Economic and development analysis: Perspectives on economics, society, development, freedom & social justice. Leading issues in Oromo, Oromia, Africa & world affairs. Oromo News. African News. world News. Views. Formerly Oromia Quarterly
That the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission is not an independent institution and that it is incapable of doing human rights monitoring has long been admitted by the regime itself. So, no report it presents is a result of an independent inquiry. No statement it makes is an impartial statement. What we heard yesterday is not even close to the admission of guilt on the part of the regime made by the Prime Minister and the Spokesperson earlier in the year.
We have yet to see its report, the methods it used, and the personnel it mobilized to conduct its investigation. We have yet to see whom they identified as these “other forces who sought to take advantage of the people”. We have yet to see how “these other forces” are implicated. We have yet to see a full description of who did what so that we can make them responsible. To blame indefinite (and invisible) forces for the people killed (over 500 now), for the people injured (in thousands), and for the people arbitrarily arrested (estimated to be over 50,000), for the destruction of property (through vandalizing and burning of university campuses), for the suspension and dismissal of Oromia’s civil administration unconstitutionally (without even a semblance of legality that could be seen if there were an emergency declaration or a “federal intervention”) is a farce of incredible proportion. And we reject that completely, and we say NO!
Referring to “these other forces” as the responsible bodies without clearly identifying them and without establishing the mode of their involvement is only deflecting responsibility from the regime that acted completely lawlessly (illegally and unconstitutionally) to take “merciless and definitive measures” on protestors and to subject the entire region to military rule. This is simply unacceptable. And we say NO to impunity!
The report claims that the federal army, special forces, federal police, and the entire intelligence personnel was unleashed on Oromia to kill, injure, arrest, and terrorize the people [totally in accordance with the order of the Prime Minister to take “merciless and definitive measures”] on the invitation of the region. However, it doesn’t even care to tell us when was it requested, how it was requested, and according to which rules of procedure (apart from that put in place for a legitimate Federal Intervention in the regions). This is completely illegal and unacceptable. We reject this, and mercilessly and conclusively say NO to that, too!
The report claims that the crisis was caused, among other things, by a misunderstanding of the Master Plan. This suggests that the Master Plan is an appropriate plan. This is utterly unacceptable. We say NO!
By issuing this statement by the EHRC, the regime is now suppressing and displacing the truth of the atrocities it perpetrated on innocent protestors.
We say NO to this suppression of the truth, our truth, just as we say NO to the repression of the protest, and the wider systematic oppression of the Oromo and other peoples of Ethiopia by a regime that has rendered itself not just undemocratic but utterly anti-democratic.
The modest road we suggested from the start remains to be the only road the regime has to take in order to restore peace (and survive this crisis as a regime).
We state it to them again:
1. Rescind the Master Plan unequivocally (both in Addis and in the adjacent Oromia Zones). Take a clear, public stance by issuing a Parliamentary Resolution against the Master Plan.
2. Stop the violence and remove the Army, the Special Force, the Federal Police, and the intelligence personnel from all civilian life in Oromia.
3. Release all the political prisoners arrested in relation to the protest, including political dissidents arbitrarily taken captive in the wake of the re-eruption of the protest.
4. Set up a genuinely independent commission with members and/or observers from international organizations to conduct a proper investigation to the crisis and to make efforts to establish responsibility (political, administrative, legal, and moral) for the harm caused in the process.
5. Take political responsibility as a government, apologize to the public officially (with a clear statement written and delivered in a proper forum fully transparently to the media), and take all appropriate measures to restore the dignity of the victims and pay reparations to the same.
6. Remove all officials who are at the forefront of political and administrative responsibilities, for by being implicated in the bloodbath that they caused in the course of the crisis, they have totally lost the moral legitimacy, the legal competence, and the public credibility to govern.
7. Ensure that those who did and caused the killings, injuries, rapes, tortures, and arbitrary arrests be held legally accountable (in accordance with the criminal law of the country) before an independent court of law. Allow a forensic determination of guilt and punishment in proportion to the degree of their participation. Fail to do this, the regime will be haunted by the possibility of being brought before international justice institutions (or at least they will face the inconvenience of having to defend themselves).
8. The Government in Oromia has lost all the credibility and all the legitimacy (which it never had anyway!) to govern the region. It is imperative that the Caffee Oromia dismiss itself and call for an election before the next parliamentary year (leaving the day to day administration of matters to a care taker government of the old cabinet).
9. Stop all acts of eviction of farmers from their land which, to most of them, is their only means of livelihood. Work towards a better (possessory) tenure security over the plots of land they now have. Stop all activities of land grab and consequent displacement of people everywhere (in Oromia and beyond) even in the name of “development.” Work towards a more legally entrenched, fair, just, and consultative mode of development planning where necessary expropriation is done with due, effective, and adequate compensation.
10. Ensure that the ‘Special Interest’ clause of the constitution is implemented urgently. In the determination of the content of the Special Interest, Oromia’s voice must be properly listened to as well as that of the city government of Addis Ababa. Start a comprehensive, inclusive, open, and genuinely participatory discussion with all the peoples of Ethiopia about where to place the federal Capital city. In an act of bona fide cooperation, the Oromia government should take steps towards suggesting another options and modes for relocating the capital city within or outside of Oromia (and its own contribution, as the largest State in the Federation, towards building the new capital–if this be the option).
These things are doable things. These things are easier things to do for the regime. Anything short of this will only provoke a more vehement and persistent resistance. To do anything less, or anything other than these modest suggestions, is an invitation for further crisis.
We will do everything at our disposal to resist this. We keep saying NO!
We keep saying NO to justification and rationalization of State terror.
We keep saying NO to all forms of impunity for the gross violation of human rights in Oromia and beyond.
We keep saying NO to all forms of eviction from land including through the Master Plan.
An Eritrean poses near a tank abandoned during the 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia in Shambuko Town, Eritrea, December 23, 2005. The two countries have been in a “Cold War” scenario since the end of the conflict.ED HARRIS/REUTERS
Throughout the country’s 25-year history, Eritrea’s border with Ethiopia has been a hotly-disputed region.
Eritrea shares a 640-mile boundary with its Horn of Africa neighbor, from whom it only gained independence in 1991. The two countries fought a bloody two-year war over border boundaries between 1998 and 2000, since which bilateral relations have been characterized by a “no war, no peace” situation.
What’s Eritrea’s history with Ethiopia?Now, Eritrea has blamed Ethiopia for clashes in the Tsorona region, about halfway along the border. The reported clashes have raised the specter of conflict in a region where tension is always high.
Until 1991, Eritrea was considered an autonomous region within Ethiopia. The latter’s decision to attempt to annex the former in 1961 sparked a 30-year independence war. Against a much-larger and better-equipped Ethiopian army, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front won the war and toppled Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam, with the assistance of Ethiopian rebels. Eritrea was recognized as an independent state by the international community in 1993 following a United Nations-backed referendum vote in favor of independence.
Why is the border a flashpoint?
A full-scale war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998 and focused on the town of Badme, which both sides claimed belonged to them. Eritrea was found to have triggered the war by attacking Ethiopian troops around Badme, according to a 2005 ruling by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, a body based in The Hague that was established to deal with the conflict’s fallout. Over the next two years, tens of thousands of soldiers were killed on both sides in a bloody battle that achieved very little in terms of concrete boundary changes.
The conflict ended in December 2000 after a peace accord known as the Algiers Agreement was signed by both parties. One condition of the agreement was the establishment of a boundary commission that in 2002 ruled that Badme was part of Eritrea. While both countries initially accepted the ruling, Ethiopia later said it was dissatisfied with the boundary and Badme continues to be occupied by Ethiopian troops. “Eritrea and Ethiopia have essentially been in a Cold War since the last war in 1998-2000,” says Ahmed Salim of political risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence.
An Eritrean soldier looks through a spyhole on the frontline in Badme, Eritrea, March 2, 2000. Tens of thousands of people died in the two-year border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.SS/CLH/REUTERS
What’s happened this time?
Following reports from residents living on the Ethiopian side of the border of hearing heavy gunfire, Eritrea accused Ethiopia on Sunday of infringing its territory. “The TPLF regime has… unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front,” Eritrea’s Information Ministry said in a statement released overnight Sunday and reported by Reuters. The TPLF refers to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, a member of Ethiopia’s ruling coalition.
Besides the claim from the Eritrean government in the capital Asmara, however, there is very little confirmed detail of what happened. Ethiopia’s Information Minister Getachew Reda told the BBC he was not aware of any fighting, and details coming out of Eritrea have been scant, with the country having a notoriously closed media.
What could the clashes lead to?
If significant fighting has occurred, it is unlikely that either side will want to escalate the conflict, according to Jason Mosley, a Horn of Africa expert and associate fellow at Chatham House. “It’s not in [Ethiopia’s] interest to precipitate the collapse of the Eritrean state. The Eritreans are certainly not in a position militarily to want to escalate to a full-scale conflict with Ethiopia,” says Mosley.
Eritrea is notorious for its conscription program. The compulsory national service program, which can often last for decades, continues to be indefinite,according to Amnesty International, despite the government in Asmara pledging in 2014 to limit national service to 18 months. The program is an oft-cited reason given by migrants and refugees fleeing the country—in 2015, Eritrea was the African country with the highest number of people applying for asylum in Europe. According to Mosley, “episodic reminders” of the “existential threat from Ethiopia” are useful to the Eritrean government in justifying its program. “Whatever the mechanics of what has or hasn’t happened… the Eritrean state will probably try to portray this to the fullest extent it can as evidence of a very aggressive Ethiopian posture,” says Mosley.
Are the clashes connected to Ethiopia’s Oromia crisis?
Since November 2015, Ethiopia has been dealing with large-scale protests among members of the Oromo ethnic group, the country’s majority ethnicity. These have resulted in a crackdown in which hundreds of people have been killed, according to Human Rights Watch. The Ethiopian government has said that Eritrea has backed the protests, which were initially sparked by plans to expand the capital Addis Ababa that would entail relocating Oromo farmer families.
People mourn the death of a man accused of protesting and shot by Ethiopian forces in Yubdo Village in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, December 17, 2015. Ethiopia has blamed the Oromo protests partially on Eritrea.ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
But according to Mosley, the Oromia crisis is an internal affair and has nothing to do with Ethiopia and Eritrea’s border disputes. “[The Oromo protests] is the reaction from a certain educated strata of Ethiopian society about being completely blocked out of negotiations around the development planning,” says Mosley. “It’s not an Eritrean plot, this is an Ethiopian ruling party failing.”
People like TPLF leaders are those who never change no matter how much one tries to explain to them about the brutality of their ruling system and barbaric actions of their military and special commandos. This article expose the failed policy of the TPLF and their new destructive plan to slow-down the Oromo people movement for freedom.
Politics of devolution from fibrosis to cirrhosis
By Dr. Baaroo Keno Dheressa
The Oromo people are survived the lethal colonialist rule of previous one (they change the Oromo name from Tolesa and Gemechu to Getnet and Gebremeskel and they change the name of our town namely Finfinnee to Addis Abeba, bishoftu to dabrezeit and adama to nazret). The current colonialist TPLF elite plays in multiple cards and faces (mixing up the definition of Oromo people goal self-determination, statehood, sovereignty, and democracy, and creating dysfunctional organization like OPDO to distract the real goal of the struggle). But We Oromo people have to be proud to be an Oromo by challenging all those obstacles and keeping our determination intact for freedom with limited resources and absence of external assistance.
African countries today face greater challenges to peace and stability than ever before with a volatile mix of insecurity, instability, corrupt political institutions and poverty. Alarmingly, most of these countries lack the political will to make and maintain peace agreements, and thus have fallen prey to continuous armed ethnic conflict. (Monty Marshall, 2003) This is partly due to ineffective conflict management.
The Ethiopian government (TPLF) try to teach us and also try to follow the path of South Africa and Nigeria. South Africa is made up of whites, indigenous Africans, coloreds, and Indians. The blacks form the majority of the population with about 30 million people, the whites 5 million, and the coloreds and Indians share 3 million. The country has about 11 linguistic groups, but English is the official language. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country with about 120 million people. It is home to 250 linguistic groups, but English is also Nigeria’s chosen official language Although most of the ethnic groups are very tiny, three ethnic groups constitute somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of the population. The Hausa-Fulani ethnic groups count for 30 percent of the population, the Yorubas about 20 per cent and the Igbos about 18 percent.
Both countries (Both Nigeria and South Africa) bear the responsibility to steer the continent away from the repression of authoritarian governments towards a path of social and economic development and good governance. Interestingly, the two countries are also driven by a similar political strategies to manage conflict through national reconciliation, consensus building and economic development. The dual processes of transition and transformation need nothing less than a vibrant economy in which the basic needs of citizens are taken care of.
TPLF is sending his cadres to Nigeria and south Africa to learn about those political transformation in order to cheat western world to enhance cash flow and internally oppressing all types of opposition, silencing critical voices like Mr. Bekele Gerba, killing, torturing and imprisoning innocent civilians. The TPLF is also try to tell us about the economic growth of the country (I think they are mixing millionaires of TPLF elite with the country) while millions of peoples in Ethiopian empire facing imminent famines. Wake up TPLF leaders it is 21st century (what does it mean is homework for you).
People like TPLF leaders are those who never change no matter how much one tries to explain to them about the brutality of their ruling system and barbaric actions of their military and special commandos. This article expose the failed policy of the TPLF and their new destructive plan to slow-down the Oromo people movement for freedom.
Medical definition of fibrosis and cirrhosis is: Hepatic fibrosis occurs in response to chronic liver injury. The response to liver injury includes collapse of hepatic lobules, formation of fibrous septae, and hepatocyte regeneration with nodule formation. Hepatic fibrosis is reversible. Cirrhosis represents a late stage of progressive hepatic fibrosis characterized by distortion of the hepatic architecture and the formation of regenerative nodules. It is generally considered to be irreversible in its advanced stages, at which point the only treatment option will be liver transplantation or death.
TPLF is now arrived on the top of the decisive treatment option (identical process of cirrhosis). The OPDO and other artificial organization mission is failed, traitors and collaborators are fail to fulfill their mission, military and security forces are demotivated because of fierce resistance from freedom fighters like Qeerroo and WBO, awareness of the people is much greater than TPLF kitchen cabinet policy, international community are fade-up of the pathological lies of TPLF leaders, media information is faster than colonialist destructive actions, innocent civilians are daily the primary victim of the TPLF policy….etc. So the best remedy to save the TPLF from death will be transplantation, but the problem is there is no matched organ is/will found. So, the TPLF is now hospitalized in palliative center and awaiting unpleasant death. Unfortunately the TPLF is still working hard from dying bed to defend his destructive policy through his loyalist (traitors and collaborators) instead of participating in the restoration of historical justice for the respect of human rights for all human beings and to safe his Seoul.
According to my tangible information the TPLF government are investing 40 million dollars to implement his last mission. The main core of the mission is to destroy unity among Oromo’s . According to the insiders the short and long term enemy of the TPLF power is the force behind the unity of Oromo people. Again the insiders expose the taxonomy of government plan to implement his mission.
Strengthen the TPLF messengers by any means possible (in the name of Oromo diaspora, in the name of investment, by recruiting individuals from diaspora through special accommodation like house in the capital city, free movement between foreign countries and homeland ).
Maximizing the destructive propaganda of the Oromo unity through available medias (by hiding their real name behind pal talk, through fake name of Facebook, by sending indirect message through TV and radio to demoralize the real fighters and dedicated individuals).
Eradicating OLF as an organization, as an ideology and as an individual member of the OLF. According to insiders to fulfill this special mission the government is ready to put extra bonus for every single mission accomplished. The government emphasizes again on the protocol of accomplishment (redirecting the goal of Oromo people from freedom fighter to economical survivors, blackmailing their leaders and members, denying any activities of the organization, distributing and exaggerating the failurity of the organization and minimizing their achievement).
Maximizing the economical imbalance between the Oromo people. Supporting by any means possible the trustful individual and force them to influence the poor majority to respect the system and abide by their master colonialist law.
Strict control of all Oromo intellectuals activities inside and outside the country. If they are remain on the uncompromised path they have to be humiliated and destroyed (Bekele Gerba was mentioned as an example-information according to insider).
Creating weak political organizations as much as possible to enhance the confusion among Oromo’s. The content of organization has to be (opportunistic leader without dedication but tendency to individual economic thirsty, record less individuals in the history of struggle against colonialism and malignant opponent of OLF stand).
Full and Faster reaction to the peoples demand to calm the Oromo movement and to create big confusion about the definition of freedom among Oromo’s. But the demand has to be listed in the external-core-category.
Core category demands are:
Military and agazi forces has to leave Oromia.
Our question is full freedom sooner than later, but not remote controlled OPDO state.
Oromo’s has to be the master of their resources and polices and stop importing and expanding shadow Oromummaa in the name of OPDO.
The Doctor of Oromia is Oromummaa but not tigruma.
Stopping harassing Oromo’s in their country, work place and home.
The prisoners has to be free
Stopping hunting Oromo intellectuals and promoting brain drain.
None of us on the earth choose to be born where we are born but once born, for example in my case, as an Oromo, there is no way I can change it. Unlike religion, behavior and attitudes towards nature, ethnic belongingness cannot be changed. That is why I cannot stop reminding at every chance I got the international community, TPLF elite and their puppet collaborators that as an Oromo, I am oppressed and I want my freedom and equality. The collaborators and traitors proposing us to give our left cheek after TPLF slap us on the right, but my answer is first I will never let you slap me and if at all it happens, I will slap you back even harder. That is a simple formula of defending our right but not through mutilated OPDO ways, incapacitated and nihil individual propaganda or buying ground or house around Finfinnee and every year visiting colonialist sky-reach building.
When TPLF fought to colonize Oromo’s and other nations in Ethiopian empire not through investment plan and lousy approach to Mengistu Hailemariam. They colonize Oromo’s and other nations “through total destruction tactic and strategy”, their nick name was “ dildy afrash”. So Yesterday TPLF was master of destruction and currently they call themselves surprisingly champion of development. My message to the traitors of Oromo people and collaborators of TPLF stop sending and propagating enemy destructive message and stand for freedom and equality at any cost.
We the Oromo people are a victim of the system which the TPLF trying to defend at all cost on the international stage and protect by his mechanized military around Oromia and therefore TPLF and their collaborators will be disappointed with my analysis. That is not what I enjoy to do but I have no choice because the TPLF government is violating our fundamental human rights. The Oromo leaders and the Oromo people simply want to enjoy their fundamental human rights be it civil and political, economic, social and cultural among which the right to self-determination is the most advocated.
Let me clear again: Everybody who are defending the TPLF ruling system are our enemy (TPLF itself, collaborators, traitors). While the old elites are trying to restore the dead oppressive system once again and the TPLF is try to protect and prevail the current totally destructive and unhuman oppressive system, the Oromo’s are still fighting for the same question of 100 years ago that is total freedom. Now tell me dear TPLF-junta and collaborators, on what ground could you think the possibility of developing love for this ugly ruling system (killers and torturers) and plan to live with you in peace?
TPLF elite are different from other previous colonialist in the sense that they tried to use spices in contrast to the previous colonialist to justify their democratic nature, allowing afaan oromo as the official language of courts and of instruction at schools and recognition of the Oromia state. For recognition of our country Oromia and using our language (afaan oromo) in our country is not a gift. To accomplish that we Oromo people fought a bloody fight and we sacrifice enormous life of brave sons and daughters of Oromo people. Come on TPLF junta your disease is worsening by confusing you (brain damage), I think you are developing “ammoniacal encephalopathy” because of your decompensated cirrhosis (decaying politics like dealing with mutilated OPDO and nonproductive collaborators).
