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
At its root the economy is a living, complex organism. Rather than envisioning economic transformation as akin to overturning an unresponsive juggernaut, it may be more productive to see it in terms of tending to a fragile body. Avoiding drawing “us” versus “them” battle lines, and acting on the transformational potential that exists within the economy as it is right now, opens up new arenas for constructive action. Now that would be radical.
Transformation doesn’t require an alternative “social economy,” because the economy we have is already social. We just need to recognize and act on that fact.
In his recent article, the veteran Oromo political leader Ob. Ibsaa Guutama wrote, the “Oromo rage, that was suppressed for ages, started to erupt with thunderous sound from November 2015. Never in the history of Oromo since 16th century had such great number rose together to determine its own destiny. Such a civilian tide has never been seen rising at the same time empty-handed in the history of the region to challenge an enemy – armed to the teeth with modern weapons …”
Here are the videos of the Oromo Protests: the Greatest United Action by Oromos since the 16-Century – the Oromo people protesting against the Ethiopian Federal government’s Master Plan with unflinching determination. This 5-part video series covers the period of the Oromo Protests from November 29, 2015 to January 4, 2016.
Currently, the Afar people in Ethiopia are facing disastrous, appalling and unprecedented dreadful famine catastrophe. The famine was not only caused by lack of rain, drought, climate change and effect of El Niño weather conditions as they claim but, it was a result of TPLF/EPRDF corruption, failure of strategies and policies, bad governance, human rights violations, unlawful land grabbing, forcible removal and eviction of Afar People from their traditional grazing land. They were driven away from the banks of Awash River which has been the lifeline of the Afar population that depend on it for survival since time immemorial to make place for the sugar plantations and large-scale agricultural projects owned by TPLF and foreign multinational corporations, companies and investors.
First, the Afar people saying that since 2012, they have been calling on the Federal and Regional Governments to find solution for the water shortages, environmental degradation, destruction of pastors and grazing resources, drying up of the Awash River problems that caused by damming of the Awash River by the regime, nevertheless their appeal and call fell on deaf ear.
Second it is a well-documented fact is that both the Ex-President and the current President of the Afar region, Ex- and current Federal Communication Affairs Office Minister have deliberately and blindly denied the existence of the famine in Ethiopia during 2013-2015.
Third, it is irrefutable fact is that TPLF/ ANDP or “ADE as it is known locally” purposely failed to recognise, acknowledge and to declare the famine on time. They even refused to call publically on the international Community for emergency humanitarian assistance to help the affected peoples in the country.
Additional fact is that, instead of helping the affected peoples by the famine, Federal Government Communication Affairs Office Minister Redwan Hussein blamed and accused the Afar pastoralists for the death of their livestock in order to cover his Government’s forcible removal of Afar pastoralists from their traditional grazing land on the Awash River banks to make away for TPLF, Foreign Multinational Corporations’ and Investors owned large scale Projects. The famine created by TPLF/EPRDF has already caused too many catastrophic problems for the Afar, such as food insecurity, water crisis, widespread malnutrition, health problem and unprecedented death of their livestock. As a result, the Afar have severely suffered.
In addition to the unprecedented famine that was worsened by the policies of the regime the TPLF has developed the following plans to systematically exterminate the Afar in Ethiopia:-
Unlawful land grabbing and enforced eviction from their land
Removing them from the Awash River banks forcibly
Transferring parts of Afar land to the Somali tribe called Issa to create endless conflict between them in coordination with Issa dominated regime of Djibouti for its interests.
Instigating conflicts between the Afar and their neighbouring peoples
Removing Afar from all mineralised areas of Afar land
Appointing uneducated, unskilled, inexperienced and corrupted individuals as Afar region officials to serve the interest of TPLF.
Creating tribalism, mistrust and division between the ruling mafia and the Afar society;
Controlling Afar region economic, political, social and cultural affairs by appointed Tigray Security Advisors or Counsellor, locally known as Ammakari
Any person who disagrees or rejects ANDP (QADE) TPLF (WAYANE) order is called anti peace element and sympathizer with ARDUF then; he/she is arrested and imprisoned arbitrarily. Today, the Afar region does not have a legitimate political authority accountable to the Afar. It is ruled by TPLF former fighters who are member of the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF). Their main duty, obligation and responsibility is only to serve their master not the Afar people, as they appointed by TPLF not by the Afar people, they are only accountable and answerable to the TPLF.
As a result of TPLF racially motivated discriminatory politics and policies the Peoples of Ethiopia in all regions are all facing increasing political oppression, economic marginalisation, and social exclusion, gross violation of human rights, horrible famine and internal displacement. The regime continues to unlawfully kill, systematically repress and arbitrarily arrest people in the regions of Oromia, Ogaden, Sidama, Amhara and Gambella in general and in the districts of Konso, Qimant, Humera, Tsegede and Wolkait in particular who fight for their basic human rights.
ARDUF condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrifying famine crimes of killings, displacement and forcible removal from their ancestral land committed by TPLF regime on the Afar people in particular; and against other peoples in Ethiopia in general.
ARDUF calls on all Ethiopian opposition forces, civil societies, human rights defenders and journalists to reject and denounce the politics of divide and rule by an iron fist and oppression of TPLF/EPRDF and support a democratic armed struggle to eliminate the fascist regime and to establish a genuine Democratic Federalism based on the rule of law in Ethiopia.
Long live the Victory of ARDUF & Ethiopian Peoples
Military Command Centre (MCC)
Information Desk of ARDUF
Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF)
A lot is happening in our part of the world. The last five months have been immensely eventful. We witnessed a series of tragic events unfolding successively one after the other, each more saddening than the one preceding it. These are truly hard times. Such times signal the urgency of prudent action. Reflexive action is the imperative of the time.
Over the weekend, when I was asked to comment on the ongoing Oromo protest in Ethiopia, I chose to reflect on the Oromo pursuit of social justice and political freedom, the pursuit of what Etienne Balibar calls ‘Equaliberty.’[1] In particular, I chose to reflect on the four critical phases of the Oromo struggle for national emancipation in order to express, if I can, solidarity with the national awakening we see in Oromia today. Specifically, I focused on the phases of survivance,[2] resistance, recovery, and reconstruction.
The primary aim for me personally is to pay attention and to remember and re-member. It is to pay tribute to the people, young and old, who have given and are giving their all in this most recent iteration of the Oromo national struggle for emancipation. The broader aim is to encourage all of us to look ahead into the future, where the Oromo will build walls of connection serving as a force for good in the region. It is aimed at encouraging us into the redemptive work of transformation of the entire Horn of Africa Region through a just peace, a peace that honours the ideals of Equality and Liberty (social justice and freedom). It is directed towards invoking what Ruti Teitel calls ‘Humanity’s Law,’[3] the law that emerged in consideration of the global inter-connectedness in the 21st century – and the law that enhances accountability for one’s actions in all corners of the world. I will argue that the success of this ongoing resistance, which some rightly call ‘Oromo National Awakening,’[4] depends on its capacity to engage with the world responsibly and re-constructively within the framework of Humanity’s Law.
Phases of the struggle for National Emancipation
Since the time of their incorporation into Ethiopia in the 19th century, the Oromo have undergone four phases in their expression of indignation and resentment to the hegemony of the Ethiopian state nationalism. These phases can be summarized as follows: a) Survivance; b) Resistance; c) Recovery; d) Reconstruction. I hasten to add that there is hardly a clear demarcation between these phases as they not only flow into one another but also overlap. At times, they occur simultaneously. When they do so, or whenever any two of these happen together, as in the current Oromo awakening, the more successful they become, the more explosive in their intensity, the more powerful in their impact. When they come coevally, they tend to birth a rupture, even a revolution.
Let us have a quick look at what each stage involves.
Survivance: Insisting on Presence
At this stage of reckoning with loss and lamenting humiliation, the Oromo was engaged in a quiet performance of Oromumma in the privacy of their homes and/or in the non-penetrated spaces of the rural environment. Among other things, this stage is marked by a quiet resistance to cultural and physical extermination. It was a season of adaptation and adjustment, a season of quiet retreat into one’s own way of life. It is a season of practising Oromumma in the non-public space (in the privacy of the home and in the isolated corners of unpenetrated Oromo hinterland). In urban areas, the Oromo tried to resist assimilation even as they performed a politics of passing and invisibility, making a gesture towards assimilation. In the rural areas, where the State was unable to penetrate the society, the resistance took the form of distancing oneself from the state. A typical practice in this regard is avoiding state schools for fear of being subjected to a repressive pedagogy of assimilation and erasure of their Oromo identity. The time from incorporation into the Ethiopian imperial state in the late 19thcentury to the 1960s can be characterized as a time of survival and of practising survivance.[5]
Resistance
This is the stage of refusal to be governed. This is the stage of saying NO, overtly and covertly. In its covert form, it sought to disperse the benefits of modern education and basic infrastructure among the Oromo without calling it an Oromo movement. This is what one sees in the early activities of the self-help association known as the Matcha-Tulama Association (MTA). Of course, this kind of covert resistance is undergirded by a keen sense of awareness of oneself as an Oromo and of appreciating the uneven distribution of basic social services in the empire.
The most overt form of resistance started in the acts of rebellion and organized armed resistance in the 1960s. The age of resistance that started with the MTA movement in urban areas of the centre was corroborated by the Bale Oromo resistance also charting out the route (also in part contributing) to the subsequent Ethiopia-wide social upheaval and revolution of 1974. The more mature phase of resistance, of course, took shape only after the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front in 1974 to launch an armed struggle.
Fast forward, when the military regime was eventually toppled by forces of the periphery in 1991, this phase of overt resistance came to a close only to start after a season of recovery. The Oromo self-assertion as a self-determining agent to have a role in the reconstitution of the Ethiopian state as a democratic, human rights-sensitive, caring and compassionate polity committed to multi-foundationalism, plurinationalism, and just peace[6] was met by a military reprisal under an insecure Ethiopian regime that was reluctant to lose power for the sake of transforming the polity on democratic and humanitarian bases. The transition to democracy faltered and ultimately got derailed altogether. The politics remained militarized. The state crisis continued to deepen. When the OLF left the transition, the transitional pact signed among various liberation fronts collapsed. The hope of transformation was deferred.
The Oromo self-assertion came to be viewed as a threat to the national security of Ethiopia. Oromumma became a securitized identity. The Ethiopian prisons and detention centres started to be congested byOromos charged with the non-existent crime of being ‘anti-peace elements’ (the incipient form of what later became the discourse of terrorism). The politics of co-optation and patronage had led to the creation of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) to rule Oromia on behalf of the Ethiopian regime, which was now under the tight grip of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In order to secure a semblance of legitimacy in Oromia, however, the regime adopted the OLF’s program of recovering the Oromo language (Afaan Oromo), Oromo identity, Oromo culture, Oromo history, and all there is in between.
The seeds of recovery were already in the phase of resistance. However, the actual work of recovery started to bear fruit as it was intensified even in the midst of a violent repression unprecedented in a long time. While the Ethiopian regime utilized its good relations with the international community to malign the Oromos as terrorists and to exclude them from the public space, the Oromo took solace in the possibility of using their language, practising their culture, and manifesting their identity in public—albeit only to a limited extent. Later on, this act of taking comfort and pride in using language, expressing culture, and manifesting identitycame to express itself in the cultural turn the Oromo resistance took in the face of the increasing closure of the public (political) space.[7]
Recovery
This phase was a stage of ‘drawing breath.’[8] Although at first it appeared a moment of loss and defeat, it actually became a moment of recovery. It is amoment of finding our way back to our Oromo selves. It proved to be a moment of experiencing resilience in its full bloom. Almost like a national recess, it served as a season of rehabilitating the Oromo self, recovering and projecting Oromo subjectivity. It was a moment of reclamation of voice for the Oromo.
In particular, it was a season of recovering the language, the identity, the history (the narrative, the memories, and the stories), the culture, and the cultural institutions of the Oromo. It was a season of refurbishing our way of being in the world, a moment of re-presenting ourselves, counteracting the forced absence of the Oromo from the Ethiopian public scene. It was a moment of imagining home from exile. In short, it was a season of restoring dignity to the Oromo (even in the darkness of the unprecedented state terror from 1992-todate).
Reconstruction
The fourth phase is probably the most critical of all. This stage marks the season for the Oromo to take their legitimate place in the world. It is a stage of reconstituting the Oromo self in the context of a globalized world infinitely interconnected with other peoples. It is a season of reconfiguring the Ethiopian state. The work at this stage can be nothing but transformative. It is a work of engaging with Ethiopia, the horn region, the African Union, the middle-east, and the wider world. It is a moment of projecting an Oromo self that intervenes in the world as a force for good, as a responsible regional actor, as a responsible ‘international citizen.’
At this stage, as a people, the Oromo shall hopefully overcome the brokenness of our past, the deep fractures in our relations with the other peoples of Ethiopia and the Horn. In particular, the Oromo must pay attention to the Ethiopian State with a view to engagement for its genuine transformation. The Oromo pursuit of justice must be complemented by a responsible pursuit of democracy, if only to harness the political power needed to transform the state. Oromo pursuit of equality in citizenship can be a rallying point for all of the ‘other’ peoples (who inhabit the Southern and the peripheral half of Ethiopia). This demand for equality is at its root a question of justice, but we have now learnt the bitter lesson that justice is the function of (mainly legislative and judicial) power. The task of reconstruction cannot be done without pursuing some form of transformative power. The Oromo quest for equaliberty becomes a synthesis of individual rights on the one hand and the right of collectivities (as well as classes and other categories) to universal social equality. In a sense, this self-conscious and reflexive pursuit of power is a pursuit of a ‘strong democracy.’[9] Pursuing a strong democracy in a country such as Ethiopia, pursuing transformative power in this context, requires a huge sense of responsibility to reckon with the other (all the Ethiopian others) with an eye on reconfiguring the terms of citizenship, to reconstruct the state, and to transfigure the state-society relationship. This process of pursuing and achieving transformative power is an engagement in the task of redemption (a process of turning the essentially illegitimate into legitimate). [10]
Granted, it is a painful task. It requires looking at historical evil squarely in the eye, reckoning with its impacts, accounting for it, remembering it, but choosing to forgive.[11]It requires an agonistic engagement with our plurinationality and the complexity thereof. It comes with cost and sacrifice. For the Oromo, the price of equaliberty is a sense of national responsibility. This is because the work of reconstruction in Ethiopia demands nothing less than redemption. From theological discourses, we know that redemption requires sacrifice that invests in the belief that the future will be different from the past. It is a process that unleashes anguish as we try to undo injustices of the past and hope for a fairer and more just future.
