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An Open Letter to President Barak Obama on his Ethiopia Visit
Dear Mr. President Obama,
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa wants to express its deep concern about what it regards as the wrong decision made by you and your staff in making a formal visit to Ethiopia in late July 2015. This will make you the first US leader to break the US promise not to reward dictators. History teaches us that the American constitution of 1787 is the world’s first democratic constitution, a landmark document of the Western World which protects the rights of all citizens in the USA. The following examples show America’s great support of human rights: During the First World War, America entered the war against Germany in 1917 to protect the world- as President Woodrow Wilson put it, “Making the World Safe for Democracy”. Later, Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of President Roosevelt and a human rightschampion, drafted in 1948 an internationally accepted human rights bill, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These and other democratic activities have made America a champion of democracy all over the world that all Americans should be proud of.
Mr. President,
Your decision to visit human rights perpetrators in Ethiopia contradicts your country’s democratic tradition. It also disrespects the Ethiopian nations and nationalities who are under the subjugation of the EPRDF/TPLF government.
Mr. President,
We can witness today the government of Ethiopia making a lot of noise about the flourishing of democracy in that country. The reality on the ground shows that the undemocratic behavior of the regime has been overshadowed by the apparently “democratic” and anti-terrorism façade that the regime has demonstrated for the past twenty-four years. During those years, thousands were killed, abducted, kidnaped, and imprisoned by this government because they simply tried to exercise their fundamental rights, such as free speech and expression, freedom of association and religion. University students, journalists, human rights activists, opposition political party members and their supporters, and farmers have been the major victims in Ethiopia.
When the EPRDF/TPLF Government took power in 1991 in Ethiopia, there were high expectations from both local and international communities that there would be an improvement in the human rights situation in Ethiopia from previous regimes. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, however, human rights abuses in Ethiopia worsened. The human rights violations in Ethiopia has been widely reported by local, regional and international human rights organizations as well as some Western governmental agencies including the US State Department’s yearly human rights reports.
Today, in Ethiopia political extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and disappearances, mass arrests and imprisonments- without warrants- in horrible prison conditions, extended imprisonment without trials, torture, denials and delaying of justice, discrimination in resource allocations and implementations, biased educational and development policies, denials of employment and job promotion opportunities and/or the misuse of coercive political tools are rampant. Social crises in Ethiopia are becoming deeper and deeper, while the socioeconomic gap between the favored (the politically affiliated groups and individuals) and the disfavored is getting wider and wider. For the majority of Ethiopians, life has become unbearable. It has even become very difficult for civil servants, the middle class, to support their families.
Mr. President,
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa strictly opposes your visit to Ethiopia. As the president of the country where democracy emerged and respect for human rights was first realized, we believe it would be immoral of you to reward human rights violators. We urge that you withdraw from your decision to visit Ethiopia.
HRLHA is a non-political organization (with the UN Economic and Social Council – (ECOSOC) Consultative Status) which attempts to challenge abuses of human rights of the people of various nations and nationalities in the Horn of Africa.
Liigiin Mirga Ilmaan namaa kan gaanfa Afrikaa,Daawwii Obaamaa balaaleeffate .
A first-of-its kind lawsuit that resumes in a U.S. District Court on Tuesday has drawn attention to the private surveillance-technology industry as a potential enabler of spying on Americans. The case involves a U.S. citizen who alleges that “clandestine computer programs” assumed “what amounts to complete control” over his personal computer and relayed copies of his electronic activity — including Skype calls, Internet searches and emails — to the Ethiopian government.
Kidane — the pseudonym under which the complainant is known in the case to protect his family from retribution — says his computer was monitored by spyware placed on his computer while he was living in the United States. He is an Ethiopian-born naturalized U.S. citizen who sought asylum in the U.S., where he has lived for more than two decades. His case is being closely watched by activists and civil liberties campaigners because of its potential implications for domestic cybersurveillance by security agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA).
A victory for Kidane “would be a clear statement from a U.S court to say that wiretapping without court authorization is illegal, no matter who does it. And yes, absolutely that would have implications for the NSA,” said his legal counsel, Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“We know that the NSA engages in full content wiretapping … without a court order authorizing it,” he added. “That conduct is simply illegal, and I think a U.S. court order holding Ethiopia responsible for doing the same thing but on a much smaller scale here hopefully would at least raise some eyebrows at the NSA.”
The suit alleges that FinSpy, an intrusion and surveillance program, was transmitted by a Microsoft Word document attachment sent to Kidane’s computer via email by or on behalf of the Ethiopian government. It began targeting Kidane’s machine in late October 2012.
Ethiopia was accused of deploying FinSpy in a March 2013 report by Citizen Lab, an organization that studies surveillance, on the basis of the IP address from which the software was transmitted. The attack on Kidane’s computer was found to have originated from the same server. Days after the Citizen Lab report appeared, the Ethiopian government tried to shut down FinSpy on Kidane’s computer, Cardozo alleged. However, there was a malfunction, and traces of the software remained on his client’s machine.
“We caught the Ethiopian government red-handed,” Cardozo said.
Kidane is seeking damages and an acknowledgment from the Ethiopian government that it acted outside the law. Ethiopia has stated in court documents that “computer addresses can be and are easily [faked],” but it has not denied the allegations. It has argued that because it is a foreign sovereign power, a U.S. court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case.
It is designed to evade detection and can bypass 40 anti-virus systems, according to the leaked company files.
The spyware tool is a part of the FinFisher product suite formerly under the umbrella of the U.K.-based Gamma Group, which, according to its website, provides “advanced technical surveillance, monitoring solutions and advanced government training.”
The FinFisher company, based in Munich, maintains that the products are sold to “government agencies only” and that the spyware is designed to target individuals and is not to intended for mass surveillance.
But the British government has criticized the group.Gamma lacks “due diligence processes that would protect against abusive use of its products,” according a U.K. government report.
Gamma does not say to which countries it has sent products, and it did not respond to an Al Jazeera query.
Even if the manufacturer’s intent is that FinSpy be used lawfully, human rights groups say the technology has been used to facilitate abuses. FinFisher command and control servers are said to be active in some three dozen countries, including Brunei, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates, according to 2013 report by Citizen Lab.
Bahraini authorities have been accused of using it to target three Bahraini activists who have been granted asylum in the United Kingdom. And the Lahore High Court is set to hear a case about the use of the spyware in Pakistan. The suit alleges that the government indiscriminately spied on its citizens with the help of the FinFisher technology.
But laws in many other countries governing the use of surveillance have not kept up with its rapid development and global reach.“The lawful interception of communications must be performed with proper legal authorization, but what this authorization looks like varies across jurisdictions,”said Privacy International.
“Often, laws are vague and broadly interpreted, courts authorize and review surveillance in secret, and individuals are monitored surreptitiously and are not notified that they were placed under surveillance,” the group said.
On 3 July 2015, representatives of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) presented their resolution to UNPO’s XII General Assembly, affirming their abhorrence of the current situation for Oromo people in Ethiopia, and expressing their desire for more genuine democracy, greater involvement from the international community, and an end to state-sponsored violence. The UNPO adopted the resolution, thus affirming its support for the Oromo’s demands for justice and equality.
Below is the full text of the resolution:
Resolution
The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) was established in 1973/1974 by Oromo nationalists in the heart of Oromia, Finfinne (Addis Ababa) to exercise the Oromo people’s inalienable right to national self-determination, to terminate a century of oppression and exploitation, and to form the independent republic of Oromia, or where possible, a political union with other peoples based on equality, respect for mutual interests and the principle of voluntary association. Today OLF has grown and…
Hacking Team boss: we sold to Ethiopia but ‘we’re the good guys’
Attack that revealed data exposing deals with dictatorships was on a ‘governmental level’ and ‘planned for months’, says David Vincenzetti in first statement
Hacking Team founder speaks out about attacks that revealed company deals with dictatorships. Photograph: LJSphotography / Alamy/Alamy
The founder of cybersecurity firm Hacking Team has finally spoken out over the attack that saw 400GB of its data dumped on the internet, insisting: “We’re the good guys”.
David Vincenzetti, 47, founder of the Milan-based company, told Italian newspaper La Stampa that the cyber attack – which saw the code for companies hacking tools and its email archive published online – was not enabled by poor security or weak passwords and that it could have only been an organisation “at the governmental level”.
Vincenzetti said: “This is not an impromptu initiative: the attack was planned for months, with significant resources, the extraction of data took a long time.” But he did not explain how Hacking Team apparently failed to notice the attack while it was taking place.
In response to concerns that Hacking Team supplied tools to repressive states which could be used to hack into and spy on almost anyone, Vincenzetti said: “We did [sell tools to Libya] when suddenly it seemed that the Libyans had become our best friends.” He also admitted providing tools to Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco and Sudan, as exposed by the company’s email archive, though denied dealing with Syria.
But Vincenzetti said: “The geopolitical changes rapidly, and sometimes situations evolve. But we do not trade in weapons, we do not sell guns that can be used for years.” He said that without regular updates its tools are rapidly blocked by cyber security countermeasures.
In the case of the Ethiopian government, which used Hacking Team tools to spy on journalists and activists, Vincenzetti said: “We’re the good guys … when we heard that Galileo had been used to spy on a journalist in opposition of the government, we asked about this, and finally decided to stop supplying them in 2014.”
Meanwhile, the impact of the Hacking Team data dump continues to affect wider cubersecurity. A further two vulnerabilities within Adobe’s Flash plugin have been exposed and are actively being exploited as a result of the attack, Adobe has confirmed.
SALTED HASH-TOP SECURITY NEWS: Hacking Team hacked, attackers claim 400GB in dumped data: An email from a person linked to several domains allegedly tied to the Meles Zenawi Foundation (MZF), Ethiopia’s Prime Minister until his death in 2012, was published as part of the cache of files taken from Hacking Team
On July 6, Ethiopia’s Federal High Court convicted leaders of the Ethiopian Muslims protest movement on charges of terrorism and conspiracy to create an Islamic state in Ethiopia. The verdict — against two Muslim journalists, 10 activists and six members of the Ethiopian Muslims Arbitration Committee — came after three years of a politically motivated trial whose outcome was long ago determined. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 3.
The trial and the verdict against the Muslim leaders is a political spectacle designed to conceal the regime’s reindoctrination campaign and silence long-standing grievances of the Muslim population. The crackdown on Muslim activists is part of the ruling party’s larger crusade against journalists, bloggers, activists and opposition leaders and supporters.
A peaceful movement
The Ethiopian Muslims movement was organized around the community’s three core demands: ending the government’s continued control of the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, the official Islamic authority in Ethiopia; terminating the controversial reindoctrination of Ethiopian Muslims launched by the government in July 2011; and reopening the Awoliya College, the country’s only Muslim college. Authorities closed the institution in 2011, alleging it had become a breeding ground for radicals.
While the government has always controlled the council, it was Awoliya’s closure and the coercive reindoctrination campaign that triggered the confrontation. The government denies allegations of interference and control of religious institutions, but a leaked audio from the initial indoctrination sessions shows that it has invited preachers from Lebanon to introduce Al-Ahbash, a supposedly moderate sect of Sunni Islam, to Ethiopia.
Authorities arrested members of the Arbitration Committee in July 2012 after negotiations with the government failed, and they were charged with “intending to advance a political, religious or ideological cause” by force, signaling the impending criminalization of the peaceful movement.
Repressive political ends
Since the disputed 2005 elections and the mass arrests of opposition leaders and journalists, the use of court proceedings for repressive political ends has become one of the signature traits of the Ethiopian government. The primary purpose of these administrative acts disguised as criminal proceedings is the elimination of political opposition and critical voices. These trials function not to adjudicate legal disputes but to remove actors from the democratic sphere. The judicial machinery is set in motion not to determine guilt or innocence but to sustain and consolidate the government’s authoritarian stranglehold on its people.
In order to build a coherent narrative, the government often recasts genuine grievances as a national security threat and reconfigures activism as criminal offenses. For example, it accused the jailed Muslim leaders of working in tandem with foreign terrorist groups to destabilize Ethiopia and undo its economic progress. By dramatizing the impending danger and alleged links to regional militant groups such as Somalia’s Al-Shabab and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, the defendants’ prolonged trial was used to create an alternative reality manufactured by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The accused Muslim leaders see their actions as a defense of the constitution and their trial as persecution — a dubious plot to delegitimize their peaceful protests against the injustices of the state.
The government presented various forms of evidence — including documents, audio and video of sermons and speeches by the defendants, witness testimonies and material obtained through surveillance. However, most of the evidence was presented in closed sessions, and the accused were not given adequate opportunities for cross-examination. The government has deployed stealth propaganda to incriminate the defendants. Since the committee members’ arrests, authorities have produced two fake documentaries intended to generate images and narratives of terrorism to scare Christian Ethiopians and Western observers, in flagrant violation of the presumption of defendants’ innocence until proven guilty.
The verdict of history
The accused Muslim leaders see their actions as a defense of the constitution and their trial as persecution — a dubious plot to delegitimize their peaceful protests against the injustices of the state. The government misrepresented their cause in a desperate attempt to suppress their aspiration and consolidate its control over religious institutions and doctrines.
As the judge read out the verdict, one of the committee members accused the judge of being complicit in the perversion of justice and reading a judgment “written by the security establishment,” according to defense lawyers. “We appear before this court not because we thought that this court is an institution of truth and justice that judges without fear of favor but to clarify the historical record,” another defendant said.
The trial has been an occasion for the defendants to mount their objection to the government’s oppressive narratives and expose its abuse of institutions of truth and justice. As part of their struggle over the historical record, the committee members petitionedAfrica’s top human rights watchdog, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to intervene in the matter. Given the justice system’s lack of independence, the defendants are seeking to present their version of events before an independent international institution, contesting the allegations and images the government created in a trial in which it is both prosecutor and judge. In February 2015 the commission granted a provisional measure, asking Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to undertake a full investigation into allegations of torture and other violations of due process rights.
The EPRDF is using counterterrorism as carte blanche to consolidate its authoritarian control over the country. Meanwhile, the United States, Ethiopia’s close ally in the global war on terrorism, has turned a blind eye to the misuse and abuse of its counterterrorism funding. President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to Addis Ababa would be seen as yet another seal of approval for the regime’s repressive practices and the ruling party’s landslide victory in the recent elections. Ethiopia’s sudden and unexplained release of journalists and bloggers ahead of Obama’s visit later this month is a strategic move meant to assuage Washington’s concerns and to minimize the bad publicity around their continued incarceration.
Regardless of the outcome of these trials, history’s judgment will be different. In the verdict of history and the archives and repertoires of the oppressed, these individuals, like many who came before them, will be seen as victims of a grotesque system of justice.
Awol Allo is a fellow in human rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Appeal Letter to President Obama from OCA-NA, an Umbrella Organization of NA Oromo Communities.
July 07, 2015President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500 http://www.whitehouse.gov
Tel: (202) 395-2020
Subject: Your Plan to Visit Ethiopia in July, 2015
Dear President Obama,
On behalf of the Oromo Communities in the United States, we, the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the (OCA-NA), are writing this urgent letter regarding your plan to visit Ethiopia in July 2015. OCA-NA is an umbrella organization of the Oromo communities, and represents thousands of citizen and legal residents of Oromo origin in the United States. It is organized to advocate for the human rights of the Oromo in Diaspora and those at home, in the Horn of Africa.
Like the majority of US citizens and the global community, we were excited when you were elected as the president of the United States in 2008 and expected huge progress for all freedom loving people in the world. Your statement in Ghana, during your first visit to Africa in 2009, in which you promised your administration’s commitment to support “strong and sustainable democratic governments” in Africa and to deny assistance to corrupt and dictatorial regimes confirmed our hopes and widened our imaginations. Despite moments of frustration, over the last seven years, we have continued to hope for your strong support for democracy and freedom in Ethiopia. On several occasions, the Oromo communities have appealed to your administration and to you personally, regarding the repressive acts of the Ethiopian regime. Incidentally, the Oromo residents of Washington, DC Metropolitan Area and representatives of communities from many states were holding a peaceful rally in front of the White House when they learned the announcement of your planned visit to Ethiopia.
It is with shock and profound sadness that we received this message. We are afraid that your visit sends the wrong messages to both the government of Ethiopia and the people suffering from government’s repressive policies. First, your visit emboldens the dictatorial EPRDF regime and encourages it to implement even more destructive and undemocratic policies. Portraying your visit as an endorsement of its misguided actions, the regime intensifies the violence against innocent people, continues violation of human rights, further suppresses dissidents, stifles legitimate grievances of citizens, and displaces farmers, the youth and intellectuals. Your meeting and photo ops with Ethiopian government officials will be exploited to the maximum by the regime to subdue the people claiming that your administration fully supports its dictatorial practices and the unbelievable 100 percent victory in its sham elections. Second, the Oromo in particular, and the Ethiopian people in general, would lose hope. They would feel the most powerful nation and its president, whose speeches and actions they passionately follow and expect highly from his administration, have ignored their plight. Your meeting in Addis Ababa with Ethiopian officials, who torment innocent people daily, will deepen the people’s disillusionment and frustrations. Third, the Oromo communities in US are extremely concerned that your visit will have negative implications for the policy objectives of your administration and the long term interests of United States in the region.
The Ethiopian government distorts facts, manipulates the reality, and represents itself as democratic. But, human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Survival International, Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa and the annual human rights reports of the State Department have attested to the massive human rights violations of the EPRDF regime. The well documented long list of imprisoned students, journalists, bloggers, and members of opposition political parties fully confirm the undemocratic nature of this regime. In a country like Ethiopia, with complicated and highly contested political issues, the recent 100 percent victory in the national elections is totally unbelievable, and leaves no doubt about EPRDF regime’s dictatorial rule. Finally, the Ethiopian government also exploits global and regional security issues. Declaring its support for the war on global terrorism and posing as an ally of the United States, the government uses resources it receives from big powers for suppressing dissent, terrorizing innocent people, and for subverting democratic processes. It should be clear that a regime that terrorizes its citizens cannot be a reliable ally to fight extremism.