I and my fellow Oromo people are not against any nation, I am sure in any nation there are a good person, leaders, intellectuals who care for equality, democracy, human rights, loving and a caring family man and women but when it comes to the defence of my right, I will not give you credit for being a good person, leader, intellectuals or family person. No one, including TPLF elite accept domination and exploitation and there is no reason on earth why the Oromo’s should be expected to give up fighting for freedom from oppression and dancing and building house with you on the grave of our hero’s.
The Oromo’s paid a heavy price to build Ethiopia but when it comes to power and money they are the last to touch the desk and when it comes to the human-right and equality they are the first to be victim of the system. But now the time of abuses was passed and Oromo people are getting aware of the reality and starting to build their home (Oromia). We Oromo people have no intention whatsoever to violate anybody rights to the contrary we will fight for them to be respected and we expect the same from other nations those we fight for their freedom.
Victory to the Oromo people!
Dr. Baaroo Keno Deressa,
First medical degree in internal medicine and second medical degree specialized in gastro-hepatology disease
This Map Tracks Where Governments Hack Activists and Reporters
Andy Greenberg, Security, 5 June 2016
IN AN AGE when spies carefully hide their tracks through layers of obfuscation and proxy servers, locating the perpetrators of online surveillance is often nearly impossible. But the victims of these spying campaigns can sometimes be easier to place. And one open-source initiative has set out to map cases where state-sponsored malware campaigns target members of civil society, in an effort to show how governments use digital intrusions to control and disrupt their enemies around the globe.
The Digital Freedom Alliance’s map showing the country of the target—not the origin—of malware attacks against different civil society groups. DIGITAL FREEDOM ALLIANCE
The mapping project was conceived last year, when Citizen Lab malware researcher Claudio Guarnieri gave a talk at the Chaos Communications Camp conference in Zehdenick, Germany about how security researchers need to collaborate more when fighting governments’ digital oppression of activists and journalists. “We always lacked a starting point for people to get an understanding of what is going on…how countries are employing technologies to repress dissent,” he says. “Ideally, this would develop into a place where [we can] reconstruct narratives on what is happening in different regions of the world.”
The country with the most targeted attacks on the map, for instance, is India, with 145 documented attacks. That’s because of the sheer volume of attacks carried out by the Chinese government, Guarnieri explains, against the Tibetan exiles and separatist activists in the Indian city of Dharamsala. The next most targeted country on the map isSyria, where the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad has been using malware to target opposition groups since the country devolved into a bloody civil war.
In addition to tracking victims, the Digital Freedom Alliance’s map also shows the location of companies selling surveillance technology, as well as the resellers of those tools, in an effort to map out the shady supply chain of targeted spying. That data, Guarnieri says, is sourced from surveillance tracking projects like BuggedPlanet.info andWikiLeaks’ Spy Files. The country with the most listed surveillance vendors, unsurprisingly, is the United States, though Guarnieri admits the list’s definition of “surveillance vendor” is rather loose: It includes not only the creators of the malware documented in the group’s map, but also other potentially nasty technologies like passive data collection tools and internet filtering software.
For now, the map’s data is no doubt incomplete. But Guarnieri hopes more researchers will contribute to it, and that it could someday soon serve as a resource for tracking and fighting back against government spying. “[It provides] relevant information to further investigate, identify victims, and perhaps rally campaigning if there are human rights abuses involved,” he says.
Guarnieri also intends the map project to serve as evidence that Western surveillance firms’ technology does in fact fall into the hands of dictators who use it to surveil innocent victims—a rebuttal to the claims of companies like the Italian firm Hacking Team. That Milan-based tech company denied its tools had been used for wrongdoing, but then a hack of its email server exposed that it had sold its products to repressive countries including Ethiopia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. “I was tired of the Hacking Team-types claiming that there are no solid evidences of abuses, when there are plenty,” says Guarnieri. “You get most of them plotted in that map.”
The Unholy Alliance, Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture, exposes how a coalition of four donor countries and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is shaping a pro-business environment in the agricultural sector of developing countries, especially in Africa. unholy_alliance_web
Five Western donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the US, UK, Danish, and Dutch governments, are bankrolling the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, implemented by the World Bank. The EBA’s goal is to help create “policies that facilitate doing business in agriculture and increase the investment attractiveness and competitiveness of countries.”1 To achieve this, the EBA benchmarks areas including seeds, fertilizers, markets, transport, machinery, and finance, to determine whether or not countries’ laws facilitate doing business in agriculture. The EBA exemplifies a growing trend in international donors’ aid programs, which have become powerful instruments to impose a market-based, pro-private sector vision of agriculture. Following the 2007-2008 food price crisis, G8 members gathered at L’Aquila summit in Italy and pledged to support country-owned food security strategies. However, it did not take long for this commitment to give way to aid programs that, instead of supporting robust national agriculture policies, favor private sector-led and market-driven food systems. In 2012, the G8 members launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN), an initiative that gives a central place to agroindustry and agrochemical companies, to the detriment of family farmers.2 Africa, the site of NAFSN implementation, is a primary target of the pro-corporate push by several Western donors. The continent is marked by the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral initiatives to support the expansion of agribusinesses and the increased use of industrial inputs (synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, hybrid and genetically modified seeds, etc.). The US, UK, Danish, and Dutch governments are providing direct financing through business grants and other support mechanisms such as loans and insurance to agribusinesses operating in Africa. Often, the recipients of aid money are national companies with an assumed goal to combine aid with commercial interests. In parallel, rising amounts of taxpayers’ money is flowing into multilaterally funded entities such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), active in training, research, and advocacy around the use of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers. AGRA is also a vehicle used to manage multi-donor initiatives such as the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF),3 which is investing in large-scale agricultural projects and industrial production of agricultural inputs. With the creation of the NAFSN, in which the EBA is entrenched,4 donors are increasingly conditioning their aid to African countries to policy reforms and measures that will facilitate the corporate takeover of their agriculture. The five donors of the EBA are spearheading an aggressive campaign, aimed at pushing to expand agribusiness activity in Africa through the takeover of land for commercial agriculture, opening of countries’ input markets, privatizing of seed systems, and reforms of agricultural trade and tax laws to boost corporate profit. The donors believe that an “agricultural transformation” based on global trade and agroindustry will increase economic growth and provide better incomes to farmers.5 But the impacts of such a transformation are likely to be devastating for the majority of African farmers. Rising pressure on land and natural resources; dependence on expensive and polluting agricultural inputs; increased vulnerability to climate shocks; criminalization of seed saving and exchange practices; and weakened government ability to support national agriculture are among the outcomes that the five donors investigated in this report will deliver to the continent.
“But the government – of course, it is not a government, actually – is a group of gangsters and mafias, because if someone is making a group and that group is not representing the majority of the nation or the people, you could not say that that is a government. If the government is not elected by the people, for the people, you could not consider that as a government!”
Poet Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa about why he wrote poetry about the oromo people who suffers oppression by the Ethiopian government. Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa was jailed and tortured in Maekelawi, the notorious police station in Ethiopia, for writing poetry about the Oromo people who suffers oppression by the Ethiopian government. He now lives in exile in Sweden. Read his story here.
Filmed during Poesi på liv och död – exilen den verkliga utmaningen (Poetry on life and death – With life in exile as the real challenge), an event by Stockholm University. May 10, 2016 at Fanfaren Kultur Farsta, Stockholm, Sweden. To watch a full video from the event, click here.
Namoonni 51 ol Ogaden keessattii wayyaaneen ajjesamuuni gabaafame. Kan ajjeefamani keessa baayyeen dubartoota fi daa’imman ta’uun beekame.
(ONLF, 8 June 2016) — The Ethiopian Army wantonly massacred 51 civilians in Jama’ Dubad village near Gashamo town on June 5, 2016. The army indiscriminately opened fire on unarmed civilians in the village centre, shooting everybody in sight, not sparing women, children or the elderly. After the army started the massacre, many villagers run to the local mosque, hoping that they may be spared there. However, the Ethiopian army followed them there, shooting and killing them all. Then, the army torched the village, destroying all property, food and the water supplies of the village.
Many wounded civilians who managed to run away to the fields, are scattered and hiding in the fields. Some of the villages and many children are still unaccounted for. In addition, the Ethiopian army has abducted more than ten elders whose whereabouts are still unknown. The Ethiopian army has sent reinforcements and are currently occuppying villages along the border. This is an indication that the army intends to commit more massacres in order to create fear and stem any reaction from the local communities.
Just two months ago, the Ethiopian army massacred civilians in Dhaacdheer and Gaxandhaale villages near Galadi town in Wardheer region, killing scores of civilians. In Febraury 2016, the Ethiopian army and the Liyu Police militia destroyed Lababar village near Shilabo, killing more than 300 civilains and destroying the whole community in order to clear areas near the Jeexdin (Calub) Gas fields. In similar aggression the Ethiopian army killed many civilians near Bur-Ukur, Ferfer, Beledwayne and Hudur areas at the end of last year.
After committing crimes intended to extinguish the spirit and the humanity in Ogaden, Oromia and all communities in Ethiopia, the regime is now increasingly targeting other peoples along its borders and other neighbouring countries, specially those along the Somalia and Kenyan borders.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front categorically condemns the action of the Ethiopian regime and calls upon all peoples and parties in the Horn of Africa and the international community to condemn this heinous act and come to the aid of the affected innocent civilians.
SEC: Ethiopia’s Electric Utility Sold Unregistered Bonds In U.S.
Washington D.C., June 8, 2016 (SEC) — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Ethiopia’s electric utility has agreed to pay nearly $6.5 million to settle charges that it violated U.S. securities laws by failing to register bonds it offered and sold to U.S residents of Ethiopian descent.
According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding:
Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) conducted the unregistered bond offering to help finance the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Abay River in Ethiopia.
EEP held a series of public road shows in major cities across the U.S. and marketed the bonds on the website of the U.S. Embassy of Ethiopia as well as through radio and television advertising aimed at Ethiopians living in the U.S.
EEP raised approximately $5.8 million from more than 3,100 U.S. residents from 2011 to 2014 without ever registering the bond offering with the SEC.
“Foreign governments are welcome to raise money in the U.S. capital markets so long as they comply with the federal securities laws, including registration provisions designed to ensure that investors receive important information about prospective investments,” said Stephen L. Cohen, Associate Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “This settlement ensures that investors get all of their money back plus interest.”
The SEC’s order finds that EEP violated Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933. EEP admitted the registration violations and agreed to pay $5,847,804 in disgorgement and $601,050.87 in prejudgment interest. The distribution of money back to investors is subject to the SEC’s review and approval. Investors seeking more information should contact the administrator of the distribution, Gilardi & Co. LLC, at 844-851-4591.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Carolyn Kurr and Daniel Rubenstein and supervised by C. Joshua Felker. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Department of State.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (left), walks alongside President Obama during the U.S. president’s visit to the African nation last July. Critics say Ethiopia has cracked down hard on the opposition, but makes modest gestures to give the impression it tolerates some dissent.
SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images
The Oromo Federalist Congress, an opposition party in Ethiopia, represents the largest ethnic group in the country, the Oromo.
Yet its office in the capital Addis Ababa is virtually deserted, with chairs stacked up on tables. A chessboard with bottle caps as pieces is one of the few signs of human habitation. In a side office, the party’s chairman, Merera Gudina, explains why the place is so empty: Almost everyone has gone to prison.
The deputy chairman? Prison. The party secretary general? House arrest. The assistant secretary general? In prison. Six members of the party’s youth league? All in prison.
Critics of the Ethiopian government regularly land in prison. So why isn’t Merera Gudina, the chairman of the party and an outspoken critic of the regime, also behind bars?
The reason, he says, is what he calls “the game of the 21st century.” Less-than-democratic regimes are getting more sophisticated, and instead of completely crushing dissent, they seek to create the appearance of tolerance or even a multiparty democracy, explains Merera. (Ethiopians go by their first names).
In the case of Ethiopia, a strategy was laid out by the late former prime minister, Meles Zenawi, after the 2005 election, in which opposition parties won 32 percent of parliament and appeared poised to challenge the government.
“Wait for the opposition to grow legs,” Meles said in a meeting with top party officials. “And then cut them off.”
Merera says he is the current example of that strategy. He describes himself as a “floating head,” while the legs of his party — all his deputies, his candidates, his organizers — are either imprisoned or threatened.
Criticism On Human Rights
Human rights groups are extremely critical of Ethiopia, but it is a member of the international community in good standing.
“We are very mindful of Ethiopia’s history, the hardships that this country has gone through,” Obama said. “It has been relatively recently in which the Constitution that was formed, and elections put forward a democratically elected government.”
A number of human rights groups criticized Obama, saying he should have pressed much harder.
Shortly before Obama’s visit, Ethiopia released several noted opposition journalists and politicians. The deputy chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Bekele Gerba, was among those freed, and he promptly flew to Washington to sound an alarm bell.
“Every one of us is in a very high risk,” he told NPR’s Michele Kelemen. “Because anybody who criticizes the government is always a suspect.”
Bekele said his wife, a high school teacher, was also forced out of her job because of his politics. Bekele declined to use this trip to the U.S. to stay and apply for asylum. Instead, he said, he was determined to go back to Ethiopia, no matter what would happen.
Opposition Figure Re-Arrested
Soon after his return, Bekele was arrested again, and remains in prison today. Bekele is considered a moderate and he counsels nonviolence. He used his free time in prison to translate the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Merera, the party leader, says that targeting Bekele has a boomerang effect.
“When you are suppressing the moderate voice, then what you get is the radical voice,” he warns.
The arrest of moderates inside the country may be amplifying more radical rhetoric in the diaspora, such as rhetoric about “government overthrow” that Ethiopian officials are quick to highlight.
Genenew Assefa, a government spokesman, points out that Ethiopian opposition “tends to be extremist,” but also takes his own Justice Ministry to task for arresting so many opposition members.
“And then we put them in jail, and then it’s a vicious circle,” he says with a sigh. “And this is how it works. I personally, you know, would like to deal with this differently.”
He says that he would like Ethiopia to counter criticism with politics, not with police.
But Ethiopian politics appears to be moving away from democratic freedoms, not toward them. In last year’s election, the ruling party won 100 percent of the seats in parliament. Even the “floating heads” no longer have a token parliamentary seat.
Merera says that the Ethiopian strategy isn’t working.
“You can’t arrest everybody,” he says. He says that what is brewing is “an intifada (uprising), an Ethiopian intifada — even now, they don’t need leadership.”
Last November, ethnically Oromo regions of the country erupted in popular protests. Activists say 350 people have been killed, and thousands more arrested. There’s a growing fear that Ethiopia’s “cut off the legs” strategy is splitting the country.
The status of the Oromo students whose US Embassy protest in March was deemed unlawful by the Ethiopian authorities has remained unchanged due to a delay in proceedings. Their dire situation is seen by many as an example of the harsh treatment handed out to the Oromo ethnic minority within Ethiopia, as well as an attempt to crush resistance to damaging policies from the governing body in Addis Ababa, such as the Addis Ababa Master Plan. The protests in Oromia and the authorities’ violent repression attracted some international attention in the past few months and led, among others, to a European Parliament Resolution.
The 20 Oromo students of Addis Ababa University who were arrested for protesting in front of the US embassy last march were brought to court today. The court having been summoned to hear recorded testimonies of witnesses against the students was required to delay proceedings because of the clerk responsible for transcribing the recorded material is on vacation.
Dozens of Oromo students protested in front of the US Embassy in March denouncing the brutal actions of the Ethiopian government against the Oromo protesters who are demanding greater constitutional rights (self-rule, control over resources & democracy) for the last for months.
The students made the demonstrations to bring the situation in Oromia to the attention of the US government, the leading donor to the Ethiopian government. The students were, however, attacked by the security forces, and the demonstration was dispersed. In connection with the demonstrations, 11 Oromo students have been detained and their whereabouts are still not known.
A switch to ecological farming will benefit health and environment – report
The world needs to move away from industrial agriculture to avoid ecological, social and human health crises, say scientists
John Vidal, The Guardian, 2 June 2016
A new approach to farming is needed to safeguard human health and avoid rising air and water pollution, high greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, a group of 20 leading agronomists, health, nutrition and social scientists has concluded.
Rather than the giant feedlots used to rear animals or the uniform crop monocultures that now dominate farming worldwide, the solution is to diversify agriculture and re-orient it around ecological practices, says the report (pdf) by the International panel of experts on sustainable food systems (IPES-Food).
The benefits of a switch to a more ecologically oriented farming system would be seen in human and animal health, and improvements in soil and water quality, the report says.
The new group, which is co-chaired by Olivier De Schutter, former UN special rapporteur on food, and includes winners of the World Food prize and the heads of bio-science research groups, accepts that industrial agriculture and the global food system that has grown around it supplies large volumes of food to global markets.
But it argues that food supplies would not be greatly affected by a change to a more diverse farming system.
The group’s members, drawn from rich and poor countries with no affiliations to industry, say that industrial agriculture’s dependence on chemical fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics to manage animals and agro-ecosystems, has led to ecological, social and human health crises.
“Today’s food and farming systems led systematically to negative outcomes and vulnerabilities. Many of these problems can be linked specifically to the industrial-scale feedlots and uniform crop monocultures that dominate agricultural landscapes, and rely on chemical fertilisers and pesticides as a means of managing agro-ecosystems,” the group says.
In place of an intensive global food system they propose that agriculture diversifies production and optimises biodiversity to build fertile, healthy agro-ecosystems and secure livelihoods.
De Schutter said: “Many of the problems in food systems are linked specifically to the uniformity at the heart of industrial agriculture, and its reliance on chemical fertilisers and pesticides.” He said that simply tweaking industrial agriculture will not provide long-term solutions and a fundamentally different model was needed.
“It is not a lack of evidence holding back the agro-ecological alternative. It is the mismatch between its huge potential to improve outcomes across food systems, and its much smaller potential to generate profits for agribusiness firms.”
“There is growing evidence that these [agro-ecological] systems keep carbon in the ground, support biodiversity, rebuild soil fertility and sustain yields over time, providing a basis for secure farm livelihoods,” says the report.
Diversified agroecological systems can also pave the way for diverse diets and improved health.
The panel argues that industrial agriculture locks in farmers, subsidies, supermarkets, governments and consumers to the point where food systems are in the hands of very few companies and people.
“Food systems in which uniform crop commodities can be produced and traded on a massive scale are in the economic interests of crop breeders, pesticide manufacturers, grain traders and supermarkets alike,” says the report.
“Industrial agriculture has occupied a privileged position for decades and has failed to provide a recipe for sustainable food systems. There is enough evidence now to suggest that a shift towards diversified agro-ecological systems can dramatically improve these outcomes.”
The panel identifies three disastrous consequences of intensive farming. These include the fact that global food systems linked to industrial modes of farming or deforestation generate one-third of all greenhouse gasses.
In addition, the excessive application of fertilisers and pesticides in crop monocultures, and the waste generated by industrial animal feedlots, have resulted in severe water pollution.
Pesticide exposure in industrial farming systems has been linked to a possible range of human health problems such as Alzheimer’s disease, birth defects, cancers and developmental disorders. Additionally, the preventative use of antibiotics in industrial animal production systems has exacerbated the problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, creating health risks for human populations.
When Ethiopia barred its best distance runner from competing in the 2016 Olympics, many saw it as an act of ethnic discrimination. Another runner from the same ethnic group says he was exiled.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
If you are a betting person – and we’re not endorsing this – but if you are, it’s a safe bet that the gold in middle-distance running in this summer’s Olympics will go to Ethiopia or Kenya. That’s because those two countries dominate the 5K and the 10K. So it was a shock to the running world when Ethiopia announced its main national team will not include the world record holder in both those races. That’s three-time Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele. Bekele says he is being discriminated against because of his ethnicity. Bekele is Oromo. NPR’s Gregory Warner tells us more about why other runners say ethnic discrimination casts a shadow over Ethiopian track.
GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: The 23-year-old refugee I meet in Nairobi talks quietly as if to conserve energy. He’s thin and nervous. But there’s one name that can put a burst of joy on his face. That name – Kenenisa Bekele.
MOHAMED KEMAL: (Speaking Oromo).
WARNER: In fact, you smile when I even say his name.
KEMAL: (Speaking Oromo).
WARNER: This is Mohamed Kemal (ph). He’s also a runner. And he was 16 years old in 2008 when Bekele won gold medals in the 5K and the 10K races in Beijing.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2008 SUMMER OLYMPICS)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: And the awesome strength – the awesome, awesome speed. He’s untouchable once again. It’s a new Olympic record.
(APPLAUSE)
KEMAL: (Through interpreter) (unintelligible) Kenenisa is my role model. So always I’m thinking to be wise like Kenenisa.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAPERS RUSTLING)
WARNER: Kemal pulls out papers. They’re the finishing times for an Ethiopian half marathon in 2014.
So 1 hour 6 minutes 8 seconds – 86th.
Kemal’s time put him in the country’s top 100 that year. But before the race, he says, the coach of his running club had pulled him aside and told him to throw the race for another runner.
KEMAL: (Through interpreter) We have been told to make others too tired, but, at the finishing, to give the chance for the Tigrinya.
WARNER: Give the chance to the Tigrean, he says. Kemal is not of the Tigrean ethnicity. He’s Oromo.
KEMAL: (Through interpreter) I was discriminated because of I’m Oromo.
WARNER: Kemal refused to throw the race. He was tired, he says, of being passed over for international sponsors or forced to pay bribes for the chance to run just because of his ethnic background. But after he finished so well in the race, the furious coach told him he’d be barred from future competitions.
KEMAL: (Through interpreter) After this, things become serious.
WARNER: In November of last year, Ethiopia erupted in massive civil protest by Oromo, the country’s largest ethnic group. And their complaints were various – that their ancestral land was being taken, that their children were discriminated against in education and employment. They said that Oromo who didn’t adhere to the ruling party ideology were targeted. Thousands of Oromo were arrested, including Kemal. And when he was released, he snuck over the border to Kenya. At 23 he had chosen impoverished freedom over a running career.
So let me ask you – with everything that’s happened to you, will you watch the Olympics? And if you watch it, will you be rooting for Ethiopia?
KEMAL: (Speaking Oromo).
WARNER: Kemal’s answer is complicated. A win for Ethiopia in Rio would reflect positively on a national athletics program that Kemal feels is rotten. And his role model, Kenenisa Bekele, won’t be running. But the other Ethiopian runners are men and women that he knows and admires. How can he not cheer if they win?
KEMAL: (Through interpreter) When my colleagues won that’s – that race, I become excited.
WARNER: So you focus on the face and not on the flag?
KEMAL: (Through interpreter) Yes.
WARNER: But of course the headline, if that happens, will be Ethiopia clinches another gold. Gregory Warner, NPR News, Nairobi.
In terms of MPI measurement, Ethiopia’s 87.3% of the population are identified as MPI poor, by far higher than Africa’s average (54%) and East Africa’s average (70%).
The 2016 Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index was published on 3rd June 2016. It now covers 102 countries in total, including 75 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.2 billion people. Of this proportion, 30 per cent of people (1.6 billion) are identified as multidimensionally poor.
The Global MPI has 3 dimensions and 10 indicators (for details see here and the graphic, right). A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the dimensions. The MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty (the percentage of people identified as MPI poor) by the average intensity of poverty across the poor. So it reflects both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived.
The MPI increasingly digs down below national level, giving separate results for 962 sub-national regions, which range from having 0% to 100% of people poor (see African map, below). It is also disaggregated by rural-urban areas for nearly all countries as well as by age.
Headlines from the MPI 2016:
There are 50% more MPI poor people in the countries analysed than there are income poor people using the $1.90/day poverty line.
Almost one third of MPI poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (32.%); 53% in South Asia, and 9% in East Asia.
As with income poverty, three quarters of MPI poor people live in Middle Income Countries.
This year’s MPI focuses on Africa:
In the 46 African countries analysed, 544 million people (54% of total population) endure multidimensional poverty, compared to 388 million poor people according to the $1.90/day measures.
The differences between the proportion of $1.90 and MPI poor people are greatest in East and West Africa. By the $1.90/day poverty line, 48% in West Africa and 33% in East Africa are poor, whereas by the MPI, 70% of people in East Africa are MPI poor and 59% in West Africa. The MPI thus reveals a hidden face of poverty that may be overlooked if we consider only its income aspects.
Among 35 African countries where changes to poverty over time were analysed, 30 of them have reduced poverty significantly. Rwanda was the standout star, but every MPI indicator was significantly reduced in Burkina Faso, Comoros, Gabon and Mozambique as well.
Disaggregated MPI results are available for 475 sub-national regions in 41 African countries. The poorest region continues to be Salamat in Chad, followed by Est in Burkina Faso and Hadjer Iamis in Chad. The region with the highest percentage of MPI poor people is Warap, in South Sudan, where 99% of its inhabitants are considered multidimensionally poor. The least poor sub-national regions include Grand Casablanca in Morocco and New Valley in Egypt, with less than 1% of the population living in multidimensional poverty.
The MPI registered impressive reductions in some unexpected places. 19 sub-national regions – regional ‘runaway’ successes – have reduced poverty even faster than Rwanda. The fastest MPI reduction was found in Likouala in the Republic of the Congo.
The Sahel and Sudanian Savanna Belt contains most of the world’s poorest sub-regions, showing the interaction between poverty and harsh environmental conditions.
Poverty looks very different in different parts of the continent. While in East Africa deprivations related to living standards contribute most to poverty, in West Africa child mortality and education are the biggest problems.
The deprivations affecting the highest share of MPI poor people in Africa are cooking fuel, electricity and sanitation.
The number of poor people went down in only 12 countries. In 18 countries, although the incidence of MPI fell, population growth led to an overall rise in the number of poor people.
See here for my post on the MPI 2014. I’d be interested in your reflections on what MPI adds to the usual $ per day metrics, in terms of our understanding of development.
The police failed to bring Tesema Regasa and 15 others in the same file to the court
Mahlet Fasil, addisstandard, 3 June 2016
The Addis Abeba prison administration Qilinto prison police have this morning brought prominent opposition figure Bekele Gerba and the 21 others in the same file for a hearing at a court all barefoot. The detainees were also wearing mere shorts and t-shirts when they appeared at the Federal High Court 19th Criminal Bench here in the capital.
Once inside the court room the detainees, through Bekele Gerba, first secretary general of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), told the judges that the police have come to their cells in Qilinto, a prison in the outskirt of south of Addis Abeba, yesterday and stripped them all of their clothes and shoes to prevent them from wearing black upon appearing in court this morning.
On May 11 the police have failed to bring the 22 detainees, all charged with Ethiopia’s infamous Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, ATP, to the court because all them were wearing black to protest their arrest. However, the police have told the court this morning that they didn’t bring defendants during the last hearing because they have not received a letter from the court. The judge told the police at the court this morning that the police officers on duty on May 11 must appear in court to explain the real reason.
Bekele also told the court that he and his co-defendants were subjected to torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuses inside the prison and requested the judge for a change of prison. But the judge denied the request.
The 22 defendants were all arrested between November and December 2015, shortly after the start (and in connection with) Oromo protests in November that gripped the nation for the next five months. Defendants include several members of OFC, students and civil servants who came from various parts of the Oromia regional state.
Prosecutors have charged the 22 with various articles of the ATP. The charges include, but not limited to, alleged membership of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), public incitement, encouraging violence, as well as causing the death of innocent civilians and property destructions in cities such as Ambo and Adama, 120km west and 100km east of Addis Abeba during the recent Oromo protests in Ethiopia. This morning all of the defendants have presented a written defense statement. The court adjourned the next hearing until June 27.
In a relateddevelopment, the police at Qilinto have failed to bring this morning 16 other individuals, all from the Oromia regional state and were detained in connection with the #OromoProtests, to the court. The 16 detainees, under the file name of Tesema Regasa were first brought to the court on April 26. They were subsequently charged with the ATP and have, last month, presented their defense statements to the court. Today’s court appearance was adjourned to hear prosecutors’ counter response for the defense statements. The court re-adjourned the next hearing until June 15.
Wondimu Ebbissa, who is representing Bekele Gerba et.al, said last month that more than 80 defendants, including Bekele Gerba et al, were held in Qilinto and a further 97 were believed to be either at the Ethiopian Federal Polcie Force Central Bureau of Criminal Investigation, known in Amharic as Ma’ekelawi, or the Addis Abeba police prison facility near it. All of them are detained in connection with #OromoProtests.
In a separate development, the Federal High Court 19th Criminal Bench yesterday adjourned the hearing for Yonatan Tesfaye, former spokesman of the opposition Semayawi (Blue) Party, until June 21. The court received Yonatan’s defense statement in its hearing and adjourned the next hearing to receive prosecutor’s counter statement.
Last month prosecutors have charged Yonatan with ATP and have presented as evidence the defendant’s Facebook status updates during the #OromoProtests. The charges against Yonatan allege that he was posting inciting message on his Facebook, encouraging protesters to loot and destruct properties. Charges also allege Yonatan was calling for regime change through violence.
Guyyaa har’aa Obboo Baqqalaa Garbaa Kaanaateeraa keessaa; Kofoo gabaabduu fi miila duwwaa mana murtiititti dhiyaatan;
” Gaggeessitoonni Bulchiinsa Manneen Sirreessaa hamma hin jijjiiramnetti jiruun keenna rakkoo guddaa keessa jira; beellama itti aanuf nabsedhaanuu argamuu keenna ni shakkina”
” Gara kutaa dukkanaatti fuudhanii nuun deeman. Nu keessaa gartokkee keenya akka malee nu tuman”
” Akka Lammii Biyyattiitti lakkaawwamaa hin jirru”
Obbboo Baqqalaa Garbaa
—————
” Beellama keenna isa dabre irratti uffata gurraacha mana murtiitti dhiyaachudhaaf uffanne baafadhaa nuun jedhan. Nutis hin baafannu jennee mormine. Uffata barbaanne kaawwachuun mirga heera biyyattiittiin nuuf kenname jenneen. Nuti uffata gurraacha kan uffanneef Lammileen Sabaan Oromoo ta’an Kuma 50 ol mana hidhaa keessatti kan argamaniifii dabalataan waggaa kana keessatti qofa lammiilen Oromoo 200 – 300 ajjeefamuu isaaniitiif gadda nutti dhagayame ibsuuf ture. Gochi nuti raawwanne hundi seera fi hojmaata mana sirreessaa haala hin tuqneen ture. Kuni gonkumaa hin ta’u jedhanii nu dhoowwan, nutti dallanan, nu sodaachisuudhaaf yaalan, nu arrabsan.
” Kaleessa sa’aa booda namoonni mana murtiitti dhiyaannu adda baafamne akka dhufnu godhamne. Eddoo jirruu uffata keenya qabannee akka baanu godhame. Uffata keenya keessaa uffata gurraacha barbaadanii fudhatan. Nutis ” uffata keenya hunda isaa nuuf deebisuu qabdu jennee gaafanne. Isaanis gara mana dukkanaa fuudhanii nuun deeman. Nu keessaayis namoota tokko tokko garmalee tumaadhaan dararan. Namootni tumamanis asuma waan jiraniif dhadacha fuulduratti waan irra ga’r kana ibsachuu ni danda’u. Uffatni keenya hundi isaa lafarratti waan bittinneeffameef hidhamtoonni biroo kan barbaadan keessaa fudhatan. Isa hafe fidanii kutaa keenya keessatti darban. Hanga har’aatti midhaan hin nyaanne. Harki keenya hamma ganamaatti Kaateenaadhaan hidhamee ture. Gochi suukaneessaan nurratti raawwatame hundi kan Oromummaa keenyarratii xiyyeffateedha. Lammiin sabaan Oromoo ta’e qofti filatamee garmalee tumamaa jira. Eddoon itti hidhamne kan ilmi namaa sababa sabummaa isaatif qofa itti adabamuudha. Anaanis ‘ Kan kana godhu sihi, si arganna’ naan jedhanii jiru.
Manni murtii eddoo turtii biraa akka nuuf mijeessu ni gaafanna. Ammas yoo gara mana hidhaa Qiliinxootti nu deebistan waan nurra ga’u hin beeknu. Sodaa guddaa qabna. Hoggantoonni mana sirreesichaa hamma hin jijjiiramnetti nabsee keennaaf ni sodaanna. Haala kanaan Beellama itti aanuf nabseedhaan argamuu danda’uu keenyas amantii hin qabnu. Maatin keenya akka nu hin daawwanne dhorgamaa jiru. Har’as erga dallaa mana murtii keessa seennee booda Namootni akka nu hin argine godhameera. Wanti akkanaa kuni mootummaadhaaf maal isaaf godhaa? Akka lammiitti lakkaawwamaa hin jirru.”
ETHIOPIA: The worst drought in 50 years has tripled humanitarian needs since early 2015. More than 2.3 million households need immediate agricultural support. The number of people who need emergency health interventions nearly doubled in three months, from 3.6 million in December 2015 to 6.8 million in March 2016. A total of 10.2 million people still need food assistance, and this number is expected to grow in the second half of the year. There are an estimated 2 million additional ‘ad hoc beneficiaries’ – people needing assistance outside the original plan. Malnutrition rates are staggering, with over one third of Ethiopia’s woredas (districts) officially classified as facing a dire food security and nutrition crisis. A total of 2.5 million children under age 5, pregnant women and nursing mothers need treatment for moderate acute malnutrition . It is estimated that 20 per cent of the expected 435,000 severely malnourished children will develop medical complications that need intensive life-saving medical treatment in hospital-based therapeutic feeding centres….
The humanitarian impact of the 2015-2016 El Niño remains deeply alarming, now affecting over 60 million people. Central America, East Africa (particularly Ethiopia), the Pacific and Southern Africa remain the most affected regions. The El Niño phenomenon is now in decline, but projections indicate the situation will worsen throughout at least the end of the year, with food insecurity caused primarily by drought not likely to peak before December. Therefore, the humanitarian impacts will last well into 2017 . El Niño has affected food security and agricultural production, with cascading effects on livelihoods, health, water, sanitation, education and other sectors. This is due to flooding, disease outbreaks and malnutrition, disruption of health and education services, and overall increased mortality. In Eastern and Southern Africa,¹ some 50.2 million people are food insecure, many due to drought exacerbated by El Niño or due to a combination of drought and conflict. This number is expected to increase significantly towards the end of the year. Drought, flooding and extreme weather events caused by El Niño affect women and girls in particular ways which must be understood and incorporated into humanitarian and development interventions.
This year’s El Niño is taking place in a world already dramatically affected by climate change. More extreme weather events are expected, and climate change may increase the frequency and severity of future El Niño events. These events hit the poorest communities hardest. This means that, in addition to responding quickly to critical food, water, nutrition, health and livelihoods requirements, efforts must be focused on building climate resilience and the capacity to respond to future shocks.
The likelihood of a La Niña developing by September 2016 has increased to 75 per cent². However, some uncertainty remains, as forecasts made at this time of the year typically have less accuracy than those made during the second half of the year. The World Meteorological Organization’s El Niño/La Niña Update3 of 12 May indicates a return to ENSO-neutral conditions in May 2016, with odds increasing of La Niña development in the third quarter. The specific impacts of La Niña are difficult to predict, but it typically brings extreme weather to the same regions most affected by El Niño, where people’s coping capacities have already been eroded. Areas now experiencing drought could face flooding, and areas that have seen excessive rainfall with El Niño could experience drought. This means that La Niña preparedness and early action need to be built into El Niño response and recovery efforts, and development actors should increase risk and vulnerability-reduction efforts in priority areas, including by reprioritizing existing development funding to mitigate the risks.
Several additional countries have finalized costed response plans since the last Global Overview, raising the funding request to almost US$3.9 billion. Response plans with requests for international assistance have been completed by Governments and/or humanitarian partners in 19 countries, with other plans still being finalized. Since mid-2015, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated over $119 million to 19 countries. Reflecting recent pledges and new funding requests, the current funding gap is almost $2.5 billion. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is expected to issue a regional appeal in June 2016, based on new crop assessments completed in May/June, which is expected to increase the funding request. The food security and agriculture sector is the worst affected by El Niño, with funding requests comprising almost 80 per cent of all national and humanitarian response plans.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
Social Movements and State Fragility in Ethiopia: Lessons from the Oromo Protests and Government Responses of 2015-16
Date:21 June 2016Time: 9:00 AM
Finishes:21 June 2016Time: 7:00 PM
Venue: Russell Square: College Buildings Room: Khalili Lecture Theatre
Type of Event: Symposium
In late July of 2015, President Barack Obama praised Ethiopia as a “model of development,” an example of a young democracy and an effective ally of the West in the war against terror. Three months later, the country was rocked by massive protests in the Oromia region demanding an end to the one-party stranglehold on the political landscape, ethnic discrimination in allocating national resources, and the rule of violence in Ethiopia. In response, the state turned to coercion and violence to put down the uprising.
The dramatic turn of events has exposed a structural weakness in the Ethiopian state, one which John Markakis has called the failure of nation-building. After the #OromoProtests, the Ethiopian state is unlikely to continue business as usual. First, the use of external endorsement as a leverage to seek internal legitimacy has limits. Second, state violence further delegitimizes the state, necessitating further coercion. In this cycle of violence, the state is unlikely to win a protracted conflict against its own population. In time, the state recedes, extra-state entities will step up to supplant the state and provide social services and security for its populations. In this situation, state collapse becomes imminent.
A one-day symposium at SOAS, University of London, will explore how apparently strong state institutions eventually produce weaknesses that in turn initiate tendencies towards coercion, illegitimacy and fragility. By addressing this phenomenon historically and ethnographically the symposium intends to examine new frameworks for understanding the Ethiopian state and the changing contours of political legitimacy.
The Oromo activists achieved yet another spectacular victory by catching the Ethiopian regime off-guard and disturbing the “order” it set for the country’s youth. The leaking of the Ethiopian national examinations prior to the exam date greatly tarnished the self-imagery of the government while at the same time boosting that of its present-day nemesis, the Oromo youth activists. It has now pitted it against its yet another adversary, the Muslim activists.
For one thing, the leaking of the exam proved to be a surprising incident of sudden defeat of a government with a record of accomplishment of ignoring popular demands. It lately learnt the lesson—in the hard way—that the “terrorists” that it despises and over whose demands it was well prepared to ride roughshod can actually force it to submit to their wills (this time, of postponing exam dates).
Incidentally, such a victory could never—as it used to be in the past—provide the government the chance to reclaim its loss as an opportunity (as was the case with the rescinding of the Addis Abeba Master Plan, for instance, which the government tried to portray as a sign of its willingness to respond to people’s demands). The change in the exam dates came very late and only after the eerie leak of the exams and was thus clear manifestation of the government’s not only utter but also un-reclaimable defeat.