Transformative engagement with Ethiopia requires consideration of several concrete political realities such as international debts, borders, and military engagements in the neighbouring countries and in the UN Peace-keeping mission fields. More importantly, it requires a serious look into the trade, investment, and development partnerships that Ethiopia has gone into and the obligations that flow therefrom. The Oromo also needs to engage creatively and imaginatively with the institutions of the Ethiopian empire. One has to have a clear idea of what to do with its repressive security, intelligence, military, police, and prison institutions. One also needs to have a clear idea of what to do with abused constitutional institutions and arrangements (parliaments, elections, federalism, self-determination rules, constitutions, ‘rule of law,’ etc). The most urgent and pressing challenge that the Oromo needs to counter directly is the arrest and eradication of the intermittent famine that is caused and mismanaged by successive Ethiopian regimes.
In the endeavour to transform the state-society relation, the Oromo needs to change the hierarchic, centralized, and authoritarian political culture of the country. When it comes to the issue of handling plurinationality and the demand for ethno-cultural justice, the Oromo needs to appreciate that there will be no post-EPRDF moment in some ways and find more practical and just ways of satisfying legitimate national aspirations at all levels. For this, the Oromo needs to empower citizens, preparing them for the democracy to come both within Oromia and in the wider Ethiopia. One needs to prepare people for making an informed sovereign choice in the deliberations on sensitive issues of self-determination and constitutional secession. Throughout, one needs to beware of what we inherit: huge amounts of international debts; an interlocked and inter-dependent but conflicting and volatile neighbourhood; chronic poverty; malfunctioning institutions; budding corruption in a bubble economy;a generally neo-liberal-capitalist global society; a US-driven civilizational cleavage in the ‘war against terrorism’; a deeply divided society; a society that is traumatized by decades of state terrorism; etc.
In the work of reconstruction, the Oromo ought to enact wholeness, connectedness, into the future. The Oromo now ought to become the people of promise, the people of hope. The Oromo ought to draw on their traditional values and institutions to actively pursue justice. They only need to remember that they are a people of legality (seera and safuu), a people of egalitarian rule (Gadaa), a people of peace (nagaa), a people of substantive justice (sirna dhugaa fi haaqaa), and a people of reconciliation (araara). In all this, they act from the space of brokenness they inhabit as a people who know, from lived experience, what it means to be oppressed. In engaging with the world from the position of brokenness and suffering helps the Oromo create that moment of inter-subjectivity, the space in-between, born out of the historic vulnerability.As Hannah Arendt reminds us, this place in-between is where the world is constituted. “The world is between people,”[12] she once said.
At this stage of the national struggle, the Oromo engage in the act of rebuilding. We build walls of connection, solidarity, humanity, and co-equal/human responsibility. It is at this historical stage that the Oromo takes advantage of the contemporary world’s law. Ruti Teitel calls this body of global law ‘humanity’s law.’[13] It is composed of the trinity of international human rights law, the law of war (humanitarian law), and international criminal justice. The first is chiefly a protective body of law (firmly rooted in the fundamental human dignity and worth). The second is more a remedial type of law that gets activated in times of crisis as people conflict (going to war or engaging in other forms of political violence) and mistreat each other (in the context of war). The third is focused on ensuring responsibility for atrocities beyond one’s national borders. In this third category of law, the Oromo sees the International community as a truth bearing witness and a potential ally in the pursuit of their equaliberty. The third category, being mainly a post-sovereignty regime of law, also helps us overcome the weaknesses of traditional state-centred institutions of human rights and humanitarian law. It is this nature that makes it suitable to the concerns of sub-national entities that were routinely ignored or abused by the complicity of the national and the international actors whose conducts are anchored in the notion of sovereignty.
The Oromo of the 21st century, the brave new generation that is living this moment of awakening, has the task of reconstruction by paying attention to and taking advantage of the contemporary humanity’s law. Humanity’s law helps us achieve human rights, peace, and justice, all three of them together. This in turn consolidates just peace in the entire region. For the Oromo, apart from allowing us to engage the international (which was often neglected in the struggle although the latter was always attendant to our oppression from colonial times to cold war, and further on to this neo-liberal ‘global-capitalist’ age), helps us pursue equaliberty, i.e., both equality and liberty. The historic Oromo quest for freedom and social justice will then be achieved within this framework.
In the course of reconstruction, the Oromo engage in self-transcendence. They live out the imperative of paying attention as an act of solidarity with all oppressed people around them. They reach out to all their neighbours, especially the humble and the lowly. And these are in abundance in the region, be it in Ethiopia or in the wider Horn region. Without reaching out to these and working together with them, Oromia can hardly achieve freedom, justice, or peace.
Pursuing Equaliberty: The Imperative of Resistance, Recovery, and Reconstruction
The Oromo pursuit of equaliberty in the framework of humanity’s law, unlike what its detractors maintain, is not a quest for power. Nor is it just a quest for thin democracy as experienced in electoral practices. It is primarily a quest for social justice in a democratic environment that is grounded in a sense of responsibility for the protection and elevation of human dignity. In this process, the Oromo is going to go beyond resistance and self-recovery to achieve reconstruction with an eye on reconciliation. This is necessitated by the fact that both freedom and justice, both liberty and equality, are intensely relational. No time is more suited than now for us to proclaim, in the spirit of Ubuntu, that “I am because we are.” No place needs this spirit in abundance more than do Oromia and its neighbourhood.
After the Oromo Protest: the Imperative of Reconstruction
In the past few years, we have witnessed among the Oromo the simultaneous operation of the logic of recovery and resistance–sometimes alternately, sometimes simultaneously. The stronger the repression, the more powerful the momentum of the resistance. The generation that benefitted from the cultural rehabilitation has come of age to demand their right in their own terms. In the last five months we have become fortunate to see a generation that is mentally emancipated, a populace that knows how to conduct itself in the face of adversity, a people who act cohesively with a unity of purpose. We have seen the persistence in resistance.
We have seen a people determined to insist on justice. A people who turned (economic and electoral) despair into hope, loss (of land and livelihood) into gain, (electoral and military) defeat into (a genuinely substantive political) victory.
We have witnessed a people who, with their resilience, exposed the moral and political bankruptcy of a conceited regime. We observed a self-mobilized, self-directed, grassroots movement that virtually shamed and humiliated a seemingly invincible regime. We have seen people expose the limits of deceptive politics whose legitimacy is shored up through using election as a war by other means. We have seen a people who tested the limits of political double-speak. We have seen a people who exposed the true nature of the regime. They have rendered a region totally ungovernable. They have forced the regime to impose a military rule.[14]
We have seen a movement that conducted itself responsibly vis-à-vis other peoples even in the face of provocation and manipulation by the regime to foment horizontal conflicts.
This is an indication of the fact that the Oromo public is now ready to engage the wider Ethiopia, the entire region, and the world re-constructively, transformationally, redemptively within the framework of humanity’s law. The success of this National Awakening is to be completed when its leaders demonstrate thecapacity to make the generation to begin again, to start afresh, to remake the neighbourhood, to build new walls of interdependence, even from the ravages of our oppressed Oromo lives. The success is said to be complete when the Qubee Generation demonstrates its capacity to write a new history by emulating the Phoenix that “rises out of the ashes”, to go beyond the ruins imposed on it by a century of injustice to make a difference in the region.
For this, we need to start paying attention to connectedness, inter-dependence, and the need for acting in solidarity with others. After all, as Simone Weil reminds us, paying attention is an act of grace, the ultimate expression of solidarity. Like all the other peoples in Ethiopia, the Oromo ought to start learning to see through others’ lens. We have a fear to dispel. We have a trust to build. We have the responsibility to enchant the generation into hope and a better future.
Conclusion
The current Oromo awakening reminds us that the Oromo have survived. The age of being seen as an unwanted presence, as a vestige of a regrettable past in Ethiopia, is substantially on the decline. The work of national self-recovery has borne fruits.TheQubee generation is already here to make a difference.The children have arrived. Resistance has matured, especially in the way it conducts itself horizontally. But in the main, it has restored agency to the Oromo public, who in turn have made Oromia totally ungovernable to the regime. Mental emancipation has been achieved.
People now know how to act, and can act, even in desperate conditions. What remains now is to start engaging wisely with the world around us in the task of reconstruction. Prudence suggests that we can take advantage of humanity’s law. Prudence also suggests that we be mindful of the fact that in our times, lawful engagement is a necessity. Yes, law, too, can be effectively—albeit discerningly—be used as a spectre of resistance and a useful means of reconstruction. We need to remember that more often than not, law is deployed as ‘war by other means.’ It is this interlocked deployment of law in/and war that David Kennedy calls lawfare[15] (war by legal means), and perhaps rightly so. The flip side of this is that law can be deployed to build connections, relations, and peace thereof. I hope the Oromo national awakening will make optimal use of thislawful form of engagement with the world.
ED’s Note: Tsegaye Ararssa is from Melbourne Law School. He can be reached at:tsegayenz@gmail.com. The article was prepared as a remark for the ‘RIGHT TO FREEDOM’ event organized by Oromo Support Group Australia, 16-17 April 2016, Melbourne Australia
End Notes:
[1] Etienne Balibar, Equaliberty:Political Essays, Tr. James Ingram. (Duke University Press, 2014).
‘Survivance’ is used among scholars working on the issues of First Nations (also known as indigenous peoples). I came across the term for the first time in the work of Gerald Vizenor, Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance (Nebraska, 1999). The term means a lot more than mere survival. According to Vizenor, “Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry.” In Derridan sense, survivance of course refers to “a spectral existence that would be neither life nor death.” The Oromo struggle in its first iteration soon after the conquest was more like survivance, especially in its quest for active presence in the Ethiopian polity.
[3] Ruti Teitel, Humanity’s Law (Oxford University Press, 2011). Teitel identifies three important components that constitute ‘Humanity’s Law’: International Human Rights Law; Laws of war (traditionally known as humanitarian law, i.e., the law IN war and the law OF war); and International Criminal Justice (following the creation of the International Criminal Court via the Rome Statute). Humanity’s Law, Teitel argues, is the new framework of understanding ‘transitional justice’ in the context of changing global relations. I follow her tack and suggest that this law lays the framework for solidarity and responsibility in an increasingly interdependent world.
[4] I am indebted to Nageessaa Oddo Dube for this phrase. Nageessaa used the phrase in his recent speech televised by Oromo TV on 16 April 2016, also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF4SskY660A.
[5] One notes, however, that the formation of the Western Oromo Confederation in 1936 and its act of approaching the League of Nations for membership, or alternatively seeking a British Protectorate instead of submitting to the Italian invaders, was an early and short-lived expression of overt resistance to the hegemony of the Ethiopian empire and an assertion of Oromo subjectivity in the international system of the time. See Ezikiel Gebissa’s ‘The Italian Invasion, the Ethiopian Empire, and Oromo Nationalism: The Significance of the Western Oromo Confederation of 1936,’ 9 Northeast African Studies 3 (2002), 75.
[6] A commitment also inscribed in the 1991 Transitional Charter of Ethiopia and later in the preamble of the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia. To an extent, this undelivered promise of the constitution was what made the political elite of Ethiopia’s South (including the Oromo) ambivalent in their reaction to the constitution. It was also this promise that TPLF used to co-opt several Southern nationalists.
[7] This increasing use of songs, cultural events (such as Irrecha), exhibitions, etc to express political disaffection is recently referred to as the ‘cultural turn’ in the trajectory of Oromo national struggle. See Ezekiel Gebissa, “Land, Life, and Leadership” [?] (Dec 2015, OSA Extraordinary conference on the Master Plan).
[8] Alison Phipps, ‘Drawing Breath: Creative Elements and their Exile from Higher Education’ Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 9(1) (2010), 43.
[9] Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (20thanniversary ed) (University of California Press, 2004).
[10]This is inspired by a thought in Richard Dehmel’s poem, Transfigured Night (Verklarte Nacht) (1998) in which the conception of a child by an adulterous wife is transfigured by the light of love, also represented by the moonlit night, to bring infinitely more joy and rejuvenation to the husband. I like to suggest that this kind of redemptive transfiguration helps us overcome ‘constitutional original sins’ in order for us to go beyond the original constitutive wrong.
[11] An imperfect but useful institutional model in this regard is presented to us in the example of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
[12] Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (Harvest Publishers, 1970).
[13] Ruti Teitel, Humanity’s Law (Oxford University Press, 2011). See also her ‘Humanity’s Law: Rule of Law for the New Global Politics,’ (2002) 35 Cornell Journal International of Law(2), 356. Teitel tries to work out a new framework of accountability at the global level by going beyond her earlier work on Transitional Justice (Oxford 2000). This framework, I hope, will be useful for the Oromo both to pursue justice for the atrocities experienced and to engage with their neighbours responsibly. Coming as they do out of a long and deep crisis situation, the Oromo can also use this framework for building a sustainable peace grounded in justice and truth.
[14] Contrary to what many people assume, what exists in Oromia now is not Martial Law. It is a pure military rule devoid of any semblance of legality that one sees even in Martial law (a rule under the command of the highest military official that suspends or deposes political leaders because of a constitutional crisis or utter incompetence on the part of civilian political governance). In Ethiopia, what we see is an illegal dismissal of the state’s civilian administration by a Command Post chaired by the Federal Prime Minister who ordered, again illegally, eight divisions of the Army to “take a merciless and final measure” on protestors.
[15]David Kennedy, ‘Laware and Warfare’ in Cambridge Handbook of International Law, eds. James Crawford and Martti Koskenniemi (2012), 159, and David Kennedy,Of War and Law (Princeton University Press, 2006).
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a resolution with 11 other Senators today condemning the lethal violence used by the government of Ethiopia against protestors, journalists, and others in civil society for exercising their rights under Ethiopia’s constitution.
The resolution calls for the Secretary of State to conduct a review of U.S. security assistance to Ethiopia in light of allegations that Ethiopian security forces have killed civilians. It also calls upon the government of Ethiopia to halt violent crackdowns, conduct a credible investigation into the killing of protesters, and hold perpetrators of such violence accountable.
“I am shocked by the brutal actions of the Ethiopian security forces, and offer condolences to the families of those who have been killed. The Ethiopian constitution affords its citizens the right to peaceful assembly and such actions by Ethiopian government forces are unacceptable,” Senator Cardin said. “The government’s heavy-handed tactics against journalists and use of the 2009 Anti-Terrorism and Charities and Societies Proclamations to stifle free speech and legitimate political dissent demonstrate a troubling lack of respect for democratic freedoms and human rights.”
