the awards of several construction contracts.
The largest balance was on the accounts of Gemshu Beyene Construction, which also owns the Elilly International Hotel in Kazanchis, a company associated with Abadula Gemeda, the Speaker of the House and Sufian Ahmed, the former minister of finance.
Last week a travel ban was imposed on high level TPLF officials, family members and accomplices suspected of embezzlement, according to ESAT’s sources.
The campaign against corruption did not lay a finger on higher officials of the TPLF who are widely accused of pocketing millions of dollars, casting doubt if the regime is really serious about wiping out corruption. Some believe it was just a show while others say it was an indication of the internal crisis within the TPLF.
Transparency International in its recent report says illicit financial flows continues in 2016 and money from corruption could make it even higher. According to Global financial Integrity, Ethiopia lost US$11.7 Billion in Illegal Capital Flight from 2000 through 2009.
Recent studies by Transparency International also show that Ethiopia is among the top ten African countries by cumulative illicit financial flows related to trade mispricing.
Six Major National and Regional Unintended Policy Consequences of the Invasion of the Eastern and Southern Oromia by the Somali Liyu Police, i.e., the Somali Janjaweed Militia
1. The TPLF/EPRDF government’s arming and creation of well trained and well-armed local militias for smaller ethnic minorities groups like Afar, Somali, Benishangul and few others with the sole purpose of attacking the Oromo and the Amhara; and the disarming of the two major ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara, will have lasting peace and security implication for Ethiopia and the rest of Horn of Africa. The TPLF/EPRDF government will come out of this war as weak, cunning, untrusted and very hated by all Ethiopians.
2. The invasion of Eastern and Southern Oromia by the Somali Liyu Police and the politically calculated passivity by other Ethiopians mainly in Addis Ababa and the Amhara region will send strong signal to the Oromo people that the Ethiopian nationalism and patriotism is dead and the country is on the verge of dismemberment; and the Oromo people will be unlikely to participate in any national self-defense effort under the Ethiopian umbrella from now on be it on the Eritrean front or the Sudan front or even invasion by country’s like Egypt.
3. The Somali Liyu Police invasion of Eastern and Southern Oromia orchestrated and aided by the TPLF/EPRDF and the so called Ethiopian defense force will lead to the breakup of the Ethiopian Defense force along ethnic lines or regiments that will not trust and coordinate with each other. No young Oromo who observe the present actions of those now leading the Ethiopian National Defense Force will ever trust and be loyal to the command structure of the Ethiopian Defense Force since it will be perceived as not having the best interests, mainly the peace and security, of the Oromo people.
4. The Somali Liyu Police invasion of in Eastern and Southern Oromia and its attack on unarmed civilians will lead to regional arms race within Ethiopia where every ethnic group will race to arm itself and establish its own popular self-defense forces against any potential attacks similar to the attack and invasion the Somali militias are conducting daily in Oromia.
5. The Somali Liyu Police invasion and the failure of the Ethiopian Federal government to do anything to defend the unarmed Oromo civilians from attack will send strong signal to the international businesses, development and security partners of Ethiopia that the country is unstable, ripe for sudden ethnic conflicts and civil war which will make it very high-risk country to do business in.
6. The creation of Somali Liyu Police in Ethiopia certainly will trigger Horn of Africa wide regional instability by encouraging the creation of similar armed Somali militia groups in Kenya and Djibouti with similar objectives to accomplish the greater Somalia agenda by seceding the Somali speaking part of Kenya and Djibouti.
Strikes and protests in volatile Oromia state reflect widespread anger over business tax rises as the government tries to reduce its reliance on aid
A vegetable seller at Dessie market in northern Ethiopia. About 80% of the country’s workforce is employed in smallholder agriculture. Photograph: Ivoha/Alamy
Tuesday 29 August 2017 13.33 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 29 August 2017 13.36 BST
In the dense cobblestone streets of Burayu town, outside Addis Ababa, Melaku Abdella* and his family had been making a living selling basic items such as vegetables, cooking oil and soft drinks at competitive prices from their kiosk. But after the Ethiopian government stung him with a more than 300% tax increase last month, Abdella says he was left with no option but to close the business.
Like many low-income traders in the country’s Oromia region, the family didn’t keep accounts, meaning the authorities based their annual tax demand of 7,000 Ethiopian birr (£231) on an estimate of income. “It’s beyond my capacity to pay. I will have to hand in my business licence,” Abdella says.
The hikes on grocers, barbers and cafes were met with widespread anger and protests in parts of the volatile state, which has endured unrest and fatal clashes during the last two years.
The situation creates a dilemma for a government that is desperate to increase income tax and reduce its reliance on aid, but is also wary of further instability. Ethiopia’s parliament only lifted a 10-month state of emergency earlier this month following protests over land disputes and alleged political marginalisation. The unrest since November 2015 involved security forces killing at least 600 demonstrators and tens of thousands being jailed, according to the government.
Although still one of world’s least developed countries, Ethiopia’s economy has grown rapidly in the last decade, as the government used loans, aid and tax revenue to build clinics, universities, roads, railways and hydropower dams. Its budget has increased roughly in line with gross domestic product. Ethiopia’s tax revenue is around 14% of output, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is lower than the sub-Saharan African average. This financial year, almost a third of the federal budget of 321bn birr (£10.6bn) is projected to come from aid and loans.
Ethiopia’s ruling coalition has been credited for overseeing growth and improving infant mortality and life expectancy, but it is also blamed for suppressing democratic rights, maladministration, increasing corruption and, now, the draconian tax swoop.
The root of the dispute is a sizeable semi-formal economic sector – around 80% of the workforce is still employed in smallholder agriculture – entrenched mistrust between the state and traders, and an estimation system for small businesses.
Girls on their way to school, in Goba, Oromia. Photograph: Fis/imagebroker/Rex/Shutterstock
Enterprises with an annual turnover of less than 500,000 birr are not required to produce audited accounts. Instead, officials visit each premise to make an income assessment. That has set up a game of cat-and-mouse with many vendors running down stock in anticipation of the visits. The result has been a large discrepancy between what traders say they earn and what their assessments are based on, even if they made an accurate verbal declaration. “What most people tell the government is too low, so the officials don’t believe anybody. Honesty does not work,” says one Burayu business owner, who also requested anonymity.
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Oromia revenue officers take the estimation and multiply it either by 300 days for goods retailers or 360 days for services to produce a turnover estimate. Profits are calculated by applying a standard margin for each type of business, which is then taxed at marginal rates from 0% for profits of less than 7,200 birr to 35% for those earning more than 130,800 birr.
“The assessment has basic technical problems. From the selection of people to assess, to the criteria used for assessment, it does not fit into any objective presumptive tax assessment methodology. It’s just an ad hoc categorisation of taxpayers,” says business consultant Getachew Teklemariam.
At Burayu town revenue department, deputy head Samuel Tadesse explains that business owners were shocked at the new evaluations because the government hadn’t carried out an assessment for seven years.
Annual inflation shot up to 40% in 2011, but has been hovering near 10% recently. Also, last year, the tax thresholds increased. For example, the tax-exempt portion rose from 1,800 birr to 7,000, while the upper margin was previously 60,000. “They are confused because for six years they paid a similar amount,” Tadesse says.
By Lake Hora in Bishoftu town, about 50km south-east of Addis Ababa, a man in a bright yellow T-shirt and matching sunglasses repairs a door with a soldering iron and angle grinder amid a shower of sparks. He’s given up on his business after a 13,000-birr tax bill that he believes was four times what it should have been, and is using a friend’s workshop. “It’s better to be mobile, going here and there. That is better than being licensed,” he says.
Ethiopian craftsmen shut their shops to protest against tax regulations in Holeta, Oromia, in July 2017. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Others in the area say the levies on small businesses are another example that the system only works for the rich, who receive favours and tax breaks. Another small business owner believes access to jobs, land and controlled commodities such as sugar requires loyalty to the ruling party. The welder thinks the government wants the extra revenue to buy weapons – one of a number of conspiracy theories about the tax policy, testament to the extent of Oromo discontent, and the difficulty the authorities will have implementing unpopular policies. Protests over the tax, which closed businesses in July, have merged with other grievances and led to widespread strikes in Oromia last week.
Back in Burayu,rather than risk an unaffordable tax demand next year, Abdella says he will try to support his family by working in the construction industry. He has no faith that the ruling coalition will change its ways to make life easier for small businesses. “I don’t think there will be a solution if this government stays,” he says.
The Qatar-Gulf crisis is now affecting Africa after Saudi Arabia called on a number of countries, including Somalia, to join its boycott of Qatar. However, not every country is prepared to obey orders from Riyadh.
Somalia has maintained good relations with Qatar despite Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain continuing to demand that the Mogadishu government break off relations with the Gulf emirate. Still, Somalia won’t give in to pressure.
Instead, Somalia’s president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, has called on all countries involved to engage in a dialogue. Much to the annoyance of Qatar’s neighbors, he is even allowing Qatari planes to pass through Somali airspace.
In doing so, Somalia is weakening the boycott imposed by the other four countries, which closed their borders to Qatar in June, followed by a breaking off of diplomatic relations and a blockade. They have accused the Qatari government of supporting terrorist organizations and demand that they sever all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and withdraw Turkish troops from the emirate. However the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has insisted on maintaining his country’s sovereignty.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir (L) meets with his counterparts from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain to discuss the diplomatic situation in July 2017
Somalia aligns with Qatar
Somalia’s neutrality is being tested. The country has so far had a good relationship with Saudi Arabia, its biggest trade partner in the Gulf region. In return, Somalia’s president has been supporting Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have offered the government in Mogadishu an additional 68 million euros ($81 million) to participate in the boycott of Qatar.
Nonetheless, the Somali president sided with Qatar. One possible reason is that Qatar is rumored to have financed his election campaign. “Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed would not have become president otherwise,” Somali political expert Muhyadin Ahmed Roble told DW. “The elections were decided by the amount of money each candidate offered to parliament.” Somalia’s political elite is closer to Qatar, he says. It was the president’s chief of staff who initiated the contact with Qatar, and who has influenced the president to remain neutral in the conflict.
Border conflict reignited
Tensions also remain heightened because the United Arab Emirates is exerting more influence in the regions of Somaliland and Puntland. Both regions have declared their independence; however, the government in Mogadishu still considers them part of Somalia. The United Arab Emirates is building ports there and wants to establish a military base.
The Qatari side of the Abu Samrah border crossing with Saudi Arabia
The governments of both regions maintain a strong interest in Saudi Arabia and view it as a future financial supporter. “The president doesn’t like the power games going on there, but he made the mistake of not consulting the regional governments,” says Muhyadin Ahmed Roble. “Their economies are stronger; Somalia is still recovering after 20 years of civil war.”
The situation in the Horn of Africa has been aggravated following the flare-up of an old border conflict in June. For seven years, the contested border between Eritrea and Djibouti was secured by peacekeepers from Qatar. When the Gulf crisis began, Qatar withdrew its troops – approximately 450 soldiers – from the Eritrean border, ending its role as mediator between the two countries. Eritrea immediately occupied the unmanned border zone northeast of Djibouti. “Eritrea doesn’t want to back down. That could lead to even greater tension between the three countries,” warns Muhyadin Ahmed Roble.
Tensions rise in West Africa
All countries involved in the Qatar conflict have taken different sides. “Eritrea and Djibouti have supported the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates; only Somalia and Ethiopia remain neutral,” says Muhyadin Ahmed Roble. He adds that, in the regional power game, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are in a much stronger position than Qatar, as Qatar only has good relations with Somalia.
But West Africa is also affected by the Gulf crisis. Saudi Arabia has called on the countries in the Sahel zone to make their position clear. Chad has sided with Saudi Arabia, informing the Qatari ambassador that he and his employees had to leave the country immediately. The government also recalled its diplomats from Qatar. “Chad fears instability, which is a real threat,” says Abdoulaye Sounaye, a research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. “We know for certain that jihadist movements in Libya are being supported by Qatar. Chad fears the Chadian rebels who are active in Libya.”
Senegal, on the other hand, maintains contact with Qatar due to a longstanding relationship. “Senegal is a special case. The country has excellent economic relations with Qatar and profits considerably from Qatari investment,” says Sounaye, adding that Senegal was better positioned than other countries, and could act according to its own interests. However, other Sahel countries have more to lose if they choose to cut their ties with Saudi Arabia. They’ve been cooperating with the Gulf kingdom for decades – but not with Qatar.
Ethiopia’s Somali Region: Political Marketplace for Tigray Military Commanders
By Karamarda Group
Crime against humanity suspect, President of Ethiopian Somali Regional State Abdi Mohamud Omar
Alex De Waal, in his book titled, The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa, Money, War and the Business of Power describes; political market place is a contemporary system of government in which politics is conducted as the exchange of political services or loyalty for payment or license. The Horn of Africa is advanced and militarized political market place, characterized by pervasive rent-seeking and monetized patronage, with violence routinely used as a tool for extracting rent. This is absolutely true none other than the Somali region of Ethiopia.
Today, The Somali Region of Ethiopia is profitable market place for military commanders of the Ethiopian defense Force. Though, the monopoly of the Somali region political and economy was in the making for quite some time, yet the different branches of the federal government offices such as the federal affair’s, the Federal intelligence and ministry of defense used to compete to seek rent in the Somali Region. However, since the death of Meles, no one has absolute authority as Meles did to manage the day-to-day operations. Hence, various military and civilian Tigrai powerful political individuals have bargained and created a competitive political structure to govern different Regions. The prime minster, an otherwise a decent man is merely a symbolic figure put there to create the image of a non Tigrayan figurehead for political consumption. As such the Ethiopian defense forces under the leadership of General Samora has come out as a winner to seek rent and be a caretaker for the Somali Region. The General has mandated, the commander in Chief of the 4th Brigade, Let. General Abraha to be the de facto ruler of the Somali Region. General Abraha has in return supporting Abdi Mohamud Omer to serve as the political manager for the Somali Region.
Abdi Mohamud Omer is neither a Somali nationalist who bargain in the interest of the Somali people in the so-called ethnic federal system of Ethiopia nor a unionist with a vison of prompting centralized united Ethiopian ideology. He is an opportunist who is obsessed with reading and understanding the psyche and mood of the Tigrai military commanders and act upon what he considers will gain him sympathy and loyalty. He is also a ruthless paranoid and a cruel administrator who will do anything to get the coerced adulation of the entire Somali population in the region and beyond. In doing so, he managed to create a one-man state; he has absolute arbitrary power to kill, jail, invades any community or region and has offered in return for loyalty the entire Somali Region budget in the Ethiopian political market place.
The hallmark of Abdi Mohamed administration is to terrorize the Somali People; creating one of the biggest mass incarcerations in the Somali Region called “Jail Ogaden”. Killing thousands of innocent man, women and children in the name of supporting the rebels, forced an educated mass to migrated and abandon their homes, mascaraed family remembers of those who opposed him from far and could directly retaliate against them.
Abdi Mohamed Omer have auctioned out a number of policy gains by previous Somali region leaders and politicians that had huge sentimental value for the Somali people, though these changes did not made any difference for Tigrai military leader’s political capital, he used it to attest his allegiance, For example, he made a change to resemble the Somali region flag to that of Tigrai Region by totally removing the Somali identity, he changed Thursday and Friday being the holidays for the Somali region people, denying the Somali ordinary citizens to spent time with their families and opportunity to attend Friday prayers. Yet He traded the Somali people lands to Afar region without any due process as long as it is prolonging his tenure. However, the main and most significant plunder by Tigrai leaders under Abdi tutelage is the visible and hidden financial robbery of the Somali Region budget and revenue. The looting is well-designed scheme undertaking for quite some time to create a centralization economy and power. To illuminate this system that permitted the monopoly of power and economy, (one man –state), one has to look at how Abdi is tasked to cleverly organize the different administrative structures to make sure they serve him and his patronage.