Secondly, the leaking of the exams catapulted Oromo activists as reliable co-owners of the destiny of their rebellious brethren in the country. In authoritarian settings, daring non-violent protesters, at least in the short-run, throw their whole lot into the hands of the regime they decry. The consequences for activists of their rebellious activities are to a huge extent controlled by the regime and are very much subject to the coercive apparatus of the state as long as the government has direct access to those activists. Activists do not necessarily own their fate; nor do they necessarily own the fate of their comrades. They plunge themselves gallantly into the unknown (or the bitter known, actually) in order to see something bright in the long-run. That is why we usually hear, among some Ethiopian detractors of the Oromo protests, that “some diasporic Oromo activists lead a happy life in the West and agitate the poor Oromo inside the country to rebel against the government with detrimental consequences to the protesters. The far-away activists do not come to their rescue in the event when the regime takes action against these poor fellows”. That assumption/assertion has now been blown apart. The leading Oromo activists—whether inside or outside the country—have proven themselves to be co-owners (the government still having a share, of course) of the fate of their rebellious comrades-in-protest. These activists do not simply “encourage” the Oromo youth in the country to launch anti-regime protests, only to abandon them later on to be devoured by the regime as and when it likes. By surprisingly forcing the regime to cancel exam dates, the activists have stood out clearly as the students’ reliable protectors of their academic security.
The government thus humiliatingly agreed to set another date for the exam. However, – and this is the third untoward consequence of the exam leak – by doing that, the regime, knowingly or otherwise, clashed not only with a fundamental rights of another section of the population but also with a much-cherished and much-celebrated idea in post-1974 Ethiopia. The secularization of the Ethiopian state and the equality of all religions was one of the few achievements of the otherwise controversial revolutionary turn of events in the country’s recent past. Part of the achievement was the official and equal status given to all religious holidays, including the Muslim ones. By announcing a new exam schedule that flagrantly clashes with an important Muslim holiday, the current government stood to commit an additional crime of historic proportion. It was also poised to clash once again with another major adversary, the Ethiopian Muslim activists, who, just like the Oromo activists, have been protesting government violation of their constitutional rights and had been the torch-bearers of a sturdy show of non-violent social movement before the Oromo protests erupted.
Apparently sensing an impending backlash, the regime once again made a flip flop and excepted the Eid day from the exam schedule. But it insisted that students will sit for exams while fasting and immediately after the holiday. This is, needless to say, in blatant disregard for the interests of Muslim students who wouldbe forced to write exams on an empty stomach and thus with much reduced power of concentration and productivity. The morrow of a major holiday would also not be appropriate for writing exams given the environment of festivity and socialization on that day that are obviously at odds with the atmosphere of tranquility and stability that sitting for exams naturally requires. Moreover, students would not be in a mood to make the most out of their holiday while their minds are preoccupied with exam-related stress and final preparation. Thus, exams dates fixed during periods of fasting and around holidays would no doubt be of grave concernfor Ethiopian Muslims, who most likely won’t allow the exams to come to pass sitting idly. If the regime insists to go by its plan for “Plan B” as it exists at present, it is only paving a more fruitful opportunity for Oromo and Muslim activists to intensify the struggle hand-in-hand towards the realization of free Ethiopia.
Ed’s Note: Yasin Muhe is a Lecturer at the Addis Abeba University (AAU). He can be reached at: tukejigsa@gmail.com
JU hosts the First International Conference on Oromo Studies
Jimma University organized the first international conference on Oromo studies under the grand theme ‘Oromo Knowledge Systems and Practices.’ The conference was held from 21st – 22nd May, 2016 at Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine Conference Hall. It was attended by dignitaries, representatives from several government institutions, university presidents, scholars extensively engaged in Oromo studies and Aba Gedas’ from different parts of Oromia National Regional State.
The conference is aimed at bringing together scholars from various disciplines and institutions that are engaged in Oromo studies and also creating the opportunity to identify core thematic research areas, generating scholarly views to identify core activities to be undertaken in the future and indicating directions to policy makers. It is also aimed to serve as an initiative for collaboration among universities in the country and other governmental and non-governmental organizations.
The conference was started by the blessing of all Aba Gedas present at the conference who colorfully expressed their good wishes and blessings as per the Oromo culture. Professor Fikre Lemessa, President of Jimma University, while welcoming all the guest and participants of the conference underscored that initiating a scientific discourse on Oromo studies was pretty well unimaginable a century back while the Oromo people had unfathomable oral traditions and were also farsighted and endowed with hospitality.
He also underlined that the knowledge systems and practices exercised by the Oromo people has not been recognized at national and international level, despite the language is spoken by many other ethnic groups in Ethiopia and the Oromo people practiced a democratic system of governance during the time when democracy was a luxury for significant portion of the world population and western ideals of democracy has not be as ubiquitous as today. It is in line with recognizing these historical facts that JU launched the Institute of Oromo Studies. The community is in the ambit of JU’s philosophy and it fully affirms the very important benefit of taking indigenous knowledge of the community in to account as an engine of scientific exploration. Therefore, according to him, the institute will serve as an interdisciplinary, extra- departmental and interuniversity collaborative institute with the primarily focus on research and outreach making the community as orbit of attention. He has also firmly stated that, the conference will be a landmark in Oromo Studies to open the doors for well-organized and high quality research in the area.
Present on the occasion and guest of honor of the event was Dr. Kaba Urgessa, Minister of the F.D.R.E ministry of Education. He stated that the Ethiopian government has been relentlessly endeavoring and investing huge sum of capital on building facilities and building human resource capacity to ensure access to quality education. Education is the key for the aspired for national development and the government is investing to its highest possible capacity to improve access and quality of education in the country. He further underlined that, Universities are fully mandated in their three major functional areas of teaching, research and community services and as a result should give sufficient attention to reflect the culture, values and practices of their surrounding community. He further stated that, the existing constitution and federal state arrangement has created a fertile political ground and a level field for the representation, refection and practice of the values and cultures of the diverse ethnic groups in the country.
In this regard, according to him, JU has been on the right path and can be exemplary to all other higher education institutions in the country, as it took the initiative to open the department of Afan Oromo in 2002 and yet again pioneered the launching of the Institute of Oromo Studies currently. The institute will definitely play a crucial role in promoting the culture of the Oromo people on the basis of scientific evidences and will also contribute in initiating network of scholars and institutions to expand the efforts with hands joined from all relevant stakeholders. He finally affirmed that the Ministry will fully support JU to strengthen the institute and solicit efforts from other similar institutions.
At the subsequent stages of the conference, forty seven papers were presented by different prominent scholars in the plenary and four parallel sessions. Among the scholars presented lead paper at the conference were Professor Ephraim Issac, Professor Tessema Ta’a, Dr. Taddesse Berisso, Dr. Chikage Oba-Smidt and others.
At the final stage of the conference, Mr. Kora Tushune, V/P for Business and Development of JU chaired the session that discussed on the way forward to glean out outstanding issues which have to be emphasized for the successful accomplishment that aspired for targets of the institute at institutional, national and international level. Mr. Kora presented a comprehensive list of proposals that needs due attention to enrich the institute, sustain its efforts and take it further steps to meet its set forth goals. The points he raised were instrumental in shaping the discussions and later on substantiated by the panelists of the session and the participants. Finally, it was agreed that, the institute should target the production of high quality research outputs and dissemination, ensure scientific and evidence based promotion of the Oromo cultural values and practices, gather all research outputs and books at national and international level to organized an archive of Oromo studies and support future young researchers, form robust network of institutions and scholars to extend the efforts initiated by JU and institutionalize the efforts to a broader level of collaboration to bring international actors on board.
The Conference was wrapped up after certificates were awarded to paper presenters and institutions sponsored the workshop and with a closing speech by Dr. Taye Tolemariam, V/P for Academic Affairs of JU who extended his gratitude for participants from abroad and within Ethiopia and organizers of the workshop. He has also underlined the importance of giving special emphasis on the outstanding issues suggested by participants and panelists to register sustained success by the institute in the country and beyond.
Submission to: Human Rights Council – 32nd Session UN,
13 June – 1 July 2016, Geneva, Switzerland
Item 4 – Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention
May 29, 2016
(HRLHA) – Ever since November of 2015 and still going on are serious human rights violations in Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia. Peaceful protestors against the so-called ” Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan” came to the streets in Oromia in November to express their grievances about the “Addis Ababa Integrated Master plan” and were met with brutal crackdowns. An estimated 500 plus Oromos have been killed by the Ethiopian Government force. The Ethiopian Government deployed its military and applied excessive force against the unarmed civilians to quell the dissent. The Oromo nation protested against the “Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan” because:
It is a plan which did not consult the stakeholders and aimed to annex 36 small towns in Oromia to the capital city to expand it by 20 fold, thereby evicting over two million farmers
In the past 15 years, over 150,000 Oromo farmers from suburban towns of Addis Ababa have been forcefully evicted from their livelihoods and their land has been sold to investors for a low price, and given to the government authorities for free. Land owners have become beggars on the street.
Many farmers in Oromia Regional Zones have been forcefully removed from their ancestral lands and their lands sold cheaply to investors for flower plantations.
The recent deadly violence against Oromo peaceful demonstrators staged against the so called “Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan”- violence that has already claimed over 500 lives, including children and senior citizens along with more than 20,000 – 30,000 imprisoned and more disappeared- has also attracted the attention of many donor countries such as the USA whose Department of State has condemned the excessive military force against the peaceful demonstrators, (see in table 1)
Various organizations, including government agencies ( EU parliament, UN Experts), international, regional and domestic human rights organizations (HW, AI, HRLHA) and international mass media such as BBC, CNN, France 24 have reported on the recent violations in Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia, (see in Table 2)
Recalling that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of person, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of peaceful demonstration and assembly,
Recalling further that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary arrest and detention,
The HRLHA urges the United Nations Human Rights Council to raise concerns about the serious human rights abuses presently taking place in Oromia.
The HRLHA also calls upon the UN Human Rights Council:
To create an international commission of inquiry to investigate the recent serious violations of international customary law and international human rights law by the Ethiopian Government
To use its mandate to put pressure on the Ethiopian Government:
To immediately bring to justice those military members who cold-bloodedly attacked the peaceful demonstrators
To unconditionally free all Oromo prisoners of conscience and others arbitrarily detained, including those held before for no reason and during the peaceful protests of April-March 2014 and November – December 2015 against the ” Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan “
To refrain from reprisals against aromos who have taken part in peaceful demonstrations
Press Release on the occasion of 14th Commemorative anniversary of Sidama Loqqee Massacre and the Massacre of the other civilians.
May 30, 2016, London
The repeated massacres and genocides of past 25 years that the TPLF’s barbaric regime has committed on unarmed civilians of all regions-and the ongoing indiscriminate massacres it is committing now are likely to continue unabated for a long time if the peoples in Ethiopia remain fragmented, divided and refuse to take the responsibility of confronting and stopping this criminal regime. Failure to do so has already unquestionably contributed to the longevity of the regime.
We, the PAFD member organizations envisage a dynamic and flexible approach with potential of accommodating the interests of all stakeholders without any differences and without actually dictating our own agendas for all the peoples in Ethiopia. This will allow all to move forward in unison in their strides towards justice, democracy and genuine self-determination, which is practically denied by the current regime. Moreover, we strongly believe that this is the only way forward to stop the ongoing genocide, to restore the rule of law, human dignity and pride and democratic order in Ethiopia.
To be able to do so, all the peoples in Ethiopia and their respective organizations must put their differences aside and unite strategically in order to end the suffering of all perpetrated by the TPLF led EPRDF’s brutal regime.
Today’s Sidama Loqqee massacre 14th commemorative anniversary isn’t unique to Sidama nation and isn’t a past history. It has been committed on tens of thousands of civilians in Ethiopia from Amhara, Afar, Benshagul, Hadya, Kambata, Ogaden Somali, Omo, Oromia, Sidama, Shakicho and the rest of regions of Ethiopia. And it is ongoing in Oromia, Ogadenia, Gambella, Konso, Omo Valley and the rest of regional, Zone and district levels.
Unconditionally condemning the past and ongoing genocides and massacres, the PAFD calls upon all organizations and peoples in Ethiopia to be united, move forward and stop the regime brutalizing them all.
PAFD also urges the international and regional communities to stand on the side of the people in order to stop the ongoing blatant human rights violations and hold the perpetrators into account both locally and in the international arena
PAFD salutes the indefatigable and resilient spirits of the Sidama Loqqee martyrs and all the other civilians who have been the victims of past and ongoing massacre by current callous regime in Ethiopia.
Finally, PAFD promises that all those wronged souls may rest in peace and that their valuable lives will be not be lost in vain. It will continue fighting for justice and democracy and righting the wrongs committed against them and the other living multitudes. PAFD will never forget your courageous and honorable sacrifices for generations to come.
The Sidama Nation Globally Marks the 14th Commemorative Anniversary of Sidama Loqqee Massacre
May 30, 2016, London ConferencePress Release by Sidama National Liberation Front (SNLF)
About six dozen confirmed and several dozen unconfirmed Sidama civilians have been indiscriminately gunned down in broad day lights by Ethiopian armed forces on May 24, 2002 in Sidama land whilst peacefully protesting government’s continued denial of constitutionally guaranteed rights to regional self-administration. The Sidama of all walk of lives have staged on a peaceful demonstration in Hawassa’s outskirts village known as Loqqee, on early hours of the aforementioned date after fully satisfying the constitutional requirements rightly stipulated in incumbent’s constitution whilst undertaking such publically guaranteed democratic privileges. Over 300 have been seriously injured and the other several hundreds have sustained minor injuries.
Disallowed to be collected by their love ones’, the dead bodies of the Sidama victims have been left for days to be devoured by by hyenas during the period of 24-48 hours’ strict curfew imposed in entire Sidama land following the Loqqee massacre. Over 15,000 Sidama civilians from all over the Sidama districts and villages have been also rounded up to be indiscriminately mass arrested and tortured; as the military personnel were allowed to roam on the streets and villages -literally terrorizing the entire nation.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF/EPRDF’s) government under the leadership of late PM Meles Zenawi has meticulously planned and centrally coordinated the Sdiama Loqqee massacre. The current TPLF/EPRDF’s PM, Hailemariam Desalegn -the then Southern Ethiopian regional State president has been given the responsibilities of stage-managing of the Sidama Loqqee massacre and has been also ordered to chair a pre-massacre extraordinary urgent meetings of May 23, 2002. Assigned by late PM, federal government officials, regional and Sidama Zone politicians numbering 21 participants have taken part in the said stage-managing meeting of the massacre in the eve of May 24, 2002 Loqqee massacre in Hawassa (the Sidama capital). They all but two Sidama participants have agreed to shoot and kill all Sidama civilians if they go on with demonstration in the following morning. The aforementioned massacre has taken place under such deliberately and clearly targeted killing of the Sidama civilians who have done no wrong but attempted to exercise their constitutional guaranteed rights.
The Sidama nation is globally marking the said 14th commemorative anniversary of the Sidama Loqqee massacre whilst the nation is still languishing under TPLF’s brutally oppressive regime seeking the way out of it with the rest of Ethiopians. The nation commemorates the 14th anniversary of its sons and daughter’s massacre in the midst of further government orchestrated impoverishment, displacements of millions of Sidama peasants, deliberately imposed subjugation, economical and politico-social marginalization. More importantly, the nation is commemorating the 14th anniversary with the rest of subjugated and massacred Ethiopians with renewed sense of hope and determination to bring those who have massacred the Sidama civilians and the other Ethiopian civilians to justice.
The London conference of May 30th 2016 Sidama Loqqee 14th commemorative anniversary and other Ethiopians massacre commemorating event asserts the fact that the future directions of peoples of Ethiopia depends on us all. The massacre is ongoing in Oromia, Ogadenia, Amhara, Gambella, Benshangul, south Omo and the rest of Ethiopia. Therefore, we call upon all Ethiopians to join us in fighting of the repressive regime to bring about lasting and genuine solution beneficial to all Ethiopians.
To date no person from federal to regional and Sidama Zone level has been held accountable for the Sidama Loqqee massacre. Instead, those who have been fully involved in planning, stage-managing and massacring of the Sidama civilians have been uplifted and rewarded with more powers, financial packages and privileges. The SNLF categorically condemns the brutal action of the TPLF’s barbaric regime and calls upon all democracy loving Ethiopia related politicians and the entire peoples of Ethiopia to be united to fight the regime enslaving us all with rigor and determination.
We never forget the Sidama Loqqe massacre victims and the cause for which they have sacrificed their precious lives. We also never forget the Oromo, Ogadenia, Amhara, Gambella, Benshangul and the rest of Ethiopians who have been massacred by TPLF/EPRDF’s brutal regime during its 25 years of reign of terror.
We salute the Sidama Loqqee Massacre Victims and the rest of Ethiopian people’s victims. May your souls rest in peace whilst we fight for justice to prevail on your behalf.
The Oromo people in Ethiopia have long complained of being marginalized. Addis Ababa expansion plans which sparked fresh protests have been scrapped but the conflict continues to simmer.
U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken condemned the lethal violence used by the government of Ethiopia against hundreds of Oromo protesters. #OromoProtests
HRW: Foreign Policy In Focus: Deafening Silence from Ethiopia:The Ethiopian government is cracking down on journalists and NGOs. Where’s the outrage from the international community?
Why Have Oromo People Been Clashing With The Ethiopian Government For So Long? http://www.afrizap.com/en/why-have-oromo-people-been-clashing-with-the-ethiopian-government-for-so-long
France 24: Focus: Anger among Ethiopia’s Oromo boils over.
Oromo athletes Dino Sefir and Koren Jelela Yal beat the heat and they beat the fields to win Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon titles, Sunday, May 29, 2016. They drifted to the men’s and women’s titles and their respective first-place bonuses of US $30,000.
Under warm and humid conditions Dino Sefir ran away from what had been considered a very tightly competitive group to win in 2:08:14. The 2012 Olympian outlasted pacers who reached only 25km before dropping out, as well as his countryman, a 19-year-old Tola Shura Kitata, to earn himself the victor’s laurels. Kitata, who burst onto the scene a year ago after running 2:08:53 in his marathon debut in Shanghai, was second in 2:10:04 with Kenya’s Dominic Ondoro third in 2:11:39.
Following Jelela to the end of the official 42.195-kilometre course were 2015 champion Aberu Makeria (2:29:51) and two other Oromo athletes, Sechale Delasa (2:32:46) and Makida Abdela Hordofa (2:34:29).
This is the answer to a Parliamentary Question about the Ethiopian government’s response to the Oromo protests and the credibility of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into the way in which these were handled.
Martin
Baroness Anelay of St Johns, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL29):
Question:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission is a credible body to investigate human rights violations committed by the Ethiopian security forces in their response to the Oromo protests. (HL29)
Tabled on: 18 May 2016
Answer:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns:
The British Government remains deeply concerned about the handling of demonstrations in Oromia and the reported deaths of a number of protestors, and has repeatedly made representations to the Ethiopian Government over the ongoing situation in Oromia. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and raise our concerns with the Ethiopian Government, including on the use of force.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has been appointed to look into the handling of the protests in Oromia. We will not pre-judge the outcome of their investigation and we await the publication of their report. We will continue to urge the EHRC and the Government of Ethiopia to ensure that their report is credible, transparent and leads to concrete action. We will take a view on what further lobbying, if any might be appropriate following the publication of the EHRC report.
This is the answer to a Parliamentary Question about the Ethiopian government’s response to the Oromo protests and the credibility of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into the way in which these were handled.
Martin
Baroness Anelay of St Johns, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL29):
Question:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission is a credible body to investigate human rights violations committed by the Ethiopian security forces in their response to the Oromo protests. (HL29)
Tabled on: 18 May 2016
Answer:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns:
The British Government remains deeply concerned about the handling of demonstrations in Oromia and the reported deaths of a number of protestors, and has repeatedly made representations to the Ethiopian Government over the ongoing situation in Oromia. We will continue to monitor…
The ruling regime, that appears to be more concerned with its international image than the suffering of those in need, has presented an ambiguous, contradictory picture of the famine.