“Peaceful protestors and activists have been arrested, tortured and killed in Ethiopia for simply exercising their basic rights,” Senator Rubio said. “I condemn these abuses and the Ethiopian government’s stunning disregard for the fundamental rights of the Ethiopian people. I urge the Obama Administration to prioritize respect for human rights and political reforms in the U.S. relationship with Ethiopia.”
Joining Cardin and Rubio as cosponsors of the resolution are Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
The United States works closely with Ethiopia on signature Administration initiatives including Feed the Future and the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership. It also provides funding for Ethiopia’s participation in the African Union Mission in Somalia.
“Given the challenges posed by the devastating drought and border insecurity, it is more important than ever that the government take actions to unify rather than alienate its people. It is critical that the government of Ethiopia respect fundamental human rights if it is to meet those challenges,” Cardin added.
Why Are Oromo Refugees Getting Sent Back to Ethiopia?
APRIL 19, 2016
Tariku Debela, in jeans, walks carefully through the streets of Eastleigh, Nairobi. Photo by Ebba Abbamurti.
On a warm evening last month, Tariku Debela was walking home from dinner in the immigrant enclave of Eastleigh, Nairobi, when he was jumped by four men who took his phone and more than $200 in cash. Getting mugged is bad enough, but what happened next is seared in Debela’s memory.
Debela is an Oromo political leader residing in Kenya as a refugee. The men who robbed Debela delivered a message in Amharic—a verbal threat from across the border—”side with the Ethiopian government or only death awaits you.”
When Debela decided to flee Ethiopia, after years of brutal political persecution, including torture and imprisonment, he expected to be protected as a refugee in Kenya. Indeed, under international law he is. But, Debela and thousands of other Ethiopian refugees who enter neighboring countries have found themselves still within reach of the Ethiopian state, resulting in mistreatment from local governments and neglect from the international organizations ostensibly meant to protect them.
Amnesty International confirmed from sources on the ground that in early January 2016, Kenyan security forces deported 25 Ethiopian refugees from Kenya. This is disputed by Stanley Mwango, spokesperson for the Kenyan government’s Department of Refugee Affairs, who denies the deportations, telling Okayafrica that “Kenya is not sending away anyone who is legally seeking asylum.”
But Amnesty’s account corresponds to reports from Oromo community leaders in Nairobi that Ethiopian refugees are routinely subject to surveillance, harassment, violence and deportation from Kenyan police and border authorities, who they say work in close collaboration with the Ethiopian government.
The border crossing between Kenya and Ethiopia’s Oromiya region. Creative Commons photo courtesy of Andrew Heavens.
The outgoing Oromo community leader in Nairobi, Shaga Arado, 38, says most of the Oromos forcibly returned to Ethiopia are detained in military barracks near the border where they are interrogated and in some cases tortured. There are also incidents of Oromo refugees in Kenya disappearing—such as the case of Dabassa Guyo Saffaro, a well known Oromo oral historical and cultural leader who vanished off Nairobi’s streets in late September 2015. He has not been heard from since.
Although Ethiopians have consistently sought asylum for years on the basis of political persecution—UNHCR estimates there were 160,427 Ethiopian refugees in 2015—human rights organizations say they expect the number to grow in light of the ongoing Ethiopian government violence against Oromo protesters.
Peaceful protests began in November 2015 after the Ethiopian government announced plans to expand the municipality of Addis Ababa into the bordering Oromia region. The government has since abandoned the plan, but Human Rights Watch reports that over the past five months, Ethiopian security forces are suspected of killing over 200 protesters and detaining thousands without cause. Oromos, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, have consistently faced persecution and discrimination from the rulingEthiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front(EPRDF) party, which has been in power since 1991. The Ethiopian government did not respond to a request for comment.
Debela nostalgically shows off a photo of him with the OFC party leader—Merera Gudina at a past function.
Debela, 33, is a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, a political party that is constantly monitored and harassed by the Ethiopian government. In 2005, following Ethiopia’s disputed national elections, Debela was arrested and accused of inciting violence against the government. He spent nine months in prison. Debela was later released on conditions that he should support the government, withdraw his support for the opposition party and refrain from any political activities. But for Debela, abandoning his political activism wasn’t a choice.
“It was hard for me to wrench my mind away from the reality,” he says. “Seeing the Oromos being dispossessed and systematically impoverished while their land is stolen and dished out to politically correct individuals from the ruling class was what made me speak my mind.”
Debela continued his political organizing, and in February 2009 he was arrested and taken to Maikelawi prison. Debela’s second prison sentence was much worse than the first. In Maikelawi, Debela says he was regularly beaten and tortured. After some of the beatings, often with electrical wires, the prison guards poured ice-cold water over his bleeding body. The pain reverberated in his bones; he slept naked on his cell floor in the water. At times he was interrogated at gunpoint, blindfolded and threatened with execution. Other times bottles were tied on his penis and testicles. Debela lost track of his location, and of time.
Left: Debela showing some of the scars he acquired in Ethiopian detention. Right: Some of the documents and photos he carried with him. Photo Ebba Abbamurti
Human Rights Watch has documented political prisoners being taken to Maikelawi and tortured to try and coerce confessions. Since the recent Oromo protests, the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa issued a brief that Oromo activists arrested and imprisoned in Addis Ababa’s Kalitti Jail have also experienced torture that lasted over ten hours and resulted in life-threatening injuries.
Debela was released in July 2009; he would later be again arrested and imprisoned three times. In October 2015, Debela decided he could no longer stay in Ethiopia and expect to survive—he was receiving death threats. In November 2015, Debela traveled from Mandi, Oromia to Addis and then onward to the border towns of Moyale and Hiddi Lola. He then crossed into Kenya and passed through Marsabit and Isiolo before reaching Nairobi.
Arado says other refugees who crossed into Kenya since the beginning of 2016 report paying smugglers to help them evade border guards and make it to Nairobi safely. But their safety is not guaranteed—at least two Ethiopian women refugees who recently arrived in Nairobi via smugglers said they were raped on the journey.
Debela is now registered with the UN Refugee Agency; he was given an appointment for a refugee status determination interview in November 2017. Although Debela has yet to make his case for asylum in Kenya, there are indications that many Ethiopians do not receive fair asylum hearings in other countries, making it more difficult for them to receive legal protection and putting them at risk. The United Oromo Refugees Association in Egypt staged a sit-in this month in front of UNHCR’s office in Cairo to protest the low rate of asylum granted to Oromo refugees.
UNHCR, which normally produces guidance for decision-makers who are assessing asylum claims, has not issued guidance for Ethiopian asylum-seekers. As a result, countries may rely more heavily on information from their own sources, which experts say are often flawed. UNHCR’s Kenya office did not respond to a request to comment.
“The biggest problem is that countries do not follow an asylum policy for Ethiopia based on reality,” said Victor Nyamore, Amnesty International’s Refugee Officer in Nairobi. “They prefer to believe the success stories of the Ethiopian government about development and human rights in the country.”
In 2015, Ethiopia received $3 billion in development and aid funding, the majority from the U.S. and Europe, despite that some of its development programs have been documented violating the human rights of local communities. Despite these abuses, donors have not changed their levels of funding. Ethiopia remains a key Western ally in the region on counter-terrorism efforts, including against Al-Shaabab.
Transitional housing for Somali refugees in Dolo Ado, Ethiopia. Creative Commons Photo courtesy of UNICEF Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is also one of the largest refugee hosting nations in the world for over 700,000 Eritrean, Somali and South Sudanese refugees—which may explain why some governments and international organizations are hesitant to speak out on behalf of the plight of Ethiopian refugees for fear of jeopardizing their existing programming in Ethiopia.
For now, Debela must find a way to survive the waiting period until his case is reviewed. He says he cannot receive any social services for refugees, and he is afraid to call or visit friends in case it compromises their safety. In the meantime, Debela lives alone like a fugitive, skirting shadows on the street and watching for the Ethiopian security forces he believes are still watching him.
Congresswoman McCollum addresses the Minnesota Oromo community.
WASHINGTON — This morning, Congresswoman Betty McCollum addressed a large delegation of the Minnesota Oromo community visiting Washington today to attend a briefing held by the United States House of Representative’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. In her address, Congresswoman McCollum reiterated her concern about human rights abuses against the Oromo people in Ethiopia.
Congresswoman McCollum delivered the following remarks:
Greetings and welcome to Washington! Thank you for being here today in the U.S. House to add your voices to the cause of human rights in Ethiopia.
The Lantos Human Rights Commission briefing today is an important step to informing and educating Congress about the unacceptable treatment of Oromos in Ethiopia. The current situation in Ethiopia must not be allowed to continue. The Oromo people are suffering and I share your concern. Peaceful protesters are being imprisoned, they are being tortured, they are being killed.
The Ethiopian Government must be held accountable and it will take pressure from Congress and the Obama Administration to end the repression of the people of Oromia. Later this week I will be meeting with Ethiopia’s ambassador to the U.S. and the message that I will deliver is – stop the detentions, stop the repression, stop the killing – and respect human rights!
Ethiopia benefits greatly from its relationship with the United States. The American people provide hundreds of millions of dollars of food aid, health care funding, and agriculture assistance to Ethiopia. We must demand in return that human rights be respected. We must demand human rights for the Oromo people!
Friends, I am proud to represent so many Oromo Americans who live my district in Minnesota. Thank you for sharing your strong voices! Thank you for fighting for human rights!
Ethiopia: The TPLF Hidden Agenda of Reducing the Oromo Population Must be Stopped
HRLHA Appeal and Request for Immediate Action
Ethiopia: The TPLF Hidden Agenda of Reducing the Oromo Population Must be Stopped
HRLHA Appeal and Request for Immediate Action
For Immediate Release
April 17, 2016
Terrorist and Criminal attacks targeting Oromo youth, and children, and even pregnant women have continued unabated since the peaceful protest for justice and freedom began on 12th November 2015 In Oromia.The peaceful and legitimate protests against the injustices in Oromia, in which Oromo people of all walks of life have participated, had a simple and clear demand at the beginning: ” Stop Addis Ababa”s Integration of the Master Plan, and stop land grabbing in Oromia”.
Instead of responding justly to the protestors’ legitimate grievances and restoring their domestic and international rights, the Ethiopian government has chosen to deploy its special squad “Agiazi” and mercilessly crack down on the peaceful protesters. The ruthless Agiazi force used excessive force, killed many promos, beat and detained thousands to stop the protest, which spread to all corners of Oromia Regional State in a few weeks. Oromia towns and villages were turned into war zones as the special Agiazi force continued its random killings of students, children, men and women. During the first two months of the peaceful protests, more than two hundred (200) Oromos were murdered[1], including infants and pregnant women.
In violation of the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” and other international treaties [2]the current government of Ethiopia ratified on 14th May 1991,(see the other treaties ratified by the current of Ethiopian government from the link)[3]Oromo children, including non-schooled children, have been killed by the Agiazi force. Aliya,15 and her brother Nagassa, 8 (photo on right side) were shot in the leg on March 25, 2016[4] on the streets of Ambo town. Many minors/teenagers were killed and others wounded. by the Agiazi force in different parts of Oromia. Some are listed in the following table.
No
Name
Sex
Age
Place of Birth
1
Burte Badhadha Dabal
F
15
Jaldu district, West showa, Oromia
2
Tsegaye Abebe Imana
M
14
Jaldu District, West Showa, Oromia
3
Dereje Gadissa Taye
M
12
Chalia,District, East showa, Oromia
4
Dejene Chala
M
14
Gindeberet, West Showa, Oromia
These cruel and inhumane actions of the Agiazi force against Oromo did not stop the angry protesters from demanding their fundamental rights and freedoms.
Ethiopia Military Generls
The Oromia Regional State president Muktar Kedir and the TPLF security intelligence officer generals removed the civil administration and declared the unofficial martial law as of February 26, 2016. The Oromia Regional State has been subdivided into eight (8) military zones, each to be led by military generals
The merciless Agiazi force has been allowed officially to quell dissents in Oromia by force. On the day following the martial law declaration, the Agiazi squad started breaking into private homes and savagely started to kill and beat children, men and women, including pregnant women. On February 27, 2016 a seven- months pregnant mother of six, living in the West Arsi zone in Oromia state in Ethiopia, was shot down in her home by security forces who had come to her home looking for her husband. Another six- months pregnant woman Shashitu Mekonen was also killed and thrown into the bush in Horro Guduru Wallega, Oromia.
Schools and universities have served as military camps and battle grounds. The merciless Agiazi force broke into university dormitories, savagely killed, raped, beat and detained students (Wallaga University)
The Agiazi murderers intensified their repressions in all corners of Oromia. Since the November 2015 peaceful protest began, over 400 Oromo nationals have been killed, over fifty thousand (50,000) arrested and placed in different police stations, concentration camps, and military camps. Unknown numbers of students have been confined in the Xolay concentration camp where they are exposed to different diseases because of poor diets and sanitation. No medical attention has been given them and a number of prisoners are dying each day, according to information leaked from Xolay concentration camp. This represents the systematic elimination of the Oromo young generation. The late prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the architect of the current TPLF Empire, in 1992 vowed to destroy those he considered major threats to his rule, particularly the most populous nation in the country, the Oromo. He vowed to reduce Oromos to a minority and take over their natural resources.
Bedhadha Galchu
The longest protest (in terms of weeks and months) in the history of Ethiopia has been slowed down by the military crackdowns. When protestors returned home from the street, they started facing another form of atrocity. They were forced day and night to stay indoors, in a kind of house arrest. At night, the Agiazi force would walk into individual homes and pick up youth and kill them, leaving their dead bodies in front of their doors. On April 14, 2016, a university engineering department graduate from Gonder University was cold bloodedly murdered in the Oromia Gujii zone in Oddo Shakisso where he used to live with his parents.
Since Oromia is now under martial law, information, coming out of the Regional State of Oromia is restricted. All social media are being monitored by the military administration.
A number of cell phone users were arrested and their phones taken. Gross human rights abuses, killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and other human rights atrocities are happening in Oromia every day and night.
However, the information about these atrocities is not getting out, because the military has monitored almost all information outlets. The Ethiopian people hear only the well- crafted stories about Ethiopia being on the path to democracy. These stories come from the government mass media.
International and domestic human rights organizations have been reporting the atrocities, although their access to information in Ethiopia is very limited due to their researchers being banned from entering the country. But undercover investigative journalists still bring out the news of the genocide and ethnic cleansing committed in the name of development.
The current human rights atrocities in Oromia have been condemned by some western governments and government agencies, notably the EU and the USA, and UN experts/researchers. But still no meaningful action has been taken to stop the atrocities in Oromia.