Administration: Abdi Mohamed administration by design operates under strict kin (blood) and mirage arrangements. He has fired or jailed every Somali person with conscious and dignity and replaced them with his family members, the inexperienced youth and aficionado members of the society. He has recruited his clan and immediate family members from diaspora and the region to run the day today activities. Here is the list of family members in key positions;
* His First wife, Safiya Mohamed Mohamud is a Member of the federal Parliament from Jarar Zone
* Khadar Abdi , brother of the second wife and Abdi Ilay brother in-low, Minster of Trade and head of the Party ,the most powerful man next to Abdi
* Iliyas Abdi, brother of the second wife and Abdi Ilay brother in-low. Vice- minister of Water resources
* Sucad Ahmed, Vice president, Minster of natural resources and Chairman of ESDA board, Married to Abdi Ilay cousin and commander of Presidential security
* Yasiin Omer, minster of the revenue
* Deeq Labagole, an MP from Mersin and Minster of Labor
* Yasiin Abdiwaris an MP from Kabridahar and Minster of security
* Farhan Mahamud Minster of Information
* Nasradin Anab, Head of the design enterprise
* Mohamed Shugri head of the finance for Liyu police
* Mohamed Maki, Purchasing enterprise for the Liyu police
* Lubi Kariye head of PSNP
* Bashir Waal head of the Diaspora office
The Liyu police: is the pillar of Abdi’s administration and the most brutal and vicious force ever operated in the Somali Region. Initially, the TPLF formed the Liyu police as a counter insurgency force against the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a group fighting for self-determination for the Somali region. These force estimated to be around 40, 000 have been terrorizing the civilian population in the Somali region and Somali Border towns without impunity since 2008.
As any Somali leader, he used the clan card to recruit and mobilize the force. Initially, the Liyu police leaders were hired from close and trusted other sub clans to makeup the gap and implement the project; currently all of the former leaders of Liyu police are in jail Ogaden replaced by his close family members. Some of the current Leaders of the force are ex-members of ONLF and family members of Abdi Ilay who shifted alliance when he came to power. The Liyu police are more than a militia force;
* It is an entry point for Abdi Ilay administration. Currently, all administrative and judicial leaders at all level (sub- district, district and zonal) are from Liyu police.
* A revenue collectors; income and asset tax is collected by Liyu police all over the Somali region.
* A business enterprise; the Liyu police have a number of enterprise organization that are contracting to build roads, houses and other services.
* Housing Development agency
* Water work construction Enterprise
* Construction & Procurement special police Enterprise
In the past two years, the Liyu police have extended their rent seeking violence in the Somali Republic regions of Puntland, Somaliland, Galmudug and now in the Oromo region to gain loyalty, payment and license to continue killing innocent people. ……… Here are the top Liyu police militia leaders that are close family members of Abdi;
* General Abdiraham Labagole , Commander in Chief of the Liyu Police
* General Abdi Adan Waris, second in Command of the Liyu police
* Colonel Deeq Bujo
* Colonel Sh Mukhtar Subane
* Colonel Nasradin Canab
* Colonel Sanyare
* Colonel farahmahad
* Colonel Deeg Jeri
* Colonel Yasiin Abdiwaris
* Colonel Nasra Hassan
Elder’s council: Elders in the Somali community play a crucial role in managing public affairs, perceptions and providing support and legitimacy for leaders and institutions. They are highly respected and viewed as guardians of peace, resources and Welfare of their perspective communities. In the Somali Region, there has always been established traditional elders leaders and council in every clan and sub clan. Yet, Abdi Mohamed had created his own elders council (known by locals as the Liyu police elders council) sidelining those traditional elders who are not in agreement with his way of doing things. This tension is very noticeable particularly in Jigjiga zone where Garad Kulmiye Gard Mohamed Gard Dool, suldan Abdirahman suldan Bade, Garad Abdimaalik (Janan) Garad Osman, in Shinle zone Ugaas Mustafa Mohamed and many others are homebound and nonfunctional. This new elder council is led by his uncle and counselor colonel Ciro.
Media: in Somali region, there is no independent media what so ever, print, radio or TV. The only Media enterprise is Abdi Ilay’s TV, Radio and website managed by Ilay’s cousin, the information minister. It is another important instrument in creating the one man state and the Abdi’s utopia propaganda. More often, his media is also used to convey messages of intimidation for diaspora decedents. In the midst of extreme and severe drought in the region, with cost of millions of Birr, the media enterprise in 2016 has summoned a huge number of Somali musicians from diaspora to stay for almost a year in Jigjiga and sing songs of prosperity, Abdi’s talent and leadership and security and safety of the Somali Region.
Economic and financial monopoly:
He also altered the entire revenue collection, budgetary planning and finical system to benefit him and the Tigrai military leaders. Currently, the budget is planned purely based on estimated amount of revenue collection. For example, when the budget is put together, the administration in Jigjiga without any consideration of resources or ability of a district to pay will assign a figure. Then the district administration will coerce the elders, small business and the handful government employees to contribute. If the district could not meet the revenue request, elders will gather their clan and sub-clan to collect, sheep, goat, camel etc. just like they are paying blood or dia. If the district could not meet the request, they will not receive the allocated food aid. Furthermore, for the first time in the history of Somali region routine tax is collected in rural area from owning livestock. For example, if of someone has a 100 camel, he will be required to pay random amount as tax without any documentation or knowledge how often the tax will be collected. All of the many collected as tax are used to bribe military commanders so that he stays in power.
Contracts and business Licenses: in order to be able to do a business in the Somali Region whether by acquiring license or to set up a company to bid in the contracts, one has to be able to be part of an association. These associations have to be approved by the administration and often managed by assigned individuals based on the value and importance of the association. Abdi and his family members are involved in every big business in the Somali region, to mention a few;
* The Oil Factory, Jigjiga
* The Meat Factory in Dhagxle
* Cement Factory in DiriDawa
* The Khat export, taken away from Zuhura
* The soft drink import, taken away from Zuhara and others
* The contract to build the new Kabri-Dahar airport
* The contract to build the new presidential Palace
Conclusions
The risk of empowering Abdi Mohamed without any checks and balances in the Somali region and beyond worries not only the Somali population, but also the bordering regions of Oromia, Somalia and the Ethiopian central intelligence. The increase in number and operations of the Liyu police beyond its original intent creates uneasiness within the intelligence community. As the Liyu police increase in number, their role in rent seeking in Somalia and now in Oromo region expands, Abdi Mohamed believes his bargaining power increases as well. He has positioned himself as indispensable and the intelligence community knows that the one clan militia with such a large amount of resources and weapons could instantly join the rebel group if Abdi feels threatened or they want to clampdown the power of his militia.
In the absence of strong Somali government, and the new and fragile South Sudan, the TPLF military commanders found themselves not only in international peacekeeping but also in high yield rent seeking operations and are making fortunes. Yet, for those commanders who did not join in the highly paid UN blue helmet, such as General Abarah and others, they expanded their share of rent seeking in the peripheral lands of Somali, Binshangul and Gambela. The income inequality, the Tigray domination of every sector, nepotism and lack of press and freedom of speech will lead to the escalation of the Oromo and Amara protests and shows signs of spreading to Somali and other regions.
Ali Abdi
Karamarda Group
Executive Committee
The Karamarda Group is a group of Somali Regional State citizens who are interested in promoting Democracy and Good Governance in the Somali Region of Ethiopia and could be reached at karamardagroup@gmail.com
‘In Ethiopia, children are trafficked into prostitution, to provide cheap or unpaid labor, and to work as domestic servants or beggar.’
Today slavery has taken in many forms from mental to sexual and whatever.Many people are unaware that slavery is still in progress in our modern societies.Sex slavery is a major problem in South Africa. Women seeking refugee status in South Africa from other African countries are trafficked by other refugees. An estimated 1000 Mozambican girls […]
“… We express America’s values from the State Department. We represent the American people. We represent America’s values, our commitment to freedom, our commitment to equal treatment of people the world over, and that message has never changed… I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values or the commitment of the American Government or the government’s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values…. I’ve made my own comments as to our values as well in a speech I gave to the State Department this past week…. The President speaks for himself [regarding] his values.” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, August 27, 2017.
“… Nowhere is [hate speech] an American value. We do honor, protect, and defend freedom of speech, First Amendment rights. It’s what sets us apart from every other government regime in the world, in allowing people a right to expression. These are good things. But we do not honor, nor do we promote or accept hate speech in any form. And those who embrace it poison our public discourse and they damage the very country that they claim to love. So we condemn racism, bigotry in all its forms. Racism is evil; it is antithetical to America’s values. It’s antithetical to the American idea.” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, August 18, 2017.
Author’s Note:“Just Say No to U.S. Aid to African Dictators!”
In my February 2017 commentary, “Join Me in My Letter to President Trump”, I urged the Trump administration to “just say no U.S. aid to African dictators.”
Lo and behold, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week just did that!
Tillerson notified Egypt that the U.S. will withhold $95.7 million in military and economic aid, and would only release $195 million in additional military aid after it makes progress in its human rights record.”
These words are music to my ears.
But Tillerson did much more than that. He stood up for real American values such as free speech and against hate speech calculated to incite violence. He unreservedly condemned “racism [and] bigotry in all its forms. Racism is evil; it is antithetical to America’s values. It’s antithetical to the American idea.”
I have been a voice in the wilderness preaching every Monday for over a decade that U.S. aid must be linked to human rights improvements in Africa, particularly Ethiopia.
Obama turned a deaf ear to my pleas to align American aid with American values. He lip-synced my song of human rights to his empty lyrics of the “right side of history” while wining and dining those African dictators on the wrong side of history at the White House.
President Donald Trump likes to talk about “fake news” propagated in the U.S. by the “establishment” media. Is there such a thing as “fake diplomacy”?
Since 9/11, the U.S. has conducted fake diplomacy in Africa in the name of counterterrorism and national security.
The Obama and Bush administrations embraced and coddled the most ruthless African dictators who not only massacred, jailed and tortured their citizens but also engaged in widespread waste, fraud and abuse of U.S. aid. Barack Obama displayed shameless pandering to African dictators when he declared the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) “democratically elected” even though the T-TPLF “won” one hundred percent of the seats in “parliament”.
By his statement, Obama effectively gave a green light to all of Africa’s dictators to steal elections in broad daylight by 100 percent and guaranteed them full support of the U.S.
Is Trump pulling the curtain on Obama’s fake diplomacy of coddling African dictators and thugtators in the name of counterterrorism and national security?
The scaremongering foreign policy experts, professionals, consultants drinking at the U.S. aid trough along with the has-been diplomats have been predicting the sky will fall on Africa under the Trump Administration. They condemned Trump for his ignorance and for ignoring Africa. They said Trump will flip-flop in his Africa policy and cut back on aid causing millions of Africans to die.
I was one of the doubting Thomases who made audacious claims that Trump will continue in Obama’s footsteps and ignore human rights in Africa. I was simply resigned to the fact that there will be no policy change under Trump. I even said half-jokingly that I would “eat crow” if the Trump administration made any changes to Obama’s “see no evil, say no evil and hear no evil” about African dictators policy.
I began seriously thinking about eating crow (vegan style, of course) with a side of humble pie after I pondered over the questionnaire the Trump’s transition team presented to the State Department. Truth be told, I was stunned by the four questions because those were the same exact questions I have been asking week after week for 11 years.
I could not get over the irony of the twist of fate. The man I opposed so vigorously as a presidential candidate was asking the same questions I have been asking about Africa for over a decade.
I believe asking the right questions almost always yields the right answers. It is clear now the Trump administration has the right human rights answer: “No human rights improvements in Egypt (by implication in all of Africa), no U.S. aid.”
I must confess that some have complained to me privately that I stick out like a sore thumb writing approvingly of Trump’s Africa policy. Truth be told, some privately wondered if I had lost my marbles in suggesting that human rights issues will likely figure prominently in the Trump administration. Others snickered.
As I have previously noted, I do not care about the motives of those in power when they do the right thing. I rarely question when the right thing is done for the wrong reason. It is never too late to do the right thing; but there is never a right time to do the wrong thing. The Trump administration is doing the right thing by insisting on human rights improvements as a condition for receiving U.S. aid. What could possibly be wrong with that?
But I remained steadfast in my claim of a likely new day for human rights in Africa in the Trump administration.
No human rights, no U.S. aid?: Should “America First” mean “human rights first” in Africa?
“May you live in interesting times,” goes the old saying.
No time in living memory has been as “interesting” as living in America today.
Of course, the operative word is “interesting”. Does it mean amusing? Fascinating? Dangerous? Uncertain? Unpredictable? Desperate?
Last week, Egypt cancelled “a meeting with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s envoy and son-in-law, after the State Department decided to withhold and withdraw millions of dollars in aid over human rights concerns.”
The Washington Post reported that “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson notified Egypt it would not give Egypt $95.7 million in military and economic aid, and would only release $195 million in additional military aid after it makes progress in its human rights record.” The U.S. has “for a long time made a point of mentioning their concerns about human rights abuses in Egypt.” A U.S. official explained, “We have serious concerns regarding human rights and governance in Egypt. At the same time, strengthened security cooperation is important to US national security.”
In June, a bipartisan group of senators sent President Donald Trump an official letter over the “unprecedented repression” of civil society in Egypt and called for an end to “politically motivated” prosecutions of dissidents. The senators wrote:
Under the leadership of President el-Sisi, the Egyptian government has systematically cracked down on civil society groups and independent media, jailed tens of thousands of political prisoners, and used violence and intimidation against individuals critical of the government.
End of fake U.S. diplomacy in Africa?Trump Administration’s single human rights action in Egypt speaks louder than all of Obama’s words on Africa in 8 years
Now that the first shoe on human rights has dropped on Egypt, is Ethiopia next?
For years, I have been urging the Obama administration to guide U.S. Africa policy by cherished American values. Obama shamelessly scorned American values when he declared a dictatorial regime in Africa that claimed to have won 100 percent of the seats in parliament, “democratically elected”.
In his book “The Audacity of Hope”, Obama wrote:
We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if, as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often that we care to remember. What else is there to guide us?… [Our values] have proven to be both surprisingly durable and surprisingly constant across classes, and races, and faiths, and generations. We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words.
The man who wrote these words betrayed American values in Africa when he declared a thug regime “democratically elected.”
What are America’s values? Equality? Individual liberty? Privacy from unreasonable government intrusion? Rule of law? Free enterprise? Constitutional supremacy? Popular sovereignty? Open society? Volunteerism? Competitiveness on a level playing field?
Is stealing elections an American value? Is stealing American taxpayer provided aid an American value? Is massacring, jailing and torturing innocent citizens an American value? Should American taxpayers support gross violations of human rights in the name of counterterrorism?
Obama was asked point blank during his 2015 Ethiopia visit:
For all the incredible things that are happening here in Ethiopia… there is still a perception, sir, that human rights abuses are tolerated here…?
Obama’s response:
… [Human rights] was a significant topic of conversation. We are very mindful of Ethiopia’s history — the hardships that this country has gone through. It has been relatively recently in which the constitution that was formed and the elections put forward a democratically elected government.”
That democratically elected government “won” 100 percent of the seats in “parliament”.
Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice laughed uncontrollably when she said with a straight face that the regime in Ethiopia which claimed to have won 100 percent of the seats in the 2015 election was “democratically elected.”
U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman excused the human rights abuses of the T-TPLF by declaring it a “young democracy”. The Washington Post condemned Sherman for her make-believe statements.
Gail Smith, USAID Administrator, completely exonerated the ruling regime from responsibility when she claimed famine and starvation in Ethiopia is solely attributable to “drought”. Smith used to be a TPLF employee in the early 1980s. Smith did a great “inside job” for the T-TPLF for decades.
Elections in Ethiopia were a laughing matter for Rice. A lying matter for Obama. A semantic game for Gail Smith and Wendy Sherman.
Human rights made for interesting cocktail hour chit-chat for Obama, Rice, Smith and Sherman.
So sad! So pitiful!
In my May 7 commentary, “Glimpses of Trump’s Foreign (Human Rights) Policy in Africa”, I reflected on Secretary Tillerson’s May 2nd speech to State Department employees on the direction of “America first” foreign policy. Tillerson’s message was refreshing, unambiguous and encouraging. Secretary Tillerson unabashedly declared in his speech that U.S. policy will be driven by “our fundamental values around freedom, human dignity, and the way people are treated.”
While I take no credit whatsoever for the apparently breathtaking changes in U.S. Africa policy as evidenced with Egypt, “the world’s second largest recipient of U.S. aid at about $1.3 billion annually”, I am supremely gratified to know that so many issues I have been passionately writing and lecturing about week after week for nearly 11 years are now resonating deeply and catching the attention of the Trump Administration.