Millions of the poorest, most vulnerable people in Ethiopia are once again at risk of starvation. Elderly men and women, weak and desperate, wait for food and water; malnourished children lie dying; livestock, bones protruding, perish.
According to a statement issued by the World Food Programme (WFP) on 6th February, over 10 million of the most vulnerable require urgent humanitarian assistance. This figure was published in the Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners’ Document (HRD) in December last year, and does not take into account the seven and a half million people who annually receive support from Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme – PSNP, (established in 2005 to enable, “the rural poor facing chronic food insecurity to resist shocks, create assets and become food self- sufficient), taking the total in need to almost 18 million. The worst affected areas, according to USAID, are the pastoral areas of Afar and Ogaden Region – where people rely totally on their livestock – and the agricultural lowlands of East and West Haraghe – close to the capital Addis Ababa.
The WFP explain that the level of humanitarian need in Ethiopia has “tripled since early 2015…caused by successive harvest failures and widespread livestock deaths. Acute malnutrition has risen sharply, and one quarter of Ethiopia’s districts are now officially classified as facing a nutrition crisis.” With a shortage of food, families are forced to make children drop out of school to take up menial jobs to survive; such children, lacking a decent education, are unable to find well-paid jobs in adulthood, and so the spiral of exclusion, poverty and deprivation continues.
Poverty and Chronic Food Insecurity
Ethiopia is a large country (385,925 sq. miles), with a population of just over 101 million (13th largest in the world), which is growing at a yearly rate of around 2.5% (over double the world-wide average). Conflicts resulting in migration from the neighbouring states of Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea has brought an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, which according to USAID amount to more than 733,000.
More than half the population live on less than $1 a day; over 80% of the population live in rural areas (where birth-rates are highest), and work in agriculture, the majority being smallholder farmers who rely on the crops they grow to feed themselves and their families.
The people of Ethiopia have suffered chronic food insecurity for generations: the major reason, as is the case throughout the world, is poverty. Other causes are complex; some due to climate change, others result from the ruling regime’s policies. Action Aid (AA) reports that unequal trading systems are a factor. The Ethiopian government purchases crops from farmers at low, fixed prices. International organisations encourage Ethiopia to produce cash crops to export, which reduces the land available for growing domestic crops – yes, Ethiopia – where millions rely on food aid every year – exports food. The country’s top exports are Gold (21%) Coffee (19%), vegetables and oily seeds, followed closely by live animals and khat – a highly addictive narcotic.
The agricultural system itself is another major cause. Individuals do not own land; it is assigned, AA states, “according to the size of a family, and redistributed every few years.” This means that every time land is redistributed “it is divided between more people”, so each farmer gets less. The lack of investment, combined with the need for large yields from a small area, leads to soil degradation, resulting in poor harvests.
The Oakland Institute (OI) in their report on the country’s land sales makes clear that drought (15 droughts since 1965), state-fuelled armed conflict, as well as “inappropriate government policies (land tenure, access to markets, etc.), rapid population growth and lack of infrastructure,” add to the list of causes.
Land grabbing and hunger
Since 2008 the EPRDF government has been leasing huge amounts of fertile agricultural land to so-called “foreign investors’’: international corporations, domestic agents, fund managers, and nations anxious to secure their own future food security.
Detailed research by the OI in 2011 estimated that “3,619,509ha of land have been transferred to investors, although the actual number may be higher.” Incentives to investors include exemption from import taxes, income taxes and custom duties as well as ‘easy access to credit’; the Ethiopian Development Bank will contribute up to 70% towards land costs – which are extremely cheap to begin with.
Land is sold with the understanding that it is totally cleared of everything – including people, by government forces. Indigenous communities, who have lived on the same land for generations are displaced and herded into camps – the universally condemned ‘Villagization’ programme. OI state that over a million people have been affected, and that, “the loss of farmland, the degradation and destruction of natural resources, and the reduction of water supplies are expected to result in the loss of livelihoods of affected communities.” Despite this, the ruling regime maintains that the land sold – all land is state owned (with formal and informal land rights) – is unused, and is being leased off ‘without affecting farmers’.
Industrial size farms have been built and foodstuffs (not eaten by the native population) grown for export, – back to their homeland – India for example. Very little, if any, of the food grown is going into the Ethiopian food market, and there are attractive government incentives in place to ‘ensure that food production is exported, providing foreign exchange for the country at the expense of local food supplies’. Oakland found that these commercial agricultural investments, by national and multi-national companies “increase rates of food insecurity” in Ethiopia, and that, despite “endemic poverty and food insecurity, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that these investments contribute to improved food security.”
OI makes clear that in addition to these land sales, ‘state-fuelled armed conflict’ is an underlying cause of food insecurity. One of the worst affected areas in the current famine is the Ogaden (or Somali) region in the Southeast corner of the country. The majority ethnic Somali population has been under military control since 1992. People fleeing the area report large-scale arrests of civilians, torture, rape and murder, as well as the destruction of land, cattle and property, and confiscation of humanitarian aid by government military and Para-military forces. With international media and most humanitarian aid groups denied access to the region since 2007, independent information on the conflict and the impact and extent of the current famine is in short supply.
Official duplicity
The ruling regime, that appears to be more concerned with its international image than the suffering of those in need, has presented an ambiguous, contradictory picture of the famine.
In a recent interview Arkebe OQubay, the ‘special adviser to the Prime-Minister’ told Bloomberg that the countries greatest achievement since 1984, was that “we are being able to feed ourselves. In 1984 we were struggling to feed our 40 million-population, but now we have 95 million population and we have food security.” This is pure fantasy: Ethiopia (according to most recent, 2012 figures) remains the largest recipient of food aid in the world, and millions are today at risk of starvation.
Shortly after this claim from his ‘special adviser’, the Prime Minister himself, Hailemariam Desalegn appealed for help in supplying humanitarian aid to the millions in need, saying, ESAT News report; “it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene before things get out of hand.”
The EPRDF government owns most of the media inside the country, exerts tight controls on any marginally ‘independent’ publications and seeks to restrict and condition reporting by international media. Interviewed by foreign news agencies, officials smugly reject claims of widespread human rights violations and paint themselves as a democratic government bringing economic prosperity, opportunity and stability to the country: A fabricated image, far from the truth.
With the government more or less controlling the flow of news about the situation in the drought-hit areas, detailed, open and honest information is hard to come by. The sole independent Ethiopian broadcaster ESAT News, which has reliable contacts in the country, carries the account of an aid worker who recently spent time in the worst affected regions – Afar in the North East and Ogaden in the South East. He reports that, “the famine was already taking its toll on humans and livestock………[and] that the situation in places near Jijiga and Shinile in Somali [or Ogaden] region was very serious.” He saw, children whose skins were fused with their bones at feeding centers in the regions,” and at a health center in Afdem (in central east part of the Ogaden), met “hunger stricken bony children.”
The government proudly boasts that the Ethiopian economy has been growing, by between 7% and 8% (UK GOV figures) for almost a decade, that malnutrition and famine are no longer possible and that within a decade Ethiopia will be a middle ranking power. Nevertheless Ethiopia finds itself ranked 174th out of 188 countries in the UN Human Development Index (inequality adjusted). This suggests that whatever ‘growth’ the country has achieved, it has not changed the lives of the majority of Ethiopians, and, as is evidenced by the millions suffering from hunger and malnutrition, has clearly not eradicated food insecurity – which should be the first priority of the government.
Donor response
The scale of the current crisis has led the UNOHCA to call for $1.4 billion of funding to supply emergency food and water, to ‘in excess of 15 million’ people. So far donors have been slow to come forward, prompting Save the Children’s Ethiopia Director to describe the reaction as “the worst international response to a drought that he has seen.”
Around 45% of the total has been donated, including $200 million from the ruling regime. However the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it has less than a third of the money it needs to keep the aid coming.
America has offered some small-scale additional support, sending, CNN reports, “20 disaster experts to provide technical assistance, conduct humanitarian assessments and coordinate relief efforts with partners on the ground,” as well as “$4 million in maize and wheat seed for more than 226,000 households.” This level of assistance, whilst welcome, is nowhere near enough, and it seems the motive is far from pure. “Climate-related threats pose an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows and potential conflicts over basic resources like food and water,” said USAID spokesman Ben Edwards. It seems the US is concerned about ‘stability’ in Ethiopia and the wider region, not human welfare; fearing that a lack of food and work may drive young people into the hands of extremist groups, and encourage migration, adding to the huge refugee flows.
The UNOCHA estimates the total current cost of worldwide humanitarian demand to be $21 billion. With Syria on fire, a huge refugee crisis in Europe, urgent demand in Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to ongoing international development commitments (including Ethiopia), donor nation resources (and attention) is turned elsewhere.
The need for sharing
It is the poor who die of hunger related causes throughout the world; it is the poorest people in rural Ethiopia – who constitute some of the poorest people on Earth – who are currently at risk. Every day 35,000 children in the world die of starvation and its attendant causes, but we live in a world of plenty; there is no need for a single man, woman, or child, – in Ethiopia or anywhere else, to die because they do not have enough food or water to survive. Oxfam report that, the world now “produces 17% more food per person today than 30 years ago. But close to a billion people go to sleep hungry every night.” And they all live, more or less, in seven countries: India, China, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
Food, like water, shelter, access to education and health-care is a human right, and is enshrined as such in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Like all natural resources it should be shared equitably amongst the people of the world, so that nobody, anywhere – specifically the famine-affected regions of Ethiopia, where so many are once again in dire need – experiences food-insecurity and dies of hunger.
Urgent call to all Oromo people and international community Health care is the fundamental human rights and not a tool of war
By Baaroo Keno Deressa, Dr.
Concerning this issue my letter to United nations and European commission will be published soon.
After twenty-seven years in power, the TPLF-elite dare to tell us that Rome was not built in a day. Are they ignorant or arrogant??? Twenty-seven years is quite a long time to bring changes in the lives of all people. When the TPLF moved to Dadabit telling the world that Mengistu did not bring any change. But Mengistu remain in power 17 years and TPLF is now 27 years in power, number of days in one year then and now are still 365 and I don’t understand why twenty-seven years of their palace life should not be considered a long time? Yes they bring many changes in Tigray region (in military technology, medical science, economic empowerment….etc). But the mother of all cash flow and life-oxygen my beloved Oromia and generous people of Oromo are:
Bleeding day and night in the hands of TPLF special commandos and security forces,
Suffering from torture and ill-treatment of TPLF government
killing future generations of our nations (university students).
Detaining millions of innocent Oromo peoples and Oromo intellectuals
Limiting free movement of our people in their home town
Promoting brain drain of mother land Oromia.
Harassment and hunting down capable Oromo individuals to inhibit the development of mother land Oromia.
Countless atrocities are committed against Oromo people
Mostly government statements are based on “kitchen cabinet” (TPLF junta) and Oromo people no matter what the truth is, they must accept it. The TPLF commandos are always right because they have the gun and the system supporting them. The stronger can always tell the wrong and force the weaker to accept it as the right. Trying to prove that the “stronger” is wrong is tantamount.
Whatever their power we Oromo people have to stand firmly with full commitment and confront it this barbaric act.
Let me put some facts with evidence based manner:-
By Adotei Akwei,Managing Director for Government Relations and Kayla Chen, Government Relations and Individuals at Risk Intern at Amnesty International USA
Sub-Saharan Africa is facing a growing trend of evaporating political space. Non-governmental organizations are being heavily and often violently restricted, and newspapers, bloggers and other voices of dissent or criticism are being silenced or intimidated into exile.
In some countries such as Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, heads of state are rewriting their constitutions to eliminate term limits, in the process using security forces to squash protests from both political opposition and civil society. In other countries such as in Angola, the governments make use of their control over their judiciariesto intimidate or bury critics and youth activists in legal processes that cripple them financially or trap in never ending trials. Elsewhere, governments invoke the specter of terrorism and threats to national security as justification for passing sweeping laws whose interpretation empowers them to impose draconian penalties on oppositional parties and civil society, with little regard for international standards of due process or international and regional rights standards on freedom of expression, association and assembly.
In several countries government authorities have cracked down on nonviolent protests with violence. On Monday May 17, the Kenyan security forces brutally beat nonviolent demonstrations organized by the opposition Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD), led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, to demand the dismissal of the members of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
On the 6th of May the Ugandan police beat demonstrators who had gathered after it was announced that opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye would face the death penaltyfor charges of treason.
Ethiopia has been at the forefront of this wave of violent intolerance. Members of the Oromo ethnic group are facing a brutal crackdown following initially peaceful protests that started in the fall of 2015. Some estimates place the number of persons killed at the beginning of 2016 at over 400. Thousands have been detained and hundreds of homes and businesses have been destroyed. The violent crackdown is consistent with the violent security force crackdowns in Oromia in 2014 and in Konso in March 2016 as well as against other protests.
Closing of Political Space in Ethiopia
This is the reality facing Ethiopians whom the government designates opponents of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The government heavily restricts freedom of expression and association, and severely constrains political space, especially for civil society organizations.
In the 2015 elections, the EPRDF and its allies claimed all of 547 seats in Parliament amid concern over the lack of conditions for free and fair elections. It has become virtually impossible to question, challenge or protest against any action of the government. According to the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, Ethiopia ranks 91 out of 102 countries with severe constraints on government powers and fundamental rights. Freedom House also rated the country “not free”. Ethiopia scores 6 out of 7, on a scale of 1-7 from free to not free, on both civil liberties and political rights. Civil society organizations have been forced to close, thousands of political prisoners are languishing in prisons, and human rights defenders who dare to speak out are forcibly imprisoned and beaten.
The use of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation Act continues to be used to silence journalists and other critics who dare to speak out. People like noted journalist Eskinder Nega, Oromo leader Bekele Gerba, and Anuak Land rights activist Okello Akway Ochalla are all behind bars and charged with terrorism for opposing the government policies. They are just three individual stories of many who are suffering under the Ethiopian government’s crackdown on human rights.
Eskinder Nega was sentenced to 18 years in jail in 2012 for fulfilling his role as a journalist and questioning the use of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to arrest those that criticized the government. This was not the first time Eskinder had faced unjust retaliation due to his refusal to be silenced. Eskinder’s son Nafkot was born in prison in 2005 when both Eskinder and hjs wife Serkalem were imprisoned for criticizing the government’s killing of nearly 200 people in post-election protests in 2005. Four years later after he was unjustly convicted and imprisoned once again, Eskinder Nega still languishes behind bars and more convictions have been handed down using the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation.
Bekele Gerba, a prominent leader of the Oromo Federalist Party, visited the United States last August after his release prior to President Obama’s visit to Ethiopia. He told NPR that Obama’s visit to Ethiopia last summer was a trip that sent the wrong message of solidarity to a repressive government with very little support from its own people. He also expresseduncertainty in regards to his freedom when he returned back to Ethiopia. A few months after his return Bekele was arrested on December 23, 2015 and held in a 4m X 5m cell with 21 others. Bekele and his counterparts were charged on April 22, 2016 with various provisions set forth in the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. This charge is clearly meant to silence him and others who dare to criticize and oppose the current regime.
Okello Akway Ochalla, a Norwegian citizen, was abducted from Juba, South Sudan, two years ago and ended up in an Addis Ababa court where he was sentenced to nine years in prison on April 27, 2016. Okello was the governor of the Gambella region, a key location of land grabbing and forced relocation by the Ethiopian Government, before escaping the country following a massacre of his people, the Anuaks, in 2003. Abducted from South Sudan in 2014 and brought back to Ethiopia, Okello was charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation for speaking to the international media about the massacre of his people and the ongoing struggle of the people of Gambella. Rights groups are alarmed that the primary evidence used to convict Okello was a confession obtained while Okello was in solitary confinement. There have been reports that Okello was beaten and tortured. His trial highlights serious failures of due process and the rule of law in the Ethiopian courts.
More laws are being drafted by the Ethiopian government that confirm it will continue to suppress opposition and dissent. Current government policies of making access to education, government jobs and services contingent on party membership, forcing citizens to undergo “policy trainings” of indoctrination, and widespread monitoring of all public spaces has created an environment of fear with no room for public debate.
Despite all this, the ruling ERPD still enjoys support from the international community. The United States recently renewed a new defense and security cooperation agreement with Ethiopia, which is being trumpeted as U.S. support of the Ethiopian government’s policies, including the military’s excessive use of force. Ethiopia also continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States, the European Union and other countries in development and humanitarian aid.
It is crucial that governments that commit human rights violations be held to the spotlight and pressed to be accountable. Countries that provide assistance to those governments need to prioritize respect for, and protection of human rights for several reasons.
First, grave human rights violations can further stymy development and it potentially drives voices of dissent to abandon non-violence.
Second, supporting an oppressive regime for the sake of regional security will only further destabilize a region already ravaged by conflict, unclear borders, poverty and lack of respect for the rule of law, all in the pursuit of short term stability.
A round-up of the action at the Diamond League meeting in Morocco
Almaz Ayana ensured that the Meeting International Mohammed VI ended on a high on Sunday (May 22) as she clocked the fifth-quickest ever 5000m at the Diamond League meeting in Rabat.
The world champion won by more than 13 seconds, running 14:16.31 for a time that has only ever been bettered by herself once, world record-holder Tirunesh Dibaba and their fellow Ethiopians Genzebe Dibaba and Meseret Defar.
Ayana is now just the third runner after Genzebe Dibaba and Defar to have run sub-14:20 for the distance more than once. Her Rabat performance comes after she won the 3000m at the Doha Diamond League meeting in a world-leading 8:23.11.
Behind Ayana, who ran her PB of 14:14.32 that puts her third on the world all-time list in May last year, Kenya’s world fourth-placer Viola Kibiwot ran a 14:29.50 PB, while Ethiopia’s world silver medallist Senbere Teferi clocked a 14:35.09 PB.
“I feel disappointed because I wanted to break the world record,” said Ayana, who added that the wind had been too strong. “I am sure that I can break the record in one of my next races this year. In the Olympics, I am aiming to compete in both the 5000m and 10,000m.”
Over in the women’s 800m and the top six all broke 2:00, led by South Africa’s 2009 world champion Caster Semenya with a world-leading and meeting record time of 1:56.64 ahead of world indoor champion Francine Niyonsaba’s 1:57.74. Also among those sub-2:00 performers was Britain’s European and Commonwealth medallist Lynsey Sharp, who clocked 1:59.51 for a Rio qualifying time and fifth place in her first 800m of the season.
Kenya’s world silver medallist Conseslus Kipruto ran an African all-comers record with his world-leading time of 8:02.77 in the 3000m steeplechase, despite waving to the crowd on his way to the line. Behind him, Commonwealth silver medallist Jairus Birech ran 8:03.90.
Jamaica’s world 200m silver medallist Elaine Thompson won the 100m in 11.02 to break the six-year-old meeting record and beat Nigeria’s double Commonwealth sprint champion Blessing Okagbare with 11.11 as USA’s Carmelita Jeter placed fifth with 11.32. Further meeting records were run in the 110m hurdles, as David Oliver clocked 13.12 to Orlando Ortega’s 13.13, and in the 200m, where Alonso Edward clocked 20.07 to beat Wilfried Koffi with 20.35.
France’s world fifth-placer Pierre-Ambroise Bosse won the 800m in 1:44.51 from Olympic 1500m champion Taoufik Makhloufi with 1:44.91, as world bronze medalist Amel Tuka was third and Olympic silver medallist Nijel Amos finished sixth. In the 400m, USA’s LaShawn Merritt secured victory in 44.66 ahead of Kevin Borlee with 45.26.
There was also a meeting record in the women’s javelin as Madara Palameika threw 64.76m in the third round to beat Liina Laasma of Estonia with a national record-breaking throw of 63.65 from the fifth round. In the pole vault, Ekaterini Stefanidi got the win with a meeting record clearance of 4.75m ahead of Nicole Büchler with 4.70m and Yarisley Silva with 4.50m.