When the regime has been pressured enough, they do make concessions and acknowledge the legitimacy of the protestors’ grievances. Indeed the Prime Minister, Hailemariam Dessalegn, has been known to apologize to the people. However, all this seems to be political posturing to deceive the world that is becoming increasingly aware of the atrocities. On the ground, there is no sign of the atrocities abating. There have been no gestures of conciliation. The regime’s force has actually stepped up its mass murders, mass incarcerations and mass rapes.
What is puzzling is that after all these tragedies, the world donor countries and organizations are still silent. It seems surreal. How many people must die before the world responds? How many millions must be jailed and tortured, how many must be gang- raped before this deafening silence is broken?
Can’t the world community learns from what happened in the past, in Rwanda in 1994, in Bosnia, in 1998 and what is happening in Syria ever since 2011? The genocidal act of armed force should not continue and must be stoped by someone, somewhere.
HRLHA is deeply concerned that if International Communities fail in responding to the merciless killings presently taking place in Oromia Regional State as soon as possible , this could lead to a genocide comparable to those in Rwanda (1994), in Yugoslavia (1998) and in Darfur, Sudan (2003).
Therefore, the HRLHA respectfully demands that governments of the west, especially who allies with the Ethiopian government to break their silence about the TPLF hidden agenda of promoting systematic genocide against the Oromo and other nations in Ethiopia and act swiftly as possible to halt the atrocity in Ethiopia.
Recommendations:
The World community must condemn the imposition of Martial Law in Oromia
The United Nations must intervene in Oromia to stop the unprecedented killings, torture and rape by the TPLF squad Agiazi force deployed under martial law
The US government, EU member states and UN must take meaningful measures against the Ethiopian government to stop it committing systematic genocide in Oromia, Ogaden, Gambela, and other southern Ethiopia regional states
Intervene to stop the killings in Oromia using the mandate of the three pillars of the responsibility to protect, as stipulated in the Outcome Document of the 2005 United Nations World Summit (A/RES/60/1, para. 138-140) and formulated in the Secretary – General’s 2009 Report (A/63/677) on implementing the responsibility to protect.
The State carries the primary responsibility for protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and their incitement;
The international community has a responsibility to encourage and assist States in fulfilling this responsibility;
The international community has a responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other means to protect populations from these crimes. If a State is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take collective action to protect populations, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
Copied To:
The US Department of State Secretary His Excellency Mr. John Kerry
WASHINGTON, D.C. HEADQUARTERS
(202) 895-3500
OFMInfo@state.gov
Office of Foreign Missions
2201 C Street NW
Room 2236
Washington, D.C. 20520
Customer Service Center
3507 International Place NW
Washington, D.C. 20522-3303
UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP
Parliamentary
House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 4055
Fax: 020 7219 5851
Email: hammondp@parliament.ukDepartmental
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles
Street ,
London, SW1A 2AH
Tel: 020 7008 1500
Email: fcocorrespondence@fco.gov.uk
Minister of Foreign Affairs (Canada) His Excellency Stéphane Dion
Enquiries Service (BCI)
Global Affairs Canada
125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, ON, Canada
K1A 0G2
Email: Enquiry Service – Online form
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Sweden) Her Excellency Margot Wallström
Switchboard: +46 8 405 10 00
Street address: Rosenbad 4
Postal address: SE 103 33 Stockholm
Minister of Foreign Affairs (Normway) His Excellency Børge Brende
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
E-mail: post@mfa.no
Phone: + 47 23 95 00 00
Address: 7. Juniplassen 1, N-0032 Oslo
UN Secretary – General His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki – Moon
Executive Office of the Secretary-General http://www.un.org/sg/
The UN Human Rights Commissioner Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein
OHCHR address:
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais Wilson
52 rue des Pâquis
CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland.
Council of Europe Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights
67075 Strasbourg Cedex
FRANCE
+33 (0)3 88 41 34 21
+33 (0)3 90 21 50 53
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
31 Bijilo Annex Layout, Kombo North District
Western Region P.O. Box 673 Banjul
The Gambia
Tel: (220) 441 05 05, 441 05 06
Fax: (220) 441 05 04
E-mail: au-banjul@africa-union.org
Oromo athletes Lemi Bernanu Hayle and Atsede Baysa won at the 2016 edition of the Boston Marathon, the 120th running of the IAAF Gold Label Road Race, crossing the line in 2:12:44 and 2:29:19 respectively on Monday (18).
It was the first time in the Boston Marathon race’s 120-year history that Oromo athletes representing Ethiopia had swept both the titles.
Atsede Baysa rallied after falling more than 30 seconds off the pace, overcoming the deficit with a strong push through the final four miles to win the women’s Boston Marathon on Monday.
Lemi Berhanu Hayle won the men’s race after breaking away from defending champion Oromo athlete Lelisa Desisa. Hayle won in 2 hours, 12 minutes and 45 seconds.
The men’s race stumbled through halfway in 1:06:43, looking for someone willing to take command into a slight headwind and with temperatures rising to around 20 degrees Celsius.
After a few small breakaways came to nothing, defending champion Lelisa Desisa, hoping to add a third Boston win to his pair from 2013 and 2015, took charge as the course descended from Wellesley Hills to Newton Lower Falls.
Desisa moved to the front as the pack rolled down the hill and then maintained the pace as they crossed the Charles River and started up the opposite bank in the first of the Newton Hills; he slowed slightly but the rest of the pack slowed more, and abruptly a race which had looked more like a dreary committee meeting became notably more interesting.
Only Hayle stuck with Desisa’s big push, and from that point the race was primarily an Oromo duel for supremacy.
Initially Desisa let Hayle set the pace and hovered behind him waiting to move but he then came to the front and began actively trying to shake the younger runner.
Hayle, at 21 already a winner in Dubai in 2015 and runner-up there this January, also had previous wins in Warsaw and Zurich.
He was confident in his ability to win and his speed – with a best 2:04:33, he was third-fastest among the starters – but had never before a race as big as Boston.
Ultimately Hayle took over at the very end, side-by-side with Lelisa through 40km but then taking charge before the mile to go mark in Kenmore Square and opening a gap of 47 seconds back to the tiring Desisa, who held on for second in 2:13:32.
With the racing beginning a few miles after halfway, the second half was slightly faster than the first, 1:06:01 to 1:06:43 for the first half.
Yemane Tsegay won a close-fought duel with 2012 Boston winner Wesley Korir to make it a 1-2-3 finish for Ethiopia; he ran 2:14:02 to the Kenyan’s 2:14:05.
Baysa, 29 and a two-time Chicago Marathon winner came from 37 seconds at the 22-mile mark to overtake the two women in front of her.
She passed fellow Oromo athlete and sometime training partner Tirfi Tsegaye with two miles left, the latter finishing second in 2:30:03.
Kenya’s Joyce Chepkirui, who was disputing the lead with Tsegaye at 22 miles before Baysa started her long charge for glory, was third in 2:30:50 while fellow Kenyan, defending champion Caroline Rotich, dropped out barely five miles into the race.
The women’s race also started slowly, and it ultimately fell to Kenya’s Joyce Chepkirui to take charge of the pace, although as usual the lead changed frequently in the early miles while efending champion Caroline Rotich stepped off the course at 7km and ultimately dropped out.
Halfway was reached in a pedestrian 1:15:25 and the leaders were close enough that Latvia’s star Jelena Prokopcuka tangled with Oromo athlete Fatuma Sado and knocked the latter’s right shoe loose.
Sado stopped and retrieved the shoe, she and Prokopcuka then worked together to regain contact with the pack. Prokopcuka ultimately finished fourth with Sado 16th.
Much like the men, the women rolled down into Newton Lower Falls at a decent clip but slowed when they met the first hills.
Unlike the men, the pack which rode that roller coaster had thinned to four, featuring Tirfi Tsegaye and the Kenyan trio of Chepkirui, Valentine Kipketer and Flomena Daniel; with Baysa well off the back.
After Tsegaye and Chepkirui shook the other pair off, it looked like the women’s race was coming down to a head-to-head duel as well, but Baysa had other ideas; she found a second life after cresting the Newton hills at mile 21.
With Tsegaye frequently twisting around to try and gauge the progress of her sometime training partner, Baysa closed a deficit which had grown to 37 seconds at 22 miles, when she moved into third place.
Tsegaye first tried to drop Chepkirui, but Baysa passed first the Kenyan and then her compatriot.
At 40km, Baysa started pulling clear, and she built a lead of 44 seconds, with Tsegaye second in 2:30:03.
Unlike Hayle, Baysa has a lengthy marathoning resume including victories in Chicago in 2010 and 2012, as well as wins in Saitama, Paris (twice), Xiamen, and Istanbul.
Like the men’s race, the women’s winner was faster in the second half. Baysa passed halfway in 1:15:32 and ran the hilly second half of the race in 1:13:47.
Both Kenya and Ethiopia have indicated that Boston results, along with next weekend’s race in London, will figure in selection for their Olympic team.
However, the defending Olympic champion Tiki Gelana was never a factor in the race, finishing 14th in 2:42:38 and Buzunesh Deba, a frequent contender both here and in New York and the only woman in the field to have run under 2:20:00 in Boston, was seventh in 2:33:56.
The 120th running of the Boston Marathon saw 27,491 starters set out on the classic course from the western suburb of Hopkinton to the finish line in Boston.
The following Sidama scholars and businessmen have been kidnapped by the security forces of the TPLF led government of Ethiopia and are currently languishing in the most notorious prison of the country known as ‘Maikelawi’ in the country’s capital Finfinnee (Addis Ababa):
1) Solomon Naayu (A Business Person)
2) Desalegn Meessa (A Professor at Wolayita Sodo Univeristy)
3) Girma Dishe (A Busienss Person)
4) Shura Kachara (A Business Person)
5 Debebe Daaka (A Business person)
In stark violation of their human rights, some of them have been in detention since November 2015 while others have been incarcerated since early 2016 without any trial. They have been tortured repeatedly to extract confession on crimes they never committed. The reasons given by the Ethiopian security forces for their detention and torture are extremely bizarre. They range from visiting the Oromia region repeatedly during the Oromo protests to receiving telephone calls from their relatives in Diaspora and having some anti-government ideas in their minds.
The TPLF/EPRDF led government of Ethiopia continues to grossly abusing the human rights of the Sidama people and other citizens with impunity for two decades and a half in contempt to its international commitments and the constitution of the country drawn by the regime itself. The aforementioned Sidama people had never committed any crime. Their only crime is being the members of the Sidama society.
The Sidama people and the Sidama National Liberation Front (SNLF) categorically condemns their unlawful detention and torture and demands their immediate and unconditional release.
The SNLF also calls on the international community, the United Nations, the African Union and all human rights organizations to put pressure on the TPLF led regime of Ethiopia to respect basic human and democratic rights of the citizens of the country. The SNLF also calls upon all subjugated nations’ and peoples’ opposition groups and peoples of Ethiopia to be unconditionally united to fight the regime collectively oppressing all with varying degrees.
OROMO STUDENTS SOLIDARITY PROTEST IN WASHINGTON, D.C. COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS @CTJ71081.
“My name is Desta Edosa. I am 33 years old, married and a father of two sons. I am originally from Ethiopia, specifically from Oromia. I came to the United States in 2009 through a visa lottery, and I won. In February 2016, Caren Bedsworth from the American Red Cross called me and left me voice message saying I had a message from relative in Ethiopia. Listening to her voice message, I could not believe at first it was true as I did not know Red Cross gave such services. As Caren provided the office’s address, I looked on the internet and verified that the address mentioned was American Red Cross’s address. I called back Caren and asked who the person was. She delivered the letter to my home and I was so excited when I saw his handwritten letter. It had been about seven years since I last saw him.
“The name of my relative is Galataa Bazzaa. Galataa had just graduated from high school when he was captured by Ethiopian security forces and taken to a prison. He was a very outstanding student who was always known among his classmates and teachers as a straight A’s guy in his academics. By the time he was taken to prison, he had just been admitted to Addis Ababa Medical School to pursue his higher education. Only students of high caliber are given an opportunity to study medical sciences in Ethiopia and Galataa was one of the top.
“To understand the case of Galataa and why he was taken to prison, it is very important to know a little about Oromo people in Ethiopia. Oromo are the largest ethnic majority in Ethiopia which comprises about one third of the total population. Even though Oromo are the majority in Ethiopia, they have been marginalized both economically and politically since the establishment of the country. There was even a time when Oromo language was banned from state media and people were forced to change their Oromo name.
“As a result, Oromo people have been protesting this injustice for almost a century. Even at this time, the Ethiopian government has killed more than 400 Oromo people including kids, pregnant woman and elders because people peacefully demonstrated against land grabs and removal of Oromo farmers from their land due to the expansion of the capital city Addis Ababa (for more information on the Oromo protests, please click here or here).
“Galataa’s story is not different from thousands of Oromo students who are unjustifiably languishing in Ethiopian prison. He was just active both in his academic and among his society and communities. That’s the only reason he has been thrown into jail and sentenced to eight years. The Ethiopian government labels students who protest against it as anti-piece, anti-development and even terrorists if it wants to make the punishment sever. It is very common for Oromo students to be taken to prison in Ethiopia even for just speaking of their mind; that was what happened to Galataa.
“It had been about seven years since I heard from Galataa. I have been informed about his wellbeing by his sisters and brothers but never heard a word directly from him. Even though technology brought the world together these days, it’s still hard to be connected with loved one in a prison cell. The American Red Cross has done such excellent job connecting me directly with a person I care about a lot. I appreciate their service and their team a lot for connecting family over the globe when there is no other possible way. I hope they will keep doing such excellent job and help more Oromo families who lost track of their loved ones.”
Please join the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission for a briefing on the current human rights situation in Ethiopia.
Home to the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the region of Oromia was witness to mostly peaceful student protests in November of 2015 against the Ethiopian Government’s plan to take over territory to expand the nation’s capital. However, this spontaneous outcry has developed into the country’s longest and most widespread protest movement since the ruling party took power in 1991. The government has since ceased border expansion plans, but the discontent has proven to transcend land rights and to extend beyond any one particular ethnic group. The government’s authoritarian structure and tight controls on the media have led many to feel that they have no voice. Peaceful opposition is frequently met with arrest and detention (using the country’s draconian anti-terrorist law) and police brutality too often results in death. Human Rights Watch has received reports of over 200 people killed and several thousand arrested (including many whose whereabouts are unknown), since protests began. Although the documented turmoil threatens to disrupt Ethiopia’s fragile political stability, Ethiopia’s strategic state partners have been relatively quiet.