Mr. President,
For these reasons, we are puzzled by your decision to visit Ethiopia and meet government officials who contradict your convictions and the principles of American democracy. First, we are strongly appealing to you to reconsider your planned trip to Ethiopia. Second, if your visit to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is absolutely necessary, we are strongly urging you not to meet Ethiopian government officials in public and not offer them the opportunity to use your visit for their domestic propaganda. Third, we also request you to make it clear to the people in public that the Ethiopian regime’s undemocratic practices are unacceptable. We believe the United States will not ignore the atrocities perpetrated against the 95 million people in favor of the oppressive regime in the name of alliance against global terrorism.
Sincerely,
Oromo Communities’ Association in North America (OCA-NA)
Over the last few years, sub-Saharan countries have seen significant economic growth. Seven of the ten fastest growing economies in the world between 2011-2015 come from Africa.
But this economic growth has not quite translated into significant poverty reduction. As analysts point out, the number of people on the continent living under $1.25 a day has risen from 358 million in 1996 to 415 million in 2011.
Tanzania for example, which saw an average of 6% GDP growth over the last several years, has grappled with this disconnect. “At the macro-level, we may be doing well, but it does not touch the unemployed or those involved in the informal economy,” a former cabinet minister told Quartz.
However, the latest data from the Pew Research Centre shows that there has been significant poverty reduction in some African countries.
The reduction of poverty and increase in the ranks of the slightly better-off “low-income” category is good news, but the challenge remains that many African countries have not been able to transition people into the middle class.
Africa is still the poorest region in the world overall: With nine out of 10 people either poor or low-income, the continent his home to 20% of the world’s poor, the data show. In some countries virtually the entire population is poor or low-income. The picture is somewhat brighter in Seychelles, Tunisia, South Africa, Morocco and Egypt, where 20% are either middle income or better
(Gulf News, NEW YORK, 10 July 2015): The dramatic lurch of hundreds of millions of people from poverty since the millennium began has not resulted in a truly global middle class, a new report says.
Instead, the improvement in living conditions for almost 700 million people has been a step forward from the desperate existence of $2 or less a day into a low-income world of living on $2 to $10 daily, the Pew Research Center says.
Its report, released Wednesday, looks at changes in income for more than 110 countries between 2001 and 2011, the latest that data for such a large range of countries was available.
The report comes just two days after the United Nations announced success in key development goals adopted by world leaders at the start of the millennium, including the lifting of more than one billion people out of extreme poverty.
Also worth noting: Europe and North America’s global share of the upper-middle income population fell from 76 per cent to 63 per cent by 2011 as the Asia-South Pacific region got richer. Africa remained the poorest region, with 92 per cent of its population either poor or low-income by 2011, and in Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Madagascar and Zambia, “poverty actually increased significantly.”
For years, reaching middle class has been held out as a goal for people in a growing number of countries. China’s rise in particular, with 203 million people there moving into a middle-income life over the decade starting in 2001, has resulted in what the report calls a “pivot to the east.”
More than half of the world’s middle-class population was living in the Asia and South Pacific region by 2011. That’s a jump from 31 per cent to 51 per cent in a decade. Largely because of Asia, the report says the world’s middle-income population nearly doubled over that time, from 399 million to 784 million.
But the gains are hardly seen everywhere. The report shows that while commodity-rich South America and a strengthening Eastern Europe, including Russia, also made strides into the middle class, Africa, India and many parts of Asia have yet to do the same.
The Pew report calls its overall findings “the uneven geography of the emerging middle class.”
The poverty rate for India, Asia’s other population giant, fell from 35 per cent to 20 per cent over the report’s period, but its middle class only grew from 1 per cent to 3 per cent. The report notes that India’s economic reforms began in 1991, 13 years after China, though the scope and pace of the countries’ reforms have varied.
South America almost reached the point where half of its population is at or above middle-income, at 47 per cent.
And despite China’s rise, more than three-fourths of its people were still poor or low-income. The only other countries seeing a significant shift into the middle class, where the poverty rate fell by at least 15 per cent and the middle-income population grew by at least 10 per cent, were Bhutan, Moldova, Ecuador, Argentina and Kazakhstan.
Among countries with a large number of high-income people, or those living on more than $50 a day, the United States stood out from its Western peers by slipping as its economy stalled. Its high-income population actually edged down, from 58 per cent in 2001 to 56 per cent in 2011.
Factors like conflict and falling oil prices likely have affected the findings for some economies, such as Russia’s, in the past few years, the report notes.
Washington wants a stable partner in the Horn of Africa. But cozying up to the repressive regime in Addis Ababa isn’t the way to go about finding one.
Later this month, President Barack Obama will become the first sitting United States president to ever visit Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, and a nation viewed by many as a bastion of stability in a region otherwise beset with civil strife. The trip — which will also include a stopover in Kenya — is being billed as part of the Obama administration’s regional efforts “to accelerate economic growth, strengthen democratic institutions, and improve security.”
These are indeed laudable goals and should be actively pursued by the U.S. government. But the timing and tenor of the visit to Addis Ababa sends a worrying signal that Washington’s priorities — not only in Ethiopia, but on the entire continent — are actually at odds with the president’s oft-repeatedrhetoric about advancing human rights and strengthening African democracy and institutions.
Let’s be clear: Ethiopia is not a model of democracy that should be rewarded with a presidential visit.
Let’s be clear: Ethiopia is not a model of democracy that should be rewarded with a presidential visit. The long-ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), now in power for 25 years, claimed a landslide victory inlegislative polls held in May, winning all 547 parliamentary seats, which places it among the ranks of North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq in terms of the sheer efficiency of its electoral sweep. The results should not have come as a surprise: theEPRDF swept the last four elections, including in 2010,in which it took a whopping 99.6 percent of the vote. This time around, Washington and the European Union did not even bother sending election observers, knowing full well that anEPRDF victory was a foregone conclusion.The lead up to the May 24 vote saw a widespread crackdown on journalists, human rights activists, and opposition supporters. What’s worse, Obama’s trip was announced on June 19, the same week it was revealed that threeopposition party members were murdered in the country, all under highly suspicious circumstances.
So why is President Obama visiting a country where democracy is in such a sorry state and where human rights violations remain systemic and widespread? Because, despite the obvious lack of political rights and civil liberties in Ethiopia, and its status as one of the top jailers of journalists in the world, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn is palatable to Washington and other Western donors precisely because of who he is not: a retrograde dictator in the mold of his regional counterparts, Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea or Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. The brutal and oft heavy-handed oppression exhibited by the latter two regimes is brazen, whereas Desalegn and the EPRDF work within the (regime-controlled) judicial system, giving their repression a veneer of legality.
A former academic, Desalegn’s elevation to the highest office in Ethiopia came courtesy of the sudden death in 2012 of Ethiopia’s strongman, Meles Zenawi, who had ruled the country for two decades. Zenawi was a favorite in Washington: Though he brutally crushed political opponents and implemented a series of draconian laws meant to muzzle the press and stifle dissent, he also managed to establish an image of Ethiopia as a stable and growing economy in the troubled Horn of Africa. Zenawi’s Western allies, particularly the United States, applauded the country’s modest economic growth and the regime’s willingness to endorse the so-called “War on Terror.” As a result, leaders in Washington routinely turned a blind eye to the EPRDF’s rampant human rights abuses and its ongoing suppression of civil society, the media, and political opposition.
Several key Obama advisers were close associates and personal friends of the late prime minister. Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor and former top diplomat at the United Nations, for instance, made no secret of her esteem for and friendship with Zenawi, whom she eulogized as “a servant leader.” Another top Obama aide, Gayle Smith — the current nominee to lead the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provided Ethiopia nearly $500 million in 2013 — was also never shy about her admiration for Zenawi.
Desalegn, largely seen as a compromise candidate for the shaky, ethnicity-based EPRDF coalition, has continued to rule in the same mode — and Washington’s perverse need to embrace a dictator in technocrat’s clothing has continued. This March, two months before Ethiopia’s sham elections, U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman publicly praised Ethiopia’s “democracy” during a visit to the country, which a state department spokesperson further bolstered by saying “her statements fully reflect the U.S. Government’s positions.” Even a cursory glance at Ethiopia’s abysmal human rights record would turn this bogus claim on its head.
On June 25, the State Department released its annual human rights reporton Ethiopia, citing widespread “restrictions on freedom of expression,” “politically motivated trials,” “harassment and intimidation of opposition members and journalists,” “alleged arbitrary killings and torture,” “limits on citizens’ ability to change their government,” and restrictions on freedom of assembly, association, and movement. Yet Ethiopia’s donors, including the United States, which provides nearly half of Ethiopia’s national budget, have continued to ignore these signs of trouble. The facade of economic growth and the West’s eagerness for a “development success story” to tout on the international stage has seemingly precluded genuine diplomatic pressure to reform.
To be sure, deeply afflicted countries surround Ethiopia. Despite recent progress, Somalia faces credible and ongoing threats from the al-Qaeda affiliated militant group, al-Shabab. South Sudan has devolved into an intractable civil war with no end in sight. Kenya has yet to fully overcome the ramifications of post-election violence in 2007–2008, not to mention its inability to ward off al-Shabab’s cross border attacks. Eritrea, dubbed by some as the North Korea of Africa, remains a highly repressive police state from which hundreds of thousands continue to flee. Further afield, Yemen is in a state of bloody lawlessness. By contrast, Ethiopia has remained largely stable.
Despite this outward veneer of stability and progress, Ethiopia’s current system is unsustainable. A one-time vocal opposition has been systematically weakened. Ethnic discontent is rife. Religious revival has been met with brutal state repression. Economic prosperity is not widely shared and inequality continues to rise. Nepotism and corruption plague an already bloated bureaucracy. Youth unemployment is a persistent and serious challenge. Independent media, the human rights community, and civil society writ large have been decimated. And countless citizens arebeing displaced from their ancestral lands under the guise of development. These factors, taken together, may ultimately sow the seeds of a tangled conflict that could reverberate across an already troubled and tense region.
In this context, Obama’s upcoming visit to Ethiopia sends the wrong message on Washington’s stated commitment to strengthening democratic institutions — not strongmen — in Africa. What is more, turning a blind eye to widespread human rights abuses for the sake of counterterrorism cooperation and so-called “regional stability” may prove to be a self-defeating strategy that is bad in the long term for the United States, as well as for citizens throughout the Horn of Africa.
If the United States wanted to help strengthen democratic institutions and stand in solidarity with Africans, who are now more than ever demanding democracy, then Nigeria would have been a much better alternative model. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its largest economy, held landmark elections this March, in which an opposition candidate ousted an incumbent who then graciously accepted defeat. In Ethiopia, this scenario remains a pipe dream for its 96 million citizens. The EPRDF is now set to lord over the country at least until 2020, allowing the party to further entrench its repressive machinery and to extend its dominance long beyond its current mandate.
It is unlikely that Obama and his handlers will change the itinerary of his upcoming trip. However, it is not too late for the president, and for the United States government, to speak honestly to the people of Ethiopia, making it clear that the historic visit is not intended to validate or otherwise endorse the EPRDF’s autocratic dominance. Rather, Obama should be clear with EPRDF leadership, both in private and most importantly, in public that the United States appreciates the complex challenges facing the country and that repression is not an acceptable means of addressing them.
Obama and his staff should also meet openly with Ethiopia’s political opposition and civic leaders, including those based in the country and abroad in Kenya, where many have been forced to relocate due to increasing oppression at home. Obama should additionally raise the issue of the recently murdered opposition members, as well as the many cases of journalists, activists, and political prisoners who have been wrongly jailed and arbitrarily detained under a raft of draconian laws that have criminalized dissent.
In the long-term, the U.S. government should redouble its commitment to Ethiopia’s beleaguered civil society. Obama’s 2016 budget request includes more than $400 million in assistance to the country, of which less than 1 percent is allocated for democracy and human rights programming — an actual improvement from last year, when zero was devoted to this vital sector, much of the spending going towards health and humanitarian aid. A robust, reenergized, and empowered Ethiopian civil society, in which human rights groups are free to operate, is central to deepening democratic principles, not only in Ethiopia, but also throughout the East and Horn of Africa.
Overall, Obama must firmly reiterate that stability and security, and respect for basic human rights and the legitimacy of civil society, are not mutually exclusive objectives in Ethiopia, or elsewhere. Rather, he should be unequivocal — in both rhetoric and in practice — that, together, these issues help form an unshakable and long-term pillar for U.S. engagement on the African continent.
Documents obtained by hackers from the Italian spyware manufacturer Hacking Team confirm that the company sells its powerful surveillance technology to countries with dubious human rights records.
Internal emails and financial records show that in the past five years, Hacking Team’s Remote Control System software — which can infect a target’s computer or phone from afar and steal files, read emails, take photos and record conversations — has been sold to government agencies in Ethiopia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Azerbaijan and Turkey. An in-depth analysis of those documents byThe Intercept shows Hacking Team’s leadership was, at turns, dismissive of concerns over human rights and privacy; exasperated at the bumbling and technical deficiency of some of its more controversial clients; and explicitly concerned about losing revenue if cut off from such clients.
An email from a person linked to several domains allegedly tied to the Meles Zenawi Foundation (MZF), Ethiopia’s Prime Minister until his death in 2012, was published Sunday evening as part of the cache of files taken from Hacking Team.
In the email, Biniam Tewolde offers his thanks to Hacking Team for their help in getting a high value target.
Around the time the email was sent, which was eight months after the Prime Minister’s death, Tewolde had registered eight different MZF related domains. Given the context of the email and the sudden appearance (and disappearance) of the domains, it’s possible all of them were part of a Phishing campaign to access the target. Who the high value target is, remains unknown.
An invoice leaked with the Hacking Team cache shows that Ethiopia paid $1,000,000 Birr (ETB) for Hacking Team’s Remote Control System, professional services, and communications equipment.
Meeshaalee fi tajaajili dhaabbanni kun Mootummotaa fi dhaabbiilee basaasaaf kennu dhimmoota dhuunfaa dhaabbiilee qoratootaa fi Miidiyaalee keessa seenuun miidhaa geesisaa jira.
Dhaabbanni Reporters Without Borders kaampaanii basaasaa Hacking Team kana toora kaampaanota diina Interneetii ittiin jedhe galmeessee bubbuleera.
Dhaabbanni nama hatuu ofii isaatiin nan hatama jedhee yaadee hin beeku kan jedhe gabaasichi,akka ragaa amma argame kanaan faayiloota ,Imeelota dokumantoota adda addaa argatan ifa gochaa jiru.
Akka gabaasa Human Rights Watch tti Dhaabbanni Hacking Team Mootummaan Sudan yuuroo kuma 400 fi kuma 80 dhaabbata kanaaf kennuu isaa kanaan dura kan haale oggaa ta’u, amma garuu ragaa kanaan ifattii saaxilameera.
Dhaabbanni Mootummota Gamtoomanii tibba sana Mootummaan Sudaan dhimma kana akka qulqulleessuuf xalayaan kan gaafate yemmuu ta’u, gocha sana hin raawwannee jechuun Sudaan haaltee turuun ishee ni yaadatama.
Daabbanni Mirga dhala namaaf falmu Human Rights Watch Bitootessaa bara 2015 ibsa baaseen,Mootummaan Itoophiyaa meeshaale basaasa spyware jedhaman biyya alaatii galchuun yaada walabaa lammiilee isaa ukkamsaa jira.
DAMBALII, a new Afaan Oromoo drama series on Oromia Broadcasting Service (OBS), premiered on 28th June 2015, in Finfinnee at Waltajjii Oromoo ( Oromo Cultural Center). Here are PREVIEW of DAMBALII on OBS and some pictures of the beautiful event.
Fiilmiin (Draamaan) Afaan Oromoo haaran Dambalii jedhamu Waxabajjii 28 Finfinnee galma Waltajjii Oromootti eebbifame. Eebba Dambalii irratti uummanni Oromoo heddumaan waan irratti qooda fudhateef galma guutee irraa hafe. Ummanni Oromoo Finfinnee artistoota Oromoo fi aartii Oromoo amma biqilee dagaagaa jiru deeggaruuf akkanatti qooda irratti fudhachuun isaanii kan hedduu nama boonsu dha. Itti dabaleesi sab quunnamtii adda addaatiin namoonni hedduun eebba kana caqasuun haala kanatti akka hedduu itti gammadan hubatamee jira.
The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) was established in 1973/1974 by Oromo nationalists in the heart of Oromia, Finfinne (Addis Ababa) to exercise the Oromo people’s inalienable right to national self-determination to terminate a century of oppression and exploitation, and to form independent republic of Oromia, or where possible, a political union with other peoples based on equality, respect for mutual interests and the principle of voluntary association. Today OLF has grown and expanded to all parts of Oromo land (Oromia). During the last 40 years, the organization has transformed itself to one of the leading political force in the region. It has brought about or influenced several positive changes in the Oromo society where it has the unparalleled support from all sectors of the population.
The Oromo constitute more than 40% of Ethiopia’s projected 98.9 Million inhabitants. Oromos maintain distinct and homogenous culture and common language, history, descent, and separate territory from Abyssinians who created the Ethiopian empire state. During their long history, the Oromos developed their own cultural, social and political system known as the Gadaa system. The Gadaa is a democratic political and social institution that governed the life of every individual in the society for life long until it was systematically suppressed by the occupiers.
The UNPO General Assembly,
Underlining the persistent violation of human rights in Oromia, Ethiopia that includes arbitrary killings, disappearance, torture, beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees by security forces, life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention; detention without charge and lengthy pre-trial detention, privacy rights including illegal searches; land grabbing, restrictions on academic freedom, restrictions on freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression and movement; alleged interference in religious affairs, violence and discrimination against women and abuse of children.
Realizing similar reports showing a systematic nature of human rights violations targeting particular people, the Oromo having been the main victim over many years. The Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), a UN organ, in 1997 stated that “ … military and police forces have been systematically targeting certain ethnic groups, in particular the Anuak and the Oromo peoples, and [further asserting the prevalence of] summary executions, rape of women and girls, arbitrary detention, torture, humiliations and destruction of property and crops of members of those communities.”