Two-time Olympic gold medallist Valerie Adams was just a single centimetre off her own shot put meeting record from 2014 as she threw 19.68m in the fifth round for victory. World champion Caterine Ibarguen continued her dominance of the women’s triple jump to win with 14.51m.
Jamaica’s Commonwealth bronze medallist Janieve Russell won the first Diamond League race of the evening, the 400m hurdles, in 54.16, while South Africa’s Rushwal Samaai equalled the long jump meeting record with 8.38m to beat Fabrice Lapierre by 2cm. Britain’s Dan Bramble was fourth with 8.00m. Poland’s world champion Piotr Malachowski was another meeting record-breaker, throwing 67.45m to win the discus.
The men’s high jump was won by Ukraine’s 2013 world champion Bohdan Bondarenko thanks to his clearance of 2.31m, while Britain’s Olympic medallist Robbie Grabarz cleared 2.25m and finished fifth.
Three-time Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele won the men’s race at the Great Manchester Run, finishing the 10km course in a time of 28 minutes and eight seconds.
Tirunesh Dibaba made a winning return to competition after a two year hiatus and she also created a small piece of history by becoming the first woman to claim three victories in the Great Manchester Run, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race, on Sunday 22 May 2015.
Keen to blow away the cobwebs in her first race back, Dibaba unusually took up the lead just before the two kilometre mark – a position which she barely yielded for the remainder of her comeback race.
Edna Kiplagat and early leader Diane Nukuri followed in Dibaba’s slipstream through 5km in 15:45 but Nukuri – the multiple national record-holder for Burundi on the track and road – began to lose ground after Dibaba inserted a 3:04 split for the sixth kilometre.
The order remained the same through the eight kilometre mark in 25:03 and for a short while, an upset appeared to be on the cards. Kiplagat moved into the lead for the first time while Dibaba was looking laboured.
But Dibaba stayed in contact before striking the front with about 600 metres remaining. It might not have been a vintage showing but the world 5000m record-holder proved she is likely to be a force this summer on the basis of her victory this morning in 31:16 to move to third on the 2016 world lists.
“I felt a bit nervous [before the race] but I’m happy with my result,” said Dibaba, who clocked 15:31 for the second half. “I did not expect this time; I just wanted to win. I didn’t know what was going to happen and I had no clue about the time.”
Dibaba will turn her focus back to the track with the foremost goal of sealing the qualifying time over 10,000m for the Olympic Games.
“I don’t know exactly where or when I will be running but I expect to run it within a month,” said Dibaba, who hasn’t decided if she will run any shorter races to sharpen up.
While there was a considerable degree of uncertainty in regards to the selection criteria for the Ethiopian marathon team, Dibaba more or less knows what she has to do to gain a place on her fourth Olympic team this summer.
“The federation is going to select the team according to time. The best three times will be selected,” she said.
Kiplagat, 36, finished just outside her long-standing lifetime best of 31:19 in second with 31:25 while Nukuri – who is targeting a top-15 finish in the Olympic marathon this summer – shaved three seconds off her lifetime best in third in 31:49.
On her comeback from a chest infection and virus, Gemma Steel was the top British finisher in eighth in 32:43.
Bekele defeats Kipsang for his second win in Manchester
The men’s race played out in an almost identical manner to the 2014 edition with Kenenisa Bekele cutting loose from Wilson Kipsang in the last kilometre to claim his second victory on Deansgate.
Running less than a month after contrasting fortunes in the London Marathon, Bekele and Kipsang didn’t appear to have the residual effects of that race in their legs as they eased through the halfway mark in 14:17 alongside Australia’s David McNeill and New Zealand’s Zane Robertson.
After a relatively sedate first half, the pace began to increase with Kipsang taking the initiative and by the 8km mark which was reached in 22:40, the pre-race favourites had forged nearly eighty metres on Robertson.
Given Bekele’s awesome pedigree at this distance, the outcome was more or less a foregone conclusion with two kilometres remaining and so it played out with Bekele easing away in the last kilometre.
Bekele said before the race he wasn’t expecting a fast time so soon after finishing third in the London Marathon but the two-time Olympic 10,000m champion, who took a short break after finishing third in the London contest, still broke the tape in 28:08 –after a 13:52 second half– which was faster than his winning time two years ago.
But his chance of winning a fourth Olympic title later this summer appears to be in the balance with the news that he was only named as a reserve on the Ethiopian marathon team.
Kipsang finished second for the third time in four years in 28:15 while McNeill overhauled Robertson for third, 28:39 to 28:54.
Kipsang also missed out on selection for the Olympic Games, although his chances were thwarted after he took a heavy fall at a drinks station around the 10km mark. He said his leg – which became painful after the 25km checkpoint in London – feels fine now, although he still feels some pain in his shoulder.
And had he not fallen, Kipsang is confident he would have kept pace with Eliud Kipchoge and Stanley Biwott in London, who ran 2:03:05 and 2:03:51 respectively.
“Yes, yes, definitely,” he said without hesitation. “I was prepared.”
The Ethiopian government’s lack of a specific policy or programme to address indigenous peoples’ special needs and status has further aggravated their situation. Ethiopia, is a key political actor in Africa, and the second most populous country on the continent. It is a glaring omission that such a significant political actor has not attempted—in consultation with the country’s indigenous peoples and their representative institutions—to develop policies and programmes that are in accordance with guidelines from the UN and other relevant bodies and which would bridge the social and economic gaps that are currently causing such distress. The Ethiopian government is thus failing to address widely reported concerns regarding the human rights of indigenous people in Gambela, the lower Omo Valley, Benishangul Gumuz, Afar, Somali and Oromia regions—all areas that have been part of the government’s land lease policy and villagization programme. The Oromia region has been the site of significant protests since late 2015 when protests began over plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa. In what was seen as an attempted “land grab”, Oromo farmers argued that expanding Addis Ababa would lead to their displacement and the loss of arable land. Although plans were subsequently dropped, protests continued, leading to what activists reported as the deaths of around 200 people so far, and heightened tensions in the area.
The indigenous peoples of Ethiopia make up a significant proportion of the country’s estimated 95 million population. Around 15 percent are pastoralists who live across Ethiopia, particularly in the Ethiopian lowlands, which constitute around 61 percent of the country’s total landmass. There are also a number of hunter-gathering communities, including the forestdwelling Majang (Majengir) who live in the Gambela region. Ethiopia has the largest livestock population in Africa, a significant amount of which is concentrated in pastoralist communities living on land that in recent years has become the subject of high demand from foreign investors. The political and economic situation of indigenous peoples in Ethiopia is a tenuous one. The Ethiopian government’s policy of villagization has seen many pastoralist communities moved off of their traditional grazing lands, and indigenous peoples’ access to healthcare provision and to primary and secondary education remains highly inadequate. There is no national legislation that protects them, and Ethiopia has neither ratified ILO Convention No. 169, nor was present during the voting on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Anti-terror law: a threat to indigenous peoples’ rights The situation for indigenous peoples in Ethiopia suffered a significant deterioration in 2015. There was no improvement in national legislation that could offer protection to indigenous peoples, and Ethiopia continues to fail in its obligations under the international human rights mechanisms it has ratified, e.g., the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which calls for special attention to be paid to indigenous peoples, a situation regarding which a number of human rights organizations—including the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Minority Rights Group International (MRGI)—have expressed concern. Moreover, this lack of compliance must also be seen within the context of wider concerns regarding the Ethiopian government’s alleged use of anti-terror laws to curtail freedom of speech. Concerns about the latter intensified in April 2014 with the arrest of six members of the Zone 9 blogging group and three other journalists, while the situation with regard to indigenous peoples’ rights became even more acute in March 2015 with the arrest in Addis Ababa of seven activists heading to a workshop on food security in Nairobi. Although four of them were eventually released, on 7 September 2015, after six months in detention, the remaining three activists, Pastor Omot Agwa, Ashinie Astin, and Jamal Oumar Hojele, were charged under Ethiopia’s counter-terrorism laws, and now face the possibility of extended prison terms if found guilty (Omot faces a sentence of 20 years to life). This has caused widespread concern amongst human rights defenders inside and outside the country, as well as a number of leading human rights organizations.
Land grabbing and policy of villagization A key element in the deteriorating situation of indigenous peoples in Ethiopia is the ongoing policy of “land grabbing” where companies lease large tracts of land from the Ethiopian government in return for significant levels of foreign investment. Since 2008, when widespread concern about the possibility of a potentially global food crisis increased demand for agricultural land, the Ethiopian government has leased millions of hectares of land throughout the country to agricultural investors, both foreign and domestic. The Ethiopian government says that such investments are important for guaranteeing food security. The policy is also seen as an important element in Ethiopia’s development strategy because it means that land that is categorized as “under-utilized” can be used productively. However, much of this land is in reality not under-utilized but is used by pastoralists, whose customary rights to the land are being consistently violated. Moreover, the way in which the land is used under the new leasing arrangements arguably does little for food security as there is little food produced. Instead, land is chiefly being used for an array of non-food products such as flowers, or for growing food products destined for the export market. Interestingly, at the very end of 2015, the Ethiopian Agriculture Ministry’s land investment agency notified Karuturi Global Inc., one of the first and largest external investors, that its lease was being cancelled because of a lack of “development”. Karaturi had used only 1,200 ha of land out of the 100,000 originally allocated to it, and so the Agriculture Ministry has stated that the rest will return to a “land bank” for future investment. The Ethiopian government continues to highlight the employment opportunities of such investment for those living in lowland areas, but much of the employment in these areas has gone to “highlanders” from the central and northern areas of Ethiopia who have moved there to find work. The latter has also increased the possibilities of ethnic tensions, something that has been seen in the Gambela region and in the lower Omo Valley in particular. In the latter case, the building of the Gibe III Dam, which significantly impacts upon water security in the Omo Valley region, has meant a heightened threat to food security and in turn increased conflict over existing resources. For example, there have been reports that cattle herders have moved their animals into Mago National Park to find grass, and have been met with violence from government soldiers who are protecting the park and its wildlife. Reports from external sources have said that the lives of those indigenous peoples living in the region have been “fundamentally and irreversibly” changed by the building of the dam. It will make it very difficult for the half a million indigenous people whose lives and livelihoods depend upon the Omo River to continue living in the area and sustaining their traditional livelihoods. According to the Dam’s Public Consultation and Disclosure Plan, only 93 members of four indigenous communities were consulted and this happened only after construction of the dam had already begun. In addition, part of the Ethiopian government’s policy on land management includes the pursuit of a policy of villagization, which aims to resettle those who live in rural areas—often indigenous peoples—into communities with improved access to basic amenities, such as clean water, medical services and schools. In reality, however, such amenities have not been provided, and many of the communities have too little food for the population that now exists there. Many people find that when they try and return to the land that they have left in order to resume their previous way of life the land has been leased and they no longer have access to it.
Indigenous communities thus find themselves displaced and deprived of their traditional livelihoods and of access to their natural environment, including access to water, grazing and fishing grounds, arable lands and forest resources. The Ethiopian government’s lack of a specific policy or programme to address indigenous peoples’ special needs and status has further aggravated their situation. Ethiopia, is a key political actor in Africa, and the second most populous country on the continent. It is a glaring omission that such a significant political actor has not attempted—in consultation with the country’s indigenous peoples and their representative institutions—to develop policies and programmes that are in accordance with guidelines from the UN and other relevant bodies and which would bridge the social and economic gaps that are currently causing such distress. The Ethiopian government is thus failing to address widely reported concerns regarding the human rights of indigenous people in Gambela, the lower Omo Valley, Benishangul Gumuz, Afar, Somali and Oromia regions—all areas that have been part of the government’s land lease policy and villagization programme. The Oromia region has been the site of significant protests since late 2015 when protests began over plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa. In what was seen as an attempted “land grab”, Oromo farmers argued that expanding Addis Ababa would lead to their displacement and the loss of arable land. Although plans were subsequently dropped, protests continued, leading to what activists reported as the deaths of around 200 people so far, and heightened tensions in the area.
Considering the future for indigenous peoples’ rights in Ethiopia, it therefore remains important that there be a country-wide, inclusive and participatory movement in the country that would be able to ensure that the concerns of pastoralists and agro-pastoral peoples are taken into account as part of key government policies and programmes. The country’s lack of formal mechanisms in which to consider such issues, as well as legal restrictions on freedom of association and speech, appear to preclude this. This is despite the fact that the Ethiopian constitution—though lacking in clear provisions directly related to indigenous peoples —does include a provision for dealing with the development needs of pastoralist communities. However, the overall outlook for a nationwide indigenous peoples’ movement is promising. Consensus is underway amongst various groups that— with the support of international organizations and a more positive government view—could enable the country’s marginalized communities to face a more positive future.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia —The capital city is going through a building boom but many of its citizens are suffering from extreme poverty. On top of that, social friction between the government and its citizens is high, especially after protests over building plans killed students and farmers.
Singapore (Business Insider) — Every year Mercer, one of the world’s largest HR consultancy firms, releases itsQuality of Living Index, which looks at the cities that provide the best quality of life.
Now we take a look at what cities are ranked as providing the worst quality of life.
The ranking is one of the most comprehensive of its kind and is carried out annually to help multinational companies and other employers to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments, according to Mercer.
Looking at 450 cities across the world, Mercer takes into account the following metrics to judge which cities made the list for the best quality of life — which therefore shows what it feels are the best and worst:
Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement)
Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)
Mercer made a list of 230 countries and Business Insider took a look at the bottom 33 in the world.
33. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania — The largest city in the country is rife with crime. Britain’s government says on its foreign travel website: “British tourists have been kidnapped, robbed and forced with the threat of violence to withdraw cash from ATMs and arrange cash transfers up to £5,000 through Western Union after being befriended by strangers or using unlicensed taxis. Walk as far away from the road as possible.”
32 (joint). Lahore, Pakistan — The city has a general low standard of living due to the high number of slums. It has also been under attack from terrorism. During Easter this year, a Taliban militant faction claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a public park which killed dozens of people.
32 (joint). Luanda, Angola — Mercer said Luanda is the most expensive city to live in the world due to extraordinarily high living expenses and poverty-level wages for locals.
30. Yangon, Myanmar — The city formerly known as Rangoon is continually stricken by inter-religious violence between Buddhists and Muslims, leading to a high murder rate.
29. Karachi, Pakistan — It’s the largest and most populous metropolitan city in the world but is also one of the most violent. Kidnapping, violent crime, and muggings are commonplace.
28. Tehran, Iran — Sanctions have only just been lifted on the country but Tehran has high poverty levels, social instability, and murder. Kidnapping, theft, fraud, money laundering, and drug trafficking are just some of the regular crimes committed in the country’s capital.
27. Lome, Togo — The city is the largest in Togo and holds high unemployment rates. Its infrastructure is also deteriorating and the African nation faces problems with living conditions and rubbish collection.
26. Tashkent, Uzbekistan — The capital in the central Asia country has become a hotbed for terrorism over the last year. In 2015, the US embassy in Tashkent was attacked for the first time in 11 years and the government is trying to counteract growth in Islamic extremism.
25. Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire — It’s the economic capital of the Ivory Coast but the British embassy has issued warnings against anyone travelling there unless essential. It said “violent crime can occur at any time” and that the city, and the country, has a “high threat of terrorism.”
24. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia —The capital city is going through a building boom but many of its citizens are suffering from extreme poverty. On top of that, social friction between the government and its citizens is high, especially after protests over building plans killed students and farmers.
23. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan — The city is largely controlled by the government, mainly through a large percentage of employment coming from state-owned enterprises. Unfortunately, the city suffers from chronic water shortages due to state mismanagement, which is crippling for citizens where temperatures soared as high as 47.2 degrees Celsius (116.96 F) in 2015.
22. Harare, Zimbabwe — The capital, as well as the rest of the country, suffers from an oppressive government led by Robert Mugabe. The city is also poverty stricken and millions of citizens are starving due to 75% of maize crops failing, prompting Mugabe to appeal for £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) to help pay for grain and other food.
21. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan — Poverty is high in the economic centre of the country. Meanwhile, the government is battling continual attacks from members of Islamic State — also known as ISIS and Daesh.
20. Lagos, Nigeria — The country’s largest city battles environmental threats, such as riptides, annually. Citizens are also under continual threats to their personal safety, including the kidnapping of students and murder.
19 (joint). Abuja, Nigeria — The city, like Lagos, suffers from high crime rates from inter-communal violence. The British Foreign Office tells travellers: “You could get kidnapped or find yourself caught up in a terrorist or other violent incident.”
19 (joint). Dushanbe, Tajikistan — Poverty and energy shortages are a huge issue for the city and country as a whole. The World Bank also warns that doing business there is difficult due to the inadequate infrastructure.
17. Dhaka, Bangladesh — Dhaka is one of the world’s most populated cities and its garment exports bolsters its economy. But working conditions and human rights, as well as local poverty for a bulk of its citizens, are criticised and under scrutiny by world governments and charities.
16. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso — The city is under continual threat of terrorist attacks and earlier this year, an Al-Qaeda bombing on a popular hotel killed 29 people.
15. Tripoli, Libya — The city was carved up by two rival warlords last year and even the main airport was destroyed in the summer of 2015 and all the main embassies have been closed down. Migrants and refugees are also flooding into the country due to its proximity with Europe.
14. Niamey, Niger — Protests, governmental corruption, and local poverty place this city onto the list.
13. Antananarivo, Madagascar — The city, and the rest of the country, depends on agriculture for its economic growth. However political instability hinders any chance of continuous development.
12. Bamako, Mali — The city was rocked by terrorist attacks last year when Islamist militants took 170 hostages and killed 20 of them in a mass shooting at the Radisson Blu hotel.
11. Nouakchott, Mauritania —The city was originally a small village of little importance until 1958 until growing rapidly into one of the biggest cities in the Sahara. However, overcrowding, droughts, and poverty have helped fill the city with slums.
10. Conakry, Guinea Republic — The port city is riddled with personal safety issues. Violent crime, protests, and strikes wreak havoc in Conakry.
9. Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo — Ethnic nationalist conflict is rife in the city and NGOs have tried to step in to provide aid and food relief to the city and the rest of the country.
8. Brazzaville, Congo — Government corruption has triggered huge protests in the city which led to a number of people being killed by the police.
7. Damascus, Syria — Mercer says the city has “witnessed continual violence and terrorist attacks that weigh upon the daily life of locals and expatriates.”
6. N’Djamena, Chad —The city in one of the world’s poorest countries has suffered at the hands of militant Islamist group Boko Haram. The group carries out frequent suicide bombings in the city.
5. Khartoum, Sudan —It’s the second largest city in Sudan and is a key recruiting ground for ISIS.
4. Port Au Prince, Haiti —The city is rife with violent crime and is dangerous for travellers. Rapes and robberies are common and there is a worrying growth in vigilante violence.
3. Sana’a, Yemen — The largest city in Yemen has been devastated by airstrikes from Saudi Arabia as the country has become a battleground in the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
2. Bangui, Central African Republic — The capital city is incredibly poor and many citizens rely on aid for survival. On top of that, violent sectarian clashes erupt regularly in the area.
1. Baghdad, Iraq — The capital city has suffered severe infrastructural damage from several wars and continual on the ground violence. It continues to face threats from ISIS.
Ethiopia is in the grip of a terrible crisis. The recent widespread popular protests must be understood in the context of an atrociously repressive regime and near total capture of the state by ethnic elites, who are now the sole beneficiaries of national resources. The people are bitter. If this mass frustration is channeled into properly organized popular resistance, Ethiopia could see a revolution.