As I tried to peer into the future through Secretary Tillerson’s speech, it became clear to me that Tillerson was sending a message to the old guard of Chicken Littles at the State Department, their parasitical consultants and experts who drink at the trough of U.S. aid and African dictators that their days of ripping of the American taxpayer are numbered. That did not stop them from issuing their magisterial proclamation: Trump’s “America First”-driven foreign policy will mean the end of times in Africa. But they were only talking about their own end. They knew a change was gonna come despite the millions of dollars they diverted from famine relief to lobbying in Washington, D.C.
Change has come. “No human rights improvement in Africa, no U.S. aid.”
When Secretary Tillerson laid out the foundations of the Trump Administration’s
“America first” foreign policy, few paid much attention. Instead, the drumbeat of condemnation continued. Some accused Trump of “downgrading concern for human rights in favor of a narrower conception of U.S. interests.” Others charged he was selectively blind to human rights violations. Still others claimed, “Trump [has] drop[ped] ‘human rights’ from top White House job.”
Tillerson’s speech foretold what he was planning to do in the area of human rights within the framework of the “America first” creed. “Translated” in practical terms, Tillerson said “America first” means three things.
First, The U.S. will “enforce the protection of our freedoms with a strong military”, and America’s military allies must carry their own weight and will not get an easy ride on the backs of American taxpayers.
Second, U.S. trade and economic relations with the rest of the world, particularly China, must be “brought back into balance”. This could require renegotiation of trade deals which give undue advantage to other countries.
Third, U.S. foreign policy will be propelled by “our fundamental values: our values around freedom, human dignity, and the way people are treated.” Tillerson emphatically asserted, “policies change, our values never change.” Those who do not like or share our values should not come to the U.S. with cupped hands and panhandles for handouts. In a speech of 6511 words, Tillerson devoted a stunning 1,057 words talking about American values and their role in the future of American foreign policy.
Tillerson rhetorically asked, “How do we represent our values?”
He offered a realistic answer. If “we condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably can’t achieve our national security goals or our national security interests. If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.” He insisted, “we should and do condition our policy engagements on people adopting certain actions as to how they treat people” and act consistent with our values.
In developing an “overarching strategic approach” for the “execution” of foreign policy, Tillerson said the salient question will be, “where are our allies?” The U.S. will determine its allies and partners on a county-by-country and region-by-region basis and their willingness to share in American values.
Tillerson warned that many governments do not like the American values-based foreign policy song he is singing. “And I hear from government leaders all over the world: You just can’t demand that of us, we can’t move that quickly, we can’t adapt that quickly, okay?”
For 26, years that has been the song and dance of the T-TPLF. “We are a young democracy. You just can’t demand human rights improvements. We can’t move that quickly, we can’t adapt that quickly, okay?”
When Obama visited Ethiopia in July 2015, he became the T-TPLF’s head cheerleader.
So we discussed steps that Ethiopia can take to show progress on promoting good governance, protecting human rights, fundamental freedoms, and strengthening democracy. And this is an area where we intend to deepen our conversations and consultation, because we strongly believe in Ethiopia’s promise and its people.
From what we have seen in Egypt, Trump don’t play and don’t talk about “steps”. Trump says, “No improvements on human rights, no U.S. aid.” If that’s how “America first” foreign policy is translated in Africa, I ain’t got no problems whatsoever. I say, “Let’s git her done!”
For the T-TPLF, 26 years in power is more than enough time to make changes.
But the T-TPLF, instead of making changes, imposed a “state of emergency decree” and jailed and massacred thousands of citizens without due process of law.
Tillerson’s message to Egypt, the T-TPLF and their brethren in Africa is. “We mean what we say and say what we mean when we say, ‘No human rights improvements, no U.S. aid’.”
Tillerson mentioned Africa 15 times in his speech. U.S. policy in Africa in the Obama administration “really boils down to” effective counterterrorism actions to defeat ISIS and depriving it a haven in Africa.
The question for the Trump Administration is, “How do we develop policies and bring regional players together to address these threats of ISIS and counterterrorism?” How can the U.S. stop the cancerous terrorist networks from spreading in Africa?
Tillerson stated in his speech that U.S. policy will principally focus on preventing Africa from becoming a terrorist haven and to safeguard African nations by “disrupting” “terrorist networks that weave their way through Africa”. He said, “The continent of Africa is so important from a national security view [that] we cannot let Africa become the next breeding ground for a re-emergence of a caliphate for ISIS.” The U.S. will continue “looking at Africa for potential economic and trading opportunities” and pursue “health initiatives, because Africa still struggles with huge health challenges.”
The withholding of aid to Egypt clearly shows that the Trump administration does not see counterterrorism and human rights as mutually exclusive. Indeed, they view them as mutually reinforcing. Denial of human rights is often the fountainhead of terrorism.
Is the T-TPLF next on Tillerson’s agenda?
In his speech, Tillerson reminded his employees that “it’s important to [] remember that guiding all of our foreign policy actions are our fundamental values: our values around freedom, human dignity, and the way people are treated.” He also talked about “how [we] [can] translate ‘America first’ into our foreign policy.” I believe Tillerson just translated it for Egypt. Writ large for Africa, “America First” in Africa should translate into “Human rights first in Africa.”
That is what “America First” means to me too: Freedom, human dignity and fair and equal treatment for all people.
“What is good for the goose is good for the gander,” goes the old saying.
If the U.S. can tell Egypt, “the world’s second largest recipient of U.S. aid” to clean up its human rights act or no aid, it can certainly tell Ethiopia, the “second largest recipient of U.S. aid in Africa” to do the same.
Another old saying goes, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
The proof of Trump’s human rights policy is what we are witnessing in Egypt. Tillerson gave Egypt’s el-Sisi the right pudding to eat: “No human rights, no U.S. aid.”
I shall urge Secretary Tillerson to continue with his policy of “No human rights, no U.S. aid.”
I ask all my readers to publicly and vigorously support the Trump administration’s human rights policy of “No human rights improvements, no U.S. aid.”
No doubt, what the Trump administration did in Egypt will reverberate throughout Africa and represent a teachable moment for African dictators. Today, African dictators should be on notice that the Trump administration is serious about human rights in Africa and will put its aid money where its mouth is.
Henry Kissinger reportedly said, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
I could say the same thing about Ethiopia!
Take Barack Obama, for instance. Obama ain’t no friend of Ethiopians. No doubt, he is a bosom friend of the TPLF thugs.
By the same token, Donald Trump who has said and done nothing to harm Ethiopia is no enemy of Ethiopia, or Africa. We should be careful not to conflate unrelated issues.
I believe the Trump administration’s policy of linking U.S. aid to human rights improvements is absolutely the right policy. The administration’s questions about U.S. aid accountability and corruption, use of counterterrorism cooperation as a meal ticket for dictatorial African regimes, bogus trade deals and the double standard benefiting Chinese businesses are absolutely on point.
The T-TPLF will no longer be allowed to milk (bleed) the American taxpayer cash cow. For eleven years, the T-TPLF and the African Union have bled American taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of fighting Al-Shabab in Somalia. At its peak, Al Shabab was estimated to have a ragtag army of 7-9000 poorly-equipped and –trained fighters.
The number of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) uniformed personnel is 22, 126. Ethiopia reportedly had some 60 thousand troops at one time in Somalia. Both the AMISOM and Ethiopian forces brimming with modern heavy weapons have been unable to defeat a ragtag group of terrorists.
Why?
That is exactly what the Trump transition team asked: “We’ve been fighting al-Shabaab for a decade, why haven’t we won?”
The answer is simple. Al-Shabab is a meal ticket for the African Union and the regime in Ethiopia. Both the African Union and the regime in Ethiopia want to keep the war against Al-Shabab going because that way they can milk the American taxpayer year after year. Counterterrorism is a very profitable business of the AU and the regime in Ethiopia.
(Note well: Did you know that African dictators corruptly withheld salaries and allowances (because of “accounting issues”) from African Union troops for six months in 2016 as those brave soldiers put their lives on the line fighting terrorists?)
But the T-TPLF has not only sucked at the teats of the American taxpayer cash cow, it has also sucked dry the poor people of Ethiopia. As Global Financial Integrity observed, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.”
The T-TPLF bosses and lackeys only have one choice. Pack up and leave and enjoy the blood money they have bled from the poor people of Ethiopia and American taxpayers. I wish them all the happy and pleasant life of junta leader Mengistu Hailemariam.
Let’s be fair. Let’s give credit where it’s due. Kudos to Tillerson!
The Trump administration did the right thing in withholding U.S. aid to Egypt over the deteriorating human rights situation in that country. This unprecedented policy is a far cry from Obama’s double standard where human rights violators who grossly violate human rights but pledge partnership on counterterrorism are given a free pass, get-out-of-jail card, and others who are simply defiant are condemned. A case in point is what Obama did days before he left office in January. Obama extended sanctions on Zimbabwe, whose senile president remains in office in his 90s. With the same pen, Obama lifted a 25-year sanction on Sudan whose president is a fugitive from justice at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Measured against Obama’s hypocritical and duplicitous double-standard, doesn’t the Trump administration deserve some, I say a boatload, of credit for what it has done in Egypt and for the notice it sends to Africa’s panhandling criminal dictators?
So far, I like what I see and hear about Trump’s human rights policy in Africa.
As a lawyer, I could do no different. To paraphrase David Hume, I “proportion my belief to the evidence.” The evidence is , “No human rights improvement, no U.S. aid!”
What could be more fair than that?!
Oyez, oyez, oyez, African dictators!
Alas! I have read many a verse from antiquity to the present. But a poet I am not. But I offer the following words of counsel in free verse to Africa’s dictators:
Oyez, oyez, oyez, African dictators!
No human rights, no U.S. aid.
Stop terrorizing your people in the name of counterterrorism!
“For human rights invented America.”
Human rights made America great.
Hear ye! Hear ye!
“America First” means human rights first in Africa!
Ethiopia- Oromia : police apprehended a man traveling with US$541,671
#Ethiopia– Oromia region pr head posted video saying region's police apprehended a man traveling with US$541,671 in Bordede, east Hararghe pic.twitter.com/IUvVXuK7yX
further more, @addisu_arega posted a picture of a man called Habanee Arabnuur and said he was traveling with a car having AA plate No. pic.twitter.com/olq8vngyS5
A substantial sum of money has been illegally flowing out of Ethiopia during the last decade. What is even more worrying is not just that the levels of out flows are high but also the sizes of illicit capital outflows have been rising at alarming rates. This rather unique pattern has attracted the attention of the general public as well as those of bilateral and multilateral donor agencies.
I will also attempt to put some flesh on the bones of facts presented in the GFI database. I will do so by shedding some light on the political economy context of the illicit capital outflow (IFFs) from Ethiopia.
Stolen money trails
The natural starting point is to get a sense of magnitude on the levels and trends. The GFI data is summarized and plotted in Fig. 1. For the time being we focus on the total flows, that is the heights of each bar denoting sizes of annual illicit money outflows. The sum of the blue and red colors gives total amount of money illegally moved aboard from Ethiopia during that year. This ranged from USD $0.4 billion in 2004 to USD $5.6 billion in 2010.
The average annual outflow was $2.6 billion during 2004 and 2013. This is a sizeable sum of money by any standard. For instance, according to estimates reported by the World Bank, the amount of official development assistant (ODA) Ethiopia received in 2010 was $4 billion but total amount of IFFs during that year was $5.6 billion.
This means in 2010 alone Ethiopia’s IFFs exceeded the ODA it received that year by $1.6 billion. In other words, Ethiopia’s IFFs amounted to diverting the entire aid money of 2010 to foreign banks and then still transfer abroad an additional sum of money.
During the entire period (2004 to 2013) the total amount of money that Ethiopia lost due to IFF was $26 billion. This amounts to stealing nearly $300 per citizen. Alternatively, the size of stolen money was about 11 times the total the amount of emergency aid being sought from donors in the current year to buy cereals from abroad and feed the drought victims.
Potential culprits
One may wonder – who are the culprits responsible for Ethiopia’seconomic fraud at such massive scale? The GFI categorizes possible perpetrators into three groups: (a) financial institutions; (b) complicit business counterparts, mainly importers and exporters; and (c) government officials.
In the Ethiopian case, it is reasonable to exclude financial institutions because there is no foreign bank operating in Ethiopia, and the domestic private banks are extremely tightly controlled. Ethiopia’s most influential banks, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), are owned and run by the government. Therefore, in the context of Ethiopia it is safe to include (a) under (c).
That is to say Ethiopia’s IFF can only be undertaken by importers, exporters or government officials. One would hasten to add that there is a huge extent of overlaps between government officials and big businesses in Ethiopia, since big businesses are highly interconnected with the government and/or they are directly or indirectly owned and run by government officials.
Money diversion channels
Now we can shift our attention back to fig. 1 and consider the breakdowns of the IFFs, the individual component denoted by the blue and red sections in each bar. The GFI applies a methodological framework that accounts for two types of illegal movements of money from one country to another.
The first one is export or import trade misinvoicing. This is measured by using a methodology called Gross Excluding Reversals (GER). This simply mirrors exports by one country with imports of another country and vice versa. For instance, items of imports recorded by Ethiopia should agree with records of exporters to Ethiopia in all aspects – value, quantity and quality.
The second one is various leakages in the balance of payments, measured by using the “hot money narrow” (HMN) approach.The latter one is often referred to as “net errors and omissions” in the balance of payment jargon. For instance, if a donor agency or country recorded $1 million grants to Ethiopia but this does not appear in the records by the authorities in Ethiopia, then the GFI records this as a leakage from Ethiopia’s balance of payment.
It is clear from Fig. 1 that the bulk of illicit money transfer from Ethiopia has taken place using trade misinvoicing, denoted by the blue component of the bar. In 2004, trade misinvoicing constituted only 14% of the total IFFs. In 2013, however, this proportion has grown to 100%, the entire IFFs began to be accounted for more and more by trade misinvoicing. For the entire period under discussion, $19.7 billion (or 76% of the total IFFs) was conducted through trade misinvoicing. The year 2010 is an exception – diversion of “hot money” dominated in that year; it constituted 55% of the total IFFs.
False invoices
Trade misinvoicing can take place in one of the following four ways: over invoicing exports, under invoicing exports, over invoicing imports and under invoicing imports. In Ethiopia’s case, the GFI report indicated import over-invoicing is by far the most important method of transferring money abroad. During the period under analysis, about $19.7 billion was transferred abroad through import over-invoicing.
It is critical to understand how import misinvoicing hurts the Ethiopian economy. This is important in the context of huge public construction projects with substantially large components of imports of machinery and other equipment. For instance, an acquisition of a set of machinery whose real value is $1 million is recorded with inflated invoice of $1.5 million.
The importer allocates project budget at the inflated import value, pays the real value to the supplier and then siphons-off the difference (in this case $0.5 million) and deposits it in a foreign bank account. The real damage to the economy happens in terms of inflated capital expenditure. Perhaps the opportunity large capital projects provide for corrupt officials could be the ulterior motive for the uncontrollable urge to attach such a high priority to large capital projects in economic development strategies.
However, it should be noted that public capital projects are often financed through commercial loans that should be paid back with cumulative interests in years to come. The economic return to capital project would partly depend on the cost consideration at project implementation stage.
The GFI also finds some export trade misinvoicing in Ethiopia’s foreign trade, over-invoicing by $6.5 billion as well as $3 million under-invoicing. In trade based money laundering, the most common types of misinvoicing are import over-invoicing and export under-invoicing. As noted above, the case of import invoicing has no complications – so much over invoicing has taken place and it explains the bulk of trade based money laundering in Ethiopia. However, the case of export over-invoicing is uncommon.
Export over-invoicing do happen although they are rare, e.g. China’s trade with Hong-Kong. Export over-invoicing is required when there is a need to plough back money from abroad and report it as inflated foreign direct investment. This is likely the case with Ethiopia where the authorities have been desperate to report higher foreign investments particularly in the first half of the period under analysis.