Reflecting on Human rights researcher Professor Tronvoll Kjetill ‘s well-founded claim about a systematic flagrance of human rights in Ethiopia. His study asserts ethnic identity in Ethiopia as a political stigma. Based on primary data mined from major human rights organizations and country reports spanning over ten years he has to say, “from 1995 to 2005, the majority of the reported human rights violations in Ethiopia have occurred in the Oromia regional state, [adding that in all those] years but one, extra-judicial killings and arbitrary arrests have been reported, [and that no any] other regional state has such a consistency of reported human rights violation during this time period.”
Giving consideration to a recent report corroborating these systematic violations. In March 2014, Human Rights Watch‘s report under the title “They Know Everything We do: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia” which highlighted that the government in its pursuit of restricting the rights of the citizens to “freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly[ through the application of repressive laws] to decimate civil society organizations and independent media and target individuals with politically motivated prosecutions, [that the Oromo people] particularly affected, with the ruling party using the fear of the ongoing but limited insurgency
Remembering the adoption of very aggressive and unpopular laws such as the press proclamation, the Charity and Civic society Proclamation and the Anti-Terrorism proclamation followed by persistent charges brought against members of the free press and opposition figures,
Noting the situation regarding human rights, the rule of law, democracy and governance in all countries of the Horn of Africa has been of great concern to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), African Union (AU), European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN) for many years;
Whereas there are credible reports of arbitrary arrests, forced labour, torture and maltreatment of prisoners, as well as persecution of journalists and political repression in the region,
Referring to the Genocide Watch report released on 12th of March 2013 that considered Ethiopia has already reached Stage 7, genocidal massacres, against many of its peoples, including the Anuak, Ogadeni, Oromo and Omos, Amnesty International report of October 2014 that indicated a widespread and systematic repression of the Oromo people2 . As the title of the report itself convenes for special concern, saying: “Sweeping repression in the Oromia region of Ethiopia” only “BECAUSE I AM AN OROMO” , the recorded 61 deaths and 903 wounded of Oromo mainly students during peaceful protests in April/May 2014 against the drafted Addis Ababa Master Plan4 and
Reaffirming the US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014 on Ethiopia “Prison and pre-trial detention centre conditions remained harsh and in some cases life threatening” and the deep concern of the UN Committee Against Torture in its 2010 report about “the routine use of torture” by police, prison officers, and other members of the security forces–including the military–against political dissidents and opposition party members, students, alleged terrorists,…”. The recorded death of student Nuredin Hassen, Galana Nadhii and Nimona Tilahun after severe torture indicates that no any tendency of improvement in maltreating of the prisoners.
Regretting that the EPRDF demonstrated its continued dominance in nationwide elections for local and city council positions held in 2013 and National Election held in May 2015. EPRDF affiliated parties won all but five of approximately 3.6 million seats; 33 opposition parties boycotted the elections. It also fully controlled and declared a landslide victory of the May 2015 National Election.
Understanding further that in its latest report the Committee to Protect Journalists, based on empirical evidence, put Ethiopia the fourth worst place in the world for journalists and one of “the 10 most censored countries” and “ the top 10 worst jailers of journalists worldwide.”
Considering 17 Oromo journalists that have been fired from Oromia Radio and Television Organization (ORTO) since June 25, 2014 Proclaiming the adoption of the National Policy on Women (1993) and the National Action Plan on Gender Equality (2006-2010) and some commendable provisions of the National Constitution discrimination and sexual violence against Oromo women in Ethiopia is still widespread5 , notably in rural areas.
Emphasising to take all necessary measures to ensure any violence against women is prosecuted and punish adequately and that the victims have immediate means of redress and protection, by the CEDAW Committee 2004 recommendation. More generally, to ensure that all the CEDAW Committee 2004 recommendations be fully implemented
Affirming the Human and democratic rights enshrined in the constitution of Federal Republic of Ethiopia that grants the citizen to practise,
Fully believing the international community has a conventional moral duty to inquire the Ethiopian government to a bid to its constitution and international bill of rights it signed,
Appreciating the right groups such as AI, Human Rights Watch, HRLHA, Genocide Watch, OSG, OSGA and etc. that operated under significant government restrictions and managed to outreach the curtailed atrocities committed by EPRDF regime. a ruling regime that remains in power for 25 years by blocking every opportunity of transformation to genuine democracy and blatant disregard and denial for free and fair election.
Condemning boundless human atrocities such as extrajudicial killings, Disappearance, Torture, arbitrary arrests of innocent people, prolonged detention without trial, sexual violence, eviction from their land6 committed by Ethiopian government,
Expresses its grave concern at the continuing imprisonment Oromo students, journalist and political leaders, without having been tried by a court of law, and demands the immediate releases;
Therefore, we, the UNPO General Assembly:
Solemnly affirms that the government of Ethiopia is systematically committing massive human rights violations against the Oromo people
Requests to ensure that those responsible for killings, beatings, torture and other grave human rights violations be brought to justice
Calls upon the Ethiopian government to fully respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of media and freedom of conscience;
Calls on the EU, UN, AU and democratic governments to reconsider their approach to Ethiopia if no progress is made towards compliance with the essential elements of various international agreements in particular on core human rights issues such as access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit prisons, release of the political prisoners and etc.;
Deplores the unlawful use of lethal force by the government security force. A sexual violation that destabilise the family and eviction of the Oromo from their ancestral land that is designed to uproot the indigenous people.
Condemns the ever more frequent attacks of armed forces, Police and security agents on peaceful demonstrators.
Insists that in the wake of participation by the European Union and international community in resolving the political problem of the country
Urges the Ethiopian authorities to review the press law, Civil Society Law and Anti-Terrorist proclamation adopted in 2009
Urges the Ethiopian authorities to investigate the allegations of harassment and arbitrary arrests affecting the opposition and civil society organisations and to bring those responsible to trial;
Urge and Encourages Ethiopian authorities to release Oromo political prisoners languishing in prisons for many years unconditionally
Instructs UNPO its President to forward this resolution to the Ethiopian government, to the Council, the Commission and Parliament of EU, to the PanAfrican Parliament and the Executive Council of the African Union, to UN and some democratic governments.
Macha-Tulama Association – USA, Inc
811 Upshur ST NW
Washington, DC 20011
contact@machatulama.org
July 2, 2015
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
NW Washington, DC 20500
Your Excellency President Obama,
The Board of Directors of the Macha-Tulama Association (MTA), U.S.A., is writing this urgent letter regarding your plan to visit Ethiopia in July 2015. The MTA is a non-profit organization incorporated in the U.S.A. because it was banned in Ethiopia. It advocates for human rights and for social justice for the Oromo and others in the Horn of Africa and beyond. For almost a quarter of a century, Ethiopia has been ruled by the Tigre People’s Liberation Front, which calls itself the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. This minority regime has been engaging in sham elections, which are elections only in name. The regime disregards all the principles and practices of democracy in spite of its pretension to be democratic since 1991. The regime’s promise of democratization by restructuring the state, liberalizing the economy, and respecting and protecting human rights has been subverted. While claiming to be a democratic government in order to receive ‘development aid’ and to gain political legitimacy, this regime has killed, imprisoned and tortured the Oromo and other ethno-national groups who have struggled for democracy, national self-determination, human rights, and social justice. In fact, the Oromo people have been mainly targeted for elimination and repression because they are the largest national group in Ethiopia, and they have started to recover, manifest, and exercise their rights to culture, history, and language, which have been repressed by the state of Ethiopia for over a century.
According to a recent Amnesty International report, entitled ‘Because I am Oromo: Sweeping Repression in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia,’ between 2011 and 2014 alone, at least 5000 Oromo were arrested, tortured, and sentenced with extra-judicial executions because of being Oromo and for also peacefully demonstrating against the regime’s land grabbing policies and the so-called Addis Ababa Master Plan, intended to evict millions of Oromo farmers from their homelands in and around Addis Ababa (which the Oromo call Finfinnee), the capital city of Ethiopia. Since 1992, several human rights organizations have been reporting that Oromo prisoners have been predominantly populated Ethiopian prisons and other detention places. As a result these prisons and concentration camps speak Afaan Oromo (the Oromo language), as testified by many nonOromo prisoners.
Mr. President,
It is with shock and profound sadness that we received the message of your intention to visit Ethiopia in July. As the leader of a great country that subscribes to the principles of democracy and fundamental rights and liberties for all human beings, and as the leader of a country whose foreign policy in principle is committed to promoting the ideals of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy around the world, we believe your visit will send a wrong message to the regime and its likes across the globe that they can get away with grotesque violations of human and democratic rights as long as they remain ‘strategic allies’ to the United States.
Mr. President,
Because of these reasons, we earnestly request that you rethink your intention to visit Ethiopia. We believe your visit to the country also sends three messages: First, it encourages the Ethiopian government to continue intensifying its repressive policies. If your government continues to support and finance the regime regardless of what it does, the regime will see no reasons for changing its violent and dictatorial policies. Second, your visit to Ethiopia demonstrates to the affected people that the United States government only gives lip service to democracy and human rights while supporting the dictatorial minority regime of Ethiopia. To the 90 million people who are facing massive human rights violations in Ethiopia, particularly to the over forty million Oromo, your visit will mean that the U.S.A. does not care for the aspiration to live in a free, open, and democratic society. Your visit will also mean that human rights and democratic self-governance are not part of the list of U.S. priorities in Africa and beyond. Third, it convinces the people in Ethiopia and beyond that your policy is not different from some of your officials, such as Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, who recently undermined the process of democratization in Ethiopia by endorsing the regime’s record whose democracy, she said, is ‘improving.’ The Undersecretary has been roundly criticized, and we believe, rightly so.
In closing, we would like to bring to your attention that when, in July 2009, you visited Ghana, you made a speech in which you promised that the U.S.A. does not, and will not, support dictatorship and strongmen, and that you seek to assist the development of “strong and sustainable democratic governments” everywhere in Africa. We believe it is only appropriate now to request that you do not ignore your commitment and promise of that historic speech you made in Accra, Ghana, by visiting Ethiopia, the graveyard and prison house of thousands of men and women who have been killed, imprisoned, tortured, maimed, and disfigured only because they have aspired to exercise their God-given rights and to live in a democracy by demanding national self-determination and democratic rights in their own country.
Sincerely,
Asafa Jalata, PhD.,
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Macha-Tulama Association &
Professor of Sociology and Global and Africana Studies
Interventions from neighbours have not brought Somalia the promised peace.
By Abukar Arman*, Aljazeera, 09 May 2014
One of the most potent intoxicants in Africa today is the canned phrase “African solutions for African problems”.
While “ASAP” is an acronym that connotes a timely and efficient result, most if not all, operations that are veiled with the romantic motto, have proven that they are not indigenously conceived, funded or driven.
Since this phrase entered the African lexicon in 2007, it has proved to be of no substantive value to the continent or its people. Contrary to what it was originally intended, the phrase has been taken hostage by domestic political sloganeers and foreign elements eager to advance zero-sum interests. It also became the ideological impetus that helped establish multi-national African forces such as AMISOM.
As is clear in Somalia, this kind of politico-military system – especially when neighbouring states are directly involved – routinely contain or “solve” a problem by creating several newer ones that perpetuate dependency, exploitation and indeed subjugation.
“When one asks a powerful neighbour to come to aid and defend one with his forces…These forces may be good in themselves, but they are always dangerous for those who borrow them, for if they lose you are defeated, and if they conquer you remain their prisoner,” forewarned Niccolo Machiavelli several centuries ago.
In Somalia, not only did our current leadership, and that of the last decade, fail to heed the aforementioned warning, they obediently competed and outperformed each other to prove themselves as unyielding loyal subjects. It is clear that no Somali can pursue a political career in his own country without first getting Ethiopia’s blessings. Already, Ethiopia has installed a number of its staunch cohorts in the current government and (along with Kenya) has been handpicking virtually all of the new regional governors, mayors, etc.
Byproduct of vicious fratricide
Recently, while reading on poverty, I came across the anthropologist Oscar Lewis’ (controversial) theory “the culture of poverty” in which he argues that while poverty might be systemic and generational, it fosters unique self-perpetuating value system that ultimately becomes engrained in the poor person’s way of life.
People who are altered by that attitudinal phenomenon commonly have “a strong feeling of marginality, of helplessness, of dependency, of not belonging. They are like aliens in their own country… (and) have very little sense of history”.
I could not help but reflect on our own self-defeating, self-perpetuating predicament.
As in Stockholm syndrome, a good number of the Somali leadership have become emotionally and politically bonded with the very power that abused them and fuelled enmity between them (off and on) since the seventies.
Capitalising on that psychological advantage, Ethiopia has managed to get the exclusive right to set up an embassy inside the Villa Somalia (government compound), independent “consulates” in Somaliland and Puntland, and independently operating intelligence command centres in each of these balkanised political entities. To further complicate matters, Ethiopia has signed independent “military treaty” with each of these political entities.
Yet, the current leadership – as those before them – seems content with such arrangement. That, needless to say, motivated Kenya to follow the same effective strategy – isolate the centre from the periphery, and lure the latter entities into deals that they can’t refuse.
Exposing the lame ducks
Only a few weeks into the Ethiopia-led (AMISOM) military operation, the UNSGR warned the next violence that targets the UN may force it out of Somalia.
“I am deeply conscious that if we make a mistake in our security presence and posture, and suffer a significant attack, particularly on the UN, this is likely to mean to us withdrawing from Somalia,” said UN Special Representative Nicholas Kay.
To underscore his message, he adds this: “There are scenarios in which if we take further significant losses, then that would have a strategic effect on our mission.”
Was this a reckless telegraphing intended to implicitly dare al-Shabaab with a “Go ahead, make my day; force us back to Nairobi” message? Or was it a cryptic warning intended to preempt the Ethiopia/Kenya tag-team from getting too creative in their covert operations intended to manipulate facts on the ground?
While you ponder, consider adding this into your calculus: The UN deliberately bypassed AMISOM when it commissioned a Ugandan contingent of over 400 Special Forces to guard its facilities and staff. This particular contingent is neither officially part nor does it take any orders from AMISOM. Why?
Because, the controversial implanting of Ethiopia and Kenya into AMISOM has changed its dynamic from a peacekeeping force into a political vehicle.
Ambassador Kay is too experienced to make haphazard security-related statements. He was well aware of what he was saying and where he was saying it. He affirms that awareness in his presentation. Between the lines he was signalling his frustration with the Ethiopia-driven AMISOM, and how he and UNSOM ended up biting the dust. I have argued before that the Ethiopia/Kenya and US/UK interests are in an imminent collision course. read more at:-
British Ambassor: Ethiopian election results bad for democracy
July 3, 2015 Ethiopia(Horn Affairs) — Britain’s Ambassador said: “It is starting to sound as if the ruling party and its allies will have a 100 percent of the seats in parliament. And I think that is not good for democracy; that is what you get in places like North Korea. But actually in Ethiopia you need some diversity of opinion in parliament.”
The Ambassador made the remark during an interview with the English-weekly The Reporter. The interview, published in the weekend, was conducted days before the officially announcement of final election results last Friday. Nonetheless, a total win by the ruling party EPRDF and its allies was widely expected since the last week of May.
Western diplomats in Addis Ababa, unlike elsewhere, seldom remark on domestic politics, especially since the 2005 post-election crisis that impacted relations with a couple of diplomatic missions.
Here is the Ambassador’s comment:
Question: What is your take on the recent election in which the ruling party won all the 547 seats in parliament? Would you characterize it as free, fair and credible?
Beekan Guluma Erena was born in April 24, 1984 at West Oromia, East Wollega zone, in a district called Nunu Kumba. He was born in a very extended family. His father had three wives of which Beekan’s mother was the third. Finally, he had 16 children from those three wives. There were only few children that got educational opportunity. Most of them remained farmers. Beekan faced many ups and downs of life due to the number of his brothers and sisters and unbalance of resource with the number of family households.
Most of the time, his brothers and sisters had continues conflict on the issue of land. This made Beekan face great challenges until he joined Jimma University, Ethiopia for his BED degree. He even remembers that there was a time at which he was forced to drop his education because he couldn’t continue. He was educated without the support of his family.
When he was primary school student, he used to purchase commodities like coffee, salt, lemon and so on and bring them to the market from a distant area walking more than 30 kilo metres on his feet. The he sells the commodities and makes use of its benefit. He spend some years on street with homelessness.
After he joined University to attend higher education, somebody gave his a photo camera called “Yashka.” This was good opportunity for Beekan. Then he used the device for commercial purpose in the campus free times and this was the only financial source he had in the University.
Beekan was medium student at primary education level. Though he made sure that he had educational potential, the bad situation he lived in restricted his ability not to be released. Whatever his situation was, he firmly believed that the best tool to eradicate poverty is education.
He had many memories of what he contributed for his society. To mention one, when he was grade 9 student, he made a tent whose width was only about 2 metres and began to teach uneducated people in his area. Because most of his students were farmers, the only conducive time for this activity was from 5:00 am to 6:30 am. He taught more than 78 people who never got the education opportunity to go to school. At last, 40 students could successfully be promoted to grade two. Now they are in the university. The local government that understand his innovative works supported him by providing him necessary materials like chalk and books. Finally, Mr. Guluma Erena—Beekan’s father—disallowed him not to teach people in his compound because he was afraid that the government may take the land from him and build school there. He got a certificate for this contribution. Finally, Beekan disappear from the area for the difficulties he face many times. Then after his mother passed away and he grown up without family.
Beekan had a dream to be lecturer when he was only grade 7. Fortunately, his childhood dream was realised and he became a lecturer in Ambo University, Ethiopia. Having taught for one years in Ambo University, he was sent to Addis Ababa University to pursue his second degree. He received his M. ED by Oromo language teaching and literature from there and got back to Ambo University. Based on his successful performance, the University after teaching three years sent him again to Addis Ababa for for his PhD education. He is one of the students from the department of Documentary Linguistics and Culture. He is conducting research on a title called ‘Documenting oral poetry and its semantic analysis.