INTRODUCTION
In addition to the senseless killings of protesters by the ruling party targeting the Oromos, the latest video clips and news reports also indicate that the same protests in Oromia region have led to the burning/destruction of properties, foundations, etc. There is an ongoing and raging debate among Ethiopians, residing both in and outside of the country, about this debacle. Some members of the diaspora link (and rightly so in this regard) the burnings/destructions to the innumerable atrocities and endemic corruption committed by the ruling party. Their condoning seems to emanate from the fact that a good portion of the destroyed properties are owned by corrupt elites and foreign companies/individuals with close links to the ruling clique. The owners of these properties and structures are reaping what they have sown, they argue. Folks who echo these sentiments seem to consider riots as antidotes to unending pillaging and a necessary evil to avenge evil doers.
There are others, particularly those who consider themselves as soldiers of the peaceful struggle, which includes those who participated in organizing of the protests, who argue against the burning and destruction of properties. The destructions and burnings, they say, were perpetrated by saboteurs of peaceful struggle and repercussions of the ruling party’s uncalled for brutalities on peaceful protestors. Folks in this camp at times point out mechanisms of regaining ill-gotten assets. The burnings and destructions also seem to have put a large portion of Ethiopians in a quandary and deep dilemma. They really seem to be between a rock and hard place (that is, unable to either condemn or condone the destructions).
As a soldier of non-violent resistance, I also do not condone the burnings/destructions. But contrary to our wishes, I acknowledge and fret the fact that burnings and destructions of greater magnitude may be inevitable. In fact, I saw this debacle coming, long ago. And I have raised this possibility, on several occasions, with friends, such as renowned professors of Ethiopian origin, namely, Minga Negash, Messay Kebede and Berhanu Mengistu, every time we discussed the cunning nature of Ethiopian corruption. As we discussed, it seemed as though our heads have become dizzy and our voices trebled, for the destructions could reach epic proportions. Why do Ethiopians consider the government supported investment structures and properties as not belonging to them but instead as “foreign” assets and even vehicles of large scale displacements, exploitation and oppression?
Now, if you want to understand why the protesters failed to understand that foreign direct investment (FDI) creates wealth (which it does), but instead consider even the “domestically” (political-party and elite-owned) “investments” as alien/foreign owned, why foreign direct investment is considered as a “fancy word for stealing” and as highly exploitative and accessory to evil, etc., and why they even venture for their destructions, I urge you to read on. If you want to understand the nature of Ethiopian corruption, its ramifications – how it has been and continues to irreparably damage the social and institutional fabrics of the country – and most importantly, if you really want to begin thinking of designing strategies for combating corrutpion and forestall potentially devastating destructions, please allow me to elaborate.
This commentary is designed, therefore, to implore you (the reader) to understand the intractable nature of Ethiopian corruption and then think about potential “solutions.” This is because designing strategies and finding “solutions” require a good grasp of the type of corruption found in a specific country, in this case Ethiopia.
STATE CAPTURE: A FORM OF GRAND CORRUPTION AS THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM
As I have shown on several occasions before, what we have been witnessing in Ethiopia is the most [url=file:///G:/Documents/my articles/v]pernicious and intractable[/url] form of corruption known as State Capture. This form of corruption needs to be distinguished from what is known in the corruption literature as Administrative (Bureaucratic) Corruption. The latter is the type of corruption defined and observed in the traditional manner, in almost all countries, save for post-communist (transition) countries. In particular, administrative (bureaucratic) corruption deals with the extent to which the bribe payer uses the existing laws, rules, and regulations to tip the balance in his favor. In general, administrative (bureaucratic) corruption is known to take place at the implementation level of the bureaucracy while the political (grand) corruption takes place at the highest level of political authority. Examples of variants of administrative corruption may include: impeding the implementation of justice; getting involved in the forgery and/or destruction of documents; delaying and/or procrastinating on executing high level official (assigned) duties; using official hours for personal gains; misrepresenting one’s authority; getting involved in partisan favors (nepotism); misusing public property; engaging in absenteeism; getting involved in kickbacks from developmental programs; pay-offs for legislative support, diversion of public resources for private use; overlooking illegal activities; common theft/embezzlement; overpricing, establishing non-existing projects and tax collection and tax assessment frauds, etc.
Even though it may be difficult to completely eradicate it, fortunately, nations could minimize the damage done by administrative (bureaucratic) corruption by ensuring transparency, accountability and openness in governmental activities. This is done, for example, by (a) Establishing independent power centers outside the bureaucracy; (b) Establishing independent electoral boards and developing and allowing competitive party politics; (c) Using the independent media, which in turn enables interest groups, members of civic society, NGOs, etc.; (d) Using the investigative powers of parliament; (e) Setting up of independent anti-corruption boards and commissions; and (f) Using the independent judiciary.
However, what we have been witnessing in Ethiopia is a different kind of corruption known as State Capture, which is known to have manifested itself in transition (formerly socialist) countries. It is a phenomenon in which powerful groups exert their corrupt and undue influence in order to shape the institutions and policies, laws and regulations of the state for their own benefit rather than for the public good.
State capture could arise and be practiced in several ways: it could result from powerful individuals, groups or firms using both non-transparent provisions as well as legitimate and transparent channels to deny competing groups access to state officials and resources. It could also arise from the exploitation of the “unclear boundaries between the political and business interests of state officials” by specific groups and state officials for their mutual benefits at the expense of the society in question (Hellman: 1998:3).
According to Broadman and Recanatini (2001), state capture is harmful corruption that subverts the entire political process designed to ensure that policies and regulations favorable to specific groups and business interests are implemented.
State capture may differ from country to country. In some countries, state capture could clearly be seen as a variant of a corruptive practice known as crony capitalism in which powerful groups, individuals and oligarchs shape and manipulate the formation of new policies – that is, the “rules of the game”- to their own advantage. The phenomenon could be observed whenever state officials pass decrees and/or legislative votes favoring organized business groups, oligarchs or powerful individuals. It could also be observed in huge “concentration of economic and political power” and economic inequality arising from self-interested actors gaining and controlling the state and its resources. The state capture phenomenon could also be observed in the collusive activities of powerful leaders (regional or national), ministers, and legislative and judiciary executives, corporate executives of state institutions/agencies and party-owned companies. In some cases, state capture is a result of weakened legal and political institutions. In other instances, captors purposely weaken the country’s legal and political institutions so that they would be susceptible to capture and exploitation.
It is also manifested in the failure of economic reforms and the stripping of public assets by some powerful individuals or organized groups using the “privatization” process. In some instances, state capture could be observed when organized groups clandestinely create a state within a state (“parallel state”) in order to influence the state structures, including the judiciary, the security apparatus, the military, and even the media. In some countries where state capture has occurred, the line between what is private and what is public, what is official and non-official, what is state and what is market are totally blurred.
As you can observe from the above descriptions, under state capture, a country’s laws, regulations, legalities and ultimately its institutions are part of corrupt transactions. Such corruption features are quite different from the administrative/bureaucratic corruption described above.
In some countries such as Ethiopia (Hassan, 2013) (and to a limited extent, countries such as Uganda and Rwanda), the entire political, economic, legal and military structures are under the control of powerful cliques or ethnically organized groups. Corruption of this type is pernicious because these same organized groups, in collaboration with owners of powerful firms and/or oligarchs, happen to dominate the vital sectors of all institutions (economic, social, legal and military). In some cases, as manifested in countries such as Russia in the 1990s and in some countries in Africa, Ethiopia included, the practice of capture is highly organized and predatory. The captors are known to use, among other things, violence and intimidation. They are known to have created their own monopolies (oligarchies) and cartels in order to monopolize the vital sectors of the economic system while at the same time disabling the ongoing market reforms. In short, this kind of corruption resembles a modern version of organized crime.
COUNTRY SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF CAPTORS
The corruptive activities of the captors are largely similar but they may differ by country or origin and type of captors. In post-communist countries, Hellman et al (2000:3) make distinctions between private “captor firms (i.e. firms that make private payments to public officials to affect the rules of the game) and influential firms (i.e. firms that have influence on those rules without recourse to private payments to public officials).” The captors in general are the nomenklatura – a group of former managers and bureaucrats of state-owned enterprises under the old Soviet system and other Eastern Bloc nations (estimated to be about 1.5 percent of the population) who were “engaged in ceaseless political maneuvering among themselves while maintaining total power, as a privileged class, over all the others.”
They could also be public officials who “may use their positions to capture enterprises,” or a group of actors such as the members of parliament, the executive, ministers and judiciary acting in unison (the ruling party leaders acting prosecutor, judge, and jury).
While largely similar, state capture in developing countries such as Ethiopia differs from that in post-communist countries in some important ways: For one, unlike their Russian and East European counterparts, the Ethiopian captors do not exclusively belong to the nomenklatura (former higher officials of the communist parties), since a large portion of them were rag tag guerrilla fighters who had marched all the way out from the bushes to seize power and enrich themselves. Secondly, in countries such as Ethiopia, the state capture phenomenon is highly parochial (quasi-feudal and ethnic-based) in nature.
Unfortunately, patronage infested Ethiopian corruption has a strong tendency for both envy and tolerance. It involves envy because corruption assisted riches of elites in one ethnic group irritate other ethnic groups. On the other hand, it is quite possible for tolerance for the vice to emanate from those who have ethnic affiliation with the ruling clique. This tendency is known to have permeated the Kenyan society (Michela Wrong, 2009: “It is Our Turn to Eat.”) The end result is a vicious cycle of corruption, each (largely powerful) ethnic group’s elites taking their turns to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
One also observes a very strong patron-clientelistic and neo-patrimonialistic nature of corruption in these countries (Ethiopia, in particular).
Thirdly, unlike in some post-communist countries such as Eastern Europe, in which some oligarchs were forced out of political power, the Ethiopian captors continue to hold both political and economic power. The Russian oligarchs made their fortunes through wheeling and dealing and by committing all kinds of economic crimes including buying Russian assets at throw away prices (so did their Ethiopian counter-parts). But, Mr. Putin, who did not like the political meddling of some of them, used his scorched earth tactics to put some of them behind bars and sent others into exile while at the same time stripping off their assets (leaving alone those who did not venture to politically challenge him). Putin’s scorched earth tactics might have averted a rise of a potentially more devastating plutocracy than we observe in Russia today. The captors in Eastern and Central Europe gradually lost their political clout partly due to the desires and efforts of those countries to join the European Union and fulfill the EU’s conditions and the latter’s assistance in fighting and eradicating state capture.
Fourth, state capture in countries such as Ethiopia is unparalleled in that it is a stronger form than one finds elsewhere in that it encompasses the seizure of the political apparatus and the commanding heights of the national economy – the seizure extending to the military, security, foreign policy and judicial system and even the complete control of the media. In Ethiopia, the predatory oligarchs’ appetite for controlling the commanding heights of the country’s economy, misappropriating its resources and accumulating wealth using a network of political power continues unabated, thereby exacerbating the gaps between the haves and the have-nots. Elite predation has led to a virtual criminalization of the state to the extent that mafia-type criminal activities pop up occasionally.
Another peculiar characteristic of state capture in Ethiopia is its high level ethnic nature. Moreover, the lines between what is official and what is private are totally blurred, and the party and the state have become almost indistinguishable. It is for this reason that many are tempted to label the Ethiopian corruptive system as highly kleptocratic. As a result, the captured economy is trapped in a vicious cycle in which any policy reforms designed to improve governance are doomed to fail. There is constant collusion between the powerful groups operating from outside and within the government.
WHAT HAS TRANSPIRED IN ETHIOPIA?
What is being witnessed in Ethiopia is the establishment of shell companies in contravention of the country’s commercial codes, such as establishing sare companies with only 2-5 “shareholders”, most of these “shareholders” being party leaders. As Gennet Mersha explains, the parallel existence of political party-owned businesses has led to (a) “leakage of resources in the form of capital flight, (b) the granting and manipulation of licenses, (c) use of inside information pertaining to privatization, competition for state contracts and bids and awards of project contracts such as road and building and other construction works, (d) lack of competition, and (e) systematic discrimination of businesses and professionals.”
What we have observed is “favouritism and clique building [which] flourished around the privatization boards ([url=file:///C:/Users/shassan/Documents/tdrive as of june 23 2015/corruption/Aid, Development and corruption/follow up and Commentary of Professor Ejigu Demissie of the University of Maryland]Minga Negash[/url]). What the Ethiopian people witnessed were improper handling of the restructuring and privatization process (Mersha: 2010), Young (1998), Vestal (2009), and Negash (2010). What Ethiopians have witnessed is large-scale systemic state capture through the rise of suffocating political-party owned companies (“endowments”), such as EFFORT and the numerous companies subsumed under it.
What we know is the refusal of the members of the ruling clique (TPLF) to return the country’s assets that they looted when they were guerrilla fighters while at the same time occupying the highest branches of government.
What we know is party hacks presiding “over top-level corporate boards of party-owned businesses and major government enterprises including banks” and their funneling of easy bank loans to regional party-owned companies.
What has transpired is the disfranchisement of “other” Ethiopians and the stifling of competition through the awarding of contracts to those connected with the ruling party, such high level nepotism being very high particularly in the construction sector (see, World Bank’s Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia, Chapter 6, for example.)
What we have witnessed on a daily basis, twenty five years and counting, is the currying of favour of these same conglomerates and cadre-owned and favored companies resulting in the distortions of competition and lack of competitive marketplace.
What we have witnessed, much like in countries which were under the influence of the Soviet Union, is the seizure and control of the financial sector by a specific group.
What we are witnessing is suffocation through the use of the so-called new press and anti-terrorism laws.
What we observe in Ethiopia is the passage and adoption of new repressive laws such as the one prohibiting opposition parties from receiving funds from abroad, while at the same time the ruling party benefits immensely from that.
What has developed is a zero-sum mentality and practice, a powerful leadership with deaf ears that is “too rigid, arrogant and disconnected” with high level of patronage.
What Ethiopians have witnessed is the constant attack and dismantling of opposition political parties, the weakening of the country’s institutions – be they independent civil society organizations, unions, or professional organizations – the watering down of the quality of education, constant violation of the rule of law, etc.
What is being observed is the creation of a toothless anti-corruption commission (itself implicated in mushrooming of corruption) to hoodwink donors and the hijacking of anti-corruption efforts – to the extent of using it to attack and imprison political opponents.
Just like in communist Russia and elsewhere, the ruling party of Ethiopia has captured the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and practically all regulatory agencies – all distinguishing caricatures of state capture, the highest form of corruption that is directed toward extracting rents.
THE REPERCUSSIONS
State Capture and (mafia type) criminal oligarchy, accompanied by an unbelievable arrogance and repression has resulted in deep disillusionment, cynicism and polarization in the country. It has resulted in once upon a time rag-tag guerrilla fighters and poor taxi drivers, not known for their ingenuity or something else that is good, becoming extremely wealthy, almost overnight. It has led to the setting ablaze of property, in which local businesses happen to bear the brunt of the destructions. Riots do not take place in a vacuum. The causes are the nauseating greed on the part of the ruling party, the eviction of tens of thousands of people from their ancestral lands and the transfer of these same lands, with little or no compensations, to the ruling party-owned companies, elites and foreigners. The causes of the riots are, no doubt, outright nepotism and organized crime committed by the ruling elites. Corruption riddled land transfers have resulted in the transfer of resources from the people into the hands of a very few. Those whose lands have forcefully been taken away and displaced and those who have been oppressed seem not to be taking the abuse any more.
As an economist, I see the ruling clique’s overreach (of forced displacements, arrogance, insatiable greed and suffocating corruption) having lasting damage. Thanks to the overreaches of the government and criminal activities of party elites, foreign direct investment is now considered a fancy word for deceit and exploitation. Indeed, people-centered and properly compensated urban development projects would have been a win-win for all those involved. Thanks to the rampant land-related corruption, the ruling clique’s dirty tricks have undermined future legitimate development projects. No doubt these overreaches will be big time setbacks to future development.
RESISTANCE TO PREDATORY LAND GRABS
Allow me to elaborate the fraud infested and predatory land grabs which sparked several unrests, a little more. Just like North Korea and China, land belongs to the Ethiopian government, which in turn created a space for a frenzy of uncompensated land grabbing, rent-seeking and nepotism. Using several endless land proclamations as their tools, Ethiopian officials and land grabbers might have copied Chinese practices of forcefully expropriating land. It appears that land grabbers in Ethiopia have failed to understand the problems associated with such a practice. For one, forced evictions have resulted not only in human rights abuses and the violations of the international covenants that China has ratified, but the scheme has contributed to growing income inequality. Ethiopian authoritarian rulers should have known that growing inequalities have consequences.
Secondly, a large portion of the evictions in China was largely done by local officials and against the wishes of the central government. In Ethiopia, both the re-zoning and demolition plans and executions are exclusively done under the directives of central government authorities, contributing to the rising resentments.
Thirdly, both the central and local governments of China were able to create factory jobs which absorbed a significant portion of the evicted peasants, resulting in indirect compensations to the lost properties for those who were displaced. In Ethiopia, local communities hardly get any benefits from the “investments” despite promises of creating jobs and other goodies such as access to electricity and clean water.
Fourthly, contrary to what is largely observed in Ethiopia, it appears that Chinese local authorities and developers compensated evictees even though the compensations were nowhere equal to the market value of the properties.
Fifth, in the Ethiopian case, those who benefit from land-related corruption (which includes forced evictions and demolitions) happen to be at the top echelons of the ruling party.
Sixth, unlike the Chinese, the Ethiopian population is highly divided along ethnic lines, such divisions exacerbated by the policies of the regime itself. And last but not least, unlike the Ethiopian land grabbers, the Chinese authorities never used live ammunitions against protesters whose lands ha been seized. That must be why other ethnic groups, the Oromos, in particular, consider the so-called federal police (repeatedly observed brutally beating students and protesters) and the military as only belonging to and used as a killing paramilitary squad of the TPLF. The Ethiopian people have repeatedly witnessed that the ruling party have never been accountable for the atrocities it committed. Witness the tortures, disappearances, mass arrests and massacres the regime committed in 1995, 2005/6, 2014, and now 2015/16, the genocide committed against the Anuak people in 2003, the killing of university students in 2001, just to name a few.
The Ethiopian people have been traumatized by the endless atrocities. It is these and numerous other atrocities that have forced the people to think that this is not their government. It is the looting of public resources by a few and the extreme corrupt activities which have led the Ethiopian people to think the properties and investment do not belong to them but to a parasitic group. Consequently, it is not hard to imagine corruption that is committed by “others” (conserved by many as if they are invaders) – and in a lot of cases, orchestrated by those who claim to be representing one ethnic group – to be viewed with great envy and anger thereby escalating the polarization. No wonder it results in extreme discontent and riots.
State capture, together with oppression, arrogance and brutality, is leading the country to experience an accelerating socio-politico-economic breakdown and to potentially ethnic/sectarian conflicts – all contributing to the unravelling and possible disintegration of the rotting system. Unfortunately, the collapsing system will have collateral and innocent victims.
“SOLUTIONS”: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
As I indicated above, state capture is anathema to reform. In the Ethiopia today, there is no independent judiciary that can uphold the rule of law since the rule of law gets subverted by top-level officials on a constant basis. There are no checks and balances. All we have is a rubber-stamp “parliament. All we have is a toothless anti-corruption agency, which is saddled with the lack of resources and incompetence. Nearly all independent and privately owned newspapers have been forcefully shuttered and many of journalists sent to jail or exile. These brutal measures have deprived the country of the means to fight rampant corruption.