Ethiopia’s capital flights dwarfs rest of developing countries
It would prove useful to know how bad Ethiopia’s IFFs is relative to other countries. Fig. 2 below compares Ethiopia with its neighbors, the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as well as the average of developing countries (DCs). The comparison was done by expressing total illicit money outflowas percentage of GDP. The years are grouped into three intervals. For reasons discussed further below, it would prove useful to contrast pre- and post-2005. Accordingly, I have isolated 2004 and then divided the remaining years into two equal intervals.
This revealed astonishing patterns of illicit money outflow from Ethiopia which starkly contrasted with those for other countries. First, throughout the years Ethiopia’s records considerably exceeded those for its two immediate neighbors, Kenya and Tanzania. Second, a comparison of 2004 across the countries shows that Ethiopia’s illicit money outflow was way below the Uganda, SSA, and the DCs averages.
Third, the situation changed dramatically from 2005 onwards. Ethiopia outstripped Uganda, and then closed the gap with the SSA average. Fourth, Ethiopia’s average annual money outflows between 2010 and 2013 reached 11% of the country’s GDP, considerably exceeding the corresponding figures for the other countries – SSA (5%), DCs (4%), Uganda and Tanzania (2%) and Kenya (0.013%). Fifth, it is important to note that illicit money transfers abroad constituted smaller and smaller percentages of GDP for most countries over the years, implying substantial improvements in transparency in their economic management. The situation in Ethiopia sharply contrasts with this reality – illicit money outflow becoming a larger and larger percentage of Ethiopia’s GDP. This indicates transparency in Ethiopia’s economic management has gone from bad to worse over the years.
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Ethiopia due to the potential for civil unrest and arbitrary detention. There continue to be reports of unrest, particularly in the Gondar region and Bahir Dar in Amhara State, and parts of Oromia State. This replaces the Travel Warning of June 13, 2017.
The Government of Ethiopia has demonstrated its ability and willingness to restrict or shut down internet, cellular data, and phone services, impeding the U.S. Embassy’s ability to communicate with U.S. citizens in Ethiopia and limiting the Embassy’s ability to provide consular services. Additionally, the Government of Ethiopia does not inform the U.S. Embassy of detentions or arrests of U.S. citizens in Ethiopia.
Avoid demonstrations and large gatherings, continuously assess your surroundings, and evaluate your personal level of safety. Be aware that the government may use force and live fire in response to demonstrations, and that even gatherings intended to be peaceful can be met with a violent response or turn violent without warning. U.S. citizens in Ethiopia should monitor their security situation and have contingency plans in place in case you need to depart suddenly.
Given the unpredictable security situation, U.S. citizens in Ethiopia should have alternate communication plans in place, and let family and friends know that communication may be limited while you are in Ethiopia. The Department of State strongly advises U.S. citizens to register your mobile number with the U.S. Embassy to receive security information via text or SMS, in addition to enrolling in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP).
Contact the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, located at Entoto Street, P.O. Box 1014, by email at AddisACS@state.gov, or at +251-11-130-6000 Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. For after-hours emergencies, U.S. citizens should call +251-11-130-6911 or 011-130-6000 and ask to speak with the duty officer.
Call 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States and Canada or 1-202-501-4444 from other countries from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).
Nation wide Boycott and Sit-in is underway in the Ethiopia’s largest state, Oromia.
What is this boycott about?
••• Demanding unconditional release of OFC leaders and all political prisoners in Ethiopia.
•••Demanding lifting of heavy taxes
••• demanding the government to stop the Somali regin’s #Liyupolice cross boarder attack and active genocide.
•••Demands the government to address all those demands raised are under#OromoProtests#OromoRevolution#Ethiopia
The protest is successful in planning and successful in action.
#Breaking: Harar and its surroundings under strike; no trade and transport activities observed. Some damaged vehicles were also spotted. pic.twitter.com/YmyOSIt2Tk
Many people have stayed at home and business owners have closed their doors in parts of Oromia region. Most shops, hotels and restaurants in south-eastern towns of Miesso, Chiro, Hirina and Aweday towns have been shut after strikes were called on Wednesday. The latest protest is said to be a continuation of the nation wide strike that started in July to protest against the government over the imposition of a revised tax law. Taxi service from the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Asko to Burayu has been disrupted. In the town of Ambo 130 kilometres west of Addis Ababa almost all shops, hotels and restaurants have been shut. In nearby Woliso and Ginchi retail businesses were also closed. There were similar strikes in some towns of Arsi and Bale zones including Shashemene, despite reports that police and security forces were threatening to revoke the licenses of those who joined the strikes.
While most protests are peaceful and the towns are quiet, in some parts damages on public transports and farms are reported. A minibus carrying passengers on the road from Harar to Dire Dawa has been attacked by stone throwers. A long distance bus, Selam heading to Harar from Addis Ababa made a half turn at Adama town this morning, sources told Ethiopia Observer. Selam bus, as it is owned by the ruling regime, has been a frequent target of attack in the past.
The latest protest is one of the biggest stay-away actions, since the state of emergency has been lifted in early August. Emergency law imposed in October, after more than a year of violent protests in the region led to the arrests of more than 21,000 people. Click here to read more at Ethiopian Observer
Liyu police incursion into Oromia is the manifestation of TPLF proxy war on Oromia. It has nothing to do with the brotherly Somali ppl. pic.twitter.com/iAc0YWiV47
2. Extreme Nationalism (Nepotism): The belief by TPLF that its Tigray more than anything else.
3. Propoganda (Monopolistic control of the state and the mass media) : Using newspapers, magazines, radio, speeches, movies, lobbyists to give people and the world a one sided message.
4. Economic Control: The TPLF decides (owns) who/what/where to be made and sold.
5. Charisma: Creates imaginary quality about a leader that makes people eager to follow him. still Melese Zenawi is on tv although dead.
6. Indoctrination: To teach people to accept a system of beliefs without questioning.
7. One Party Rule: Only TPLF (EPRDF) that made up of minority Tigray ethnic is allowed to exist. it has complete power though has no mandate of 95% (96 milliion of) the population.
8. Censorship: The removal of anything objectionable to or critical of the TPLF.
Guyyaa Arba’aa/Roobii/ Dhufurraa jalqabee Guyyaa Shaniif (5) Walitti aansee Waan Godhamuuf Jimaan Haqaaran Takka Harargerraa Gara Awaash, Adaamaa Fi Finfinnee Kan hin seenne Tahuu Dursinee isin Beeksifna.
Dubbii kana Salphiftanii/Tuffattanii Bira Darbuun Hojirra Hin Olchitan Taanan, Rakkoo Isin Mudatuuf Qeerroo fi Ummatni keenya Kan itti Hin Gaafatamne Tahuu Beekaa.
Mootummaa Abbaa Irree Dhiiga Saba Keenyaa Qulqulluu Dhangalaasutti Hin Gurguurru!!!!
Tokkummaan Ummata Oromoo ha dagaagu
Murteessan Hegeree Oromiyaa Oromoodha
Injifannoon kan Ummata Oromooti
“Godinaa Jimma Aanaa Nonnoo Beenjaa Magaalaa Algaa Kessatti Guyyaa Har’aa Hagayyaa 13/12/2009
{19/08/2017
Mormiin Qeerroo Haala Ho’aan Itti Fufe Jira
Sababni Isaa Yeroo Mormii Gabaa Lagaanaa Marsaa 2ffaa darbee irraatti polisonii uummataa yeroo dorsisuuf yaalanitti uummanii nu hin dorsistaan mootummaadha nu samaa jiru hayyootaa keenyaa mana hidhaatti dararamaa jiru jechuun uummanii hiriraa bahun sagalee isaanii dhageessifacha turan kanaan wal qabaate polisoonii uummataa dorsisaa turan sun yeroof miliqaani turun guyyaa har’aa mormii marsaa 3ffaa fashaalessuf har’aas yeroo uummataa dorsisuu jalqabaniitti qeerroon algaa tokkummaan ka’un mana polisii tokko irratti tarkanfii fudhatani turan .kanaaf yeroo ama kana magaalaan algaa muuddamsaa cima kessa jirti.”
Among the thousands facing criminal charges in the wake of the SoE are these group of women in Assela town.
Liyat Fekade
Addis Abeba, August 22/2017 – On Friday August 04, members of the Ethiopian parliament have reconvened after having been called off their summer recess. Of the three topics they reconvened to discuss was the lifting of the ten month old State of Emergency (SoE), first declared on Oct. 08 2016.
Briefing the members of parliament (MPs) on the need to lift the SoE, Defense Minister Siraj Fegessa, who is also the secretariat of the command post established to oversee the implementations of the SoE, said that the country was experiencing a return to normalcy as compared to the months and days prior to the declaration of the emergency decree, hence the need to lift the SoE.
However, almost as news besides the lifting of the SoE, Siraj Fegessa told the lawmakers that there were 7, 737 individuals who were facing legal actions in different courts in the country after having been charged with criminal offenses. According to Siraj, 4, 136 of these people were from the Oromia regional state, the epicenter of the 2016 yearlong anti-government protests; 1, 888 from the Amhara regional state, which followed suit six months into the protests in Oromia; 1, 166 from the less publicized protest-hit areas in the Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Regional state (SNNPR); and 547 from the capital Addis Abeba.
It was a déjà vu
Ethiopians are acutely familiar with the government’s intuitive response of mass detention that quickly follows popular anti-government protests. Tens of thousands of Ethiopians from all walks of life had ended up in the country’s military camps, prisons wards and temporary detention facilities in the post 2005 general elections, in which close to 200 protesters were also gunned down in the streets of the capital by fully armed security forces.
These detainees include students, mothers and in some instances, government employees
Reminiscent of that recent past, 24,799 Ethiopians were detained in two rounds during in the first few weeks into the October SoE, according to the government’s own account. However, countless others were already detained in the lead up to October 2016, which brought the number of those detained to over 27, 000.
Grieving in Ethiopia’s politicized court rooms
It is worth mentioning here that the 7, 737 people who are now facing charges of serious criminal offenses, including but not limited to outrage against the constitutional order, is a number three times higher than the 2, 449 individuals that Siraj Fegessa said would be brought to face justice on Dec. 17, 2016.
In what could safely be considered as politically motivated act, the federal Supreme Court has “placed considerable pressures on courts and prisons authorities in Oromia, Amhara and Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s regional states to bring thousands of detainees to Addis Abeba for them to be tried with terrorism offenses,” a senior judge in Adama, 100 km south of Addis Abeba, told Addis Standard.
A somewhat similar incident in post-2005 elections played a significant role in forcing the then president of the Oromia Regional State Supreme court, Teshale Aberra, into exile.
Judge Teshale Abera is now living in exile
Speaking from his exile in the UK, Teshale told Addis Standard that in 2005, the rift between him and the federal Supreme Court widened when the later requested him to facilitate the trials of some 18,000 detainees who were transported to several detention facilities in Oromia regional state after having been detained in the capital Addis Abeba. “Because the case concerned protesters who supported the opposition CUD, which won all the 23 seats allocated to the city of Addis Abeba in the federal parliament, and because many of the judges who were presiding in the federal courts in the capital were ethnic Amharas, authorities at the federal Supreme Court believed that the trial would lack judicial impartiality from the judges,” Teshale said. “This was a clear case of politically motivated decision, which I refused to accept.”
Teshale’s experience in 2005 remained a perpetual stain in judicial procedures in Ethiopia, leaving the fate of hundreds of Ethiopians detained during protest-crackdowns and subsequently prosecuted hanging in the country’s politicized court rooms.
For starters, detainees are often brought to the capital from all corners of the country to face terrorism charges. This practice often exposes detainees to extrajudicial brutalities, including torture, inside prison facilities in the capital, especially the notorious Ma’ekelawi prison, where hundreds are forced to spend months on end without any due legal process. It also leaves detainees isolated from family members, thereby denying them of adequate legal representations.
A data available on newly established tracking website documents the number of people brought from different parts of the country and are facing terrorism charges in the capital, which shows a recent sharp increase since Ethiopia first introduced the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP) in 2009.
The iconic picture of activist Nigist Yirga wearing a t-shirt with a text “The People of Amhara are not terrorists”
Of the close to 900 cases of terrorism (most of which is related to people who were brought from different parts of the country), a particular case in point is the case of six detainees who were brought to the capital after having been arrested in north Gonder and Bahir Dar of the Amhara Regional state. Activist Nigist Yirga, known by her iconic protest picture captured during last year’s protests in Amhara regional state with a text “The People of Amhara are not terrorists”, is facing terrorism charges along with Alemneh Wase Gebre Mariam, Tewdros Telay, Awoke Abate, Belayneh Alemneh, & Yared Girma in the federal high court 4th criminal bench here in the capital. A recent short animation video produced by the Ethiopia Human Rights Project (EHRP) sheds light on the disturbing abuse Nigist Yirga sustained while she was held in Ma’ekelawi.
However, Nigist’s case – neither her arrest nor the prison abuses she is subjected to – is by no means an isolated one. On July 25/2017, the families of Ayele Beyene, who died while in police custody at Qilinto prison, a maximum prison facility on the southern outskirt of Addis Abeba, have received and buried his body in his home town in Gidami, east Wallaga zone of western Ethiopia. After having spent months at Ma’ekelawi following their arrest in October 2016, Ayele and seven others with him were charged on May 10 with terror related as well as criminal offenses.
Ayele Beyene died while in police custody. He was detained in Oct. 2016 and was only charged in May 2017.
Delegation of federal courts jurisdiction
Perhaps beyond and above this disturbing practice is the constitutional legality of transferring detainees from other parts of the country to face terrorism charges in the capital Addis Abeba. The federal Constitution and the criminal justice policy (adopted in 2011) highly centralize criminal law, i.e. investigation and prosecution of crimes, under the federal government. It is a legal practice which relegates regional states in a federated Ethiopia to depend on the federal government concerning criminal matters that are political in nature, in particular terrorism related offenses.
Currently, there are two tiered courts both at the federal and state levels in Ethiopia: the Federal Supreme Court, (Federal High and First Instance Courts), and the State Supreme Court, (State High and First-Instance Courts). Article 80 of the federal constitution clearly stipulates that State Supreme Courts have the highest and final judicial power over State matters. Quote: “They shall also exercise the Jurisdiction of the Federal High Court [by delegation]. State High Courts shall, in addition to State jurisdiction, exercise the jurisdiction of the Federal First-Instance Court.” In other words, although the legislative criminal power has been centralized by the Federal Government in Ethiopia and has been ferociously applied to punish dissenting , it is, at the same time, decentralized in terms of its execution and adjudication by doctrine of delegation, at least on paper.
According to Yohannes Bekele (name changed), a former public prosecutor who is currently an attorney and counselor at law, there are two arguments to be made on the issue of criminal jurisdiction. The first is that all cases arising from the Federal Criminal Code should be the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Courts in line with Art. 3(1) of the Federal Court Proclamation No. 25/96. “This is the common argument the federal government criminal investigation and prosecution organs use when they want to investigate a crime of their interest”, Yohannes told Addis Standard.
The second argument is that the Regional State courts are empowered to hear cases other than the ones exhaustively reckoned under Article 4 of Federal Courts Proclamation. These are cases related to, among others, offenses against the constitutional order or against the internal security of the state; offenses against foreign states, against the law of nations, against the fiscal and economic interests of the Federal Government, as well as offenses regarding counterfeit currency, and forgery of instruments of the Federal Government.
Teshale on his part believes that if regional courts can take up cases as grave as these ones, “there should be no question about their ability to preside over terrorism cases.”
Terrorism related offenses
Despite the constitution however, Article 31 of the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation solely sanctioned the Federal High Court and the Federal Supreme Courts to have jurisdictions over terrorism related offenses. This proclamation does not incorporate a delegation clause to regional courts, giving federal courts the exclusive mandate to preside over terrorism cases brought against defendants who come from all parts of the country.
This, in and of itself, raises several concerns. The most alarming is the issues of access to justice. “Many of the suspects, especially those from Oromia and the southern regional state, do not have translation facilities during interrogations while in prison and during the hearing procedures,” said the senior judge in Adama, who wants to remain anonymous.