Besides his teaching profession, he is also successful writer. He remembers that he used to write what was in his mind during his primary education. He wished to be a good writer and now he has realised that. Currently, he wrote and published 28 books in his mother tongue that is Oromo. He has been edited more than 60 books which also written in Afaan Oromo. His literary focus is politics, language skills and indigenous oral tradition. His contribution in Oromo literature is bidirectional. First, he wrote many books and made it available for the Oromoo people. Second, he has motivated and supported hundreds of young people to write what is in their mind. As a result, many young people became good writers. Most of his books were published by businessmen and Beekan got no financial support from them. This is because of his financial limitation. Whatever it is, he is happy to give his books to business men because his attention is to help his people rather getting money.
Finally, Beekan has received many trainings and certificates for his multidirectional contribution for his people in one way or another (see his CV attached). But due to his scholarship and cultural and literary activism, the leading political party in Ethiopia has placed him on a blacklist. The current Ethiopian government heavily censors Oromo writers from writing about the political circumstances of the Oromo people. He currently living under a lot of mental and emotional stress and worrying about his safety and life because of the threats he has been receiving from different individuals. These threats to his safety and life are hindering his Ph.D studies at Addis Ababa University. He cannot focus on his studies. He feel afraid and terrorized and he do not move around freely. Sometimes he leave home and go home in a very timely manner out of fear that something will happen to him. Those who are threatening him believe that there is nothing he can do to defend himself from them, and so they continue to threaten. It is as if these men have been appointed official judges and have passed a death sentence on him, without any interrogative examination or involvement of the court. Currently, he is on writing ofNovels, short stories and reference books in Afan Oromo (his mother tongue).
all of his books are available at www.borofa.com. You can order them now.
The above is from World Bank source which is conventional (income based) method of poverty analysis
According to the Economist’s latest (25 June 2015) multidimensional poverty analysis, 9 countries that have registered 80% and above of their population as multidimensionally poor are all in Africa: Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, South Sudan, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad.
MOST measures of poverty just focus on income. About 1 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. But a new report from Oxford University looks at poverty levels in 101 developing countries, covering 5.2 billion people, or 75% of the world’s population. The report understands poverty in a different way from how economists usually do.
The economists measure “multidimensional poverty”. This complements measures based on income and reflects the many different problems people can face all at the same time. These include bad health and a lack of education. In all, they identify ten indicators; if people are deprived in at least one-third them, they are multidimensionally poor. The authors estimate that 1.6 billion people fit this description.
In some countries the difference between the conventional and unconventional measures is stark. In Mexico, Pakistan and Egypt, for instance, there are twice as many multidimensionally poor as there are conventionally poor. –
An educational system and its curricula are shaped by the culture and epistemology in which it is embedded. It is influenced by the societal knowledge, but it also instrumental in shaping the knowledge of the society. Culture influences learning style. Based on cultural diversities and social needs, different societies have distinct curricula. As such, Oromo students ought to be taught now to interrogate the colonial epistemology and ideology as well schooled in the ways of dismantling the hegemony. However, in many cases, they are simply taught to reproduce the knowledge, culture, power structure, thinking and the worldview of colonizers. This means that education, which is supposed to be about critical inquiry and social transformation has been used to indoctrinate or brainwash some students. Such colonial educational curricula have invalidated the knowledge of indigenous Oromo people and compromised their needs. This type of education system, instead of empowering the students and their society, has incapacitated them. For the Oromo people, such curricula have distorted their history, image, identity, and damaged their social fabric. In this paper I argue that, colonial knowledge and education system is not in a position to bring about social transformation among Oromo people; on the contrary it disrupts their peace (nagaa), health (fayya) and (tasgabii) social order.
Ethiopian Election 2015: Is Democracy Prosperous or Destitute?
HRLHA Press Release
June 28, 2015
Public, For Immediate Release
Ethiopia holds general elections every five years; the most recent one was held on May 24, 2015. The ruling TPLF/EPRDF party, which has been in power for the past twenty-four years, officially announced on this past Monday, June 22, 2015 that the government and its allies ((political organizations created by EPRDF) won a landslide victory in the country’s parliamentary elections. In the announcement, the ruling party proudly declared itself, not just the winner, but that it was also more victorious than ever before by taking all seats in both the federal and regional parliaments with its allies. In the months and weeks leading to the elections, under very restrictive conditions and in some places even where detentions were common, campaigns by the opposition parties were very intense, and the public response in support of the parties was far beyond expectations.
Unfortunately, all of that was to no avail. Looking at the end results of the elections, all that could be said is that the huge public rally behind the opposition parties instead alerted the ruling party- it prepared itself and came up with more and newer tactics to rig the elections. Heavily equipped armed forces were deployed in different areas including the surroundings of the capital, Addis Ababa/Finfinne.
As has been the case during the previous elections, hundreds of opposition party candidates, and observers were hunted down and detained at different places prior to the polling day under the pretext that they created obstacles to the process of election or were suspected of being members of political organizations labeled terrorist by the EPRDF government, groups such as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ogadenean Nation Liberation Front (ONLF) and Ginbot 7.
Thousands of Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) candidates and observers in Oromia Regional State, including Bule Hora (Guji Zone) South Oromia, Makko and Darimu (Illu Abba Bora), Gimbi and Gulisso (Wallagga) West Oromia, Ginir and Goro (Bale), South Oromia were arrested and intimidated by the government security forces. OFC members Mr. Dula Matias and Mr. Zelalem Shuma in Dambi Dola (Wallagga), the Western Oromia Regional State were among those detained.
There have been cases of misinforming and misguiding voters, especially regarding voting times and places. Although it was announced ahead of the election day that there were plenty of voting cards, Oromo electors in some particular parts of the region were told that there were no voting cards left. In other areas of Oromia it has been confirmed that the voting cards were distributed to the people hours after the election has already started.
For example, in the following photo the EPRDF representative on the Toke Kutaye District (Ambo) was distributing voter cards on May 24, 2014.
Worst of all was the stealing of the ballot boxes after they were filled with voting cards in order to give all the votes to the candidates of the ruling party, regardless of whom the voter cards belonged to. The above mentioned incidents happened mainly in Eastern and Western Hararge, Dire Dawa, in various parts of central Shawa, in the Oromia Zone of Wallo, particularly at Wallo University, in Illu Abbabor, at Mettu University, in different parts of Wallaga, in Guji and Borana zones of the regional state of Oromia.
Accordingly, as proven in the announcement made by the National Election Board, the ruling TPLF/EPRDF Party stole most of the votes and, by so doing, systematically eliminated all opposition parties from the political game, leaving both the regional and federal parliaments without any alternative voices and differing political opinions. It is so worrisome that the country is once again back under a one-party monopoly of everything – political, economic, and social. All the rhetoric during the past two decades regarding the flourishing of democracy in Ethiopia has now proven to have been lies and deceptions- the reality is that democracy has been diminished.
Regardless of the unpopular results of the elections, both the Ethiopian peoples and all the opposition political parties should never feel that they lost. They should be rewarded for doing the best job that they have done – very peaceful election campaigns were conducted by the opposition parties and, in response, similar rallies and supports were shown by the general public. Both the Ethiopian peoples and the opposition parties have demonstrated and exercised genuine democracy in an oppressive political environment where democracy did not exist. Above all, the reaction of the population during the campaigns clearly demonstrated to the world that fundamental changes are needed in that country.
While the local observers were silenced by various types of harassment and intimidation, foreign and international independent observers such as the European Union and various human rights agencies chose to stay away knowing that, based on experiences from the past elections, their presence would make no difference except giving legitimacy to such a fake election. The decision taken by international observers not to participate in such a fake election could be described as a step in the right direction, a sign of rejection and refusal which showed that preconditions the government of Ethiopia followed for the election was wrong. However, a lot more needs to be done to bring about positive political changes in Ethiopia.
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa is deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Ethiopia which keeps deteriorating over time. Ethiopia is a party to numerous instruments of international and regional human rights, humanitarian and other laws[1]. The Ethiopian government has accepted, signed and ratified most of the international human rights standards. It has an obligation to adhere to those agreements and their implementations. However, the government of Ethiopia has repeatedly failed to implement those standards, including the Ethiopian constitution of 1995. On the contrary, the government adopted anti- terrorism legislation and NGO law which it has used to criminalize the democratic rights of the people.
The Ethiopian government has been given a number of recommendations from UN Human Rights Council sessions to adhere to the international instruments it has signed and ratified, including at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) assessment outcome of 2014, where the country was given 252 recommendations to improve its human rights infringements it has committed against its people. The Ethiopian government also was advised to implement in full its constitutional protection for freedom of expression, assembly and association, and to encourage political tolerance
The parliamentary election of May 2015 in Ethiopia confirms that the country is heading towards a mono- political system of government. To change this, the Ethiopian government needs to:
Adhere to International, Regional and Domestic human rights and their implementation, humanitarian rights and its own constitution
Abolish the Anti-terrorism Proclamation of 2009
Remove NGO law 2009
Reforming the Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation of 2009
Repealing the provisions shielding public officials from criticism
Therefore, the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) calls upon the international diplomatic and human rights agencies to join hands with the democratic-thirsty Ethiopian peoples and opposition political parties in their efforts to put pressure on the ruling TPLF/EPRDF party so that it abides by democratic principles as well as international laws and respects fundamental human rights so that genuine democracy can flourish.
The Oromo community met recently in Eastleigh estate to discuss critical issues that for the last month, have been affecting their community.
They believe that there are people who have been sent to kidnap Oromo residents and take them back forcefully to Ethiopia where ethnic Oromo are subject to arbitrary arrest, detentions without access to lawyers, repeated torture and even targeted killings to crush dissidence.
So far, approximately 70 people have been forcefully taken back in this manner.
Many of the respondents said they had been detained in prisons, police stations, where they are subjected to repeated torture.
They listed a myriad human rights problems they faced including arbitrary killings, allegations of torture and mistreatment of detainees by security forces, harsh and at times life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention, detention without charge, a weak and overburdened judiciary subject to political influence, infringement on citizens’ privacy rights including illegal searches, as well as restrictions on academic freedom and freedom of assembly, association and movement. They also alleged interference in religious affairs, violence and societal discrimination against women, abuse of children, trafficking in persons and societal discrimination against persons with disabilities.
“We are here expressing the problems we Oromo refugees are experiencing here in Kenya. We have fled our home country due to political persecution and execution targeted by the ruling government of Ethiopia, but I feel the Kenyan government are not taking concern of refugees protection seriously. We are being arrested by police and taken back to Ethiopia unlawfully. I believe our rights as refugees are not recognized fully. We have cases of our women being raped and our men taken to Ethiopia,” said Daki Waso.
“ Last Saturday some spies who are believed to come from Ethiopia were taken to the police station but at midnight they were terrorizing the community. Those who reported are not aware which criteria they used to come out from the police station since they are in the country illegally,” said Jabir Sheik-Ismail.
A survey says the al-Bashir & Fifa scandals and the xenophobic attacks have damaged the country’s image.
Media Tenor conducted a 20 day analysis of overseas news outlets this month looking at the major stories emanating from this country. Picture: AFP.
– A survey has found that South Africa’s image overseas has suffered substantially due to a number of major news stories with sport being the country’s only positive media export.
Media Tenor conducted a 20 day analysis of overseas news outlets this month looking at the major stories emanating from this country.
It says the stories on Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and the xenophobic attacks have made world headlines substantially damaging the country’s image.
The research included 1,000 reports from 15 TV shows.
This involved major broadcasters in countries including the US, Britain, Italy, France, Germany and China.
The hasty exit by Sudan’s president, contrary to a court order, achieved the most South African coverage overseas, with the Fifa scandal and corruption also making news headlines.
Prior to the al-Bashir scandal and xenophobia, the Oscar Pistorius murder trial also made news headlines worldwide, adding to negative publicity.Media Tenor says the only notable good news about South Africa was the cricket World Cup in January and February with the Proteas making notable progress, but losing to New Zealand.
We spoke today with Ms. Veta Byrd-Perez of WhenAndWhereIEnter.org about the on-going struggle of African women in Latin America, and with Dr. Fido Ebba about the Oromo people in East Africa all in the context of what continues to be misrepresentations of White supremacist symbolism and violence.
From the start of Christianity introduction to Ethiopia, the North Western Cushitic Agaw people was suffering from multidimensional socio-economic prospective (such as religion, politics, social, economic, culture and language) for over 1600 years. With the rising and expansion of Christianity in the fourth century, the majority of Agaw were forced to accept Christianity following the conversion of the two Agaw king brothers, Aezana and saezana and received Christian name as Aberha and Atsibeha. Those who resisted and adhered to their original and former belief (Judaism and paganism) fled from North to South and South-East direction along Tekeze River and settled in Gondar and around Gondar and Lasta and gradually to North Shewa, Jemma and Abay rivers and beyond. The Agaw population who resisted for centuries long the state religion after conversion of majority had been divided into smaller enclaves (Awi, Kementy, Himita, Blen, Alien/Falasha and more others)…
Affordable and reliable electricity underpins every aspect of social and economic life. But Sub-Saharan Africa has an energy crisis that demands urgent political attention. Two in every three Africans, around 621 million in total, have no access to electricity at all.
Ethiopia, with a population of 94 million, consumes one-third of the electricity supplied to the 600,000 residents of Washington D.C. Greater London consumes more electricity than any country in Africa other than South Africa. By international standards much of Africa’s energy infrastructure is dilapidated, reflecting several decades of under-investment. According to the IEA, the average efficiency of Sub-Saharan Africa’s gas-fired power plants is around 38 per cent. Similarly, most of Africa’s coal-fired power plants employ sub-critical technologies, rather than the super-critical technologies that could generate far more electricity from the same amount of fuel. Recent super-critical coal-fired power plants built in China generate on average 30 per cent more electricity than those operating in Africa. Economic growth has intensified pressure on Africa’s creaking energy infrastructure. One symptom of that pressure is a boom in leasing of emergency power. Unable to meet base-load demand through the grid, governments are turning to high-cost energy providers using technologies designed to meet emergency needs. Low levels of power generation are both a symptom and a cause of wider development challenges. In part, Africa’s limited power generation is the product of low average incomes. But it is also a contributory factor in keeping incomes low. In that context, the widening energy gap between Africa and other regions is a matter of concern. There is a very real sense in which today’s inequalities in energy are tomorrow’s inequalities in economic growth, international trade and investment.
Unreliable power supply has created a buoyant market in diesel-powered generators. Around 40 per cent of businesses in Tanzania and Ethiopia operate their own generators, rising to over 50 per cent in Kenya.15 In Nigeria, around four in every five SMEs install their own generators.16 On average, electricity provided through diesel-fuelled back-up generators costs four times as much as power from grid.17 Diesel fuel is a significant cost for enterprises across Africa, even in less energy-intensive sectors such as finance and banking. According to McKinsey, diesel fuel represents around 60 per cent of operator network costs for mobile-phone operators.18 High cost and unreliable supply add to the cost of doing business in Africa, with damaging consequences for economic growth, investment and tax revenues. The World Bank has estimated the losses at 2-4 per cent of GDP.19 Lack of reliable and cost-effective electricity is among the top constraints to expansion in the manufacturing sector in nearly every Sub-Saharan country.20 Small and medium enterprises account for most of the job creation but face particularly severe problems, with around half citing the high cost and unreliability of supply as a barrier to enterprise development. Lack of electricity reinforces the poverty trap Restricted access to electricity has direct and damaging consequences for household poverty. Africa’s poor typically pay higher unit costs for energy than the rich. This is partly because the rich are subsidized, but also because the poor use inefficient energy sources including batteries, candles, and charcoal.If the poor could use more efficient energy sources they could reduce the share of income that they spend on energy and free up resources for other priority areas. It could also reduce the amount of time that women and girls spend collecting firewood and cooking. Households across Africa, including very poor households, spend a significant share of their income on energy. Data from 30 countries showed that the average share of household spending directed to energy was 13 per cent.21 The poorest households typically spend a larger share of their income on energy than richer households. In Uganda, the poorest one-fifth allocated 16 per cent of their income to energy, three times the share of their richest counterparts. Women and girls spend a lot of time collecting firewood and cooking with inefficient stoves. Factoring in the costs of this unpaid labour greatly inflates the economic costs that come with Africa’s energy deficits. Estimates by the World Bank put the losses for 2010 at US$38 billion or 3 per cent of GDP.
“We all witnessed the brutality and nihilism of the horrific attacks by Pakistani Taliban and Boko Haram on schoolchildren, the assassinations of Charlie Hebdo journalists, and numerous outrages and killings carried out by ISIL. The rise of ISIL was in part a consequence of, and illustrated the dangers of, atrocities committed by the government of Syria and failures of inclusive governance in Iraq. Meanwhile, governments in China, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, among others, continued to stifle free and open media and the development of civil society through the imprisonment of journalists, bloggers, and non-violent critics. In Thailand, the military overthrew a democratically-elected government, repealed the constitution, and severely limited civil liberties; subsequent efforts by the military government to rewrite the country’s constitution and recast its political intuitions raised concerns about lack of inclusivity in the process. In the face of all this, the human aspiration for political liberty and honest, non-abusive governance remained strong.” – Secretary’s Preface
Ethiopia is a federal republic. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of four ethnically based parties, controls the government. In 2012, following the death of former prime minister Meles Zenawi, parliament elected Hailemariam Desalegn as his successor. In national parliamentary elections in 2010, the EPRDF and affiliated parties won 545 of 547 seats to remain in power for a fourth consecutive five-year term. Although the relatively few international officials allowed to observe the elections concluded technical aspects of the vote were handled competently, some also noted an environment conducive to free and fair elections was not in place prior to the election. Authorities generally maintained control over the security forces, although Somali Region Special Police and local militias sometimes acted independently.
Other human rights problems included alleged arbitrary killings; alleged torture, beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees by security forces; reports of harsh and at times life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; detention without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; a weak, overburdened judiciary subject to political influence; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights, including illegal searches; alleged abuses in the implementation of the government’s “villagization” program; restrictions on academic freedom; restrictions on freedom of assembly, association, and movement; alleged interference in religious affairs; limits on citizens’ ability to change their government; police, administrative, and judicial corruption; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children; female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C); trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities; clashes between ethnic minorities; discrimination against persons based on their sexual orientation and against persons with HIV/AIDS; limits on worker rights; forced labor; and child labor, including forced child labor.
Impunity was a problem. The government, with some reported exceptions, generally did not take steps to prosecute or otherwise punish officials who committed abuses other than corruption.