This briefing will examine Ethiopia’s current human rights situation in light of the recent events in Oromia. Speakers will provide an overview of the human rights situation and challenges, including how Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law is misused to stifle dissent, and will make recommendations as to what role the U.S. government can play in promoting stabilization by advancing and protecting human rights.
This briefing will be open to members of Congress, congressional staff, the interested public and the media. For any questions, please contact David Howell (for Rep. McGovern) at 202-225-3599 orDavid.Howell@mail.house.gov or Isaac Six (for Rep. Pitts) at 202-225-2411 orIsaac.Six@mail.house.gov.
Hosted by:
James P. McGovern, M.C.
Co-Chairman, TLHRC
Joseph R. Pitts, M.C.
Co-Chairman, TLHRC
Participants
Panelists
Anuradha Mittal , Founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute
Mohammed Ademo, Journalist formally with Al Jazeera America
Adotei Akwei, Managing Director, Amnesty International USA
Moderator
Lauren Ploch Blanchard, African Affairs Specialist, Congressional Research Service
Opening Remarks
Rep. Keith Ellison, Executive Committee Member, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commissio
Since November, state security forces have killed hundreds of protesters and arrested thousands in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region. It’s the biggest political crisis to hit the country since the 2005 election but has barely registered internationally. And with the protests now in their fifth month, there is an almost complete information blackout.
A teacher arrested in December told me, “In Oromia the world doesn’t know what happens for months, years or ever. No one ever comes to speak to us, and we don’t know where to find those who will listen to our stories.”
Part of the problem is the government’s draconian restrictions on news reporting, human rights monitoring, and access to information imposed over the past decade. But restrictions have worsened in the last month. Some social media sites have been blocked, and in early March security officials detained two international journalists overnight while they were trying to report on the protests. As one foreign diplomat told me, “It’s like a black hole, we have no idea what is happening. We get very little credible information.”
With difficulty, Human Rights Watch interviewed nearly 100 protesters. They described security forces firing randomly into crowds, children as young as nine being arrested, and Oromo students being tortured in detention. But the Ethiopian media aren’t telling these stories. It’s not their fault. Ethiopian journalists have to choose between self-censorship, prison, or exile. Ethiopia is one of the leading jailers of journalists on the continent. In 2014 at least 30 journalists fled the country and six independent publications closed down. The government intimidates and harasses printers, distributors, and sources.
International journalists also face challenges. Some do not even try to go because of the personal risks for them, their translators, and their sources. And when they do go, many Ethiopians fear speaking out against government policies—there are plenty of cases of people being arrested after being interviewed.
Diaspora-run television stations have helped fill the gap, including the U.S.-based Oromia Media Network (OMN). Many students in Oromia told me that OMN was one way they were able to learn what was happening in other parts of the region during the protests. But since OMN began broadcasting in March 2014 it has been jammed 15 times for varying periods. Radio broadcasts are also jammed–as international broadcasters like Voice of America and Deutsche Welle have experienced intermittently for years.
In December OMN began transmitting on a satellite that is virtually impenetrable to jamming. But security forces then began destroying private satellite dishes on people’s homes. Eventually the government applied pressure on the satellite company to drop OMN, which has now been off the air for over two months.
Social media has partially helped fill the information gap. Photos of injured students and videos of protests have been posted to Facebook, particularly in the early days of the protests. But in some locations the authorities have targeted people who filmed the protests on their phones. At various times in the last month, there have been reports of social media and file-sharing sites being blocked in Oromia, including Facebook, Twitter, and Dropbox. Website-blocking has been documented before – in 2013, at least 37 websites with information from Ethiopia were blocked. Most of the sites were operated by Ethiopians in the diaspora.
Independent non-governmental organizations that might be reporting what is happening face similar restrictions. The government’s Charities and Societies Proclamation of 2009 virtually gutted domestic nongovernmental organizations that work on human rights issues. The independent Human Rights Council released a report on the protests in March. It was a breath of fresh air, but the council released it at great risk. As the first report from Ethiopian civil society on an issue of great political significance, it was a damning indictment of the limits of freedom of expression in Africa’s second-largest country, with a population of 100 million.
The government may believe that by strangling the flow of information coming out of Oromia it can limit international concern and pressure. And so far the response from countries that support Ethiopia’s development has been muted. The deaths of hundreds, including many children, have largely escaped condemnation.
Yet the government’s brutally repressive tactics cannot be contained behind Ethiopia’s information firewall for long. The sooner the government recognizes this and acts to stop the mass arrests and excessive use of force, the better the outlook for the government and the affected communities.
The government—with the assistance of its allies and partners—needs to support an independent investigation of the events in Oromia, commit to accountability and justice for the victims, and start dismantling the legislative and security apparatus that has made Ethiopia one of the most hostile places for free expression on the continent. What’s happening in Oromia has long-term implications for Ethiopia’s stability and economic progress, and Ethiopians and the world need to know what is happening.
Felix Horne is the Ethiopia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
INTERNET messaging applications such as WhatsApp haven’t worked for more than a month in parts of Ethiopia that include Oromia region, which recently suffered fatal protests, according to local users.
Smartphone owners haven’t been able to access services including Facebook Messenger and Twitter on the state-owned monopoly Ethio Telecom’s connection, Seyoum Teshome, a university lecturer, said by phone from Woliso, about 115 kilometers (71.5 miles) southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa.
“All are not working here for more than one month,” said Seyoum, who teaches at Ambo University’s Woliso campus. “The blackout is targeted at mobile data connections.”
A spokesman for Twitter Inc. declined to comment on the issue when e-mailed by Bloomberg on Monday. Facebook Inc., which bought WhatsApp Inc. in 2014, didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
Protests that began in November in Oromia over perceived economic and political marginalisation of Ethiopia’s most populous ethnic group led to a crackdown in which security forces allegedly shot dead as many as 266 demonstrators, according to a March report by the Kenya-based Ethiopia Human Rights Project.
The government has said that many people died, including security officers, without giving a toll. One social-media activist, U.S.-based Jawar Mohammed, disseminated information and footage from protests to his more than 500,000 followers on Facebook.
No explanation
Restricting access isn’t a policy and may be because of “erratic” connections, according to government spokesman Getachew Reda. “We have not yet found any explanation,” he said by phone from Addis Ababa on Monday.
The government has the technology to “control” the messaging applications, the Addis Ababa-based Capital newspaper reported on April 10, citing Andualem Admassie, Ethio Telecom’s chief executive officer. Andualem didn’t answer two calls to his mobile phone seeking comment.
Hawassa city in Ethiopia’s southern region has suffered similar difficulties in accessing applications for more than a month, said Seyoum Hameso, an economics lecturer at the University of East London. “We couldn’t communicate with relatives,” he said in an e-mailed response to questions on Monday.
Traditional economics views humans as robotic machines who make calculated decisions based on logic. In contrast, behavioural economics views humans as irrational and emotional beings who are influenced by biases and experience when making decisions. This infographic takes a closer look at just what behavioural economics is and how it can be used.
Read more at:- https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/what-is-behavioural-economics/
Peoples Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) public meeting hosted by Oromo Student Union and Ogaden Community in Germany was held on 9th of April 2016 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
It was attended by two Executive committee members of PAFD, human rights advocators, invited guests, Veteran members of successful liberation movement, representatives of youths and Women and generally by the peoples and nations of member organisations of PAFD.
On this meeting, paper was presented by the officials of PAFD on the current political situation in the Horn of Africa with special emphasis on Ethiopia. The objectives of the PAFD were also explained. The atrocious nature of EPRDF across the empire, images and videos of the ongoing protest and public resistance from Oromia have been presented. Artists have entertained with cultural music in between discussions.
Member Communities and other peace loving friends in Germany all gathered on this occasion have expressed their unflinching support and solidarity for the Alliance. They noted that the oppressed peoples in Ethiopia have now reached a tipping point where the outcry of the peoples under Occupation of the Ethiopian regime cannot be ignored any more.
After thorough discussions and comments on the presentations during the meeting the participants continued discussions on the various issues. Finally the participants concluded the meeting upon passing political resolution.
The Political Resolution of this public meeting in Germany: –
Hereby in unison we convey our unflinching support for PAFD in its struggle against the TPLF/EPRDF-led Ethiopian regime, to regain the legitimate national right for the Nations and peoples. We also appreciate the outcome of PAFD congress that brought member organisations under one umbrella leadership to forge stronger bond of unity among member organisations which allowed them to strengthen their combined effort on diplomatic, political and armed struggle against TPLF. The participants of the meeting also summoned all nations and Nationalities in Ethiopia to create a firm ground for a unity of purpose and mutual respect. In the last twenty plus years TPLF/EPRDF has been tactically engaged in instigation of ethnic discord. We call up on our peoples to be aware of “divide and rule” colonial principle and resolve their conflict in a manner they used to live in it.
The Ethiopian government is currently playing a destructive and destabilizing role in the Horn of Africa in general and on the peoples under its rule in particular. The Dictatorial regime run by the TPLF is currently using every means at its disposal to silence the quest of people for justice. Freedom of press, civil Societies and independent judiciary are non-existence in this country. The Regular army and Agazi militias are using brute force against innocent Oromo protesters with complete impunity; extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary mass detentions and harsh prison terms under dubious laws are practiced beyond imagination. People are evicted from their ancestral land under the pretext of “Development” and “master plans”. We strongly condemn such belligerent act of Ethiopian regime.
The partnership of EU with Ethiopia is aimed to bring a political environment guaranteeing peace, security and stability, which are the solid ground for sustainable economic policies and developments. Respect of human right violations, sustained economic growth, developing the private sector, increasing employment, good governance and etc. are the main witness and visible criterion for the objective of the partnership. Concerning the current Tigryan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) led regime of Ethiopia, there is massive evidence, which demonstrates beyond any doubt that the government is intensifying the persecution of Ogadeni, Oromo, Sidama, Gambella, Benishangul and other nations and nationalities in the empire. We appeal to the international communities in general and EU to implement ACP-EU agreement and its resolution passed on 21st January 2016.
The public meeting appreciated Resolution of EU, Concerns of some democratic governments and honours Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human rights League Horn of Africa, Oromia Support Group, Ethiopian Human Rights Council and International Commission of Jurists for their principled and responsible activities in exposing the atrocities of TPLF government behind the curtail. Although the effort of these humanitarian organisations are limited to exposure, as it ought to be as a matter of rule, the participants of this public meeting values this contribution to be immense in bridling the militant and aggressive nature of the TPLF regime.
It is clear that the EPRDF force’s violent manoeuvre is intensifying from day to day. People are being denied to lead peaceful life. Such deplorable act has to be unequivocally condemned by all peace-loving forces. Therefore, we call upon all peoples in the empire of Ethiopia to join us in the struggle against the EPRDF regime.
We also call USA, EU and AU to refrain themselves on current deal with TPLF’s regime about the Oromo protest behind the curtail without the consent of peoples in Ethiopia and particularly in this case the Oromos.
(National Helm) — Two Chinese migrant workers found $356,246 cash in airport and returned it to three travelers from Ethiopia. The migrant workers who were working on a construction project in southern China‘s Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport Friday found a white paper bag containing bulks of US dollar bills unattended.
The workers reported the situation to the police and later on met three Ethiopian travelers who came to claim the lost. The migrant workers’ move won lots of praises after the story went viral.
By James Jeffrey, Inter Press Service, April 11, 2016
The Ethiopian government’s most serious domestic political crisis in more than a decade began over a scruffy football field appropriated by local officials for development.
After students responded by taking to the streets of Ginchi, a small town 80km from the capital, Addis Ababa, their protest was quickly quelled. But a spark had been lit for what has turned into an outpouring of grievances by the Oromo—Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, accounting for about a third of the country’s 95 million population.
As protests spread, they ostensibly focused on a plan to expand the Ethiopian capital’s city limits into Oromia—the largest of the federal republic’s nine regional states and two city states—which encircles Addis Ababa.
Land in Ethiopia—all of which is government owned—has become an increasingly contentious issue as Ethiopia has opened up to the world, reflecting a worldwide trend particularly effecting developing countries such as Ethiopia.
Globally, investors are increasingly looking to investments not linked to volatile equities and bonds: other countries’ land. And few have attracted as much attention as Ethiopia, with its lowlands watered by the tributaries of the Blue Nile, a particularly bountiful draw.
The Ethiopian government has been on the front foot and quick to respond to such interest, and since around 2009 has leased about 2.5 million hectares to more than 50 foreign investors, from the likes of India, Turkey, Pakistan, China, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
The so-called Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan was seen as fitting a disturbing trend by the Oromo—many of whom are smallholder farmers—and they weren’t having any more of it. Ethiopia’s security forces are well equipped to deal with protests and unrest, although such has been the scale of the Oromo protests that security forces have been stretched. But even after the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation—the regional arm of the Ethiopian government—shelved the plan, a government back down described as historic by many, protests continued.
“The widespread, sustained and recurring protests are clear messages of no confidence by a young and restless segment of the population which is driven by a feeling of marginalization,” stated a February editorial in Addis Ababa-based Fortune newspaper.
Many observers in Ethiopia, local and foreigners alike, note that although protests have taken an ethnic-based identity and focused on land, other deeper issues behind them—corruption, unfair elections, political and socioeconomic marginalisation—are familiar to many disenchanted Ethiopian voters.
Numbers of those killed since November given by international rights organisations, activists and observers range from 80 to 250-plus.
Some Addis Ababa residents suggest such numbers are preferable to even higher numbers if the government lost control of a situation that could, they argue, spiral into anarchy.
For against the narrative of a typically brutal Ethiopian government crackdown that brooks no dissent, there have been reports of looting, and organised armed gangs attacking foreign-owned factories, and private and governmental buildings. Even churches were damaged during a particularly violent flare up in the south in February.
Ethiopian citizens had a right to question the master plan but protests were hijacked by people looking to incite violence, according to Getachew Reda, a government spokesperson.
“You shouldn’t define a largely peaceful movement by this,” says a security analyst who focuses on Ethiopia for an Africa-based research organisation.
Despite February’s trouble in the south, many observers in Ethiopia say the majority of protests were peaceful, involving Oromo from across the demographic spectrum airing widely held grievances.
“It is also about competent government structure,” says Daniel Berhane, a prominent Addis Ababa-based political blogger, covering Ethiopia for the website Horn Affairs. “You have got ministries next door to each other not talking, and at every level—regional, zone or district—governmental staff arguing about who is responsible while criticising each other.”
“People have a perception of lack of competence in governance on the ground,” Daniel adds.
The government heeded the call of the people, according to Getachew, and observers say the government deserves credit for listening about the master plan.
But, more importantly, these same observers add, the government must allow Ethiopians to exercise their constitutional right to protest, and handle events in a way that does not escalate.