The issue of access to justice was one of the many concerns Addis Standard raised in its extensive coverage on Ma’ekelawi prison ward. To quote one of the interviewees then: “The fact that detainees come from afar disconnects them from their family and their support system thereof. But more importantly such distance from one’s place of residence becomes a barrier to access to justice. Physical distance, cultural distance, and linguistic distance are the three major barriers to access to justice.”
In a 2014 research paper submitted to the Addis Abeba University (AAU) titled Criminal Jurisdiction of State Court under FDRE Constitution, Abdi Gurmessa, a law graduate, stated that the current trend of centralization of criminal law and policy in the federal government is not effective when tested in light of the guiding principles of the distribution of powers, the principle of subsidiarity and the experiences of other federations. Centralized criminal law, according to Abdi, has an “adverse effect on the regional autonomy of the states”, and prohibits regional states from exercising the right to self-determination in the context of criminal laws.
This judicial overreach by the federal court was raised during a preliminary objection in one of the high profile terrorism charges in recent history of the country involving the Federal Attorney General vs. Gurmessa Ayano et al (including prominent politician Bekele Gerba). In a debate the later have since lost to the former, the defense team have argued on lack of jurisdiction of the federal court and said that the case could be tried by the Oromia Regional State Supreme court through delegation pursuant to the constitution. Their objection was dismissed by the federal court citing Article 31 of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation; the case continued to be tried at the federal high court 4th criminal bench where it reached a curious stage.
‘Sharp departure’
However, in what is seen by many as a ‘sharp departure’ from what was expected, a complaint was lodged by the executive of the Oromia regional state sometime between November and December 2016 at the federal Supreme Court to block possible additional terrorism indictments against hundreds of individuals detained in the wake of the 2016 protest. (Gurmessa Ayano et.al were detained in the beginning of the protests in Dec. 2015, as are several others).
Subsequently, the federal Supreme Court has granted a rare delegation to the Oromia Supreme court to look into the cases involving the 4, 136 people who are now facing criminal charges in eleven different courts within the regional state, according to the judge in Adama. “It was a chance for these people to avoid terrorism indictments,” he said, “we are now working even in weekends to facilitate speedy trials.” Some of these courts where the hearings are taking place include courts in Dambi Dollo and Gimbi in western Ethiopia, Asella and Adama in south east, Batu (Ziway) and Shashemene in west Arsi, as well as Bale Robe and Yabello in south eastern Ethiopia, according to him.
Copy of a letter exclusively received by Addis Standard showing the federal Supreme court’s delegation
Too little too late?
Despite this positive turn of event, however, the lingering detention and trial not only of the 4, 136 in Oromia, but also the rest in Amhara, SNNPR and Addis Abeba after the state of emergency was declared over defies constitutionalism.
The federal constitution under Article 22 provides protection under “Non-Retroactivity of Criminal Law.’ Art.22/1: “No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offense at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed on any person than the one that was applicable at the time when the criminal offense was committed.” Art.22/2: “Notwithstanding the provisions of sub-Article 1 of this Article, a law promulgated subsequent to the commission of the offense shall apply if it is advantageous to the accused or convicted person.”
“If the newly enacted law [that ostensibly repealed the SoE] is advantageous to those people who are accused of violating a repealed law, the new law will be implemented,” wrote Zelalem Kibret, a lecturer of law before he was dismissed by the Ambo University following his arrest as part of the Zone9 blogging collective, from which he was later on acquitted. In a series of twitter post shortly after the SoE was declared over, Zelalem wrote, “The State of Emergency decree criminalizes many trivial things that thousands were convicted of [or] are currently accused of. However, the State lifted the [SoE] by another proclamation, hence since the subsequent repeal is obviously advantageous to the incarcerated, it [would] get precedence in its application. As a result, all the cases invoking the SoE decree must be dropped and all awaiting and convicted prisoners must be released,” Zelalem said.
It is an optimism that Nigist Yirga, 24, and her co-defendants, as well as hundreds of others facing similar fate, could use following the lifting of the SoE on Aug. 04. But Ethiopians know that it may be too little too late. On August 18th, the Federal High Court 4th criminal bench has once again, and after several protracted hearings, failed to deliver a key a verdict on whether Nigist Yirga et.al have a case to defend; like several other cases, the court adjourned the next hearing to October 31/2017 after its summer recess. AS
Ed’s Note: Kiya Tsegaye, Addis Standard’s legal affairs researcher, contributed to this story
Understanding Resilience Dimensions and Adaptive Strategies to the Impact of Recurrent Droughts in Borana Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia: A Grounded Theory Approach
By Zewdie Birhanu,Argaw Ambelu, Negalign Berhanu, Abraraw Tesfaye, and Kifle Woldemichaelm, Jimma University, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Recurrent shocks and stresses are increasingly deteriorating pastoralist communities’ resilience capacities in many aspects. A context specific resilience framework is essential to strengthen pastoralist community’s resilience capacity towards the impact of recurrent drought. Hence, the present study was aimed to develop a context specific and data driven resilience building framework towards impacts of recurrent droughts in the case of Borana pastoralists in Ethiopia. Qualitative grounded theory approach was employed to guide the study process. The data were collected through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews in two drought affected districts of Borana Zone during October 2013. The analysis was assisted by ATLAS. ti 7.1.4. The analysis provided a context specific resilience building conceptual tool, which consists of, closely interconnected, eight dimensions operating at multiple capacities and levels: environment (underlying vulnerability factor); livestock, infrastructures/social services, and wealth (immediate causes and effects); community network/social capital, as well as governance, peace and security (support and enabling factors oriented), psychosocial, and human capital (as eventual outcomes and impacts). The resilience capacities of these pastoralist communities have been eroded, leaving them without sufficient and effective adaptive strategies. The emergent resilience framework can serve as a useful guidance to design context-specific interventions that makes the people and the system resilient to the impacts of recurrent droughts. Click here to view the full Article: Understanding Resilience Dimensions and Adaptive Strategies to the Impact of Recurrent Drought in Borana Zone, Oromia.
Time Series is defined as a set of observations taken at a particular period of time. For example, having a set of login details at regular interval of time of each user can be categorized as a time series. On the other hand, when the data is collected at once or irregularly, it is not taken as a time series data.
Time series data can be classified into two types –
Stock Series – It is a measure of attributes at a particular point in time and taken as a stock takes.
Flow Series – It is a measure of activity at a specific interval of time. It contains effects related to the calendar.
Time series is a sequence that is taken successively at the equally pace of time. It appears naturally in many application areas such as economics, science, environment, medicine, etc. There are many practical real life problems where data might be correlated with each other and are observed sequentially at the equal period of time. This is because, if the repeatedly observe the data at a regular interval of time, it is obvious that data would be correlated with each other.
With the use of time series, it becomes possible to imagine what will happen in the future as future event depends upon the current situation. It is useful to divide the time series into historical and validation period. The model is built to make predictions on the basis of historical data and then this model is applied to the validation set of observations. With this process, the idea is developed how the model will perform in forecasting.
Time Series is also known as the stochastic process as it represents the vector of stochastic variables observed at regular interval of time.
Components of Time Series Data
In order to analyze the time series data, there is a need to understand the underlying pattern of data ordered at a particular time. This pattern is composed of different components which collectively yield the set of observations of time series.
The Components of time series data are given below –
Trend
Cyclical
Seasonal
Irregular
Trend – It is a long pattern present in the time series. It produces irregular effects and can be positive, negative, linear or nonlinear. It represents the variations of low frequency and the high and medium frequency of data is filtered out from the time series.
If the time series does not contain any increasing or decreasing pattern, then time series is taken as stationary in the mean.
There are two types of the trend –
Deterministic – In this case, the effects of the shocks present in the time series are eliminated i.e. revert to the trend in long run.
Stochastic – It is the process in which the effects of shocks are never eliminated as they have permanently changed the level of the time series.
The stochastic process having a stationarity around the deterministic process is known as trend stationary process.
Cyclic – The pattern exhibit up and down movements around a specified trend is known as cyclic pattern. It is a kind of oscillations present in the time series. The duration of cyclic pattern depends upon the industries and business problems to be analysed. This is because the oscillations are dependable upon the business cycle.
They are larger variations that are repeated in a systematic way over time. The period of time is not fixed and usually composed of at least 2 months in duration. The cyclic pattern is represented by a well-shaped curve and shows contraction and expansion of data.
Seasonal – It is a pattern that reflects regular fluctuations. These short-term movements occur due to the seasonal factors and custom factors of people. In this case, the data faces regular and predictable changes that occurred at regular intervals of calendar. It always consist of fixed and known period.
The main sources of seasonality are given below –
Climate
Institutions
Social habits and practices
Calendar
How is the seasonal component estimated?
If the deterministic analysis is performed, then the seasonality will remain same for similar interval of time. Therefore, it can easily be modelled by dummy variables. On the other hand, this concept is not fulfilled by stochastic analysis. So, dummy variables are not appropriate because the seasonal component changes throughout the time series.
Different models to create a seasonal component in time series are given below –
Additive Model – It is the model in which the seasonal component is added with the trend component.
MultiplicativeModel – In this model seasonal component is multiplied with the intercept if trend component is not present in the time series. But, if time series have trend component, sum of intercept and trend is multiplied with the seasonal component.
Irregular – It is an unpredictable component of time series. This component cannot be explained by any other component of time series because these variational fluctuations are known as random component. When the trend cycle and seasonal component is removed, it becomes residual time series. These are short term fluctuations that are not systematic in nature and have unclear patterns.
Difference between Time Series Data and Cross-Section Data
Time Series Data is composed of collection of data of one specific variable at particular interval of time. On the other hand, Cross-Section Data is consist of collection of data on multiple variables from different sources at a particular interval of time.
Collection of company’s stock market data at regular interval of year is an example of time series data. But when the collection of company’s sales revenue, sales volume is collected for the past 3 months then it is taken as an example of cross-section data.
Time series data is mainly used for obtaining results over an extended period of time but, cross-section data focuses on the information received from surveys at a particular time.
What is Time Series Analysis?
Performing analysis of time series data is known as Time Series Analysis. Analysis is performed in order to understand the structure and functions produced by the time series. By understanding the mechanism of time series data a mathematical model could easily be developed so that further predictions, monitoring and control can be performed.
Two approaches are used for analyzing time series data are –
In the time domain
In the frequency domain
Time series analysis is mainly used for –
Decomposing the time series
Identifying and modeling the time-based dependencies
Forecasting
Identifying and model the system variation
Need of Time Series Analysis
In order to model successfully, the time series is important in machine learning and deep learning. Time series analysis is used to understand the internal structure and functions that are used for producing the observations. Time Series analysis is used for –
Descriptive – In this case, patterns are identified in correlated data. In other words, the variations in trends and seasonality in the time series are identified.
Explanation – In this understanding and modeling of data is performed.
Forecasting – Here, the prediction from previous observations is performed for short term trends.
Invention Analysis – In this case, effect performed by any event in time series data is analyzed.
Quality Control – When the specific size deviates it provides an alert.
Applications of Time Series Analysis
Time Series Database and its types
Time series database is a software which is used for handling the time series data. Highly complex data such higher transactional data is not feasible for the relational database management system. Many relational systems does not work properly for time series data. Therefore, time series databases are optimised for the time series data. Various time series databases are given below –
CrateDB
Graphite
InfluxDB
Informix TimeSeries
Kx kdb+
Riak-TS
RRDtool
OpenTSDB
What is Anomaly?
Anomaly is defined as something that deviates from the normal behaviour or what is expected. For more clarity let’s take an example of bank transaction. Suppose you have a saving bank account and you mostly withdraw Rs 10,000 but, one day Rs 6,00,000 amount is withdrawn from your account. This is unusual activity for bank as mostly, Rs 10,000 is deducted from the account. This transaction is an anomaly for bank employees.
The anomaly is a kind of contradictory observation in the data. It gives the proof that certain model or assumption does not fit into the problem statement.
Different Types of Anomalies
Different types of anomalies are given below –
Point Anomalies – If the specific value within the dataset is anomalous with respect to the complete data then it is known as Point Anomalies. The above mentioned example of bank transaction is an example of point anomalies.
Contextual Anomalies – If the occurrence of data is anomalous for specific circumstances, then it is known as Contextual Anomalies. For example, the anomaly occurs at a specific interval of period.
Collective Anomalies – If the collection of occurrence of data is anomalous with respect to the rest of dataset then it is known as Collective Anomalies. For example, breaking the trend observed in ECG.
Models of Time Series Data
ARIMA Model – ARIMA stands for Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average. Auto Regressive (AR) refers as lags of the differenced series, Moving Average (MA) is lags of errors and I represents the number of difference used to make the time series stationary.
Assumptions followed while implementing ARIMA Model are as under –
Time series data should posses stationary property: this means that the data should be independent of time. Time series consist of cyclic behaviour and white noise is also taken as a stationary.
ARIMA model is used for a single variable. The process is meant for regression with the past values.
In order to remove non-stationarity from the time series data the steps given below are followed –
Find the difference between the consecutive observations.
For stabilizing the variance log or square root of the time series data is computed.
If the time series consists of the trend, then the residual from the fitted curve is modulated.
ARIMA model is used for predicting the future values by taking the linear combination of past values and past errors. The ARIMA models are used for modeling time series having random walk processes and characteristics such as trend, seasonal and nonseasonal time series.
Holt-Winters – It is a model which is used for forecasting the short term period. It is usually applied to achieve exponential smoothing using additive and multiplicative models along with increasing or decreasing trends and seasonality. Smoothing is measured by beta and gamma parameters in the holt’s method.
When the beta parameter is set to FALSE, the function performs exponential smoothing.
The gamma parameter is used for the seasonal component. If the gamma parameter is set to FALSE, a non-seasonal model is fitted.
How to find Anomaly in Time Series Data
AnomalyDetection R package –
It is a robust open source package used to find anomalies in the presence of seasonality and trend. This package is build on Generalised E-Test and uses Seasonal Hybrid ESD (S-H-ESD) algorithm. S-H-ESD is used to find both local and global anomalies. This package is also used to detect anomalies present in a vector of numerical variables. Is also provides better visualization such that the user can specify the direction of anomalies.
Principal Component Analysis –
It is a statistical technique used to reduce higher dimensional data into lower dimensional data without any loss of information. Therefore, this technique can be used for developing the model of anomaly detection. This technique is useful at that time of situation when sufficient samples are difficult to obtain. So, PCA is used in which model is trained using available features to obtain a normal class and then distance metrics is used to determine the anomalies.
Chisq Square distribution –
It is a kind of statistical distribution that constitutes 0 as minimum value and no bound for the maximum value. Chisq square test is implemented for detecting outliers from univariate variables. It detects both lowest and highest values due to the presence of outliers on both side of the data.
What are Breakouts in Time Series Data?
Breakout are significant changes observed in the time series data. It consist of two characteristics that are given below –
Mean shift – It is defined as a sudden change in time series. For example the usage of CPU is increased from 35% to 70%. This is taken as a mean shift. It is added when the time series move from one steady state to another state.
Ramp Up – It is defined as a sudden increase in the value of the metric from one steady state to another. It is a slow process as compared with the mean shift. It is a slow transition process from one stable state to another.
In Time series often more than one breakouts are observed.
How to detect Breakouts in Time Series Data?
In order to detect breakouts in time series Twitter has introduced a package known as BreakoutDetection package. It is an open source package for detecting breakouts at a fast speed. This package uses E-Divisive with Medians (EDM) algorithm to detect the divergence within the mean. It can also be used to detect the change in distribution within the time series.
Need of Machine Learning and Deep Learning in Time Series Data
Machine learning techniques are more effective as compared with the statistical techniques. This is because machine learning have two important features such as feature engineering and prediction. The feature engineering aspect is used to address the trend and seasonality issues of time series data. The issues of fitting the model to time series data can also be resolved by it.
Deep Learning is used to combine the feature extraction of time series with the non-linear autoregressive model for higher level prediction. It is used to extract the useful information from the features automatically without using any human effort or complex statistical techniques.
Anomaly Detection using Machine Learning
There are two most effective techniques of machine learning such as supervised and unsupervised learning.
Firstly, supervised learning is performed for training data points so that they can be classified into anomalous and non-anomalous data points. But, for supervised learning, there should be labeled anomalous data points.