Factions of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), an ethnically based, violent, and fragmented separatist group operating in the Somali Region, were responsible for abuses.
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:Share
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
Members of the security forces reportedly committed killings.
On April 30, a peaceful student protest in Ambo, west of Addis Ababa, escalated into violence and resulted in the deaths of at least eight persons. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that “witnesses said security forces fired live ammunition at peaceful protesters.”
There were no new developments in the credible allegations detainees died in detention as a result of arrests during the August 2013 Eid al-Fitr celebrations.
Scattered fighting continued between government forces–primarily regional government-backed militias–and elements of the ONLF. Clashes between ethnic groups resulted in injury and death.
On October 13, gunmen reportedly killed more than 40 security forces in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR), according to local press and NGOs in the town of Gambella. According to reports, the clash occurred between a group of ethnic Majanger and Ethiopian national and local security forces.
b. Disappearance
Unlike in previous years, there were fewer credible reports of disappearances of civilians after clashes between security forces and rebel groups.
There were no developments in determining the whereabouts of 12 residents of Alamata town detained in January 2013 by security forces following protests against government plans to demolish illegal housing units.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution and law prohibit such practices; however, there were reports security officials tortured and otherwise abused detainees.
In April, two journalists/bloggers affiliated with the Zone 9 activist group accused police of beating and mistreating them. One journalist reported police beat him across the face, while another stated police beat the undersides of his feet (see section 2.a.). The Federal High Court regularly sought explanations from prison officials on allegations of mistreatment.
Sources widely believed police investigators often used physical abuse to extract confessions in Maekelawi, the central police investigation headquarters in Addis Ababa. HRW reported abuses, including torture, occurred at Maekelawi. In an October 2013 report, the HRW described beatings, stress positions, the hanging of detainees by their wrists from the ceiling, prolonged handcuffing, pouring of water over detainees, verbal threats, and solitary confinement at the facility. Authorities continued to restrict access by diplomats and NGOs to Maekelawi, although some NGOs reported limited access.
In 2010 the UN Committee Against Torture reported it was “deeply concerned” about “numerous, ongoing, and consistent allegations” concerning “the routine use of torture” by police, prison officers, and other members of the security forces–including the military–against political dissidents and opposition party members, students, alleged terrorists, and alleged supporters of violent separatist groups such as the ONLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). The committee reported such acts frequently occurred with the participation of, at the instigation of, or with the consent of commanding officers in police stations, detention centers, federal prisons, military bases, and unofficial or secret places of detention. Some reports of such abuses continued during the year. Based primarily on interviews with Oromo refugees in Uganda, Somaliland, and Kenya, Amnesty International (AI), which had been denied access to Ethiopia since 2011, reported thousands of ethnic Oromos, whom the government accused of terrorism, were arbitrarily arrested and in some cases tortured.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison and pretrial detention center conditions remained harsh and in some cases life threatening. There were reports that authorities beat and tortured prisoners. Medical attention following beatings reportedly was insufficient in some cases.
Physical Conditions: In 2012 there were 111,640 persons in prison, of whom approximately 2,500 were women and nearly 600 were children incarcerated with their mothers. Authorities sometimes incarcerated juveniles with adults. Male and female prisoners generally were separated.
Severe overcrowding was common, especially in prison sleeping quarters. The government provided approximately nine birr ($0.45) per prisoner per day for food, water, and health care, although this amount varied across the country. Many prisoners supplemented this amount with daily food deliveries from family members or by purchasing food from local vendors, although there were reports officials prevented some prisoners from receiving supplemental food from their families. Medical care was unreliable in federal prisons and almost nonexistent in regional prisons. Prisoners had only limited access to potable water, as did many in the country. Also water shortages caused unhygienic conditions, and most prisons lacked appropriate sanitary facilities. Many prisoners had serious health problems in detention but received little or no treatment. Information released by the Ministry of Health in 2012 stated nearly 62 percent of inmates in jails across the country suffered from mental health problems as a result of solitary confinement, overcrowding, and lack of adequate health-care facilities and services.
The country had six federal and 120 regional prisons. A local NGO ran model prisons in Adama and Mekele, with significantly better conditions than those found in other prisons. There also were many unofficial detention centers throughout the country, including in Dedessa, Bir Sheleko, Tolay, Hormat, Blate, Tatek, Jijiga, Holeta, and Senkele. Most were located at military camps.
Pretrial detention often occurred in police station detention facilities, where conditions varied widely. Reports regarding pretrial detention in police stations indicated poor hygiene and police abuse of detainees.
Administration: Due to the lack of transparency regarding incarceration, it was difficult to determine if recordkeeping was adequate. Authorities did not employ alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders. Prisons did not have ombudspersons to respond to complaints. Legal aid clinics existed in some prisons for the benefit of prisoners. Authorities allowed the submission by detainees of complaints to judicial authorities without censorship. Courts sometimes declined to hear such complaints. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Federal Police Commission sometimes investigated allegations of abuse, although there were reports detainees’ discussions with them were not carried out in private, which could inhibit their ability to speak freely.
The law permits prisoners to have visitors, although in some cases police did not allow pretrial detainees access to visitors (including family members and legal counsel). For example, the attorney for Arena Tigray party leader Abraha Desta detained in early July had been able to visit his client only once in a 28-day period. Family members of prisoners charged with terrorist activity alleged blocked access to the prisoners. There were also reports authorities denied those charged with terrorist activity visits with their lawyers or with representatives of the political parties to which they belonged. Prison officials continued to limit the number of individuals permitted to visit journalist Reyot Alemu.
Prisoners generally were permitted religious observance, but this varied by prison, and even by section within a prison, at the discretion of prison management. There were some allegations authorities denied detainees adequate locations in which to pray. Prisoners could voice complaints about prison conditions or treatment to the presiding judge during their trials.
Independent Monitoring: During the year the International Committee of the Red Cross visited prisons throughout the country. The government did not permit access to prisons by international human rights organizations.
Regional authorities allowed government and NGO representatives to meet regularly with prisoners without third parties present. Civil society representatives and family members were reportedly denied access to prisoners by prison officials, including access to individuals detained in undisclosed locations. The government-established EHRC, which is funded by parliament and subject to parliamentary review, monitored federal and regional detention centers and interviewed prison officials and prisoners in response to allegations of widespread human rights abuses. A local NGO continued to have access to various prison and detention facilities around the country.
Improvements: Some government and prison authorities cooperated with NGO efforts to improve prison conditions. Reports indicated some prison conditions, including the treatment of prisoners, improved upon completion of an NGO-sponsored local legal aid clinic in 2013, although specific data was not available.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
Although the constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention, the government often ignored these provisions. There were many reports of arbitrary arrest and detention by police and security forces throughout the country.
Civilians, international NGOs, and other aid organizations operating in the Somali Region reported government security forces and local militias committed abuses such as arbitrary arrest.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
The Federal Police reports to the Ministry of Federal Affairs, which is subject to parliamentary oversight. The oversight was loose. Each of the country’s nine regions has a state or special police force that reports to the regional civilian authorities. Local militias operated across the country in loose coordination with regional and federal police and the military, with the degree of coordination varying by region. In many cases these militias functioned as extensions of the ruling party.
Security forces were effective, but impunity remained a serious problem. The mechanisms used to investigate abuses by federal police were not known. There continued to be reports of abuse, including killings, by the Somali Region Special Police. The government rarely publicly disclosed the results of investigations into abuses by local security forces, such as arbitrary detention and beatings of civilians.
The government continued to support human rights training for police and army personnel. In 2013-14 the EHRC conducted training sessions for 1,622 police officers and 577 prison police on basic human rights concepts as well as rights of detained individuals as provided in the National Human Rights Action Plan. The government continued to accept assistance from certain NGOs and the EHRC to improve and professionalize its human rights training and curriculum by including more material on the constitution and international human rights treaties and conventions.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
Although the constitution and law require that detainees be brought to court and charged within 48 hours of arrest, authorities did not always respect this requirement. With a warrant, persons suspected of serious offenses may be detained for 14 days without charge and for additional 14-day periods if an investigation continues. Under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP), police may request to hold persons without charge for 28-day periods, up to a maximum of four months, while an investigation is conducted. The law prohibits detention in any facility other than an official detention center; however, local militias and other formal and informal law enforcement entities used dozens of unofficial local detention centers.
A functioning bail system was in place. Bail was not available for persons charged with terrorism, murder, treason, and corruption. In most cases authorities set bail between 500 and 10,000 birr ($25 and $500), which most citizens could not afford. The government provided public defenders for detainees unable to afford private legal counsel, but only when their cases went to court. There were reports that while some detainees were in pretrial detention, authorities allowed them little or no contact with legal counsel, did not provide full information on their health status, and did not allow family visits.
Arbitrary Arrest: Authorities regularly detained persons without warrants. For example, on April 30, security officials in Addis Ababa detained Zekarias Yemanebirhan, Addis Ababa chairman of the opposition political party Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), and Nebiyu Hailu, a journalist for UDJ’sFinote Netsanet newspaper, for allegedly violating zoning restrictions while mobilizing supporters in advance of a UDJ protest. On May 12, authorities released both without charge.
Pretrial Detention: Some detainees reported being held for several years without charge and without trial. Information on the percentage of the detainee population in pretrial detention and the average length of time held was not available. Trial delays were most often caused by lengthy legal procedures, the large numbers of detainees, judicial inefficiency, and staffing shortages.
Amnesty: On September 11, in keeping with a long-standing tradition of issuing pardons at the Ethiopian New Year, the federal government pardoned 995 prisoners. Regional governments also pardoned persons. For example, in 2013 the SNNPR regional government pardoned 1,984 prisoners, the Oromia regional government pardoned 2,604, and the Amhara regional government pardoned 2,084.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law provides for an independent judiciary. Although the civil courts operated with a large degree of independence, the criminal courts remained weak, overburdened, and subject to political influence. The constitution recognizes both religious and traditional or customary courts.
Trial Procedures
By law accused persons have the right to a fair public trial by a court of law within a “reasonable time,” a presumption of innocence, the right to be represented by legal counsel of their choice, and the right to appeal. The law provides defendants the right not to self-incriminate. The law gives defendants the right to present witnesses and evidence in their defense, cross-examine prosecution witnesses, and access government-held evidence. The government did not always allow defendants to access evidence it held. The court system does not use jury trials. Judicial inefficiency and lack of qualified staff often resulted in serious delays in trial proceedings and made the application of the law unpredictable. The government continued to train lower-court judges and prosecutors on effective judicial administration. Defendants were often unaware of the specific charges against them until the commencement of their trials; this also caused defense attorneys to be unprepared to provide an adequate defense.
The Public Defender’s Office provided legal counsel to indigent defendants, although its scope and quality of service remained limited due to the shortage of attorneys. Numerous free legal aid clinics around the country, based primarily at universities, provided advice to clients. In certain areas of the country, the law allows volunteers, such as law students and professors, to represent clients in court on a pro bono basis.
On February 3, the Federal High Court re-opened to the public the trial of 19 Muslims identified with July 2012 protests. The trial proceedings were previously closed for alleged national security and witness safety concerns.
Many citizens residing in rural areas generally had little access to formal judicial systems and relied on traditional mechanisms for resolving conflict. By law all parties to a dispute must agree to use a traditional or religious court before such a court may hear a case, and either party may appeal to a regular court at any time. Sharia (Islamic law) courts may hear religious and family cases involving Muslims. Sharia courts received some funding from the government and adjudicated the majority of cases in the Somali and Afar regions, which are predominantly Muslim. In addition other traditional systems of justice, such as councils of elders, continued to function. Some women stated they lacked access to free and fair hearings in the traditional court system because they were excluded by custom from participation in councils of elders and because of strong gender discrimination in rural areas.
The Access to Justice and Legal Awareness (AJLA) project, at Haramaya University, began in June 2013. The AJLA provided previously unavailable legal redress and protection for the neediest populations across East/West Hararghe Zones in Oromia and the Harari Region. By the end of the year, 128,357 vulnerable persons (73,905 women and 54,452 men) had benefited from these previously nonexistent legal services.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
Estimates by human rights groups and diplomatic missions regarding the number of political prisoners varied widely. The government did not permit access to prisoners by international human rights organizations. There were NGO reports of individuals held in unofficial detention centers throughout the country, particularly in military barracks, but also in private offices and homes.
All of the journalists, opposition members, and activists previously convicted and jailed under the ATP remained in prison.
In February the Federal Court of First Instance in Addis Ababa convicted Asrat Tassay, a prominent member of the UDJ, of contempt of court after he wrote in an opinion piece, “We should not expect justice from [Ethiopian] courts.” The judge sentenced Asrat to five months’ imprisonment but immediately suspended the sentence, opting for a two-year probationary period instead.
On July 9, police detained four opposition political-party leaders in Addis Ababa and the northern city of Mekelle in separate operations. Police reportedly did not bring Habtamu Ayalew, Daniel Shibeshi, Yeshiways Assefa, and Abraha Desta before a judge within 48 hours of their detention, as required by law. The group’s defense attorney and other political party leaders alleged police denied them access to the detainees. Police had not brought formal charges against the four defendants by year’s end.
In 2012 the government asked the Federal High Court to freeze the assets of Eskinder Nega and Andualem Arage, both convicted of terrorism and treason, while investigating whether their assets were used in conjunction with commission of the crimes for which they were convicted. The Federal High Court had not issued a decision by year’s end.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
The law provides citizens the right to appeal human rights violations in civil court. No such cases were filed during the year.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The law requires authorities to obtain judicial warrants to search private property; police, however, often ignored the law, and there were no reports of courts excluding evidence obtained without warrants.
There were reports throughout the year police carried out nighttime raids of Muslims’ homes in Addis Ababa to collect evidence against persons they alleged to be terrorists. The government claimed the police had warrants.
Opposition political party leaders reported suspicions of telephone tapping and other electronic eavesdropping, and they alleged government agents attempted to lure them into illegal acts by calling and pretending to be representatives of groups–designated by the parliament as terrorist organizations–interested in making financial donations.
The government reportedly used a widespread system of paid informants to report on the activities of particular individuals. Opposition members reported ruling party operatives and militia members made intimidating and unwelcome visits to their homes and offices.
Security forces continued to detain family members of persons sought for questioning by the government.
The national and regional governments continued to put in place “villagization” plans in the Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, SNNPR, and Somali regions. These plans involved the relocation by regional governments of scattered rural populations from arid or semiarid lands vulnerable to recurring droughts into designated clusters. The stated purposes of villagization were to improve the provision of government services (i.e., health care, education, and clean water), protect vulnerable communities from natural disasters and attacks, and change environmentally destructive patterns of shifting cultivation. Some observers alleged the purpose was to enable the large-scale leasing of land for commercial agriculture. The government described the villagization program as strictly voluntary.
International donors reported assessments from more than 18 visits to villagization sites since 2011 did not corroborate allegations of systematic human rights violations in this program. They found problems such as delays in establishing promised infrastructure. Communities and individual families appeared to have agreed to move based on assurances from authorities of food aid, health and education services, and land, although in some instances communities moved before adequate basic services such as water pumps and shelter were in place in the new locations. International human rights organizations, however, continued to express concern regarding the villagization process. A 2013 report by the Oakland Institute claimed the military forcibly relocated communities and committed human rights violations in the Omo Valley. The report noted that during a 2012 assessment in the South Omo Valley, donor representatives heard testimony from community members of human rights abuses.
Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:Share
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and press; however, authorities arrested, detained, charged, and prosecuted journalists and other persons whom they perceived as critical of the government. Some journalists, editors, and publishers fled the country, fearing probable detention. At year’s end at least 16 journalists remained in detention; of these, 10 were arrested and charged during the year, and all but one were denied bail and remain detained; four journalists and publishers were charged, tried, and convicted in absentia.
Freedom of Speech: Authorities arrested and harassed persons for criticizing the government. NGOs reported cases of torture of individuals critical of the government. The government attempted to impede criticism through various forms of intimidation, including detention of journalists and opposition activists and monitoring and interference in the activities of political opposition groups. The authorities pressed charges against several journalists, bloggers, and independently run publications. Some persons feared authorities would retaliate against them for discussing security force abuses.
Press Freedoms: The government continued to take action to close independent newspapers. On August 4, the Ministry of Justice issued a statement accusing independently run publications Enqu, Fact, Addis Guday, Lomi, Jano, and Afro Times of “repeated acts of incitement” intended “to cause a violent overthrow of the constitutional order.” In most cases articles cited as examples of incitement were mainly critical of government action. Some called for protests of such actions but rarely, if ever, for violent action. One week after issuing the initial statement, the government began pressing criminal charges against the publications and their staff. On October 7, the Federal Court tried and sentenced, in absentia, the managers of Addis Guday, Lomi, and Factmagazines. The managers were charged with inciting violent revolts, printing and distributing unfounded rumors, and conspiring to abolish unlawfully the constitutional system of the country. Their sentences ranged from three years and three months to three years and 11 months.
The remaining 18 independent newspapers had a combined weekly circulation in Addis Ababa of more than 144,000. Most newspapers were printed on a weekly or biweekly basis, with the exception of the state-owned Amharic and English dailies and the privately run Daily Monitor.
The government controlled the only television station that broadcast nationally, which, along with radio, was the primary source of news for much of the population. Six private FM radio stations broadcast in the capital, one private radio station broadcast in the northern Tigray Region, and at least 19 community radio stations broadcast in the regions. State-run Ethiopian Radio had the largest broadcast range in the country, followed by Fana Radio, which was affiliated with the ruling party.
Government-controlled media closely reflected the views of the government and the ruling EPRDF. The government periodically jammed foreign broadcasts. The law prohibits political and religious organizations and foreigners from owning broadcast stations.
Violence and Harassment: The government continued to arrest, harass, and prosecute journalists. This included the continuing prosecution of three persons associated with the defunct Muslim Affairs magazine under the antiterrorism proclamation. There were also allegations some journalists were tortured in Maekelawi prison.
On April 25-26, police detained six bloggers affiliated with the Zone 9 activist group and three independent journalists in Addis Ababa and Ambo, a town west of the capital. Police subsequently searched the detainees’ homes and seized personal property, including laptops, and prohibited family members and supporters from visiting them in detention. The Federal High Court charged the group under the ATP in July and denied the defendants bail. The trial continued at year’s end.