Civil society organizations have been either decimated or captured. What we have is an executive body which fires auditors when the auditors expose corruption and the disappearance of billions of birr. In today’s Ethiopia, every regulatory agency is captured, to the extent of Mr. Sibant Nega, the founder, architect and now revered figurehead of the TPLF, boldly and unashamedly admitting the obvious: that corruption in Ethiopia is so bad that it has permeated even the religious institutions.
The Ethiopian oligarchy lacks a Vladimir Putin (that is, Meles Zenawi) who could have served as an anti-corruption czar and used his unparalleled power and Machiavellian tactics to trap and quell his distractors and possibly extend the political life of the oligarchy. The paranoid and heavy-handed measures taken against the Oromos by the ruling clique clearly indicate that not only the ruling party has become headless but it also indicates a lack of command and control.
What we are left with is three relatively powerful groups, who could potentially allay the pains inflicted upon the Ethiopian people by rampant corruption – their measures having the potential to extend the political life of the kleptocratic regime. Even though these groups may be able to extend the political life of the regime, they would not, however, save it from eventual collapse since corruption of this magnitude cannot be saved from within. What I am thinking about are (a) Multinational institutions, such as the IMF, World Bank and others; (b) donor nations, particularly the United State and the EU; and (c) pressure from stakeholders who are a part of and have closer ties with the regime, that is, ‘custodians of the status quo’ (Berhanu Mnegistu, 2016-“Mediating Political Space… “).
The first two are holders of strong arms – capable of putting immense pressure on the clique. For one, these institutions and donors know how aid dependent the regime is – so aid dependent just “[like] a patient addicted to pain killers.” The United States and members of the EU, the U.K. in particular, along with the aid institutions, know the “aid” they provide was and still is the source of corruption, be it via illicit financial outflows, used to recruit and pay millions of cadres, used to fund forced villagization or other means. As I have shown elsewhere, donor nations know that part of the seeds of capital for party-owned conglomerates are the “aid” they provided. Should they wish to do so, donor nations can bring the TPLF leaders to their knees by suing them for their misuse of foreign aid and money laundering.
As for the third group, according to Professor Berhanu Mengistu (2016), the effectiveness of the ‘custodians of the status quo’ depends not only on their ability to “convince the narrow stakeholders” that change is in their best interests but also on their ability to direct those changes. One may legitimately ask: Would the custodians of the status quo be able to control their own greed and selfishness when in fact the entire ruling party, top-to-bottom, is so repugnantly corrupt? Well, if they failed to do so, then they will lose all that they have amassed!
So, why did Oromo protesters burn down properties and investment structures located within their own neighborhoods? Well, it is because of the resentment which running deep against overbearing party elites who scoop up lands that don’t belong to them – the grabbed lands making very wealthy almost overnight. All that the people see is wealth following senseless corruption, party affiliation, bloodlines, but not hard work or original access to one’s ancestral land. The protesters are not only pushed out of their ancestral lands but they also do not have jobs, money or even prospects. As the rioters’ selective attack targets indicate, the burnings/destructions and boycotting seem to be directed at those owned by the TPLF and its supporters. Unfortunately, resentment of this kind is also harbored by other ethnic groups. Such practices may indeed be repeated in other regions, even though Ethiopia does not really have lots of resources to burn and destroy.
Unfortunately, the Ethiopian people continue to be traumatized by TPLF’s economic gangsterism and government-led violence. Trauma leads to hopelessness, extreme anger and frustration, to the extent of being self-destructive. The burning of properties, therefore, is a by-product of the traumas that the Oromos have suffered for too long. I have my deep fears that someday such destructiveness may repeat itself in the other regions of the country and possibly in a large scale. Let’s pray and hope that appropriate measures, capable of forestalling the looming dangers will be taken.
Seid Hassan teaches at Murray State University.
THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM
For a long time, the government insisted that the country could handle the situation on its own. Indeed, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn first requested assistance from the international community in March. But international aid organizations were also ordered not to speak publicly about the true scale of the disaster, the liberal magazine Addis Standard recently reported — a newspaper that is viewed with some skepticism by the government.
The authoritarian regime doesn’t tolerate criticism: Members of the opposition are persecuted and unruly journalists imprisoned. Nor are oppositional voices to be heard in parliament, where the governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) holds 100 percent of the seats. The party liberated Ethiopia in 1991 from the socialist terror rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam, but itself likewise acts with a heavy hand.
What Ethiopia needs is an agricultural revolution, but the government is doing too little to mechanize agriculture and increase productivity. In fact, it has done the opposite by clinging to its strategy of industrialization — one that includes the leasing of giant farmlands to foreign agricultural companies which then export foodstuffs in grand fashion from the country at a time when it must import hundreds of thousands of tons of wheat in order to compensate for the crop losses caused by the drought.
‘Death Awaits’:Africa Faces Worst Drought in Half a Century
By Bartholomäus Grill
Jens Grossmann / Welthungerhilfe
The worst drought in half a century has stricken large parts of Africa — a consequence of El Niño and high population growth. More than 50 million people are threatened by hunger and few countries have been hit as hard as Ethiopia.
Herdsman Ighale Utban used to be a relatively prosperous man. Three years ago, he owned around a hundred goats. Now, though, all but five of them have died of thirst at a dried-up watering hole, victims of the worst drought seen in Ethiopia and large parts of Africa in a half-century.
Utban, a wiry man of 36 years, belongs to a nomadic people known as the Afar, who spend their lives wandering through the eponymously named state in northeastern Ethiopia. “This is the worst time I’ve experienced in my life,” he says. On some days, he doesn’t know how to provide for himself and his seven-member family.”We can no longer wander,” Utban says, “because death awaits out there.” For now, he’ll have to remain in Lii, a scattered little settlement in which several families have erected their makeshift huts. Lii means “scorching hot earth.”
‘First the Livestock Die, Then the People’
Since time immemorial, shepherds have wandered with their animals through the endless expanses of the Danakil desert. They live primarily off of meat and milk, and it was always a meagre existence. But with the current drought, which has lasted for over a year, their very existence is threatened. “First the livestock die, then the people,” Utban says.
The American relief organization USAID estimates that in Afar alone, over a half million cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and camels have perished. Reservoirs are empty, pastures dried up, feed reserves nearly exhausted. With no rain, grass no longer grows. Many nomads are selling their emaciated livestock, but oversupply has led to a 50 percent decline in prices.
Currently, millions of African farmers and herders are suffering similar fates to Utban’s. The United Nations estimates that more than 50 million people in Africa are acutely threatened by famine. After years of hope for increased growth and prosperity, the people are once again suffering from poverty and malnutrition.
State of Emergency
The governments of Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland have already declared states of emergency, and massive crop losses have caused food prices to explode in South Africa. Particularly hard stricken are the countries in the southern part of the continent as well as around the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and especially Ethiopia.
Meteorologists believe the natural disaster is linked to a climate phenomenon that returns once every two to seven years known as El Niño, or the Christ child, a disruption of the normal sea and air currents that wreaks havoc on global weather patterns. The El Niño experienced in 2015-2016 has been particularly strong.
Mohamed Nasir is the clan elder in the Lii nomad settlement. He says he’s never heard of El Niño before. “The lack of water is our main problem — that’s why we’re fighting for our lives.” Nasir doesn’t have any explanation for why the weather has gone crazy. For why drops of rain no longer fall from the ice-gray skies here in the mountains, while only a three days’ walk away, the plains are flooded. For why his home region has been plagued by periodic droughts for more than eight years now. “Perhaps it’s God’s will,” he says.
Nasir has just finished praying for rain, bending over in the dust according to Muslim ritual, with grains of sand still stuck to his forehead. He’s 61 years old, but the worry lines in his face make him look a lot older. He sits in the shadows of a camel thorn tree, looking east. A hot wind blows from the Red Sea out over the karstic, grayish-brown countryside. Over the horizon, the empty promise of a few cirrostratus clouds can be seen. He’s been waiting for rain for a year now.
An Image at Odds with Emerging Ethiopia
This year’s crisis is worse than the one that befell the area in 1985, Nasir says. Back then, the most catastrophic year in Ethiopian history, around a million people died of famine.
Nasir says there have already been deaths this year in his clan’s region. He points to the mountainside behind and says, “Nine children are buried there.” Other herders also speak of the first starvation victims in Afar, but it isn’t possible to confirm the reports.
The government in Addis Ababa denies the deaths. It wants to overcome Ethiopia’s image as a country eternally beset by famine and instead present itself as an emerging nation. The Ethiopian economy, after all, is among the fastest growing in the world, with annual growth rates as high as 10 percent in recent years.
Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, has transformed itself into a successful development dictatorship based on the Chinese model. It wants to achieve middle-income country status by 2025 and establish itself firmly as an emerging nation. Pictures of starving children with large, sorrowful eyes do not fit with that image.
The country’s boom is visible in the capital city of Addis Ababa, which is currently undergoing an incredibly fast process of modernization. High rises and giant new districts are sprouting up everywhere, new motorways criss-cross the capital and a light-rail system has even been built — the first anywhere south of the Sahara. Numerous new industrial enterprises are located at the city’s outskirts, where they produce textiles and leather goods for the global market.
Covering Up the Scale of the Disaster
For a long time, the government insisted that the country could handle the situation on its own. Indeed, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn first requested assistance from the international community in March. But international aid organizations were also ordered not to speak publicly about the true scale of the disaster, the liberal magazine Addis Standard recently reported — a newspaper that is viewed with some skepticism by the government.
The authoritarian regime doesn’t tolerate criticism: Members of the opposition are persecuted and unruly journalists imprisoned. Nor are oppositional voices to be heard in parliament, where the governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) holds 100 percent of the seats. The party liberated Ethiopia in 1991 from the socialist terror rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam, but itself likewise acts with a heavy hand.
The country’s Western allies ignore the continuing human rights violations because Ethiopia, a bastion of Christianity, is an important military partner in the battle against Islamist terror on the Horn of Africa.
In praising itself, the government often points to the lessons learned from the 1984-85 famine. In response, Ethiopia set up a disaster early warning system and created emergency grain reserves. The country built dams, irrigation systems and roads. Around 7 million small farmers now receive crisis aid through a state safety net.
Esubalew Meberate is proud of these achievements. As the head of an administrative district with 257,000 residents, he’s responsible for 37 municipalities, 22 of which have been affected by the drought. He receives visitors in his office in the city of Gohala, high in the mountains in the state of Amhara. Meberate wears a stylish black leather jacket and a white casual shirt. He’s a typical representative of the ruling class: young, power conscious and a tad arrogant. He admits that ensuring water supply is the greatest challenge. The problem is that a dearth of transport routes makes it impossible for tanker trucks to reach all the villages. Still, he says, the government is working to address it. “Our economy is growing despite the drought and our agricultural potential is nowhere near exhausted.”
‘We No Longer Have Enough to Eat’
Yet even as the elite in the capital city enthuse about economic growth, in the mountains of Amhara, the Ethiopian heartland, people like farmer Destay Zegeye are suffering. “We no longer have enough to eat,” she complains. Last year, she says, the belg, or short rainy season, failed to materialize. Neither did kiremt, the long rainy season. Zegeye says she was only able to harvest a hundred kilograms of teff, the country’s most important food grain. She was able to keep two sacks for her seven-member household — far too little for survival.
Zegeye, 36, wears a tattered, patchwork dress with a cross dangling from her neck. She walks across the field in front of her hut, a half-hectare (1.2 acre), dry and dusty square littered with stones.
She is struggling to get her family through this period of struggle. Sometimes her husband earns a few birr as a day laborer for a government employment creation program focusing on the construction of schools, roads and storm water tanks. He also recently sold two of their four oxen. The family also gets rations from the government — 15 kilograms of grains per month and household. Somehow they manage to get by, but for how much longer?
All around the mountainous country, you find the same bleak image: cracked soil hard as cement, rocky fields and dried-up creek beds — no green patches for as far as the eye can see. In between are impoverished mountain villages that are constantly growing: Places like Qualisa, for example. Just 15 years ago, only 1,500 people lived here, but today a local employee of the German relief organization German Agro Aid (Welthungerhilfe) estimates that figure to be closer to 12,000. Such growth is the result of enormous settlement pressure. The once forested mountainsides have been clear-cut because of the growing population’s need for firewood and construction material.
Ethiopia Needs an Agricultural Revolution
At the same time, agricultural production has failed to keep up with the pace of population growth. Since the massive famine that struck Ethiopia in 1984-85, the country’s population has swollen from 41 million to 102 million. One-third of the population is already considered to be malnourished today: There simply isn’t enough to go around in many parts of the country.
DER SPIEGEL
African droughts
Much of that situation is attributable to the country’s antiquated system of subsistence farming. Millions of small farmers are incapable of yielding larger harvests because of their inability to access investment capital, equipment, fertilizers and high-quality seeds. In addition, their property belongs to the state, meaning they can cultivate it, but are unable to use it as collateral on any potential loans. They thus slave away just as in biblical times, using hoes, oxen and wooden plows to till low-yield soil.
What Ethiopia needs is an agricultural revolution, but the government is doing too little to mechanize agriculture and increase productivity. In fact, it has done the opposite by clinging to its strategy of industrialization — one that includes the leasing of giant farmlands to foreign agricultural companies which then export foodstuffs in grand fashion from the country at a time when it must import hundreds of thousands of tons of wheat in order to compensate for the crop losses caused by the drought.
Will Famine Become Chronic?
There also appears to be little concern in political power circles about annual population growth of 2.5 percent. The attitude seems to be: the more people it has, the stronger Ethiopia will be. What this overlooks is that the rapid recent population increase has been eroding successes in development policy. Agriculture experts warn that if the Ethiopian population swells to 150 million people by 2035 as some are predicting, famine could become a chronic problem.
Nor is this problem limited to Ethiopia. It could also be a harbinger of further food crises in Africa. “We are simply too many people,” says Ayenew Ferede, 37, the head of a kebele, the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia. Seven-thousand people live in his ward, and 2,000 receive government emergency aid. “People are starving because we have run out of everything — water, grain reserves, livestock feed.”Ferede has traveled for four hours by foot here to the small town of Hamusit in the hunt for aid. He carries a heavy burden of responsibility. He, too, reports of famine deaths. “If it doesn’t rain soon, we are all going to leave.” But where will they go? “To the next kebele, to the city, across the sea to you in Europe. Someplace where there’s water and food.”
Though it has rained in recent days in some parts of the country, Ferede has little hope. “It’s too little, too late and the worst is yet to come.”
The Oromo Movement: The Effects Of State Terrorism and Globalization in Oromia and Ethiopia: Paper presented by Asafa Jalata (Prof.) at the Conference on New Directions in Critical Criminology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, May 6-7, 2016.
THE OROMO MOVEMENT: THE EFFECTS OF STATE TERRORISM AND GLOBALIZATION IN OROMIA AND ETHIOPIA
Asafa Jalata
The Oromo movement is engaging in struggle to empower the Oromo people in order to restore their control on their economic resources such as land and cultural resources and to overcome the effects of Ethiopian state terrorism and globalization. The Oromo people were colonized and incorporated into Abyssinia, present Ethiopia, and the capitalist world system during the “Scramble for Africa” by the alliance of Ethiopian colonialism and European imperialism. This colonization involved terrorism and genocide in order to transfer Oromo economic resources, mainly land, through destroying Oromo leadership and the cultural foundation of the Oromo society. The Oromo resistance that started with the colonization of the Oromo was transformed into the anti-colonial movement in the 1960s and still continues in various forms. On their part, successive colonial Ethiopian governments have been using various forms of violence to destroy the Oromo struggle for national self-determination and democracy. Starting in 1992, the Tigrayan-led Ethiopian government has been imposing state terrorism, genocide, and political repression, with the assistance of big powers and international institutions on the Oromo, the largest ethno-national group, and other groups in order to destroy the Oromo national movement led by the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and to dominate the political economy of Oromia (the Oromo country) and Ethiopia in order to transfer economic resources, particularly land, to Tigrayan state elites and their domestic and international supporters.
This paper first provides the historical background for these complex issues. Second, it outlines theoretical and methodological approaches of the paper. Third, the piece explains the role of big powers in supporting the Ethiopian state at the cost of democracy and human rights in order to promote “savage development” (Quan 2013) or “violent development” (Rajagopal 2003) in this age of globalization. This section also explores how the Tigrayan-led Ethiopian government and its international supporters are using the discourses of democracy, human rights, and economic development while terrorizing the Oromo and other indigenous peoples by dispossessing them of their rights and their ancestral land and natural resources. Fourth, it explains how the ongoing peaceful Oromo mass protest movement has emerged in Oromia, how and why the regime is violently cracking down on protestors, including Oromo school children and university students, farmers, and other sectors of the Oromo society, and why the West is facing a political dilemma regarding supporting a government that is openly massacring peaceful protestors and violently repressing dissent. Finally, the piece explores the larger political and economic consequences of the Oromo protest movement in bringing about a fundamental transformation to the political economy of Oromia and Ethiopia.
Background
The Ethiopian colonial terrorism and genocide that started during the last decades of the nineteenth century with the assistance of England, France, and Italy still continue in the 21st century with the support of global powers (Jalata 2010). During Ethiopian (Amhara-Tigray) colonial expansion, Oromia, “the charming Oromo land, [would] be ploughed by the iron and the fire; flooded with blood and the orgy of pillage” (de Salviac 2005 [1901]: 349). Martial de Salviac (2005 [1901]: 349) called this event “the theatre of a great massacre.” The Oromo oral story also testifies that the Abyssinian armies destroyed and looted the resources of Oromia and committed genocide on the Oromo people and others through terrorism, slavery, depopulation, cutting hands or breasts, and creating a series of famines and diseases during and after the colonization of Oromia. According to Martial de Salviac 2005 ([1901]: 8), “With equal arms, the Abyssinia [would] never [conquer] an inch of [Oromo] land. With the power of firearms imported from Europe, Menelik [Abyssinian warlord] began a murderous revenge.”
The colonization of Oromia involved human tragedy and destruction: “The Abyssinian, in bloody raids, operated by surprise, mowed down without pity, in the country of the Oromo population, a mournful harvest of slaves for which the Muslims were thirsty and whom they bought at very high price. An Oromo child [boy] would cost up to 800 francs in Cairo; an Oromo girl would well be worth two thousand francs in Constantinople” (de Salviac 2005 [1901]: 28). The Abyssinian/Ethiopian government massacred half of the Oromo population (5 million out of 10 million) and their leadership during its colonial expansion (Bulatovich 2000: 68). The Amhara warlord, Menelik, terrorized and colonized the Oromo and others to obtain commodities such as gold, ivory, coffee, musk, hides and skins, slaves and lands. Menelik controlled slave trade (an estimated 25,000 slaves per year in the 1880s); with his wife he owned 70,000 enslaved Africans; he became one of the richest capitalists. He invested in American Railway Stock; “Today the Abyssinian ruler had extended the range of his financial operations to the United States, and is a heavy investor in American railroads . . . with his American securities and his French and Belgian mining investments, Menelik has a private fortune estimated at no less than twenty-five million dollars.” (New York Times, November 7, 1909).
The Oromo people are survived the lethal colonialist rule of previous one (they change the Oromo name from Tolesa and Gemechu to Getnet and Gebremeskel and they change the name of our town namely Finfinnee to Addis Abeba, bishoftu to dabrezeit and adama to nazret). The current colonialist TPLF elite plays in multiple cards and faces (mixing up the definition of Oromo people goal self-determination, statehood, sovereignty, and democracy, and creating dysfunctional organization like OPDO to distract the real goal of the struggle). But We Oromo people have to be proud to be an Oromo by challenging all those obstacles and keeping our determination intact for freedom with limited resources and absence of external assistance.
The Digital Freedom Alliance’s map showing the country of the target—not the origin—of malware attacks against different civil society groups. 
Oromian Economist 
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