Another approach for detecting anomaly is unsupervised learning. One can apply unsupervised learning to train CART so that prediction of next data points in the series could be made. To implement this, confidence interval or prediction error is made. Therefore, to detect anomalous data points Generalised ESD-Test is implemented to check which data points are present within or outside the confidence interval
The most common supervised learning algorithms are supervised neural networks, support vector machine learning, k-nearest neighbors, Bayesian networks and Decision trees.
In the case of k-nearest neighbors, the approximate distance between the data points is calculated and then the assignment of unlabeled data points is made according to the class of k-nearest neighbor.
On the other hand, Bayesian networks can encode the probabilistic relationships between the variables. This algorithm is mostly used with the combination of statistical techniques.
The most common unsupervised algorithms are self-organizing maps (SOM), K-means, C-means, expectation-maximization meta-algorithm (EM), adaptive resonance theory (ART), and one-class support vector machine.
Anomaly Detection using Deep Learning
Recurrent neural network is one of the deep learning algorithm for detecting anomalous data points within the time series. It consist of input layer, hidden layer and output layer. The nodes within hidden layer are responsible for handling internal state and memory. They both will be updated as the new input is fed into the network. The internal state of RNN is used to process the sequence of inputs. The important feature of memory is that it can automatically learns the time-dependent features.
The process followed by RNN is described below –
First the series of data is fed into the RNN model. After that, model will train the series of data to compute the normal behaviour. After computing, whenever the new input is fed into the trained network, it will be able to classify the input as normal and expected, or anomalous.
Training of normal data is performed because the quantity of abnormal data is less as compared with the normal data and provides an alert whenever any abnormal activity is observed in the future.
Time Series Data Visualization
Data Visualization is an important and quickest way for picturizing the time series data and forecasting. The different types of graphs are given below:
Line Plots.
Histograms and Density Plots.
Box and Whisker Plots.
Heat Maps.
Lag Plots or Scatter Plots.
Autocorrelation Plots.
The above techniques are used for plotting univariate time series data but they can also be used for multivariate time series when more than one observation is dependent upon time.
They are used for the representation of time series data to identify trends, cycles, and seasonality from time series and observe how they can influence the choice of model.
Summary
Time Series is defined as sequence of data points. The components of time series are responsible for the understanding of patterns of data. In time series, anomalous data points can also be there.
Therefore, there is a need to detect them. Various statistical techniques are mentioned in blog that are used but machine learning and deep learning are essential.
In machine learning, supervised learning and unsupervised learning is used for detecting anomalous data. On the other hand, in deep learning recurrent neural network is used.
Military helicopters circled above a crowd of thousands during a festival in Ethiopia’s Oromia region in October last. “Down, down TPLF!” one of those who assembled at Bishoftu town in Oromia shouted into a microphone, referring to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, the dominant wing of Ethiopia’s ruling party. Oromia has seen violent protests, which began two years ago after complaints about evictions of farmers to make way for development projects and a lack of autonomy in an authoritarian system. Security forces fired tear gas at the crowd, triggering a stampede in which scores were crushed. Some drowned in a lake. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn declared emergency rule less than a week later. The same day, defence forces shot a 28-year-old Oromo farmer. Witnesses cited in a report by Ethiopia’s only rights NGO, Human Rights Council, said the farmer was shot because he protested. An Opposition party leader was arrested after he addressed the European Parliament.
Ten-months later, the ruling party has unexpectedly lifted the emergency. Most of the over 20,000 people arrested were released after “renewal training”, while over 7,000 are on trial, Defence Minister Siraj Fegessa told Parliament earlier this month. But Oromia is far from being calm. The U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa has recommended avoiding an area where Oromia and Ethiopia’s Somali regions meet, where intense fighting is going on. Weeks earlier, Information Minister Negeri Lencho, an Oromo, told this reporter that almost 70,000 retailers lodged complaints over a new regional income tax law. “Most of the shops are closed where I live to protest” overvalued tax payments, said a resident of an Oromo town, 20 km from the capital.
‘Torture and murder’
The Human Rights Council published its 49-page report online, in Amharic, on May 29. A day later, the state telecom monopoly turned off internet access for almost a week. It documents 22,525 arrests, testimony from 28 former prisoners, six cases of “torture, beatings, and injuries” and 19 murders. Ex-inmates of a prison in the Amhara region, to where the protests spread, testified that prisoners were dunked in a cesspit full of urine; 250 youths were held without charge or trial; up to 100 prisoners were forced to sleep in a room of 10X4 meters; water was given only weekly; and contaminated water exposed them to contagious diseases.
In November, a 12-year-old girl from Ethiopia’s south was beaten and then taken from her house by government forces to a makeshift prison, her father testified. A heavy presence of government forces prevented the Council’s staff from moving freely, people were afraid to testify, and state organs, including police stations and federal prisons, remained deaf to the Council’s efforts at official corroboration, the report says.
The Council says what it documented violates the right to life contained in Ethiopia’s Constitution, as well as the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Convention against Torture, to which Ethiopia has acceded. The report assumes the scope and types of violations are “more than presented. It asks the ruling party to give the UN permission to investigate without restriction. Addis Ababa, however, rejects this, citing “an issue of sovereignty”. Zadig Abraha, deputy government spokesperson, said the report is “politically-motivated”. He pointed to a government-sanctioned inquiry which found that security forces took “proportionate measures in most areas”, saying 669 people were killed last year alone. The government can investigate itself, he added.
Nizar Manek is a reporter based in Addis Ababa, covering African affairs
The most severe drought in decades has struck parts of Ethiopia, exacerbated by a particularly strong El Niño effect. This has led to successive failed harvests and widespread livestock deaths in some areas, and humanitarian needs have tripled since the beginning of 2015.
Drought has devastated herders’ livelihoods as it exhausted pastures and water sources, the United Nations agriculture agency said today, stressing that supporting them to get back on their feet and prevent further livestock losses are crucial in the Horn of Africa country, where hunger has been on the rise this year.
The drought has led to a significant number of animals dying or falling ill, particularly in the southern and south-eastern regions of the country, as other areas recover from previous seasons’ El Niño-induced drought,” warned the Food and Agriculture Organization of the (FAO).
FAO pointed out that drought-hit pastoralists face reduced milk production, rising malnutrition, and have limited income-earning capacity and severely constrained access to food.
“Some 8.5 million people – one in 12 people – are now suffering from hunger; of these, 3.3 million people live in Somali Region,” said the UN agriculture agency.
The current food and nutrition crisis is significantly aggravated by the severe blow to pastoral livelihoods. For livestock-dependent families, the animals can literally mean the difference between life and death – especially for children, pregnant and nursing mothers, for whom milk is a crucial source of nutrition.
With up to two million animals lost so far, FAO is focusing on providing emergency livestock support to the most vulnerable pastoralist communities through animal vaccination and treatment, supplementary feed and water, rehabilitating water points, and supporting fodder and feed production.
“It is crucial to provide this support between now and October – when rains are due – to begin the recovery process and prevent further losses of animals. If we don’t act now, hunger and malnutrition will only get worse among pastoral communities,” said Abdoul Karim Bah, FAO Deputy Representative in Ethiopia.
By providing supplementary feed and water for livestock, while simultaneously supporting fodder production, FAO seeks to protect core breeding animals and enable drought-hit families to rebuild their livelihoods.
In addition to FAO-supported destocking and cash-for-work programmes to provide cash for families, animal health campaigns will be reinforced to protect animals, particularly before the rain sets in – when they are at their weakest and more susceptible to parasites or infectious diseases.
Funding appeal
FAO urgently requires $20 million between August and December to come to the aid of Ethiopia’s farmers and herders.
FAO has already assisted almost 500,000 drought-hit people in 2017 through a mix of livestock feed provision, destocking and animal health interventions, thanks to the support of the Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden through FAO’s Special Fund for Emergency and Rehabilitation Activities, the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund, as well as FAO’s own Early Warning Early Action fund and Technical Cooperation Programme.
Today, the T-TPLF slicksters are trying to kill three birds with one stone: Rack up some PR credits to demonstrate good governance during the “state of emergency” and drum up popular support. They also believe they could divert and distract attention from their atrocious human rights record, including the Irreecha Massacres of October 2016, by showcasing their “anti-corruption” campaign. Last but not least, the cash-strapped T-TPLF bosses are hoping to squeeze American taxpayers for a few billion dollars (fat chance under Trump) by talking the talk of anti-corruption while walking and swimming in corruption.
Author’s Note: If I assembled all of the commentaries I wrote on the T-TPLF’s corruption, it would comprise of at least two solid volumes. Back in 2013, I commented extensively on the range of T-TPLF corrupt practices in a number of sectors of the Ethiopian economy and society based on the World Bank’s 448-page report, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”. (See my commentaries in 2013 at almariam.com.) I even coined a word to discuss T-TPLF corruption. It is “horruption”. Horrible corruption.
Every now and then, the T-TPLF bosses put on corruption show trials to distract the population, panhandle the loaner and donors and draw attention away from their criminality. They have done it again in July 2017.
Here we go again! The corruption prosecution con game of the T-TPLF
In May 2013, I wrote a commentary entitled, “The Corruption Game” of the T-TPLF.
That commentary dealt with the arrest of some two dozen “high and medium ranking officials of the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA) and prominent businessmen”. Among them were ERCA “director general” with the “rank of minister”, his deputies and “chief prosecutor” along with other customs officials. “Ethiopia’s top anti-corruption official” Ali Sulaiman told the Voice of America Amharic “the suspects had been under surveillance for over two years.”
At the time, T-TPLF bosses were in the middle of their recurrent internal power struggles in the aftermath of the passing of their thugmaster Meles Zenawi.
The recent arrests are part of the ongoing “civil war” within the T-TPLF. It is intended to send a message to others who may think about opposing the current faction of the T-TPLF that the sledgehammer of corruption prosecution will also be visited upon their heads if they want to try anything.
Simply stated, the current dominant T-TPLF faction is simply “killing the chicken to warn the monkeys”, to use a Chinese idiom.
Today, the T-TPLF slicksters are trying to kill three birds with one stone: Rack up some PR credits to demonstrate good governance during the “state of emergency” and drum up popular support. They also believe they could divert and distract attention from their atrocious human rights record, including the Irreecha Massacres of October 2016, by showcasing their “anti-corruption” campaign. Last but not least, the cash-strapped T-TPLF bosses are hoping to squeeze American taxpayers for a few billion dollars (fat chance under Trump) by talking the talk of anti-corruption while walking and swimming in corruption.
Belatedly, T-TPLF puppet prime minister (PPM) Hailemariam Desalegn is also trying to prove that, despite his repeated public cathartic confessions that he is the handmaiden of Meles, he is Mr. Clean, not Mr. Clone (of Meles). Desalegn is still trying to prove to the loaners and donors that he is a different breed from his thugmaster Meles. He wants to perpetuate an image of Mr. Clean cleaning the “House of Meles”. Oh! Behold in 2017 the “Dirty 3 Dozen” he bagged!
2017: Sleazy investigating greasy and cheesy for corruption
Over the past couple of weeks, the T-TPLF has been rolling out the rogue’s gallery of alleged corruption suspects. Among them are “high level government officials” and sundry other businessmen.
They even allegedly jailed the “wife” of one of the founders of the T-TPLF, Abay Tsehay.
The “wife” was arrested “while she was attending her son’s wedding family reunion ceremony.” Tsehay was at the wedding but not arrested.
Obviously, the wife was “arrested” to send a clear message to Tsehay.
But if allegations of corruption are to be thrown around, Tsehay should be at the very top of guilty-as-sin suspects.
Tsehay was Board chairman of the “Commercial Bank of Ethiopia”, the largest and oldest bank in the country, even though he had absolutely no financial background whatsoever! During Tsehay’s tenure, the Commercial Bank lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Shouldn’t Tsehay be held accountable for that loss?
He was replaced by another T-TPLF ignoramus named Bereket Simon in 2011. Such was the height of T-TPLF nepotism and corruption.
It was clear to me in April that Tsehay was toast. Done. Finished.
As I indicated in my April 30 commentary, “The Good Kops/Bad Kops T-TPLF Con Game (Over) in Ethiopia”, I knew Tsehay was in deep doo-doo when PPT Desalegn dismissed a “study” done by Tsehay and his henchmen. “I don’t know [anything] about the study. It does not concern me. The study does not offer a correct analysis,” said Desalegn offhandedly.
I concluded that Desalegn would not have been emboldened to dismiss a report by a founding member of the T-TPLF unless that founding member was on his way out to pasture or something even worse. Alternatively, I reasoned that there is definitely a gang within the T-TPLF gunning for Tsehay. Either way, it was clear to me that Tsehay was history.
Curiously, Tsehay, a charlatan at best, must have been trying to reinvent himself as some sort of respectable academic or scholarly analyst when he put together a ragtag crew of “researchers” to issue a report. I suspected the T-TPLF gangsters ganging against Tsehay must have been offended by his bold report or considered it an effort by him to ingratiate himself with the public and gain ascendancy and tactically undercut them. After all, Tsehay practically called the T-TPLF “lawmakers” a bunch of morons who sit around rubberstamping whatever is sent to them by the “executive branch”.
What has happened to Tsehay is a clear indication to me that there is a “creeping civil war” among various T-TPLF factions today. The only reason the “civil war” has not broken out in public is because they are all tangled up in the same web and morass corruption and criminality.
The T-TPLF criminals know all too well that they must hang together or hang separately, to quote Ben Franklin.
Anyway, Tsehay’s cannibalistic T-TPLF friends threw him under the bus, just as he ganged up with them to throw so many others before. That is karmic poetic justice!
It must feel like hell to feel so disposable!
Back to the current corruption prosecution con game.
Just to maintain the suspense, the T-TPLF has been announcing arrests almost daily. Just yesterday, they announced the arrest of Alemayehu Gujo, T-TPLF “minister of finance” and the highest-ranking official in the roundup and Zayed Woldegabriel, Director General of the Ethiopian Roads Authority.
The “anti-corruption” prosecutors have completely avoided charging any of the top T-TPLF leaders despite mountains of evidence of all types of corruption and criminal wrongdoing. They have gone after the small fish and left the big sharks, the capo di tutti cappi (boss of all bosses) alone.
The fact of the matter is that the whole T-TPLF corruption prosecution is a bunch of horse manure!
For the T-TPLF to accuse its disfavored members, ministers and lackeys of corruption and criminal wrongdoing is exactly like Tweedledee accusing Tweedledum of taking his rattle (toy).
/‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee/ Agreed to have a battle;/For Tweedledum said Tweedledee/ Had spoiled his nice new rattle./Just then flew down a monstrous crow, As black as a tar-barrel;/Which frightened both the heroes so,/They quite forgot their quarrel./
Simply stated, the T-TPLF is just having an internal battle in their corruption nonsense over their 26-year-old rattle. They are quarreling over who should steal, cheat and rob the most.
That is exactly what the T-TPLF corruption prosecution con game we see played out today is all about. One gang of T-TPLFers quarreling with and battling against another gang of T-TPLFers about who should ripoff the most of their 26-year-old rattle (toy) called Ethiopia.
There is nothing new in the current corruption prosecution con game.
The T-TPLF bosses have been playing their corruption prosecution game to knock each other out from day 1.
The T-TPLF canned its first prime minster Tamrat Layne on corruption charges in 1996.
That cunning and ruthless thugmaster Meles Zenawi forced Layne, under threat of penalty of death, to admit corruption and abuse of power before the rubberstamp parliament.
Of course, Layne did nothing that every top T-TPLF leader did not do. If Layne could be convicted for corruption, then each and every T-TPLF member beginning with the thugmaster himself are all guilty as sin of corruption. But the corruption prosecution was a tactic used to neutralize and sideline Layne.
In 2002, Seeye Abraha, T-TPLF defense minister and chairman of the board and CEO of Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (a T-TPLF rabbit hole of high corruption, money laundering, conspiracy and sundry other criminality) was also jacked up on corruption charges and jailed for six years. Following the Ethio-Eritrean war in the late 1990s, the T-TPLF had split into two groups, one headed by Meles, the other by Seeye. Meles tactically outplayed and outfoxed Seeye and consolidated power. If Abraha could be convicted for corruption, then each and every T-TPLF member beginning with the thugmaster himself are all guilty as sin of corruption. But the corruption prosecution was a tactic used to neutralize and sideline Abraha.