On October 27, a court sentenced Temesgen Desalegn to three years in jail for “provocation and dissemination of inaccurate information.” In 2012 the authorities initiated court proceedings against Desalegn, former editor in chief of the defunct Feteh newspaper.
Censorship or Content Restrictions: Government harassment caused journalists to avoid reporting on sensitive topics. Many private newspapers reported informal editorial control by the government through article placement requests and calls from government officials concerning articles perceived as critical of the government. Private sector and government journalists routinely practiced self-censorship.
Libel Laws/National Security: The government used the ATP to suppress criticism. Journalists feared covering five groups designated by parliament in 2011 as terrorist organizations (Ginbot 7, the ONLF, the OLF, al-Qaida, and al-Shabaab), citing ambiguity on whether reporting on these groups might be punishable under the law. Several journalists, both local and foreign correspondents, reported an increase in self-censorship.
The government used libel laws to suppress criticism.
On February 11, police temporarily detained Daniel Tefera, the former UDJ organization affairs head, for questioning in relation to allegations of defamation following Tefera’s involvement in the writing of a former parliamentarian’s biography. Police did not file formal charges.
On January 28, the Sidama Zone High Court in the southwestern city of Hawassa (Awassa) acquitted the editor in chief, managing editor, and publisher of the newspaper Ethio-Mihdar on defamation charges. Officials from Hawassa University had filed the charges against the Amharic-language weekly in response to a June 2013 article reporting allegations of corruption by university employees. According to media reports, the judge said the defendants “did the right thing by exposing faulty practices committed by public institutions.”
Internet Freedom
The state-owned Ethio Telecom was the only internet service provider in the country. The government restricted access to the internet and blocked several websites, including blogs, opposition websites, and websites of Ginbot 7, the OLF, and the ONLF. The government also temporarily blocked news sites such as al-Jazeera. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo! were inaccessible at times. Several news blogs and websites run by opposition diaspora groups were not accessible. These included Addis Neger, Nazret, Ethiopian Review, CyberEthiopia, Quatero Amharic Magazine, Tensae Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian Media Forum. Authorities took steps to block access to Virtual Private Network providers that let users circumvent government screening of internet browsing and e-mail. Authorities monitored telephone calls, text messages, and e-mails. There were reports such surveillance resulted in arrests. According to the International Telecommunication Union, approximately 1.9 percent of individuals used the internet in 2013.
In 2013 Citizen Lab, a Canadian research center at the University of Toronto, identified 25 countries, including Ethiopia, that host servers linked to FinFisher surveillance software. According to the report, “FinFisher has gained notoriety because it has been used in targeted attacks against human rights campaigners and opposition activists in countries with questionable human rights records.” A “FinSpy” campaign in the country allegedly “used pictures of Ginbot 7, an Ethiopian opposition group, as bait to infect users.”
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
The government restricted academic freedom, including through decisions on student enrollment, teachers’ appointments, and curriculums. Authorities frequently restricted speech, expression, and assembly on university and high school campuses.
The ruling party, via the Ministry of Education, continued to give preference to students loyal to the party in assignments to postgraduate programs. Some university staff members commented priority for employment after graduation in all fields was given to students who joined the party.
Authorities limited teachers’ ability to deviate from official lesson plans. Numerous anecdotal reports suggested non-EPRDF members were more likely to be transferred to undesirable posts and bypassed for promotions. There were unspecified reports of teachers not affiliated with the EPRDF being summarily dismissed for failure to attend party meetings. There continued to be a lack of transparency in academic staffing decisions, with numerous complaints from individuals in the academic community alleging bias based on party membership, ethnicity, or religion.
According to multiple credible sources, teachers and high school students in grade 10 and above were required to attend training on the concepts of revolutionary democracy and EPRDF party ideology. In August the Ministry of Education announced a requirement that the 116,000 new and 250,000 existing university students attend mandatory government policy training.
A separate Ministry of Education directive prohibits private universities from offering degree programs in law and teacher education. The directive also requires public universities to align their curriculum offerings with the ministry’s policy of a 70/30 ratio between science and social science academic programs. As a result the number of students studying social sciences and the humanities at public institutions continued to decrease; private universities focused heavily on the social sciences.
Reports indicated a pattern of surveillance and arbitrary arrests of Oromo University students based on suspicion of holding dissenting opinions or participation in peaceful demonstrations. A 2014 AI report indicated students were also expelled or suspended as a result of such suspicions.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Freedom of Assembly
The constitution and law provide for freedom of assembly; however, the government did not always respect this right. Organizers of large public meetings or demonstrations must notify the government 48 hours in advance and obtain a permit. Authorities may not refuse to grant a permit but may require the event be held at a different time or place for reasons of public safety or freedom of movement. If authorities determine an event should be held at another time or place, the law requires organizers be notified in writing within 12 hours of the time of submission of their request.
The government denied some requests by opposition political parties to hold protests but permitted other requests for demonstrations. According to the Addis Ababa City Administration, during the year political parties made 22 requests to conduct peaceful demonstrations, of which the city administration granted 13 of the requests and rejected nine. Organizers in most cases alleged government interference, and authorities required several of the protests to move to different dates or locations from those the organizers requested. Protest organizers alleged the government’s claims of needing to move the protests based on public safety concerns were not credible. During April and May, demonstrations occurred on university campuses throughout the Oromia Region against a draft development plan for Addis Ababa that would expand the capital city into towns previously controlled by the surrounding Oromia Region. There were reports of security forces beating and killing protesters at these demonstrations.
Local government officials, almost all of whom were affiliated with the EPRDF, controlled access to municipal halls, and there were many complaints from opposition parties local officials denied or otherwise obstructed the scheduling of opposition parties’ use of halls for lawful political rallies. There were numerous credible reports owners of hotels and other large facilities cited unspecified internal rules forbidding political parties from utilizing their spaces for gatherings.
Regional governments, including the Addis Ababa regional administration, were reluctant to grant permits or provide security for large meetings.
The government arrested persons in relation to opposition demonstrations. For example, on January 30, police temporarily detained Semayawi Party members as the party announced plans to hold a demonstration on February 2 in Gondar, as well as UDJ members as they announced plans for a public rally in April.
In January according to media reports, government officials in the northern city of Adigrat temporarily detained two members of opposition political party Arena Tigray and then beat other party members as Arena Tigray announced plans to hold a party conference on January 26. Arena Tigray member Asgeda Gebreselassie was reportedly admitted to a hospital with injuries caused by government officials.
In March police temporarily detained UDJ members meeting in a private home in the southern town of Wolaita Sodo and accused them of holding an illegal meeting. Police reportedly destroyed the detainees’ cell phones by dipping them in chemicals.
On July 18, police detained 14 persons, primarily Muslim worshippers, and two Semayawi Party members following protests at the Anwar Mosque. After nearly one month, the detainees, some of whom reportedly suffered injuries during clashes with police, were released on bail.
Freedom of Association
Although the law provides for freedom of association and the right to engage in unrestricted peaceful political activity, the government limited this right.
A report of the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association stated, “The enforcement of these [the CSO law] provisions has a devastating impact on individuals’ ability to form and operate associations effectively.”
The CSO law bans anonymous donations to NGOs. All potential donors were therefore aware their names would be public knowledge. The same was true concerning all donations made to political parties.
International NGOs seeking to operate in the country had to submit an application via Ethiopian embassies abroad, which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs then submitted to the Charities and Societies Agency.
d. Freedom of Movement, Internally Displaced Persons, Protection of Refugees, and Stateless Persons
Although the law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation, the government restricted some of these rights.
The government cooperated with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in providing protection and assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees, returning refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and other persons of concern; however, at times authorities or armed groups limited the ability of humanitarian organizations to operate in areas of insecurity, such as on the country’s borders.
Humanitarian organizations reported 32 incidents that impeded humanitarian work in the first half of the year, compared with 36 such incidents during the same period in 2013. The majority of these cases were in the Somali Region. The incidents included hostility toward and violence against humanitarian personnel, theft of assets, interference with the implementation of humanitarian programs, and restrictions on importation of personnel and goods into the country for humanitarian work. This data referred broadly to humanitarian work and was not limited to activities focusing on IDPs or refugees.
Access to Nogob (formerly Fik) Zone in the Somali Region improved during the year. Authorities permitted several government-led, multi-agency missions including UN and NGO representatives to visit the area. Access to other parts of the Somali Region, particularly those bordering Somalia, worsened due to security concerns stemming from reports of an increase in al-Shabaab terrorists operating in these areas. In several cases NGOs delayed travel to program sites and could not assess needs. Following credible information about a possible terrorist threat against international staff, UN agencies temporarily withdrew some of their international staff from Dollo Ado in June but began to return them in August. Attacks on vehicles carrying humanitarian personnel, assault on humanitarian staff members, and harassment, including arbitrary detention, reportedly continued.
In-country Movement: The government continued to relax but did not completely remove restrictions on the movement of persons into and within the Somali Region, continuing to argue that ONLF and al-Shabaab terrorists from neighboring Somalia posed a security threat (see section 2.d., Internally Displaced Persons). Security concerns forced a temporary halt of deliveries of food and medicine in the limited areas affected by fighting. The government continued a policy that allowed refugees to live outside of a camp. According to the Administration for Returnees and Refugee Affairs (ARRA), which managed the out-of-camp program, as of August there were2,993 individuals living outside the camps (2,806 in Addis Ababa and surrounding areas and 187 from Shire), compared with 3,412 in 2012. Prior to this policy, the government gave such permission primarily to attend higher-education institutions, undergo medical treatment, or avoid security threats at the camps.
Foreign Travel: A 2013 ban on unskilled workers travelling to the Middle East for employment continued in effect at year’s end. The ban did not affect citizens travelling for investment or business reasons. The government stated it issued the ban to prevent harassment, intimidation, and trauma suffered by those working abroad, particularly in the Middle East, as domestic employees.
On March 21, National Intelligence and Security Service officials at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa prevented Yilekal Getnet, chairman of the political opposition Semayawi Party, from travelling abroad for an exchange program sponsored by a foreign government.
Exile: Several citizens sought political asylum in other countries or remained abroad in self-imposed exile.
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated there were 426,736 IDPs in the country as of June, an increase of 51,091 from June 2013. According to the IOM, an estimated 71.4 percent of all IDPs were considered “protracted” IDPs, for whom durable solutions (return to home areas, local integration, and resettlement in other parts of the country) were not possible at the time. This was due to lack of resolution of conflicts, lack of political decisions or resources to support local integration, or undesirability of resettlement to other areas of the country.
Categories and totals of IDPs experiencing protracted displacement included victims of interclan and cross-border conflict (304,707), flooding (1,477), and volcanic eruptions (1,800). Seventy-two percent of the IDPs (308,770) resided in Somali Region; 10.3 percent (44,094) were in Oromia; 9.7 percent (41,489) in Gambella; 1.1 percent (4,580) in Harar; 0.6 percent (2,501) in SNNPR; and 5.9 percent (25,302) were in Afar Region.
Significant populations of IDPs experiencing protracted displacement included an estimated 3,500 households displaced in July 2013 in East Hararghe Zone, 1,310 households displaced in February 2013 in West Hararghe Zone, and nearly 2,000 households displaced in 2008 and 2009 in the border town of Moyale. Approximately 12,000 IDPs remained in the Gambella Region after fleeing conflicts that occurred in 2009.
Conflicts and natural disasters contributed to a rise in the number of IDPs. Conflict in the SNNPR’s South Omo Valley displaced 300 households. In March, following violence between Guji and Borena communities in the Oromia Region, approximately 120 persons were killed and another 30,700 persons displaced. In April conflict arose between Afar and Somali populations around Siti Zone, reportedly leading to the displacement of 900 households and the destruction of homes and other local infrastructure. In mid-September at least 600 households were displaced in Majang Zone of Gambella due to intercommunal violence between ethnic Majang and highlanders. In addition, storms caused flooding, which led to displacements in Afar, Gambella, SNNPR, and Somali Regions.
Following a change in Saudi Arabia’s foreign labor legislation, between mid-November 2013 and mid-March, Saudi Arabia unexpectedly deported 163,018 Ethiopian migrants. At the peak of the operation in November and December 2013, approximately 7,000 Ethiopians returned from Saudi Arabia per day. Humanitarian organizations worked with the government to provide medical care, water, food, and transportation for the returnees. The government collaborated with the Saudi Arabian government to ensure proper delivery and protection of the returnees’ possessions. As of mid-March, 94 percent of the returnees had received postarrival assistance. The government also assigned a significant number of personnel to coordinate the return operation and posted full-time staff at the transit sites set up with the help of the international community.
The government, through the Disaster Risk Management Food Security Sector (DRMFSS), continued to play an active role in delivering humanitarian assistance to IDPs. Federal and local DRMFSS officials collaborated with the IOM and its partners in monitoring IDP populations. In addition the Somali Regional State-level Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Bureau, in collaboration with the IOM and other international actors, set up a Durable Solutions Working Group to seek sustainable solutions for the protracted IDP caseload in the Somali Region.
Protection of Refugees
Access to Asylum: The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status, and the government has established a system for providing protection to refugees.
According to the UNHCR, by late December the country hosted 644,168 refugees. The majority of refugees were from South Sudan (248,580) and Somalia (244,066), with others coming from Eritrea (111,321), Sudan (35,606), and other countries (4,595), particularly Kenya.
The UNHCR, the ARRA, and humanitarian agencies continued to care for Sudanese arrivals fleeing from conflict in Sudan’s Blue Nile State. The government also extended support to South Sudanese asylum seekers from South Sudan’s Jonglei and Upper Nile states. As of December more than 193,960 individuals had sought refuge in Ethiopia due to the political conflict that erupted in South Sudan in December 2013.
Eritrean asylum seekers continued to arrive in the country. This included a large number of unaccompanied minors. Many Eritreans who arrived in the country regularly departed for secondary migration through Egypt and Sudan to go to Israel, Europe, and other final destinations.
Employment: The government did not grant refugees work permits.
Access to Basic Services: The UNHCR and the ARRA, with support from NGOs, provided refugees in camps with basic services including health, education, water, sanitation, and hygiene. For those outside of camps, there were no reports of discrimination in access to public services.
Durable Solutions: The government granted refugee status to asylum seekers from Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. The government welcomed refugees to settle permanently in the country but did not offer a path to citizenship or facilitate integration. It permitted Eritrean refugees to live outside refugee camps provided they sustained themselves financially. The government provided some support for Eritreans who were pursuing higher education. As of December, 6,553 refugees had departed the country for resettlement.
Section 3. Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their GovernmentShare
The constitution and law provide citizens the ability to change their government peacefully. The ruling party’s electoral advantages, however, limited this ability.
Elections and Political Participation
Recent Elections: In August 2012, following the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the ruling EPRDF elected Hailemariam Desalegn to take Meles’s place as chairman of the party and subsequently nominated him for the post of prime minister. In September 2012 parliament elected Hailemariam as prime minister.
In the 2010 national parliamentary elections, the EPRDF and affiliated parties won 545 of 547 seats to remain in power for a fourth consecutive five-year term. Government restrictions severely limited independent observation of the vote. Although the relatively few international officials allowed to observe the elections concluded technical aspects of the vote were handled competently, some also noted the lack of an environment conducive to free and fair elections prior to election day. Several laws, regulations, and procedures implemented since the 2005 national elections created a clear advantage for the EPRDF throughout the electoral process. There was ample evidence unfair government tactics, including intimidation of opposition candidates and supporters, enlarged the EPRDF victory. In addition voter education was limited to information about technical voting procedures and was provided by the National Electoral Board just days before voting began.
The African Union, whose observers arrived one week before the vote, deemed the elections to be free and fair. The EU, some of whose observers arrived a few months before the vote, concluded the elections fell short of international standards for transparency and failed to provide a level playing field for opposition parties. The EU observed a “climate of apprehension and insecurity,” noting the volume and consistency of complaints of harassment and intimidation by opposition parties was “a matter of concern” and had to be taken into consideration “in the overall assessment of the electoral process.”
The EPRDF demonstrated its continued dominance in nationwide elections for local and city council positions held in 2013. EPRDF-affiliated parties won all but five of approximately 3.6 million seats; 33 opposition parties boycotted the elections.
Political Parties and Political Participation: Political parties were predominantly ethnically based. The government, controlled by the ruling EPRDF, restricted media freedom and arrested opposition members. Constituent parties of the EPRDF conferred advantages upon their members; the parties directly owned many businesses and were broadly perceived to award jobs and business contracts to loyal supporters. Several opposition political parties reported difficulty in renting homes or buildings in which to open offices, citing visits by EPRDF members to the landlords to persuade or threaten them not to rent property to these parties.
There were reports authorities terminated the employment of teachers and other government workers if they belonged to opposition political parties. According to Oromo opposition groups, the Oromia regional government continued to threaten to dismiss opposition party members, particularly teachers, from their jobs. Government officials alleged many members of legitimate Oromo opposition parties were secretly OLF members and more broadly that members of many opposition parties had ties to Ginbot 7. At the university level, members of Medrek and its constituent parties were able to teach. There were reports unemployed youths not affiliated with the ruling coalition sometimes had trouble receiving the “support letters” from their kebeles (neighborhoods or wards) necessary to get jobs.
Registered political parties must receive permission from regional governments to open and occupy local offices.
Participation of Women and Minorities: No laws or cultural or traditional practices prevented women or minorities from voting or participating in political life on the same basis as men or nonminority citizens, although women were significantly underrepresented in both elected and appointed positions. The Tigray Regional Council included the highest proportion of women nationwide, at 48.5 percent.
The government’s policy of ethnic federalism led to the creation of individual constituencies to provide for representation of all major ethnic groups in the House of People’s Representatives. There were more than 80 ethnic groups, and small groups lacked representation in the legislature. There were 24 nationality groups in six regional states (Tigray, Amhara, Beneshangul-Gumuz, the SNNPR, Gambella, and Harar) that did not have a sufficient population to qualify for constituency seats based on the 2007 census; however, in the 2010 elections, individuals from these nationality groups competed for 24 special seats in the House of People’s Representatives. Additionally these 24 nationality groups have one seat each in the House of Federation.