Protests have often resulted in deployment of military forces to support federal police, both regularly accused of ruthless suppression, with the perceived unaccountability of Ethiopia’s security forces added to the list of grievances, the analyst says.
There have even been reports of police taking head shots and shooting people in the back. But such alleged actions by police in remote locations, with backup often hundreds of miles away, defy logic as they would result in such a ferocious backlash by the local populace, according to a foreign politico in Addis Ababa.
This individual also suggested that some local militia, ostensibly part of state security but who sided with protestors and turned against federal forces, fired from behind women and children at police. Numbers of state security forces killed haven’t been released.
Nevertheless, shooting at protesters, as well as arbitrary arrests, especially of students—who initially formed the body of protests—have a long track record in Ethiopia, preceding this government back to during the brutal military dictatorship that ruled between 1974 and 1991.
Many who fled that period now compose part of the large Ethiopian diaspora, with the government claiming foreign-based opposition bolstered by US-based social media activists is manipulating the situation to its own ends.
“The diaspora magnifies news of what is happening, yes, but no matter how much it agitates it cannot direct at village level in Ethiopia—this is about dissatisfaction,” says Jawar Mohammed, executive director of US-based broadcaster Oromia Media Network, strongly criticised by the government and some non-government observers for fomenting conflict.
Imprisonment of leaders of the Oromo Federalist Congress party, Oromia’s largest legally registered political party, along with thousands of other Oromo political prisoners, makes negotiating a lasting solution a tall order, Jawar says.
Governance in today’s Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia—to use its full title—exhibits an inherent tension.
A decentralised system of ethnic federalism jars with the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front ruling party’s authoritarian one-party developmental state style of leadership, similar to China’s.
“The political space has increasingly narrowed, becoming uneven, non-competitive and unwelcoming…contrary to the diversity of desires and interests in Ethiopian society,” states the same editorial.
It is a long way from the heady hopeful days of Ethiopia’s new federal constitution after the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1991.
“The ruling government is a victim of its own success—the constitution it developed made promises and people trusted the EPRDF,” the analyst says. “Now people are demanding those rights and the government is responding with bullets and violence.”
The analyst acknowledges the government deserves credit for creating a constitution that is the best fit for an ethnically diverse country like Ethiopia, and for expanding basic services, infrastructure, respecting different cultural and ethnic identities, and better integrating Ethiopia’s large Muslim population.
But, the analyst adds, this federal constitution espouses a liberal philosophy that the government appears unable to reconcile with its decision-making processes.
The government’s hitherto successful job of holding together this particularly heterogeneous federation is not about to crumble tomorrow, observers note.
But things may get worse before they get better, unless underlying sources of friction and frustration are addressed.
The government has since acknowledged there was insufficient consultation with those likely to be effected by the master plan.
And during his latest six-monthly performance report to Parliament in March, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn apologised to those who lost family members during protests, while the government has suggested there will be investigations into allegations of police brutality.
What is happening in Ethiopia could be a foretaste of what is to come elsewhere, as forces of global markets—including a growing global urban population in more developed nations that eats more than it farms—clash with indigenous desires to protect historical homelands.
“A fundamental tenet of the ruling party at its creation was its social democratic focus on farmers, who still make up 80 per cent of the country,” Daniel says. “It cannot suddenly become capitalist.”
Oromo Refugees in Egypt need your immediate protection To: The United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Geneva,
Australian Oromo Community Association expresses its deep concern about the rejection of Oromo refugee appeal for protection and resettlement case. We appeal to request your immediate action on a very urgent demand, particularly, that involving Oromo refugees living in Cairo, Egypt.
Oromo refugees fled their homeland to various neighboring countries to rescue their lives and their families. Majority experienced years of detention, torture and suffering behind bars while others escaped due to fear for their lives as the results of occurrences of unbearable human right violations in Ethiopia. Commonly, Oromo refugees have fled from the extra-judicial killings, removal from their properties and land confiscation, illegal arrests, trials without evidence, torture, and constant humiliations.
Therefore, rejection of their refugee case appeal for resettlement and protection means not only making them hopelessness and darken their futurity but also devastating for them as they are left without a guarantee from not to be deported back to Ethiopia that certainly exposing them to detention, torture, and possible death.
The Australian Oromo Community Association intensely concern for the physical and emotional well-being of these refugees and their families. We utterly believe these genuine Oromo refugees are forced to flee persecution and desperately search for safety and protection from violence and intimidation. They are in an extreme situation that needs your prompt action.
Regarding this urgent matter, the Australian Oromo Community Association appeals for your supportive action, and sincerely request to consider their case and continue processing their protection status and resettlement process in third countries. Please show your kind sympathy instantly to save these very vulnerable innocent Oromo refugees’ life in Cairo, Egypt.
Thank you for consideration of our concern and this urgent matter.
VIDEO: Oromo refugees protest for registration outside UNHCR Egypt
By Belen Fernandez, Green Left Weekly, Saturday, April 9, 2016
Members of the Oromo community in Melbourne protest against the Ethiopian regime, Photos: Ali Bakhtiarvandi.
“This government is at least better than previous ones,” remarked a 74-year-old Eritrean man to me last month in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, his longtime residence.
As it turned out, his assessment of the relative superiority of the current Ethiopian administration was for good reason: two of his children had been killed by a previous ruling outfit, the Derg military junta that took power in 1974 and began eliminating suspected opponents in droves.
Although that particularly bloody epoch came to an end in 1991, many a resident of Ethiopia might nowadays still have cause to complain about homicidal activity by the state.
In the Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa, for example, there are claims that more than 200 people have been killed by Ethiopian security forces since November 2015, when protests broke out in response to the government’s so-called “Master Plan” to expand the boundaries of the capital by a factor of 20.
As a Newsweek article explains, the Oromo inhabitants of the region viewed the plan as “an attempted land grab that could result in the forced eviction of Oromo farmers and the loss of valuable arable land in a country regularly plagued by drought.”
This was no doubt a valid concern given the government’s established tradition of wantonly displacing Ethiopians in the interest of “development” — that handy euphemism for removing human obstacles to the whims of international and domestic investment capital.
Apparently, torture has also been a difficult habit for security forces to break.
Comprising some 35% of the population, the Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and have regularly decried discrimination by the ruling coalition party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which is dominated by ethnic Tigrayan interests.
Politically motivated detention, incarceration, and other abuses have long characterised the landscape in Oromia, and the current protests have seen children as young as eight arrested.
And while the government has opted to shelve the Master Plan for now, protests in Oromia have continued. When I recently visited the town of Woliso, one of many protest sites in the region, residents pointed out that cancelling the plan wouldn’t bring back the dead people.
Events in Oromia have been described as the worst civil unrest in a decade.
Even without the Master Plan, meanwhile, the government is doing a decent job of courting investors. As I travelled west from Addis Ababa toward Woliso – a journey of about two hours — I passed sprawling factory complexes, including one featuring a Turkish flag flying alongside its more indigenous counterparts.
Launched in 2010 with a price tag of US$140 million, the Turkish-owned Ayka Addis factory is said to occupy several hundred thousand square meters of land.
The website of the Ethiopian Investment Commission furthermore lists Ayka Addis as one of “a number of private Industrial Zones” in Ethiopia, described as “success stories.”
Indeed, the EPRDF can point to double-digit economic growth over recent years to justify plowing ahead with its development model. But there’s more to life than GDP – as sizable poverty-stricken sectors of the Ethiopian population can presumably confirm.
About 200,000 people were reportedly in danger of trachoma-induced blindness in Oromia alone.
We might also take a look at the estimated 10.2 million Ethiopians currently “in need of urgent food assistance” — as reported, perhaps ironically, in a March edition of the English-language Ethiopian newspaper Capital, “the paper that promotes free enterprise.”
Additional troublesome statistics are contained in a 2014 BBC dispatch titled “The village where half the people are at risk of blindness.” The village in question is Kuyu, located in the Oromia region; the risk is due to infectious trachoma, “the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness.”
In the end, a lot of people in Oromia and beyond might have greater priorities than, say, income tax immunity for international developers.
Restoring interest and investment in indigenous crops may offer a solution to food insecurity and the increasing loss of biodiversity. Some traditional plant varieties can help improve nutrition and health, improve local economies, create resilience to climate change, revitalize agricultural biodiversity, and help preserve tradition and culture.
Botanical Explorer Joseph Simcox travels around the world, documenting and tasting thousands of crops. He traverses the wilderness, interviews villagers, and searches markets across the globe for rare and indigenous crops. Joseph helps preserve species and varieties that are in danger of extinction, improving biodiversity and distributing rare seeds to the public.
According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), just twelve crops provide 75 percent of the world’s food. Three of these crops, rice, maize, and wheat contribute to nearly 60 percent of the protein and calories obtained by humans from plants. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some 75 percent of plant genetic diversity has been lost.
Restoring interest and investment in indigenous crops may offer a solution to food insecurity and the increasing loss of biodiversity. Some traditional plant varieties can help improve nutrition and health, improve local economies, create resilience to climate change, revitalize agricultural biodiversity, and help preserve tradition and culture.
Multidimensional Poverty Index: Ethiopia has the second highest percentage of people who are MPI poor in the world: of Ten Poorest Countries in The World (All in #Africa) – MPI 2015 Ranking
‘Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices—as they acquire more capabilities and enjoy more opportunities to use those capabilities. But human development is also the objective, so it is both a process and an outcome. Human development implies that people must influence the process that shapes their lives. In all this, economic growth is an important means to human development, but not the goal. Human development is development of the people through building human capabilities, for the people by improving their lives and by the people through active participation in the processes that shape their lives. It is broader than other approaches, such as the human resource approach, the basic needs approach and the human welfare approach.’ -UNDP 2015 Report
Ethiopia’s HDI value for 2014 is 0.442— which put the country in the low human development category— positioning it at 174 out of 188 countries and territories.
In Ethiopia 88.2 percent of the population (78,887 thousand people) are multidimensionally poor while an additional 6.7 percent live near multidimensional poverty (6,016 thousand people). The breadth of deprivation (intensity) in Ethiopia, which is the average of deprivation scores experienced by people in multidimensional poverty, is 60.9 percent. The MPI, which is the share of the population that is multidimensionally poor, adjusted by the intensity of the deprivations, is 0.537. Rwanda and Uganda have MPIs of 0.352 and 0.359 respectively.Ethiopia, UNDP country notes
(Sunday Adelaja’s Blog) — When Poverty and non-existent double digit growth met face-to-Face at a dumpster site called KORA in Ethiopia. As we speak, thousands of people in Addis Ababa survive from the leftover “food” dumped in such dumpsters. People, in fact, used to call them “Dumpster Dieters”. They are either the byproducts or victims of the cooked economic figures. You be the judge!
Yet the new measurement known as the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, that will replace the Human Poverty index in the United Nations’ annual Human Development Report says that Ethiopia has the second highest percentage of people who are MPI poor in the world, with only the west African nation of Niger fairing worse. You probably heard that Ethiopia has been a fast growing economy in the content recording very high growth rate not just in Africa but the world as well.
This comes as more international analysts have also began to question the accuracy of the Meles government’s double digit economic growth claims and similar disputed government statistics referred by institutions like the IMF. The list starts with the poorest.
Niger
Ethiopia
Mali
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Somalia
Central African Republic
Liberia
Guinea
Sierra Leone
What is the MPI?
People living in poverty are affected by more than just income. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) complements a traditional focus on income to reflect the deprivations that a poor person faces all at once with respect to education, health and living standard. It assesses poverty at the individual level, with poor persons being those who are multiply deprived, and the extent of their poverty being measured by therange of their deprivations.
Why is the MPI useful?
According to the UNDP report, the MPI is a high resolution lens on poverty – it shows the nature of poverty better than income alone. Knowing not just who is poor but how they are poor is essential for effective humandevelopment programs and policies. This straightforward yet rigorous index allows governments and other policymakers to understand the various sources of poverty for a region, population group, or nation and target their humandevelopment plans accordingly. The index can also be used to show shifts in the composition of poverty over time so that progress, or the lack of it, can be monitored.
The MPI goes beyond previous international measures of poverty to:
Show all the deprivations that impact someone’s life at the same time – so it can inform a holistic response.
Identify the poorest people. Such information is vital to target people living in poverty so they benefit from key interventions.
Show which deprivations are most common in different regions and among different groups, so that resources can be allocated and policies designed to address their particular needs.
Reflect the results of effective policy interventions quickly. Because the MPI measures outcomes directly, it will immediately reflect changes such as school enrolment, whereas it can take time for this to affect income.
In Mount Vernon, Moussa Ali conducts a one-man protest for the Oromo People
It’s a bright, breezy Saturday in Mount Vernon with little else happening, making it even harder to miss Moussa Ali. Dressed in all-black and wearing a T-shirt that reads “I stand with the Oromo People,” Ali stands in front of the Washington Monument and nods at drivers passing him by on Charles Street. He raises his fist above his head and conducts a one-man demonstration.
“I’m protesting,” Ali, a 56-year-old Charles North resident and BP gas station manager, says, keeping his arm raised the whole time. “I’m standing with the Oromo students back home, which is in Ethiopia. The Oromo people are the majority in Ethiopia. In large numbers they are being killed. All young.”
Ali, who is ethnically Oromo, says a minority tribe, the Tigrayans, has had control of the Ethiopian government for over 20 years and oppress, disenfranchise, and take land from the other tribes, especially the largest tribe, the Oromos. According to Human Rights Watch, “Ethiopian security forces are violently suppressing the largely peaceful protests in the Oromia region that began in November 2015.”
Ali says: “They go to the students dorm, break into their rooms and because of this, the students cannot even go to school right now. Some of the students started escaping out of the country into the sea, trying to immigrate to Europe. And that struggle is still continuing right now! I want freedom for my people… this is part of me.”
Ali came to American from Ethiopia as a student 35 years ago, barely slipping the grip of government forces himself.
“[Back then] they started rounding up the students!” Ali says. “I was one of them marching. I used to go around doing the same thing I’m doing right now. I used to have my slogans, march in the towns, underground. Then they found out. They had their own spies. They give my name away. [My friends] told me, ‘The government’s looking for you! You better leave the country.’ That is how I left the country.”
Ali believes Americans should have an interest in this issue too. He says that American tax money in the form of military assistance is used to crush Oromo protests.Foreignassistance.gov shows that the U.S. Department of Defense has given the Ethiopian military $31 million in aid in 2015 alone. This is in addition to veteran American forces training the Ethiopian military.
“The interest for Obama and the United States is just to go after Al Qaeda in Somalia,” Ali says. “They get… cash. They train them. The Ethiopian government go into Somalia and fight for America.”