In 2007 when Ethiopia’s auditor general, Lema Aregaw, reported that Birr 600 million of state funds were missing from the regional coffers, Zenawi fired Lema and publicly defended the regional administrations’ “right to burn money.”
In 2009, Meles publicly stated that 10,000 tons of coffee earmarked for exports had simply vanished from the warehouses. He called a meeting of commodities traders and in a videotaped statement told them that he will forgive them this time because “we all have our hands in the disappearance of the coffee”. He threatened to “cut off their hands” if they should steal coffee in the future.
Barely eight months ago in December 2016, the T-TPLF announced it had arrested 130 unnamed individuals on corruption charges. An additional 130 were said to be under investigation.
Just yesterday, to add suspense to excitement, the T-TPLF called an “emergency meeting” of its rubberstamp parliament without a public explanation for the meeting. Apparently, it had partly to do “with lifting the state of emergency order”, but the “parliament” removed “immunity” from two members at the ministerial and high administrative positions and jailed them. (More on that comedic drama in another commentary.)
All the T-TPLF corruption prosecution crap is nothing more than a con game, an attempt to distract and divert attention from the fact that the T-TPLF is on life support, on its last legs.
But the T-TPLF is playing the same old con game. Corruption prosecution is the oldest trick in the book of dictators.
In any power struggle in dictatorships, it is very common for one group of power players to accuse members of an opposing group of corruption and neutralize them. It is less costly and uncertain than conducting coups. Corruption show trials are a powerful weapon in the arsenal of dictators who seek to neutralize their opponents.
Back during the Derg (military rule) days, the favorite charge to neutralize opponents was to accuse them of being a “counter-revolutionary” and jail them or worse.
To be blunt, it is the same _ _ _t, just different flies.
In China, Bo Xilai, once touted to be the successor to President Hu Jintao in China, Liu Zhijun and many other high level Chinese communist party leaders were prosecuted for accepting bribes, corruption and abuses of power. They were all neutralized and sidelined.
Yet in 2016 the campaign against corruption came to a grinding halt as “President Xi Jinping’s high-profile ahead of a period of change for the Chinese Communist party’s leadership.” Jinping became president in 2012 and cleaned house using corruption prosecutions to eliminate his opponents.
Putin jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky (once considered the “wealthiest man in Russia”) on trumped up charges of “corruption” and gave him a long prison sentence.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin has used corruption prosecutions to neutralize his opposition and unfriendly power contenders. Putin’s favorite tactic to control his opponents is prosecution for money laundering. A few months ago, Putin arrested his foremost critic and anti-corruption champion Aleksei Navalny during an anti-corruption protest in Moscow and had him barred from a presidential run.
Putin jailed Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, who accused Russian officials of massive tax fraud. He was beaten to death in prison. The U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act barring entry of officials involved in Magnitsky’s murder.
Tip of the T-TPLF iceberg of corruption
Corruption in Africa, and particularly Ethiopia, is a proven means of accessing and clinging to power. It is the grease that lubricates the patronage system where supporters are rewarded with the spoils of controlling power.
The core business of the T-TPLF is corruption.
The T-TPLF warlords who seized political power in Ethiopia in 1991 have always operated in secrecy like a racketeering criminal organization. Their principal aim for more than a quarter of a century has been the looting of the national treasury which they have accomplished by illicit capital transfers and by plunging the country into a bottomless pit of foreign debt.
Corruption prosecutions in Ethiopia have been driven not by any unusual or extreme corrupt behavior, since all T-TPLF bosses are deeply mired in corruption, but because of the recurrent divisions and struggles in T-TPLF power circles.
Anyone who believes the T-TPLF is engaged in corruption prosecution to improve good governance is simply delusional. The T-TPLF’s only reason for existence is clinging to power to conduct the business of corruption, not good governance or stamping out corruption. The only reason the T-TPLF is in power is because corruption courses in their bloodstream and the bloodstream of their body politics. Corruption is the hemoglobin that delivers life-sustaining oxygen to their anatomical and organizational nerve centers.
Without corruption, the T-TPLF will simply wither away, or implode.
The anti-corruption organizations and prosecutorial and investigative bodies are created and stage-managed by the top political leaders. The members of these bodies are hand selected by the top leaders. They intervene in corruption investigations when it gets close to them. The whole anti-corruption campaign is set up to make sure that the grandmasters of corruption and their minions at the top are immune from investigation and prosecution.
As I argued in my commentary “Africorruption, Inc.”, corruption under the T-TPLF regime is widespread and endemic. It includes outright theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, abuse of public authority and position to exact corrupt payments. The anecdotal stories of corruption in Ethiopia are shocking to the conscience. Businessmen complain that they are unable to get permits and licenses without paying huge bribes or taking officials as silent partners. They must pay huge bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement.
Publicly-owned assets are acquired by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Banks loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. T-TPLF officials and supporters do not have to repay millions of dollars in “loans” borrowed from the state banks and their debts are overlooked or forgiven. Those involved in the import/export business complain of shakedowns by corrupt customs officials. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation as evidenced in the various high profile political prosecutions. Even Diaspora Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. In 2009, the U.S. State Department pledged to investigate allegations that “$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party.”
The fact of the matter is that the culture of corruption is the modus operandi of the T-TPLF regime. Former president Dr. Negasso Gidada declared in 2001 that “corruption has riddled state enterprises to the core,” adding that the government would show “an iron fist against corruption and graft as the illicit practices had now become endemic”.
Corruption today is not only endemic in Ethiopia; it is a terminal condition
The “holy cows” and “minnows” (fish bait) of corruption
Corruption in Ethiopia can no longer be viewed as a simple criminal matter of prosecuting a few dozen petty government officials and others for bribery, extortion, fraud and embezzlement,
The so-called “corruption investigations and prosecutions” today are no different from previous ones. They scapegoat the minnows, small fish while leaving the untouchable holy cows untouched.
Tradition has it that on the day of atonement, a goat would be selected by the high priest and loaded with the sins of the community and driven out into the wilderness as an affirmative act of symbolic cleansing. In ancient times, it made the people feel purged of evil and guiltless.
The individuals accused of corruption are low-level bureaucrats, ministers-in-name only and other officials-with-titles-only, suspected disloyal members and handmaidens of the regime. They all humbly and obediently served the T-TPLF bosses for years. Now the T-TPLF bosses want to make them out to be loathsome villains. The sins and crimes of the untouchable T-TPLF holy cows are placed upon their heads and railroaded them to prison.
The T-TPLF high priests want to show the public they have been cleansed and the nation is free from the evil of corruption. In this narrative, the corrupt T-TPLF bosses want to appear as “anti-corruption warriors”, the white knights in shining armor.
Cc: -The Global Fund Secretariat
– Global Fund’s Office of the Inspector General
Geneva, Switzerland
Greetings!
Global Fund, as the 21st century partnership-based financing organization designed to accelerate the end of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics, is indeed contributing its fair share for the global health and wellbeing of millions of people.
As Ethiopia is one of the top recipients of support from the Global Fund, there is no doubt that many poor patients have benefited irrespective of the level of corruption and misappropriation of funds on the part of the ruling regime.
The country has received over $2 billion from 2002 to 2016, as per the report of the Global Fund itself. But the regime in power misused and misappropriated much of this money by manipulating and taking advantage of Global Fund’s good-intentioned principle called ‘Country ownership’ — at the heart of which is the golden idea that people determine their own solutions in fighting the diseases affecting their health, and take full responsibility for them.
However, the regime in Ethiopia has effectively manipulated this principle to use global fund resources for its own political end goals. The 2015 audit report of the office of the general inspector of the Global Fund itself briefly touched up on these problems.
For the malaria grant for example, the report rightly identified the following problems:
• Inadequate Monitoring and Evaluation and Poor Data Quality;
• Theft or Diversion of Non-Financial Resources;
• Poor Financial Reporting;
• Treatment Disruption;
• Substandard Quality of Health Products;
• Inadequate Principal Recipient Reporting and Compliance.
To illustrate the report’s important point on diversion of resources for wrong purposes, there is no better example than drawing your kind attention to a recent case in the city of Ambo, where the regime deployed its brutal security forces using the vehicles obtained by the Ministry of Health using foreign funding such to crack down on anti-government protesters who were on the streets protesting a newly introduced tax hike.
As a result, the protesters have torched one of the vehicles in mid-June but the regime continued using these vehicles to transport its security agents. Several evidences show that these vehicles which the tyrant regime in Ethiopia is using to transport its security forces to kill protesters, were procured by the Global Fund grants.
The Global Fund secretariat should therefore reconsider and submit to rigorous scrutiny its partnership with the corrupt and repressive regime of Ethiopia.
Financial supports from the Global Fund should not be used to enable the repressive security structures of the regime that kills its own citizens but to help the needy people of the country. To this end, the Global Fund has not only the moral responsibility but also the legal duty to make sure that all its financial supports to the regime are used solely for their intended purposes.
We are therefore kindly requesting the Board Directors of the Global Fund to undertake the necessary investigations on the misuse, misappropriation and diversion of resources that the regime in Ethiopia receives as grants from the Global Fund.
From 4 to 6 August 2017, the 22nd annual conference of the Ogaden communities from around the world took place in Frankfurt Germany. The conference, organised by the Ogaden diaspora of Germany invited delegations from Somalia, Oromo, Amhara and Eritrea. Representatives from UNPO Members Ogaden National Liberation Front, Oromo Liberation Front and the People’s Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) took part in the three-day conference. The conference saw traditional performances and fruitful discussions on the Ogadeni diaspora’s role in the future of their region and peoples and what concrete steps must be taken to advocate for the most fundamental rights of the people of Ogaden to be respected.
The annual 22nd conference of Ogaden Somali communities Worldwide was held from 4 to 6 August 2017 in Frankfurt, Germany.
The three-day conference was organized by the Ogaden community in Germany was attended by delegates representing Ogaden Communities from all five continents and invited guests from Somalia, Oromo, Amhara, and Eritrean communities. In Addition, dignitaries Ogaden National Liberation Front, Oromo Liberation Front, the Peoples’ Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) and Patriotic Ginbot 7 also attended the conference.
Throughout the three day event, the renowned Hilac Band constantly raised the tempo of the meeting by performing Epic Traditional Somali folklore dances moving patriotic songs that moved the participants. Moreover, Nina Simone’s moving song “I AINT GOT NO LIFE” was played to highlight the suffering of the Somali people in Ogaden.
Due to the Ethiopian government’s total disregard for the democratic rights of life, peace, choice, assembly, freedom of speech and other basic human rights in Ogaden and Ethiopia, the Ogaden Diaspora plays a crucial role in highlighting by providing evidence of the alarming humanitarian rights situation in Ogaden and the systematic human rights violations the Ethiopian regime is perpetrating in Ogaden which include extrajudicial killings, sexual violence as a weapon of war, mass arbitrary detentions and the use of torture.
During the conference, the attendees extensively discussed the dire situation in Ogaden, Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa and how to remedy the calamity in Ogaden and Ethiopia. After deliberating on all relevant issues that affect the Ogaden people in Ogaden, the Horn of African and the Diaspora and considering worsening situation in Ethiopia and the hysterical knee jerk reactions the regime to increasing resistance of the masses against its autocratic and genocidal policies and the possibility of sudden implosion of the regime from within, the participants resolved to :
Continue to
1. Strengthen the education of Ogaden Youth in the diaspora and refugee camps;
2. promote the Somali culture and language to the younger general in the diaspora;
3. streamline the activities of the Ogaden Communities Abroad and enhance advocacy and interaction with Human Rights and humanitarian rights institutions
4. increase the material and moral support to Ogaden Refugees, orphans, and victims of Ethiopian government atrocities
5. strengthen the relationships and interaction with host countries, communities and institutions and combat any acts that can create disharmony between Ogaden Somalis and host communities.
6. Maintain and develop relationships with all oppressed communities from Ethiopia, the Horn of African and the world
Support
1. The just struggle of the Somali people in Ogaden to exercise their right to self-determination and life
2. The peaceful resistance of all peoples in Ethiopia against the current undemocratic regime of Ethiopia led by EPRDF_TPLF
3. All democratic forces and institutions that believe in the rights of all peoples to self-determination, democracy and the rule of law in Ethiopia and the rest of the world
4. The noble effort of the Somali people in Somalia to re-establish their sovereignty, governance and rule of law
Condemns
1. The Ethiopian regime for its deliberate and systemic policies and practices of annihilation of the Somali people in Ogaden, by committing rampant human rights violations, blockading trade, and aid, while hampering the ability of the people to engage in economic activities that could sustain them, specially during draughts and other natural disasters
2. The Ethiopian regime for killing innocent civilians in Ogaden Oromia, Amhara, Gambella, Sidama, Afar, Omo, Konso and other parts of Ethiopia
3. The regime’s use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators in Oromia and Amhara states and the general abuse of human rights of all peoples in Ethiopia
4. Those who support the Ethiopian regime, politically, diplomatically and economically while being fully aware of it crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ogaden, Oromia, Amhara, Sidama and Gambella and other parts of Ethiopia
5. Multinational corporations and banks that bankroll the mega-projects in Ogaden, OMO, Gambella, Benishangul and other parts of Ethiopia that forcefully displace the rural communities and destroy the livelihood of millions in Ethiopia
6. Condemns the use of local militias by the Ethiopian regime in order to suppress popular resistance and create civil wars among the neighborly communities, specially between the Somali and Oromo peoples.
7. Condemns certain regional administrations in Somalia in collaborating with Ethiopian regime security to forcefully rendition asylum seeker from Ogaden to the Ethiopian regime.
Calls Upon
1. The UN to seek security council resolution forcing the Ethiopian regime to allow independent UN commission to investigate human rights violations in Ethiopia, in particular in Somali, Oromia, and Amhara regional states and take appropriate measures to stop ongoing violations.
2. The USA and the EU as providers of the greatest aid to the regime to stop blindly supporting the current regime and instead support the rights of the peoples in instead of a decadent, undemocratic and callous regime that violates its own constitution and rule of law
3. The AU to stop acting as dump, paper tiger organization that always supports dictators in Africa and instead start acting on its charters and stand for the rights of African peoples. To date, the AU is silent about the atrocities perpetrated by the Ethiopian regimes against the Somali people in Ogaden and other parts of Ethiopia while thousands are massacred just across the AU headquarters!
Finally, the Conference calls upon the Somali people in Ogaden and all peoples in Ethiopia to unite and support each other against the vile and callous regime in Ethiopia.
Oromo visual artist and activist Yaddi Bojia talks to Jackson Muneza M’vunganyi on using his art as a platform to speak on issues related to Oromo Culture,Social issues,Black Lives Movement etc.’Artists often see their place to provoke, to voice, to enlighten.’
The lifting of billions of people globally out of poverty is a considerable achievement. But many of these individuals earn between $2 (£1.50) and $10 dollars a day. Their position is fragile, exposed to the vicissitudes of health, employment, economic conditions and political and societal stability. As William Gibson observed: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”.
Current growth, short-term profits and higher living standards for some are pursued at the expense of costs which are not evident immediately but will emerge later. Society has borrowed from and pushes problems into the future
The acquisition of material goods defines progress Getty
The world cannot countenance the idea that human progress might be at an end or even have stalled.
The belief that advances in science, technology as well as social and political systems can provide continuous improvement in human life is perhaps the most important idea in Western civilisation. Yet attempts to measure actual progress are curiously vague. In January 2016, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi dispensed with practicalities arguing that “Europe cannot just be a grey technical debate about constraints, but must again be a great dream”.
Thomas Carlyle’s 19th-century analysis of England provides a useful benchmark for assessing human achievements.
Carlyle was critical of a world “submerged in mamonism”. The undeniable improvement in living standards over the last 150 years is seen as evidence of progress. Improvements in diet, health, safe water, hygiene and education have been central to increased life spans and incomes.
The lifting of billions of people globally out of poverty is a considerable achievement. But many of these individuals earn between $2 (£1.50) and $10 dollars a day. Their position is fragile, exposed to the vicissitudes of health, employment, economic conditions and political and societal stability. As William Gibson observed: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”.