Women held three of the 22 federal government ministerial positions, including one of three deputy prime minister positions and 152 of 547 seats in the national parliament.
Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in GovernmentShare
The law provides criminal penalties for corruption by officials. Despite the government’s prosecution of numerous officials for corruption, some officials continued to engage in corrupt practices. Corruption, especially the solicitation of bribes, remained a problem among low-level bureaucrats. Police and judicial corruption also continued to be problems. Some government officials appeared to manipulate the privatization process, and state- and party-owned businesses received preferential access to land leases and credit.
Corruption: The Ministry of Justice has primary responsibility for combating corruption, largely through the Federal Ethics and Anticorruption Commission (FEACC).
The FEACC continued criminal proceedings against the director general of the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority, his deputy, and other government officials and private business leaders for alleged corrupt practices. On January 10, Yaregal Ayesheshum, former president of the Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 20,000 birr ($1,000) for “abuse of power” and corruption.
Financial Disclosure: The law requires all government officials and employees to register their wealth and personal property officially. The president and prime minister registered their assets. By June approximately 80,000 government officials had registered their assets as required by law (the 2010 Asset Disclosure and Registration Proclamation).
The FEACC held financial disclosure records. According to law any person seeking access to these records may do so by making a request in writing, although access to information on family assets may be restricted unless the FEACC deems the disclosure necessary. The law includes financial and criminal sanctions for noncompliance.
Public Access to Information: The law provides for public access to government information, but access was largely restricted. The law includes a sufficiently narrow list of exceptions outlining the grounds for nondisclosure. Responses generally must be made within 30 days of a written request, and fees may not exceed the actual cost of responding to the request. The law includes mechanisms for punishing officials for noncompliance, as well as appeal mechanisms for review of disclosure denials. Information on the number of disclosures or denials during the year was not available.
The government publishes laws and regulations in the national gazette prior to their taking effect. The Government Communications Affairs Office managed contacts between the government, the press, and the public; the private press reported the government rarely responded to its queries.
Section 5. Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human RightsShare
A few domestic human rights groups operated but with significant government restrictions. The government was generally distrustful and wary of domestic human rights groups and international observers. State-controlled media were critical of international human rights groups such as HRW.
The CSO law prohibits charities, societies, and associations (NGOs or CSOs) that receive more than 10 percent of their funding from foreign sources from engaging in activities that advance human and democratic rights or promote equality of nations, nationalities, peoples, genders, and religions; the rights of children and persons with disabilities; conflict resolution or reconciliation; or the efficiency of justice and law enforcement services. The law severely curtailed civil society’s ability to raise questions of good governance, human rights, corruption, and transparency, and forced many local and international NGOs working on good governance and human rights to either close or cease advocacy. In 2012 the UN high commissioner for human rights expressed concern that civil society space “has rapidly shrunk” since the CSO law’s enactment. By year’s end approximately 3,056 NGOs had registered under the CSO law. Of these, however, only four groups were actively engaged in human rights-based advocacy.
Some human rights defender organizations continued to register either as local charities, meaning they could not raise more than 10 percent of their funds from foreign donors but could act in the specified areas, or as resident charities, which allowed foreign donations above 10 percent but prohibited advocacy activities in those areas.
One of several sets of the law’s implementing regulations, commonly known as the 70/30 rule, caps administrative spending at 30 percent of an organization’s operating budget. The regulations define training of teachers, agricultural and health extension workers, and other government officials as an “administrative” cost, contending the training does not directly affect beneficiaries, thus limiting the number of training programs that can be provided by development assistance partners who prefer to employ train-the-trainer models to reach more persons. The government addressed application of this regulation on a case-by-case basis. A Civil Society Sector Working Group, cochaired by the Ministry of Federal Affairs, three civil society organizations, and representatives of the donor community, convened periodically to monitor and discuss challenges that arose as the law was implemented.
The government denied most NGOs access to federal prisons, police stations, and undisclosed places of detention. The government permitted a local NGO, one of four organizations granted an exemption enabling them to raise unlimited funds from foreign sources and to engage in human rights advocacy, to visit prisoners. Some NGOs played a positive role in improving prisoners’ chances for clemency.
Due to security concerns, authorities limited access of human rights organizations, the media, humanitarian agencies, and diplomatic missions to conflict-affected areas, although it continued to ease such restrictions. Humanitarian access in the Somali Region in particular continued to improve; however, due to security concerns, some restrictions remained. The government lacked a clear policy on NGO access to sensitive areas, leading regional government officials and military officials frequently to refer requests for access to the federal government. Officials required journalists to register before entering conflict regions. There were isolated reports of regional police or local militias blocking NGOs’ access to particular locations on particular days, citing security concerns. Some government agencies limited project activities for security reasons.
Some persons feared authorities would retaliate against them if they met with NGOs and foreign government officials who were investigating allegations of abuse.
The United Nations or Other International Bodies: Requests to visit the country from the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment remained unanswered.
Government Human Rights Bodies: The EHRC investigated human rights complaints and produced annual and thematic reports. The commission operated 112 legal aid centers in collaboration with 22 universities and two civil society organizations, the Ethiopian Women Lawyers’ Association and the Ethiopian Christian Lawyers Fellowship. The commission also signed cooperative agreements with Axum, Wolayta, Debre Berhan, and Jijiga universities.
The EHRC reported to parliament that in 2013-14 it had accepted 1,037 human rights-related grievances and completed investigations into 134 cases (13 percent of the total). In addition the EHRC claimed to have provided counseling services to 463 individuals, resolved 107 cases through negotiation, and referred 306 grievances (30 percent of the total) to the relevant government offices.
The Office of the Ombudsman has authority to receive and investigate complaints with respect to administrative mismanagement by executive branch offices. From September 2011 to September 2012, the office received 2,094 complaints. Of these, the ombudsman opened investigations into 784, and the office reported it resolved the remaining cases through alternative means. The majority of complaints dealt with social security, labor, housing, and property disputes. The Office of the Ombudsman did not compile nationwide statistics.
Section 6. Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in PersonsShare
The constitution provides all persons equal protection without discrimination based on race, nation, nationality or other social origin, color, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, property, birth, or status, but the government did not fully promote and protect these rights. The constitution does not address discrimination based on disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Women
Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape and provides for penalties of five to 20 years’ imprisonment, depending on the severity of the case; the law does not expressly address spousal rape. The government did not fully enforce the law, partially due to widespread underreporting. Recent statistics on the number of abusers prosecuted, convicted, or punished were not available.
Domestic violence is illegal, but government enforcement of laws against rape and domestic violence was inconsistent.
Domestic violence, including spousal abuse, was a pervasive social problem. Depending on the severity of damage inflicted, legal penalties range from small fines to imprisonment for up to 10 to 15 years.
Although women had recourse to the police and the courts, societal norms and limited infrastructure prevented many women from seeking legal redress, particularly in rural areas. The government prosecuted offenders on a limited scale.
Domestic violence and rape cases often were delayed significantly and given low priority. In the context of gender-based violence, significant gender gaps in the justice system remained, due to poor documentation and inadequate investigation. Gender-based violence against women and girls was underreported due to cultural acceptance, shame, fear, or a victim’s ignorance of legal protections.
“Child friendly” benches hear cases involving violence against children and women. Police officers were required to receive domestic violence training from domestic NGOs and the Ministry of Women, Children, and Youth Affairs. There was a commissioner for women and children’s affairs in the EHRC.
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): FGM/C is illegal, but the government did not actively enforce this prohibition or punish those who practiced it. The government strategy for combatting this practice was focused on community education rather than punitive measures, which had been seen to drive the practice underground in other countries (see section 6, Children).
Other Harmful Traditional Practices: The most prevalent harmful traditional practices other than FGM/C included uvula cutting, tonsil scraping, milk tooth extraction, early marriage, and marriage by abduction.
Marriage by abduction is illegal, although it continued in some regions despite the government’s attempts to combat the practice. A 2009 Population Council study of seven regions found that 2.6 percent of married female youth reported their marriages occurred through abduction. Of that number, the study found the rate to be 12.9 percent in the SNNPR, 4.4 percent in Oromia, 3 percent in Afar, and less than 1percent in Beneshangul Gumuz. The study did not include the Gambella or Somali Regions. Forced sexual relationships accompanied most marriages by abduction, and women often experienced physical abuse during the abduction. Abductions led to conflicts among families, communities, and ethnic groups. In cases of marriage by abduction, the perpetrator did not face punishment if the victim agreed to marry the perpetrator.
Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment was widespread. The penal code prescribes penalties of 18 to 24 months’ imprisonment, but authorities generally did not enforce harassment laws.
Reproductive Rights: Individuals and couples have the right to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of children; to have the information and means to do so free from discrimination, coercion, and violence; and the right to attain the highest standard of reproductive health. The government fully supported reproductive rights and worked actively to ensure equitable access to reproductive health services throughout the country. Orthodox and Muslim church leadership actively promoted use of health services, including family planning if desired, to ensure healthy families. A “mini” Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) was conducted during the year to measure progress in contraceptive prevalence, total fertility rate, maternal health, and nutrition. The mini-DHS indicated a modern contraceptive prevalence of 40 percent nationwide among married women, up from 27 percent three years prior. The mini-DHS also showed delivery with a skilled birth attendant had risen from 10 to 16 percent. Modeling completed by the government with support from the Gates Foundation and UN agencies indicated the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth had dropped from 676 deaths per 100,000 live births to an estimated 420 deaths per 100,000 live births, indicating the country had met its UN Millennium Development Goal target of reducing maternal mortality by 70 percent since 1990. Abortion is illegal but with numerous exceptions. The incidence of illegal, unsafe abortions had declined since legislation changed, which accounted in part for the drop in maternal mortality. All maternal and child health services were provided free of charge in the public sector; however, challenges persisted in accessing quality services in more remote areas of the country due to transportation problems.
Discrimination: Discrimination against women was a problem and was most acute in rural areas, where an estimated 85 percent of the population lived. The law contains discriminatory regulations, such as the recognition of the husband as the legal head of the family and the sole guardian of children more than five years old. Courts generally did not consider domestic violence by itself a justification for granting a divorce. Irrespective of the number of years a marriage existed, the number of children raised, and joint property, the law entitled women to only three months’ financial support if a relationship ended. There was limited legal recognition of common-law marriage. A common-law husband had no obligation to provide financial assistance to his family, and consequently women and children sometimes faced abandonment. Traditional courts continued to apply customary law in economic and social relationships.
According to the constitution, all land belongs to the government. Both men and women have land-use rights, which they may pass on as an inheritance. Land law varies among regions. All federal and regional land laws empower women to access government land. Inheritance laws also enable widowed women to inherit joint property they acquired during marriage.
In urban areas women had fewer employment opportunities than men, and the jobs available did not generally provide equal pay for equal work. Women’s access to gainful employment, credit, and the opportunity to own or manage a business was further limited by their generally lower level of education and training and by traditional attitudes.
The Ministry of Education reported female participation in undergraduate and postgraduate programs rose to 172,237 women in 2012-13 from 144,286 women in 2011-12, continuing the trend of increasing female participation in higher education.
Children
Birth registration: Citizenship is derived from one’s parents. The law requires all children to be registered at birth. Children born in hospitals were registered while most children born outside of hospitals were not. The overwhelming majority of children, particularly in rural areas, were born at home.
Education: As a policy primary education was universal and tuition-free; however, there were not enough schools to accommodate the country’s youth, particularly in rural areas. The cost of school supplies was prohibitive for many families, and there was no legislation to enforce compulsory primary education. The number of students enrolled in schools expanded faster than trained teachers could be deployed. Orchestrating government, NGO, and donor resources, the government had opened 5,322 new primary schools and 715 new secondary schools since 2009.
Child Abuse: Child abuse was widespread. The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2013, published by the African Child Policy Forum, found the government had increased punishment for sexual violence against children. “Child friendly” benches heard cases involving violence against children and women. There was a commissioner for women and children’s affairs in the EHRC.
Early and Forced Marriage: The law sets the legal marriage age for girls and boys at 18; however, authorities did not enforce this law uniformly, and rural families sometimes were unaware of this provision. In several regions it was customary for older men to marry girls, although this traditional practice continued to face greater scrutiny and criticism. The government strategy to address underage marriage was focused on education and mediation rather than punishment of offenders.
According to the 2011 DHS, the median age of first marriage among women surveyed between the ages of 20 and 49 was 17.1 years. The age of first marriage appeared to be rising. In 2005 the median age of marriage for women surveyed between ages 20 and 24 was 16.5 years, and while 39 percent of women between 45 and 49 reported being married by age 15, only 8 percent of girls and young women between 15 and 19 years of age reported being or having been married.
In the Amhara and Tigray regions, girls were married as early as age seven. Child marriage was most prevalent in the Amhara Region, where the median first marriage age was 15.1 years, according to the 2011 DHS, compared with 14.7 years in 2005. Regional governments in Amhara and, to a lesser extent, Tigray offered programs to educate girls and young women on problems associated with early marriage.
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): FGM/C is illegal, but the government did not actively enforce this prohibition or punish those who practiced it. The majority of girls in the country had undergone some form of FGM/C, although the results of the 2009 Population Council survey suggested its prevalence had declined. Of female respondents ages 21 to 24, 66 percent reported they were subjected to FGM/C, compared with 56 percent of those ages 15 to 17. Of the seven regions surveyed, the study found the rates to be highest in Afar (90.3 percent), Oromia (77.4 percent), and the SNNPR (74.6 percent).
FGM/C was much less common in urban areas, where 15 percent of the population lived. Girls typically experienced clitoridectomies seven days after birth (consisting of an excision of the clitoris, often with partial labial excision) and infibulation (the most extreme and dangerous form of FGM/C) at the onset of puberty. The penal code criminalizes the practice of clitoridectomy, with imprisonment of at least three months or a fine of at least 500 birr ($25). Infibulation of the genitals is punishable with imprisonment of five to 10 years. No criminal charges, however, had ever been brought for FGM/C. The government’s strategy was to discourage the practice of FGM/C through education in public schools, the Health Extension Program, and broader mass media campaigns rather than prosecute offenders. International bilateral donors and private organizations were active in community education efforts to reduce the prevalence of FGM/C, following the government’s lead of sensitization rather than legal enforcement.
Other Harmful Traditional Practices: Societal abuse of young girls continued to be a problem. Other harmful practices included early marriage, marriage by abduction, and food and work prohibitions, uvula cutting, tonsil scraping, and milk tooth extraction.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The minimum age for consensual sex is 18 years, but authorities did not enforce this law. The law provides for three to 15 years in prison for sexual intercourse with a minor. The law provides for one year in prison and a fine of 10,000 birr ($500) for trafficking in indecent material displaying sexual intercourse by minors. The law prohibits profiting from the prostitution of minors and inducing minors to engage in prostitution; however, commercial sexual exploitation of children continued, particularly in urban areas. Girls as young as age 11 reportedly were recruited to work in brothels. Customers often sought these girls because they believed them to be free of sexually transmitted diseases. Young girls were trafficked from rural to urban areas. They also were exploited as prostitutes in hotels, bars, resort towns, and rural truck stops. Reports indicated family members forced some young girls into prostitution.
Infanticide or Infanticide of Children with Disabilities: Ritual and superstition-based infanticide continued in remote tribal areas, particularly South Omo. Local governments worked to educate communities against the practice.
Displaced Children: According to a 2010 report by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, approximately 150,000 children lived on the streets, of whom 60,000 were in the capital. The ministry’s report stated families’ inability to support children due to parental illness or insufficient household income exacerbated the problem. These children begged, sometimes as part of a gang, or worked in the informal sector.
A 2010 Population Council Young Adult Survey found that 82.3 percent of boys who lived or worked on the streets had been to or had enrolled in school, 26.4 percent had lost one parent, and 47.2 percent had lost both parents. Among these boys, 72 percent worked for pay at some point in their lives. Government and privately run orphanages were unable to handle the number of street children.
Institutionalized Children: There were an estimated 4.5 million orphans in the country in 2012, according to statistics published by the UN Children’s Fund. The vast majority lived with extended family members. Government orphanages were overcrowded, and conditions were often unsanitary. Due to severe resource constraints, hospitals and orphanages often overlooked or neglected abandoned infants. Institutionalized children did not receive adequate health care.
International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. For country-specific information see the Department of State’s website at travel.state.gov/content/childabduction/english/country/ethiopia.html.
Anti-Semitism
The Jewish community numbered approximately 2,000 persons. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.
The constitution does not mandate equal rights for persons with disabilities. The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical and mental disabilities in employment and mandates access to buildings. It is illegal for deaf persons to drive.
The law prohibits employment discrimination based on disability. It also makes employers responsible for providing appropriate working or training conditions and materials to persons with disabilities. The law specifically recognizes the additional burden on women with disabilities. The government took limited measures to enforce the law, for example, by assigning interpreters for hearing-impaired civil service employees (see section 7.d.).
The law mandates building accessibility and accessible toilet facilities for persons with physical disabilities, although specific regulations that define the accessibility standards were not adopted. Buildings and toilet facilities were usually not accessible. Landlords are required to give persons with disabilities preference for ground-floor apartments, and this was respected.
Women with disabilities were more disadvantaged than men with disabilities in education and employment. The 2010 Population Council Young Adult Survey found young persons with disabilities were less likely to have ever attended school than young persons without disabilities. The survey indicated girls with disabilities were less likely than boys with disabilities to be in school; 23 percent of girls with disabilities were in school, compared with 48 percent of girls without disabilities and 55 percent of boys without disabilities. Overall, 47.8 percent of young persons with disabilities surveyed reported not going to school due to their disability. Girls with disabilities also were much more likely to suffer physical and sexual abuse than girls without disabilities. Of sexually experienced girls with disabilities, 33 percent reported having experienced forced sex. According to the same survey, approximately 6 percent of boys with disabilities had been beaten in the three months prior to the survey, compared with 2 percent of boys without disabilities.