He shares the experience of his tribe back home with the hope that Baltimoreans can imagine the kind of freedom for his tribe that we have here: “Look at the freedom I have here. I’m talking to you right now. Nobody’s coming, arresting me, threatening me or going to take me to jail or torture me. No fear!”
He says he is “a representative of Baltimore City” who’s doing his part.
“There is no Oromo news except [what you hear from] the Ethiopian government, they choose it,” Ali says. “All over the globe, Oromos, no matter where they are, we are doing this.”
“It’s happening all over,” he continues. “Oromos are protesting in Sweden, France, Australia, England, Oromos are protesting everywhere. We are a strong community in Washington D.C., [but in Baltimore] communities are not large.”
Though he stands alone, he says he’ll “come back again” and be here this upcoming weekend as well for a couple hours.
“We welcome everybody [to stand with us],” Ali says. “I will provide s [t-shirts] if they’re coming.”
@OSA London Conference @London School of EConomics on Violation of Oromo Human Rights in Ethiopia, by Patricia Bartley, Amnesty International UK, Ethiopia Country Coordinator; 3rd April 2016.
Ethiopia’s clampdown on dissent tests ethnic federal structure
Protests sparked by the arrest of Konso leader Kala Gezahegn underlined growing tensions between Ethiopia’s central government and many ethnic populations
BY William Davison, The Guardian, Global development, 8 April 2016
Kala Gezahegn, the traditional leader of Ethiopia’s Konso people. Kala Gezahegn, the leader of the Konso people, addresses a crowd. His arrest highlighted growing tensions in Ethiopia between state power and ethnic groups’ desire for autonomy. Photograph: Courtesy of Kasaye Soka
Nothing seemed amiss when an Ethiopian government vehicle arrived to collect the traditional leader of the Konso people for a meeting in March. But instead of being taken to discuss his community’s requests for more autonomy, Kala Gezahegn was arrested.
Kala’s detention marked a low point in fraught relations between the Konso in southern Ethiopia and the regional authorities in the state capital, Hawassa. Five years ago, the Konso lost their right to self-govern, and growing tensions since then mirror discontent in other parts of Ethiopia.
The 1995 constitution in Africa’s second most populous country allows different ethnic groups to self-govern and protects their languages and culture under a system called ethnic federalism. The largest ethnicities – such as the approximately 35 million-strong Oromo – have their own regional states, while some smaller groups administer zones within regions, as the Konso effectively used to do.
Many of Ethiopia’s ethnic identities, which number more than 80, were suppressed during the imperial and national-socialist eras that preceded the federal system.
What happened in Konso followed demonstrations and killings by security forces in Oromia, the most populous region. A rights group says 266 people have been killed since mid-November during protests over injustice and marginalisation.
Demonstrations were sparked by a government plan to integrate the development of Addis Ababa and surrounding areas of Oromia. After fierce opposition from the Oromo, that scheme was shelved in January, but protests have continued, fuelled by anger over alleged killings, beatings and arrests.
In Amhara, a large region north of Addis Ababa, there was violence late last year related to the Qemant group’s almost decade-old claim for recognition as a group with constitutional rights. The fact that the Qemant rejected a territorial offer from the authorities, saying it was too small, may have provoked local Amhara people. In December, federal security forces were dispatched to contain escalating communal violence.
In Konso, after Kala and other leaders were locked up, thousands took to the streets to protest. During clashes with police on 13 March, three people were killed, and now the dispute seems entrenched.
Women at Fasha market in Ethiopia’s Konso region. Photograph: Grant Rooney/Alamy
The crux of the issue is a 2011 decision to include the Konso – which is in the multi-ethnic Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) and has 250,000 people – in the newly created Segen zone, thereby removing their right to self-rule. That decision was taken without consultation and resulted in worsening public services and unresponsive courts, says Kambiro Aylate, a member of a committee chosen to represent the community’s demands.
The budget for Konso’s government was reduced by 15%, says Orkissa Orno, another committee member. “The Konso people used their rights to ask for a different administrative structure,” he says.
In a recent interview, prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn blamed the unrest in Oromia on high youth unemployment and a “lack of good governance”, a line echoed by officials in other regions.
Kifle Gebremariam, the deputy president of the SNNPR, said the Konso leaders were arrested on suspicion of maladministration and corruption, issues “completely different” from the political question.
Kifle added that discussions had been held with residents about the status of the administration. “The regional government, including the president, gave them the right response, but they are not peacefully accepting this.”
Kala’s supporters dispute that account, although there have been signs of compromise, with the traditional leader permitted to take part in recent negotiations.
Concerns over the federal system’s ability to withstand such strains are not new. For example, southern groups such as the Wolayta were involved in violent clashes before they were granted their own zone in 2000.
In 2009, the International Crisis Group wrote in a report (pdf): “Ethnic federalism has not dampened conflict, but rather increased competition among groups that vie over land and natural resources, as well as administrative boundaries and government budgets.”
Officials have argued for decades that the focus on minority rights has been integral to an unprecedented period of peace and development.
Assefa Fiseha, a federalism expert at Addis Ababa University, agrees the system has brought stability to a country threatened with fragmentation in the early 1990s after ethno-nationalist rebellions overthrew a military regime.
But a lack of democratisation and centralised economic decision-making works against local autonomy and exacerbates grievances, according to Assefa.
“The regional states, as agents of the regional people, have to be consulted on whatever development project the federal government wants to undertake,” he says.
In fact, the government appears to have been moving in the opposite direction, as its legitimacy depends on economic growth and improving social services and infrastructure.
National projects – 175,000 hectares (430,000 acres) of state-owned sugar plantations in the ethnically rich south Omo area, for instance – are designed, implemented and owned by federal agencies.
The now scrapped integrated Oromia-Addis Ababa plan is another example, as it was developed without scrutiny by “key stakeholders” in the Oromia government, Addis Ababa city and the federal parliament, Assefa says.
One reason for quick decisions in a devolved federation is that the political positions of Ethiopia’s diverse communities are filtered through a rigid ruling coalition.
Along with allied parties, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front won every federal and regional legislative seat in May’s elections, extending its control of all tiers of government.
The EPRDF has held power for 25 years, partly by building a popular base of millions of farmers and demanding strict obedience to party doctrine and policy, but some say this is now changing.
The wave of protests, so soon after the landslide election victory, shows that the “dominant party system is facing problems”, Assefa says.
“Growing ethno-nationalism, centralised policymaking and the failure to provide space for political dissent combined together make a perfect storm for violence.”
Ethiopia: Double Digit Growth or Collapsing Economy?
Analysis by Andualem Sisay, All Africa, 8 April 2016
Ethiopian government’s increasing reliance on foreign loans is posing a serious risk of economic collapse, a renowned economist has revealed.
“Take for instance China, which has loaned over $17 billion to the Ethiopian government for infrastructure projects. Our total investment is 40 per cent of the GDP. Our saving is between 10-20 per cent of the GDP.
“We import $13 billion and export $3 billion. They are the ones who are filling all these deficit gaps,” said Dr Alemayehu Geda.
The Addis Ababa and London universities don was presenting his paper on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Ethiopia and Credit Financing.
“What will happen if they stopped such financing tomorrow? What if, for instance, the Chinese government tomorrow says sell for me Ethio Telecom or sell to me Ethiopian Airlines or give me some share or buy my aeroplanes, or I will stop such credit financing?
Strategic items
“The country will collapse, I guarantee you,” he said.
Dr Alemayehu went on: “About 77 per cent of our imports are strategic items. Fuel only has 25 per cent share of the total import. As a result, even if we want to reduce these imports, we can’t. Ethiopia needs to minimise strategic vulnerability.”
The don elaborated giving the example of how the Koreans mitigated against such dependency risks when they used to source 75 per cent of their imports from the US some decades ago.
Dr Alemayehu presented his paper in Addis Ababa at the launch of a two-year 12 series of public dialogue by the Forum for Social Studies – a local civil society, partially financed by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID).
“The Koreans came out of such vulnerability risk after analysing their situation properly, discussing the issue with their intellectuals and setting long term plans,” he said, advising the Ethiopian government to invest in quality education, skilled labour and improve the negotiations capacity as well as have in place a well-designed policy.
Last decade
Official estimates have shown the Ethiopian economy growing by double digits annually for about a decade now, a figure that has highly been doubted by independent scholars.
The Addis government has been applauded for growing the country’s GDP by around 10 per cent per year for the last decade.
In his paper, Dr Alemayehu indicated that Ethiopia’s external loan included $17.6 billion from China for various infrastructure developments, around $3 billion from Turkish and close to $1 billion from Indian governments.
The World Bank’s data shows that from 2012 – 2016, Ethiopia has taken a total loan of close to $6 billion from the global lender. Last year, Ethiopia for the first time, joined Euro Bond and accessed $1.5 billion.
In addition to loans, reports show that some $3 billion annually came to the country in the form of aid from donors.
Have declined
Ethiopia’s exports have declined from around $3 billion last year to around $2.5 billion this year, as revealed in the recent six-month report of the prime minister to the parliament.
Even though tax collection has been growing by an average of 20 per cent annually over the past five years, Ethiopia’s tax to GDP ratio still stands at 13 per cent, which is less than the around 16 per cent of the sub-Saharan average.
Last year, Ethiopia collected around $6 billion from tax, including $25 million recovered from contraband traders. The figure could have been raised by at least $3 billion had it not been for the generous tax incentives the country has provided to investors, according to latest report of the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA).
In only nine months of Ethiopia’s last budget (July 8, 2014 – July 7, 2015), the country provided tax incentives of around $2.4 billion to investors, by exempting them from customs and excise duties and withholding, VAT and surtaxes, according to ERCA’s report.
Financial integrity
A financial integrity report last December indicated that around $2 billion was leaving Ethiopia every year through mis-invoicing and other tax frauds.
When it comes to the FDI coming from China, India and Turkey, close to 71 per cent of their investments in Ethiopia were in the manufacturing sector.
However, job creation, technology transfer and export contribution were insignificant for Ethiopia, which has over an 90 million population dominated by the youth. The country has about 16 per cent unemployment rate, according to Dr Alemayehu.
Between 2003-2012, there were 93 Chinese companies that had reportedly invested $600 million, creating around 69,000 permanent and 79,000 temporary jobs for Ethiopians. There was little contribution to technology transfer and foreign currency generation through the exportation of their products.
According to Dr Alemayehu’s paper, during the same period, Indian investments in Ethiopia created 24,000 and 26,000 permanent and temporary jobs respectively, while 341 Turkish companies operating in Ethiopia created a total of 50,000 jobs.
Though much was being talked about Chinese investments growing in Africa, the Asian giant had less than 4 per cent of total share of FDI on the continent, out of the total stock of $554 billion worth in 2010. Most of the investments in Africa were still dominated by the Western companies, according to Dr Alemayehu.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn recently told the local media that Ethiopia’s GDP growth was not expected to record a double digit this year and would likely drop to around 7 per cent.
However, his special economic adviser with a ministerial docket, Dr Arkebe Equbay, reportedly told Bloomberg media that the economy was expected to grow by 11 per cent this year.
Foreign debts
The government was now expected to deal with puzzles such as why the economic performance was not as good as in the previous years, with all the generous incentives to investors and huge infrastructure investments mainly dependent on local and external loans?
How to repay its local and foreign debts before the lenders force the government to cede shares in its highly protected businesses, such as, Ethio Telecom, Ethiopian Airlines, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation and Ethiopian Shipping Lines is, for sure, the elephant in the room.
But the big question is: How soon will these issues get the attention of a government pre-occupied with trying to feed about a dozen million people affected by drought and dealing with political unrest and conflicts mainly in Oromia and Gondar area of Amhara Region?
What are we talking about when we criticise the networks of shell companies?
ACI, 8 April 2016
At the latest with the revelations of the Panama Papers, mass media and wider public joined a chorus of outrage over the hidden financial assets of politicians, celebrities and criminal organisations. According to ICIJ, the Panama leaks expose “a system that enables crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies”. In particular, the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has become one of the main protagonists in bribery and money laundering scandals. These leaked documents disclose internal files that contain information on 214,488 offshore entities connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories.
What are the services of law firms like Mossack Fonseca? What are shell companies, offshore entities and so-called tax havens? Can they be used for legitimate or illegitimate businesses? What does the current legislation say? Here is a brief guide and explanation of what has been going on for decades in the hidden financial world.
To put it simple, shell companies are corporations without any active business or operations, or companies that passively own the shares of other companies. Shell companies are also referred to as international business companies, personal investment companies, or “mailbox”/”letterbox” companies. Generally, establishing a shell company is no different from setting up any other type of company.
There are legitimate purposes for shell companies, such as helping entrepreneurs gain cheaper and easier public listings on a stock exchange despite minimal sales turnover. Another example of legal use of shell corporations occurs in the case of hidden financial interactions between two companies: if “Company A” does not want to be associated with “Company B”, for instance because of its poor reputation, they can create a shell corporation through which the transaction can be concealed.
Nevertheless, this mechanism is being used to hide corruption and illegal financial transactions such as money laundering and tax evasion. Shell companies have the essential characteristic of being able to obscure the true ownership of an asset. By disguising both the ownership of the shell corporation and its activities, it is relatively simple to conceal the true origin and intent of large amounts of funds that might have been obtained through illegal actions such as drug dealing or other criminal processes.
Shell companies are often formed in so-called tax havens. There are dozens of tax havens besides Panama such as Switzerland, or Luxembourg and many countries in the Caribbean like the British Virgin Islands that provide little or no tax liability and financial information to foreign tax authorities.
The debate surrounding the legality of shell companies is characterised by pro-arguments that in particular focus on the distinct use and counterarguments that question the entire system of shell companies asking why a company should be allowed to hide financial transactions and assets.
Does law enforcement clarify the controversy? Here is the key issue of the discussion: law avoidance is possible and legally permitted – law firms like Mossack Fonseca are specialised to “protect” their clients from the law. Often, governments that harshly criticise tax avoidance and offshore finance are themselves beneficiaries of those strategies. In most cases public anger, accusations of being opportunistic or unethical and undermined political credibility bring about accountability of wrongdoings, not the judgement in a courtroom. Current laws do not require the creators of shell companies – such as Mossack Fonseca – to report who actually controls them. Further, the compliance with international anti-money laundering obligations remains low and inefficient since financial institutions may be negligent or incapable to perform due diligence to the appropriate depth. Anti-Corruption International fights for more transparency and less “legal corruption” in order to stop the immoral businesses of shell companies……
In response to the Ethiopian government’s unrelenting attack on the ongoing #OromoProtests, the United States, European Union, and African Union have been sending delegations to Ethiopia to express their “concerns” about the killings, large scale mass arrest and torture of Oromo Protesters; and urge the Ethiopian government to end the systemic exclusion and marginalization of the Oromo people from Ethiopia’s economic, political, social and urban lives.