Economic progress also has come at a cost. Growth and wealth is increasingly based on borrowed money, used to purchase something today against the uncertain promise of paying it back in the future. Debt levels are now unsustainable. Growth has been at the expense of existentially threatening environmental changes which are difficult to reverse. Higher living standards rely on the profligate use of under-priced, finite resources, especially water and energy, which have been utilised without concern about conservation for future use.
Current growth, short-term profits and higher living standards for some are pursued at the expense of costs which are not evident immediately but will emerge later. Society has borrowed from and pushes problems into the future.
The acquisition of material goods defines progress. The concept of leisure as shopping and consumption as the primary economic engine now dominate. Altering Bob Dylan’s lyrics, the Angry Brigade, an English anarchist group, described it as: “If you are not being born, you are busy buying”.
Carlyle, who distrusted the “mechanical age”, would have been puzzled at the unalloyed modern worship of technology. Much of our current problems, environmental damage and pollution, are the unintended consequences of technology, especially the internal combustion engine and exploitation of fossil fuels. The invention of the motor vehicle was also the invention of the car crash. Technology applied to war continues to create human suffering. Mankind’s romance with technology increasingly is born of a desperate need for economic growth and a painless, cheap fix to problems such as reducing in greenhouse gas without decreasing living standards.
Carlyle’s hope for an “aristocracy of talent” has not been fulfilled. After a brief period of decline in the years after the Second World War, inequality measured as concentration of wealth and income is rising. Less than 100 billionaires now own as much as 50 per cent of world’s population, down from around 400 billionaires a little more than five years ago. Hereditary monarchies and “an idle landowning aristocracy” are less prevalent than in Carlyle’s time, although the current US administration and many emerging nations still emphasise filial ties. Instead, a gang of industrial buccaneers and pirates and a powerful working aristocracy of politicians, business leaders, professional and bureaucrats dominate public affairs. These include graduates of elite educational establishments such as America’s ivy league school, Britain’s Oxbridge complex or French ‘enarques’, America’s technology entrepreneurs or alumni of prestigious institutions and think tanks, which function as shadow governments. The new feudalism is like the older model, with class, privilege and wealth still highly influential.
Pre-occupation with narcissistic self-fulfilment and escapist entertainment is consistent with Carlyle’s concern about the loss of social cohesiveness, spirituality and community. His fear of a pervasive “philosophy of simply looking on, of doing nothing, of laissez-faire … a total disappearance of all general interest, a universal despair of truth and humanity, and in consequence a universal isolation of men in their own ‘brute individuality” … a war of all against all … intolerable oppression and wretchedness” seems modern.
Carlyle’s fear of the loss of individual freedom has proved well founded. The Black Lives Matter movement, the treatment of women and minorities and growing racial and religious intolerance highlight the disappointing limits of social progress. Following the 9/11 attacks, a fearful population has acquiesced in an unprecedented loss of privacy and civil liberties. Technology and social media permit an extraordinary level of monitoring of private lives. The state and powerful interests have emerged as Stalin’s engineers of human souls.
Carlyle bemoaned “a parliament elected by bribery”. Two centuries later, the need for vast sums to finance political campaigns and hold onto political office has made elected officials captive to donors. Carlyle would have recognised the lack of political leadership, simplistic ideas that are selected to maximise popularity and the use of propaganda to polarise opinion along racial, regional or other demographic lines for electoral advantage.
Other than in some material elements the future is likely to be much like the past with the tragic or farcical repetition of the same things. Human achievements, even when they are considerable, rarely change things more than marginally. The power of individuals and society is overstated. Each epoch only creates transient winners and losers.
Progress is ultimately based on the idea of perfectibility, that education and ideas can improve human nature or behaviour. But man may not be perfectible. Human irrationality, destructiveness and selfishness may not be able to be overcome.
The idea of progress is an ‘innocent fraud’, a term coined by economist John Kenneth Galbraith to describe a lie or a half-truth that with repetition becomes common wisdom.
Satyajit Das is a former banker. His latest book is ‘A Banquet of Consequences’ (published in North America as The Age of Stagnation to avoid confusion as a cookbook). He is also the author of Extreme Money and Traders, Guns & Money.
To acknowledge the growing importance of the Oromo people in the three cities, the mayors have officially declared July 29 – August 5, 2017 “Oromo Week”.
On behalf of OSA Board of Directors and its Executive Committee, I want to welcome you all to this evening’s events. It is with a great sense of satisfaction that I stand before you to open the 31stAnnual OSA conference. The first time I came to Washington was 33 years ago in 1984 to attend the annual conference of Oromo Union in North America. In early July the same year, we had also an international Oromo conference in Berlin organized by the Union of Oromo Students in Europe. Bonnie Holcomb and the late Mammo Dibaabaa attended the conference from the US. The late Sisai Ibssa sent a paper to be read at the conference. It was then that we started to think about organizing an Oromo studies association. Few years later, OSA was formally organized. Since then, I have been coming almost every year, sometimes twice a year, to this country because of Oromo studies.
By and large, we have been conducting Oromo studies for more than three decades without financial support or institutional backing. Given the circumstances, I never imagined that we could write so many articles and books on Oromo history, culture, and language. When I say many books and articles, I am talking in relative terms reflecting on the knowledge that existed about the Oromo people when we started. If we take the gadaa system, for example, we had only Professor Asmerom Legesse’s classic book, Gadaa: Three Approaches to African Society published in 1973. Today, we have several books, doctoral dissertations, and journal articles on the gadaa system and many other topics concerning the Oromo society. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were very few articles published on Oromo history in international journals. Today, there are many books on the subject, most of them written by Oromos themselves. New ones keep on coming.
Although what has been achieved is what we had never imagined, what we have done so far is not more than a scratch on the surface. There are great gaps in our knowledge about Oromo history, Oromo language, and Oromo culture that are waiting to be filled. Without adequate knowledge about our past, we cannot make an adequate assessment of our present concerns, or have a clear vision of our future as a nation.
That said, Oromo studies should not limit itself to Oromia or the Ethiopian region. It must go beyond the present Ethiopian borders, look into the cultural and historical affinities the Oromo seem to have, particularly with the peoples of Nubia and ancient Egypt. It is interesting to note that culturally, significant similarities in hair style, dress, etc. that resemble Egyptian hieroglyphics motifs are still found among the Oromo. There are many artifacts and outfits used by Oromo abba gadaas and qaalluuswhich resemble the outfits that decorate the statues of Egyptian pharaohs. The resemblance between the ancient Egyptian concept of maat and Oromo concept of nagaa, both of which reflect ethics that regulate order and harmony provide execiting area for scholarly investigation regarding the probable affinity between the philosophies and cultures of the two peoples.
In addition, there are intriguing linguistic elements that indicated similarities between Afaan Oromooand the ancient language of the Berbers of North Africa. In short, there are historical, cultural, and linguistic factors which suggest Oromo affinity with the ancient peoples of Northeast Africa, countering the controversial theory about Oromo migration from the south in the sixteenth century in Ethiopia.
When we turn south, the interaction of the Oromo people with the inhabitants of East Africa is not less interesting. As brilliantly presented in Professor Gufu Oba’s new book, Herder Warfare in East Africa, the Oromo influence in the region from 1300 to 1900 seems to have been very substantial. Starting from Jubaland in southern Somalia and stretching south to Tanzania, the Oromo role in the history of the region was very significant.
That colonialism alienates the colonized from their true history is well-known among scholars. Hence, it is needless to stress here that distortion of history and suppression of information about Oromo society has been the policy of Ethiopian regimes for more than a century. Ethiopianist scholars have also contributed much to the distortion and cover ups. Consequently, there are important areas in Oromo culture and history that remain barely touched by researchers to this day. For example, very little study is done on Oromo social and environmental ethics. The Oromo moral and philosophical principles of Safuu and Nagaa which offer a unique model for passing over life on to future generations are waiting for exploration by scholars. The usefulness of Oromo philosophies, eco-knowledge, and social ethics in these times of glaring lack of environmental ethics, religious fanaticism, right wing political extremism, and lack of respect for human lives should be appreciated and mediated to the rest of the world. The recognition of the gadaa system and the irreecha festival by UNESCO as intangible heritages of humanity in 2017 can be used as an opportunity to share with the world from the pool of traditional Oromo knowledge mentioned above.
In short, opportunities are abound for those who are interested in Oromo studies. As indicated above, there are numerous untouched areas to investigate. However, there are many challenges to be confronted as well. Acquisition of institutional and financial support requires hard work from OSA members.
The future of Oromo studies depends on our ability to recruit young scholars for research in Oromo language, history, and society. Therefore, building networks with researchers at home is very important. Our cooperation with non-Oromo scholars engaged in African studies is also crucial. As a diaspora organization, OSA cannot do everything, but a lot more can be done.
Much more can be said about available research opportunities that OSA has as well as challenges that are confronting it. But, since we have many panels and round table discussions on dozens of topics in the next two days, I will not take more of your time with what should be done, I will use the few minutes I have to thank those who have been working hard to discharge their duties as members of the Board of Directors and OSA Executive Committee since August last year. ….. Last, but not least, I would also like to thank the local organizing committee who made this splendid evening possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention and please enjoy your dinner and the rest of the evening.
News Item: Smith Resolution on Ethiopian Human Rights Advances From Committee
27 July 2017
Today, the full House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to advance a resolution, authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), highlighting the human rights violations of the Ethiopian government, and offering a blueprint to create a government better designed to serve the interests of the Ethiopian people.
The resolution, which passed without objection, also calls on the U.S. government to implement Magnitsky Act sanctions, targeting the individuals within the Ethiopian government who are the cause of the horrific abuses.
The State Department’s current human rights report on Ethiopia notes, “[t]he most significant human rights problems were security forces’ use of excessive force and arbitrary arrest in response to the protests, politically motivated prosecutions, and continued restrictions on activities of civil society and NGOs.”
“H. Res. 128, is like a mirror held up to the Government of Ethiopia on how others see them, and it is intended to encourage them to move on the reforms they agree they need to enact,” said Smith, Chair of the House panel on Africa. “For the past 12 years, my staff and I have visited Ethiopia, spoken with Ethiopian officials, talked to a wide variety of members of the Ethiopia Diaspora and discussed the situation in Ethiopia with advocates and victims of government human rights violations. Our efforts are not a response merely to government critics, but rather a realistic assessment of the urgent need to end very damaging and in some cases inexcusable actions by the government or those who act as their agents.”
end the use of excessive force by security forces;
investigate the killings and excessive use of force that took place as a result of protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions;
release dissidents, activists, and journalists who have been imprisoned for exercising constitutional rights;
respect the right to peaceful assembly and guarantee freedom of the press;
engage in open consultations with citizens regarding its development strategy;
allow a United Nations rapporteur to conduct an independent examination of the state of human rights in Ethiopia;
address the grievances brought forward by representatives of registered opposition parties;
hold accountable those responsible for killing, torturing and detaining innocent civilians who exercised their constitutional rights; and
investigate and report on the circumstances surrounding the September 3, 2016, shootings and fire at Qilinto Prison, the deaths of persons in attendance at the annual Irreecha festivities at Lake Hora near Bishoftu on October 2, 2016, and the ongoing killings of civilians over several years in the Somali Regional State by police.
“It is important to note that this resolution does not call for sanctions on the Government of Ethiopia, but it does call for the use of existing mechanisms to sanction individuals who torture or otherwise deny their countrymen their human and civil rights,” said Smith.
The equality effect can appear magical. In more equal countries, human beings are generally happier and healthier; there is less crime, more creativity, more productivity, and – overall – higher real educational attainment. The evidence for the benefits of living more economically equitable lives is now so overwhelming that it will soon start to change politics and societies all over the world.
Greater equality is not sufficient for widespread happiness, but it is necessary. This is borne out by looking at statistics from all over the world – as well as by surveying long stretches of human history with the benefit of hindsight.
Greater economic equality does not mean all people doing very similar work, or living in very similar types of families, or similar homes. It does not mean all schools being the same or all people being paid exactly the same. It means moving towards all people being respected and fairly rewarded for the work they do, the contributions they make and the needs they have. It means respecting reciprocity. Money is relative. If some people are over-rewarded, others are effectively fined.
Equality means being afforded the same rights, dignity and freedoms as other people. These include the right to access resources, the dignity of being seen as able, and the freedom to choose what to make of your life on an equal footing with others. Believing that we all deserve such parity is very far from suggesting that we would all behave in the same way if we had more equal opportunities.
Although leftwing and green politicians tend to advocate greater equality more vocally, and rightwing and fascist ones tend to oppose it, equality is actually not the preserve of any political label. Great inequality has been sustained or increased under systems labelled as socialist and communist. Some free-market systems have seen equalities grow and the playing field become more level. Anarchistic systems can be either highly equitable or inequitable. Many such social systems existed in the past before the rule of law and the concept of property became widespread, and they were not all greatly equitable or inequitable. Click here to read more at The New Internationalist
‘Known to many as a “walking library” because of his incredibly deep knowledge of Oromo history, Edao Oda is a long-time member of the Oromo community in Tennessee and a life-long participant in the Oromo national struggle. He is a father, a friend for many, and he has throughout his life selflessly helped others in need and devoted his time to researching and teaching about the Oromo people. Due to his commitment to the Oromo cause, he has sacrificed and suffered immensely as a political prisoner, torture survivor and political exilee.
Obbo Edao Odaa Boruu Dorii is widely known as historian, he is also a legal expert, linguist and translator and fluent in many languages including in Afaan Oromoo, Amharic, English, French and Russian. He studied at General Wingate, Prince Mekonnen, Nefas Silk (pre- college). He studied undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) University, Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics, University of London, Birkbeck College (Applied Statisttics and Operations Research), University of North London (MA Employment and Human Resources Studies), University of Westminster, London and University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Edao Odaa Boruu Dorii was born and brought up in Finfinnee. He and his family are among the survivors of indigenous Oromo of Finfinnee. He lived in Moscow, London (Camden Town) and Tennessee (Knoxville).
Edao Odaa Boruu Dorii is pure, selfless, multi-genius, a champion of human freedom and Oromo superhero.
‘Edao Oda Boru, An Exemplary Oromo, is a national treasure’.- Teferi Degeneh Bijiga
Qallačča and Bokkuu: Themes in the ancient Qaallu institution and rock paintings of Hararqee— implications for social semiosis and history of Ethiopia
In Journal of Sociology and Anthropology
Vol. 1(4), pp. xxx – xxx, July 2013 DOWNLOADED
By Dereje Birbirso (PhD)
School of Foreign Language, College of Social Science and Humanities, Haramaya University
Little or none is known about the social origin and meaning of the ancient rock paintings of Ethiopiaand Horn of Africa. This article critically analyzed some of the ancient rock paintings of Hararqee (Eastern Ethiopia) with the intention to understand the social semiotical and rhetorical structures that underlie beneath these social ‘texts’. It did so through using the ancient Qaallu Institution of the Oromo of East and Horn of Africa as analytical device. Multi-disciplinary approach that combined concepts
from various disciples was adopted as a guiding theoretical framework, while the Eurocentric approach that mystifies and de-Ethiopinizes them was rejected. Field data was collected from various sites besides archival data. Informants expert with the local’s social epistemology or wisdom were selected and used as ‘critical friends’. The results revealed both substantive and methodological insights.
Substantively, it suggests that the Oromo Qaallu Institution and its sub-themes such as the preChristian belief in Black Sky-God, line of descent and identity, kingdomization, pastoral festival, and bovine symbolism crosscutting all of these. Methodologically, the unique Oromo social semiosis which can be referred to as ‘metaplasmic witticism’ appeared as the underlying rhetorical structure.
Key words: Oromo, Qaallu institution, Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, ancient rock paintings, language, social semiosis, Laga Oda.
Kenya’s supreme court has declared the results of last month’s presidential election invalid and ordered a new vote. Incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta won 54% of the now-nullified vote, defeating opposition leader Raila Odinga.
On behalf of OSA Board of Directors and its Executive Committee, I want to welcome you all to this evening’s events. It is with a great sense of satisfaction that I stand before you to open the 31stAnnual OSA conference. The first time I came to Washington was 33 years ago in 1984 to attend the annual conference of Oromo Union in North America. In early July the same year, we had also an international Oromo conference in Berlin organized by the 
Oromian Economist 
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