But, with whom are these American, European and African Officials meeting and talking in Ethiopia if they don’t meet a single Oromo? More specifically, if they don’t meet and speak with a single Oromo on an Oromo issue, in a country where the Oromo people constitutes close 50% of the population, with whom are they convening and speaking? Who is representing and speaking on behalf of the Oromo people in Ethiopia?
One may think the OPDO, the Oromo wing of the EPRDF– the ruling party in Ethiopia, is representing and speaking for the Oromo people. That is not actually the case. No official from the United States, the European Union or the African Union ever spoke and convened with a single OPDO officials over the last four months.
For instance, no one from the United States delegations that visited Ethiopia in recent months including Ambassador Samantha Power (United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York), Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs), Ms. Gayle E. Smith (Administrator of USAID), and Tom Malinowski ( the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor) convened and talked with a single OPDO officials both at federal and regional levels. They all met with non-Oromo Ethiopian officials with no Oromo present and discussed about the plight of the Oromo people and left, or they told us so.
Similarly, no one from the European Union officials who recently visited Ethiopia to express their concern on the Oromo people’s economic and political marginalization and exclusion and the ongoing bloody crackdown on the #OromoProtests met with a single OPDO official, both at the federal and regional levels.
Some might think these European, African and American officials who visited Addis Ababa over the last four months to express their concern about the systemic exclusion and marginalization of the Oromo people in Ethiopia are meeting and holding consultation with the only legally registered Oromo opposition party, the Oromo Federalist Congress(OFC), officials. That is not the case either.
In early February this year, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who went to Ethiopia to participate on the AU Summit held consultation with the Ethiopian authorities on the Oromo issues. She also said she met with the Oromo community representatives.
It turned out Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield did not meet with anyone from the Oromo wing of the EPRDF, the OPDO, as well as the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), the two known groups who claim to represent the Oromo.
Dr. Merera Gudina, the Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, stated on record that no one from OFC met with the delegation of Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield including Ms. Gayle E. Smith, the Administrator of USAID. It is mindboggling who met with Ms. Thomas-Greenfield delegation as there is no known Oromo community in Addis Ababa let alone Oromo community representatives.
Similarly, the African Union spokeswoman stated that African Union is talking with the Ethiopian Authorities behind closed doors on the #OromoProtests. But, who are these proxies with whom these officials are speaking on behalf of the Oromo people?
The representation of the Oromo professionals in the Ethiopian federal government bureaucracy including in the Ethiopian federal security and defense forces are virtually non-existent. One may blame the Amharic only monolingual language policy of the federal government for the total and complete exclusion of Afaan Oromo speakers, but that is just one reason among many written and unwritten exclusionary policies in place.
The critical questions though are, how long could the Ethiopian government keep the Oromo people in obscurity as non-existing majority with no representation?
And how long could the United States, the European Union and the African Union turn blind eyes and deaf ears to the plight of the Oromo people in Ethiopia?
Are violence and war necessary prerequisites for the rights of peaceful people like the Oromo to be respected?
Is investing in peace not less expensive in comparison to investing in war, violence and the resultant humanitarian crisis for the so called development and security partners of Ethiopia, particularly the United States and United Kingdom? #OromoProtests.
In past decades, older generations of Africans had to be tolerant of oppressive governments, which were often dictatorships—if only for their own safety. But the younger generation is more vocal, critical and demanding of their leaders, and unwilling to allow their questions to be left unanswered.
Those higher expectations have been voiced on the streets of African cities from Bujumbura to Cape Town in the last year, but increasingly the murmurings of protest and criticism start via social media apps on mobile phones. And Twitter, with its relatively low bandwidth consumption, good for the slower networks and 3G phones of many African consumers, has played a leading role as a platform for raising political awareness on the continent.
Data from the latest How Africa Tweets report conducted by Portland shows Twitter continues to provide an important platform for political discourse in Africa. The report analyzed 1.6 billion tweets and 5,000 hashtags from 2015 and found that politics-related tweets in Africa, while behind entertainment and commerce, were very much on the rise, and generally topped the rates of political tweets in the United States and United Kingdom.
Whatsapp adds end-to-end encryption; Viber to by-pass blockage
WhatsApp made waves yesterday with its decision to switch on end-to-end encryption for all its billion-plus users. “End-to-end” means the communication is encrypted before it leaves your phone and decrypted only after it reaches the other person’s phone, so nobody else, not even WhatsApp itself, can read or listen to it.
Encryption alone isn’t much help unless all the following things are happening as well.
You’re not storing messages on your phone
If you really need a message to stay secret, delete it after it’s read. If someone gets hold of your phone (e.g. by stealing it) and can get into it—as the FBI has now done with the iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter—everything that’s on there will still be accessible. Some messaging apps, such as Telegram, have an “auto-destruct” feature that deletes messages from the phone after a set period of time. WhatsApp currently doesn’t. (Telegram, on the other hand, doesn’t use end-to-end encryption by default; you have to choose it.)
You’re not backing up messages to the cloud
WhatsApp doesn’t store your messages on its servers. But in an iPhone, for instance, you can tell WhatsApp to keep a backup of messages in iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage service. Once the information is in the cloud, it could be subpoenaed by a government.
(The Guardian) — From strict privacy policies to its origins in Israel, there are a few things that distinguish Viber, the upstart free calls and messaging application, from its more established rival Skype. But the feature its 200 million international followers seem to appreciate most is the stickers.
A selection of images that can be texted as an alternative to written messages, the stickers available include love hearts, a red rose, the obligatory LOL, and the controversial middle finger hand gesture. There have been outraged calls for its removal.
Viber founder Talmon Marco is listening. “It will not be available by default with the next release of Viber,” he says.
Having begun life three years ago in the Israeli iPhone app store, before going international and onto other mobile platforms including Android, Blackberry and Windows, Viber took the fight to Skype’s home turf by launching a desktop version in May. Downloads onto personal computers are already in the millions.
Speaking from Singapore, Marco is busy preparing the next two important milestones. The first is a sticker store. While this may not sound momentous, it represents the company’s first foray into money making.
The app and all its current services, including calls between Viber users, will remain free. But in order to transform itself into a real business, Viber must search for revenues.
“We announced earlier this year that we will start monetising. The first thing we are going to announce is a sticker store, but we will be introducing additional paid services as early as this year.”
The second development, which is already being tested in Saudi Arabia, is technology that can stop Viber being blocked. During its rapid expansion, Viber has occasionally met resistance from both mobile networks and some of the more authoritarian states.
For some time, many Vodafone customers have been unable to use Viber without disruption, particularly those on pay-as-you-go tariffs, says Marco. Mobile operators have previously voiced concerns about free calls and messaging apps as a threat to their own revenues.
And there has been government opposition. Iran, Syria and Lebanon have all lifted previous blocks on Viber, but the service was recently barred by the Saudi Arabian authorities. Marco says the ban was introduced after Saudi officials indicated to Skype, Viber and the popular messaging service Whatsapp that they would be blocked if they did not agree to be monitored.
Social networks have allowed unprecedented freedom to communicate in Saudi Arabia, propelling a steep adoption curve. They are also relied on by the nation’s many foreign workers as a cheap way to keep in touch with families abroad.
“A few days ago we launched a test of Viber with enhanced connectivity,” says Marco. “This version allows users to connect in places where Viber is blocked. At present we have several thousand users in Saudi Arabia that can access Viber despite the local ban. Once the technology is rolled out, we will likely roll it out to Vodafone UK users as well.”
Marco says he is serious about the right to communicate, and the ability to do so in privacy. Viber’s policy is that if it receives a proper subpoena, it will provide records of who made and received calls, and when, but that no content from those conversations will be shared.
He says Viber does not “have the capability to listen to conversations”. Messages are stored, for two weeks or until they are opened by the recipient, whichever is shorter. Around 80% are deleted in less than a second. The messages are encrypted, and Marco says he has never handed the encryption key to any government.
“We have been asked if we would co-operate. We never provided anybody with anything that will let them listen to conversations or messages on Viber. I do believe people should take notice of the fact that the Saudi government has threatened three companies with shutdown of service – us, Skype and Whatsapp. Only one company was shut down. Users should ask themselves why the other companies were not shut down.”
In fact, Marco has himself been accused by at least one blogger of being an agent of the Israeli state. The rather sketchy claims are based on his military career. He spent four years in the Israel Defence Forces, rising to chief information officer of the central command.
But Viber was funded entirely by what Marco refers to as “friends and family”. “We never took a single dollar from the state of Israel, we are not even incorporated in Israel. We maintain a research and development centre in Israel and that’s it.”
For now, Viber is growing quickly. With just 120 staff, based in Cyprus and Belarus as well as Marco’s homeland, the app is being downloaded by more than 500,000 people a day and reached 200m downloads in May. Last time Viber released information on usage, in February, it was carrying 3bn minutes of calls and 12bn text messages every month. It has some way to go to catch up with Skype – which in April announced 2bn calls a day.
But on the mobile phone, if the iPhone app store reviews are to be believed, Viber is better liked. Skype’s transition to mobile has been rocky, with users complaining the service crashes. Most give Skype a one-star rating on iPhone, while Viber receives the maximum of five stars from most of its reviewers.
Time will tell whether revelations by the Guardian and other media about the extent of Skype’s cooperation with intelligence agencies will harm its business. But Marco believes individuals should care.
“Personally, I would be concerned being on a service knowing that everybody can listen to my conversations,” he says. “People should be concerned about their privacy.”
Events in Oromia have been described as the worst civil unrest in a decade.
Ethiopia’s Oromo Protest ‘Development,’ Displacement and Death
By Belén Fernández, 6 April 2016
Events in Oromia have been described as the worst civil unrest in a decade.
(telesurtv) — “This government is at least better than previous ones,” remarked a 74-year-old Eritrean man to me last month in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, his longtime residence. Clad in a tattered grey suit and speaking to me in Italian, the man was peddling a book of useful Amharic phrases he had compiled for the foreign visitor, proceeds of which would go toward the purchase of a second-hand comforter for his bed.
As it turned out, his assessment of the relative superiority of the current Ethiopian administration was for good reason: two of his children had been killed by a previous ruling outfit, the Derg military junta that took power in 1974 and began eliminating suspected opponents in droves.
Although that particularly bloody epoch came to an end in 1991, many a resident of Ethiopia might nowadays still have cause to complain about homicidal activity by the state. In the Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa, for example, there are claims that more than 200 people have been killed by Ethiopian security forces since November 2015, when protests broke out in response to the government’s so-called “Master Plan” to expand the boundaries of the capital by a factor of 20.
As a Newsweek article explains, the Oromo inhabitants of the region viewed the plan as “an attempted land grab that could result in the forced eviction of Oromo farmers and the loss of valuable arable land in a country regularly plagued by drought.”
This was no doubt a valid concern given the government’s established tradition of wantonly displacing Ethiopians in the interest of “development”—that handy euphemism for removing human obstacles to the whims of international and domestic investment capital.
Comprising some 35 percent of the population, the Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and have regularly decried discrimination by the ruling coalition party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which is dominated by ethnic Tigrayan interests. Politically motivated detention, incarceration, and other abuses have long characterized the landscape in Oromia, and the current protests have seen children as young as eight arrested.
Apparently, torture has also been a difficult habit for security forces to break.
And while the government has opted to shelve the Master Plan for now, protests in Oromia have continued. When I recently visited the town of Woliso, one of many protest sites in the region, residents pointed out that cancelling the plan wouldn’t bring back the dead people.
Events in Oromia have been described as the worst civil unrest in a decade. The United States, never too quick to condemn the excesses of its African ally, helpfully responded by emitting a “security message” for U.S. citizens and restricting the movements in Oromia of its government personnel; the British government, for its part, provided a color-coded map of Ethiopia on which a vast chunk of land around Woliso is designated inadvisable for “all but essential travel.”
Even without the Master Plan, meanwhile, the government is doing a decent job of courting investors. As I traveled west from Addis Ababa toward Woliso — a journey of about two hours — I passed sprawling factory complexes, including one featuring a Turkish flag flying alongside its more indigenous counterparts.
A January report by the Ethiopian News Agency outlines the government’s goal of luring Turkish and other investors to “priority areas” as part of an overall scheme to convert the economy from agriculture- to industry-based. Noting that “about 110 Turkish investment projects have become operational” and that “incentives from the government includ[e] electricity and cheap labor,” the report highlights the exploits of the Ayka Addis textile factory 20 kilometers west of the Ethiopian capital, in the Oromia region.
Launched in 2010 with a price tag of US$140 million, the Turkish factory is said to occupy several hundred thousand square meters of land.
The website of the Ethiopian Investment Commission furthermore lists Ayka Addis as one of “a number of private Industrial Zones” in Ethiopia, described as “success stories.” The site, which advertises thousands of hectares worth of “investment opportunities” in the country, cites perks including exemptions from customs duties for machinery and other equipment as well as certain exemptions from income taxes.
Indeed, the EPRDF can point to double-digit economic growth over recent years to justify plowing ahead with its development model. But there’s more to life than GDP — as sizable poverty-stricken sectors of the Ethiopian population can presumably confirm.
If we want to consider other, less superficial digits, we might take a look at the estimated 10.2 million Ethiopians currently “in need of urgent food assistance”— as reported, perhaps ironically, in a March edition of the English-language Ethiopian newspaper Capital, “the paper that promotes free enterprise.”
Additional troublesome statistics are contained in a 2014 BBC dispatch titled “The village where half the people are at risk of blindness.” The village in question is Kuyu, located in the Oromia region; the risk is due to infectious trachoma, “the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness.”
At the time of the article’s publication, 200,000 people were reportedly in danger of trachoma-induced blindness in Oromia alone. Quoted in the piece is one Simon Bush of the Sightsavers organization, who remarks that trachoma is “a disease of poverty” that is “endemic in areas which have poor access to water and sanitation.”
All of this is merely to point out that, in the end, a lot of people in Oromia and beyond might have greater priorities than, say, income tax immunity for international developers. Because it doesn’t take a functioning eyeball to see that such development models are themselves in need of some serious development.
Belén Fernández is the author of “The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work,” published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine.
Growing public dissatisfaction with ‘rent seeking’ and corruption in the ruling party and government culminated recently in the unprecedented Oromo protests.
Oromian Economist 
You must be logged in to post a comment.