There were several schools for hearing and visually impaired persons and several training centers for children and young persons with intellectual disabilities. There was a network of prosthetic and orthopedic centers in five of the nine regional states.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs worked on disability-related problems. The CSO law continued to affect negatively several domestic associations, such as the Ethiopian National Association of the Blind, the Ethiopian National Association of the Deaf, and the Ethiopian National Association of the Physically Handicapped, as it did other civil society organizations.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The country has more than 80 ethnic groups, of which the Oromo, at approximately 35 percent of the population, is the largest. The federal system drew boundaries approximately along major ethnic group lines. Most political parties remained primarily ethnically based.
Clashes between ethnic groups resulted in injury and death. For example, in late April and May, demonstrations on university campuses throughout the Oromia Region broke out following reports that a draft development plan for Addis Ababa would expand the capital city into towns previously controlled by the surrounding Oromia regional officials. On April 30, a peaceful student protest in Ambo, west of Addis Ababa, escalated into violence and resulted in the deaths of at least eight persons. HRW reported that “witnesses said security forces fired live ammunition at peaceful protesters.”
Authorities in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz forcibly evicted as many as 8,000 ethnic Amhara residents from their homes; some of those evicted alleged police beat and harassed them because of their ethnicity. The regional president publicly stated the evictions were a mistake and called on the evictees to return. Government officials also stated that victims would be compensated for lost property and any injuries sustained. Authorities dismissed several local officials from their government positions because of their alleged involvement in the evictions and charged some of the officials with criminal offenses.
Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Consensual same-sex sexual activity is illegal and punishable with three to 15 years’ imprisonment under the law. No law prohibits discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. There were some reports of violence against LGBT individuals; reporting was limited due to fear of retribution, discrimination, or stigmatization. There are no hate crime laws or other criminal justice mechanisms to aid in the investigation of abuses against LGBT persons. Persons did not identify themselves as LGBT persons due to severe societal stigma and the illegality of consensual same-sex sexual activity. Activists in the LGBT community stated they were followed and at times feared for their safety.
The AIDS Resource Center in Addis Ababa reported the majority of self-identified gay and lesbian callers, most of whom were male, requested assistance in changing their behavior to avoid discrimination. Many gay men reported anxiety, confusion, identity crises, depression, self-ostracism, religious conflict, and suicide attempts.
HIV and AIDS Social Stigma
Societal stigma and discrimination against persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS continued in the areas of education, employment, and community integration. Persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS reported difficulty accessing services. Despite the abundance of anecdotal information, there were no statistics on the scale of the problem.
Section 7. Worker Rights
a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining
The constitution and law provide workers, except for civil servants and certain categories of workers primarily in the public sector, with the right to form and join unions, conduct legal strikes, and bargain collectively, although other provisions and laws severely restrict or excessively regulate these rights. The law specifically prohibits managerial employees, teachers, health-care workers, judges, prosecutors, security service workers, domestic workers, and seasonal and part-time agricultural workers from organizing unions.
A minimum of 10 workers is required to form a union. While the law provides all unions with the right to register, the government may refuse to register trade unions that do not meet its registration requirements and unilaterally cancel the registration of a union. Workers may not join more than one trade union per employment. The law stipulates a trade union organization may not act in an overtly political manner. The law allows administrative authorities to appeal to the courts to cancel union registration for engaging in prohibited activities, such as political action. While the law prohibits antiunion discrimination by employers and provides for reinstatement for workers fired for union activity, it does not prevent an employer from creating or supporting a workers’ organization for the purpose of controlling it.
Other laws and regulations that explicitly or potentially infringe upon workers’ rights to associate freely and to organize include the CSO law, Council of Ministers Regulation No. 168/2009 on Charities and Societies to reinforce the CSO law, and Proclamation No. 652/2009 on Antiterrorism. The International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations noted the CSO law gives the government power to interfere in the right of workers to organize, including through the registration, internal administration, and dissolution of organizations, and that the Antiterrorism Proclamation could become a means of punishing the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression and the right to organize.
While the law recognizes the right of collective bargaining, this right was severely restricted. Negotiations aimed at amending or replacing a collective agreement must be completed within three months of its expiration; otherwise the provisions on wages and other benefits cease to apply. Civil servants, including public school teachers, have the right to establish and join professional associations but are not allowed to negotiate for better wages or working conditions. Furthermore, the arbitration procedures in the public sector are more restrictive than those in the private sector. The law does not provide for effective and adequate sanctions against acts of interference by other agents in their establishment, functioning, or administration of either the workers’ or employers’ organizations.
Although the constitution and law provide workers with the right to strike to protect their interests, the law contains detailed provisions prescribing excessively complex and time-consuming formalities that make legal strike actions difficult to carry out. The law requires aggrieved workers to attempt reconciliation with employers before striking and includes a lengthy dispute settlement process. These provisions apply equally to an employer’s right to lock workers out. Two-thirds of the workers concerned must support a strike for it to be authorized. If a case has not already been referred to a court or labor relations board, workers retain the right to strike without resorting to either of these options, provided they give at least 10 days’ notice to the other party and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and make efforts at reconciliation.
The law also prohibits strikes by workers who provide essential services, including air transport and urban bus service workers, electric power suppliers, gas station personnel, hospital and pharmacy personnel, firefighters, telecommunications personnel, and urban sanitary workers. The list of essential services exceeds the ILO definition of essential services. The law prohibits retribution against strikers, but also provides for excessive civil or penal sanctions against unions and workers involved in unauthorized strike actions. Unions may be dissolved for carrying out strikes in “essential services.”
The informal labor sector, including domestic workers, is not unionized and is not protected by labor laws. Lack of adequate staffing prevented the government from effectively enforcing applicable laws for those sectors protected by law. Court procedures were subject to lengthy delays and appeals.
Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining were not respected. Although the government permits unions, the government established and controlled the major trade unions. As it had for more than four years, the government continued to use its authority to refuse to register the National Teachers’ Association (NTA) on the grounds a national teachers’ association already existed and that the NTA’s registration application was not submitted in accordance with the CSO law. According to the Education International report to the ILO in 2011, government security agents subjected members of the NTA to surveillance and harassment, with the goal of intimidating teachers into abandoning the NTA and forcing them to give up their long-standing demand for the formation of an independent union. In March the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association expressed its concern with regard to serious violations of the NTA’s trade union rights, including continuous interference in its internal organization that prevented it from functioning normally, as well as interference by way of threats, dismissals, arrests, detentions, and mistreatment of NTA members. In May 2013 the ILO mission made a working visit and signed the Joint Statement with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, according to which the government was ready and committed to register the NTA in accordance with the CSO Law. The committee continued to urge the government to register the NTA without delay and to undertake civil service reform to protect fully the right of civil servants to establish and join organizations of their own choosing. During the year the ILO experts committee reported the government was “ready and committed” to register the NTA under the Charities and Societies Proclamation.
While the government allowed citizens to exercise the right of collective bargaining freely, representatives negotiated wages only at the plant level. It was common for employers to refuse to bargain. Unions in the formal industrial sector made some efforts to enforce labor regulations.
Despite the law prohibiting antiunion discrimination, unions reported employers fired union activists. There were reports most Chinese employers generally did not allow workers to form unions and often transferred or fired union leaders, and intimidated and pressured members to leave unions. Lawsuits alleging unlawful dismissal often take years to resolve because of case backlogs in the courts. Employers found guilty of antiunion discrimination were required to reinstate workers fired for union activities and generally did so. While the law prohibits retribution against strikers, most workers were not convinced the government would enforce this protection. Labor officials reported that high unemployment and long delays in the hearing of labor cases made some workers afraid to participate in strikes or other labor actions. Antiunion activities occurred but were rarely reported.
b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits most forms of forced or compulsory labor, including by children, but it also permits courts to order forced labor as a punitive measure. The government did not effectively enforce the forced labor prohibition, and forced labor occurred. Both adults and children were forced to engage in street vending, begging, traditional weaving, or agricultural work. Children also worked in forced domestic labor. Situations of debt bondage also occurred in traditional weaving, pottery making, cattle herding, and other agricultural activities, mostly in rural areas.
c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
By law the minimum age for wage or salary employment is 14 years. The minimum age provisions, however, only apply to contractual labor and do not apply to self-employed children or children who perform unpaid work. Special provisions cover children between the ages of 14 and 18, including the prohibition of hazardous or night work. The law defines hazardous work as work in factories or involving machinery with moving parts or any work that could jeopardize a child’s health. Prohibited work sectors include passenger transport, work in electric generation plants, underground work, street cleaning, and many other sectors. The law expressly excludes children under age 16 attending vocational schools from legal protection with regard to the prohibition on young workers performing hazardous work. The law does not permit children between the ages of 14 and 18 to work more than seven hours per day, between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., on public holidays or rest days, or on overtime.
The government did not effectively enforce these laws. The lack of labor inspectors and controls prevented the government from enforcing the law. The resources for inspections and the implementation of penalties were extremely limited. Despite the introduction of labor inspector training at Gondar University in 2011, insufficient numbers of labor inspectors and inspections resulted in lax enforcement of occupational safety and health measures and in increased numbers of children working in prohibited work sectors, particularly construction. The National Action Plan to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor was signed at the end of 2012.
While primary education is tuition-free, it is not compulsory, and net school enrollment was low, particularly in rural areas. To underscore the importance of attending school, joint NGO and government-led community-based awareness raising activities targeted communities where children were heavily engaged in agricultural work. The government invested in modernizing agricultural practices and constructing schools to combat the problem of child labor in agricultural sectors.
Child labor remained a serious problem. In both rural and urban areas, children often began working at young ages. Child labor was particularly pervasive in subsistence agricultural production, traditional weaving, fishing, and domestic work. A growing number of children worked in construction. Children in rural areas, especially boys, engaged in activities such as cattle herding, petty trading, plowing, harvesting, and weeding, while other children, mostly girls, collected firewood and fetched water. Children worked in the production of gold. In small-scale gold mining, they dug their own mining pits and carried heavy loads of water. Children in urban areas, including orphans, worked in domestic service, often working long hours, which prevented many from attending school regularly. They also worked in manufacturing, shining shoes, making clothes, as porters, directing customers to taxis, parking, public transport, petty trading, and occasionally herding animals. Some children worked long hours in dangerous environments for little or no wages and without occupational safety protection. Child laborers often faced physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of their employers.
d. Discrimination with Respect to Employment or Occupation
The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, marital status, religion, political affiliation, pregnancy, socioeconomic status, and disability. The law specifically recognizes the additional burden on women with disabilities (see section 6.) Sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV-positive status are not specifically protected. The government took limited measures to enforce the law.
Discrimination in employment and occupation occurred with respect to women, who had fewer employment opportunities than men, and the jobs available did not provide equal pay for equal work.
Discrimination against migrant workers also occurred (see section 7.e.).
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
There is no national minimum wage. Some government institutions and public enterprises set their own minimum wages. Public sector employees, the largest group of wage earners, earned a monthly minimum wage of approximately 420 birr ($21). The official estimate for the poverty income level was 315 birr ($15.75) per month.
Only a small percentage of the population, concentrated in urban areas, was involved in wage-labor employment. Wages in the informal sector generally were below subsistence levels.
The law provides for a 48-hour maximum legal workweek with a 24-hour rest period, premium pay for overtime, and prohibition of excessive compulsory overtime. The country has 13 paid public holidays per year. The law entitles employees in public enterprises and government financial institutions to overtime pay; civil servants receive compensatory time off for overtime work. The government, industries, and unions negotiated occupational safety and health standards. Workers specifically excluded by law from unionizing, including domestic workers and seasonal and part-time agricultural workers, generally did not benefit from health and safety regulations in the workplace.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs’ inspection department was responsible for enforcement of workplace standards. In 2013 the country had 291 labor inspectors, down from 380. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the decrease was the result of high turnover and limited financial resources. Due to lack of resources, the labor inspectors did not enforce standards effectively. The ministry’s severely limited administrative capacity; lack of an effective mechanism for receiving, investigating, and tracking allegations of violations; and lack of detailed, sector-specific health and safety guidelines hampered effective enforcement of these standards. In addition penalties were not sufficient to deter violations.
Compensation, benefits, and working conditions of seasonal agricultural workers were far below those of unionized permanent agricultural employees. The government did little to enforce the law. Most employees in the formal sector worked a 39-hour workweek. Many foreign, migrant, and informal sector workers worked more than 48 hours per week.
Workers have the right to remove themselves from dangerous situations without jeopardizing their employment. Despite this law most workers feared losing their jobs if they were to do so. Hazardous working conditions existed in the agricultural sector, which was the primary base of the country’s economy. There were also reports of hazardous and exploitative working conditions in the construction and fledgling industrial sectors.
(Borama News, 25 June 2015) –By mid 2007, the 50,000 Ethiopian troops that invaded Somalia in late 2006 found themselves increasingly bogged down, facing much fiercer resistance than they had bargained for as Somalis of all stripes temporarily put aside their differences to stand together against the outside invader.
As the military incursion turned increasingly sour, then US Under Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, who taught at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies in the 1990s, insisted that, prior to the invasion, the United States had counseled caution and that Washington had warned Ethiopia not to use military force against Somalia. Frazer was a close collaborator with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for whom there also is a strong University of Denver connection. Frazer certainly tried to distance the United States from responsibility for the Ethiopian invasion in a number of interviews she gave to the media at the time.
But one of the released WikiLeaks cables, suggests a different picture, one that implicates Frazer in pressing Ethiopia’s President Meles Zenawi to invade its neighbor. The content of the cable is being widely discussed in the African media. It exposes a secret deal cut between the United States and Ethiopia to invade Somalia.
If accurate — and there is no reason to believe the contrary — the cable suggests that Ethiopia had no intention of invading Somalia in 2006 but was encouraged/pressured to do so by the United States which pushed Ethiopia behind the scenes. Already bogged down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, the Bush Administration pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia with an eye on crushing the Union of Islamic Courts, which was gaining strength in Somalia at the time.
At the time of the invasion there was little doubt that the Ethiopian military incursion was “made in Washington.” Like so many other WikiLeaks cables, this one merely puts a dot on the “i” or crosses the “t” on what was generally known, although it does give specific information about Jendayi Frazer’s deep involvement in the affair.
According to the cable, as the main U.S. State Department representative in Africa, Frazer played a key role, spearheading what amounted to a U.S.-led proxy war in conjunction with the Pentagon. At the same time that she was pushing the Ethiopians to attack, Frazer was laying the groundwork both for the attack in the U.S. media and for a cover-up, by claiming that although the United States did not support Ethiopian military action, she could understand “the Somali threat” and why Ethiopia might find it necessary to go to war.
Frazer spread rumors of a possible jihadist takeover in Somalia that would threaten Ethiopian security. Turns out that media performance was little more than a smokescreen. The U.S. military had been preparing Ethiopia for the invasion, providing military aid and training Ethiopian troops. Then on December 4, 2006, CENTCOM Commander, General John Abizaid was in Addis Ababa on what was described as “a courtesy call.” Instead, the plans for the invasion were finalized.
At the time of the Somali invasion, Zenawi found himself in trouble. He was facing growing criticism for the wave of repression he had unleashed against domestic Ethiopian critics of his rule that had included mass arrests, the massacres of hundreds of protesters and the jailing of virtually all the country’s opposition leaders. By the spring of 2006 there was a bill before the U.S. Congress to cut off aid to Zenawi unless Ethiopia’s human rights record improved. (His human rights record, by the way, has not improved since. Given how the United States and NATO view Ethiopia’s strategic role in the “war on terrorism” and the scramble for African mineral and energy resources, Western support for Zenawi has only increased in recent years).
In 2006, dependent on U.S. support to maintain power in face of a shrinking political base at home — a situation many U.S. allies in the Third World find themselves — and against his better judgement, Zenawi apparently caved to Frazer’s pressure. Nor was this the first time that Frazer had tried to instigate a U.S. proxy war in Africa. Earlier as U.S. ambassador to South Africa, she had tried to put together a “coalition of the willing” to overthrow Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, an initiative that did not sit so well with South Africa’s post-apartheid government and went nowhere.
The 2006 war in Somalia did not go well either for the United States or Ethiopia. Recently a State Department spokesperson, Donald Yamamoto, admitted that the whole idea was “a big mistake,” obliquely admitting U.S. responsibility for the invasion. It resulted in 20,000 deaths and according to some reports, left up to 2 million Somalis homeless. The 50,000 Ethiopian invasion force, which had expected a cake walk, instead ran into a buzz saw of Somali resistance, got bogged down and soon withdrew with its tail between its legs. The political result of the invasion was predictable: the generally more moderate Union of Islamic Courts was weakened, but it was soon replaced in Somalia by far more radical and militant Islamic groups with a more openly anti-American agenda.
As the situation deteriorated, in an attempt to cover both the U.S. and her own role, Frazer then turned on Zenawi, trying to distance herself from fiasco using an old and tried diplomatic trick: outright lying. Now that the invasion had turned sour, she changed her tune, arguing in the media, that both she and the State Department had tried to hold back the Ethiopians, discouraging them from invading rather than pushing them to attack. The WikiLeaks cable tells quite a different story. In 2009, the Ethiopian forces withdrew, leaving Somalia in a bigger mess and more unstable than when their troops went in three years prior. Seems to be a pattern here?
The country desperately needs new universities to drive development, but most of the 30 built in the last 15 years fall woefully short
The declining standard of Nigeria’s premier institution, the University of Ibadan, ten years ago is reflected in Ethiopia where the quality of new universities varies widely. Photograph: George Esiri/REUTERS
Ethiopia’s higher education infrastructure has mushroomed in the last 15 years. But the institutions suffer from half-written curriculums, unqualified – but party-loyal – lecturers, and shoddily built institutions. The rapid growth of Ethiopia’s higher education system has come at a cost, but it is moving forward all the same.
Twenty years ago the Ethiopian government launched a huge and ambitious development strategy that called for “the cultivation of citizens with an all-round education capable of playing a conscious and active role in the economic, social, and political life of the country”. One of the principal results of Ethiopia’sagricultural development-led industrialisation strategy (ADLI) has been a rapid expansion in the country’s higher education system. In 2000 there were just two universities, but since then the country has built 29 more, with plans for another 11 to be completed within two years.
The quality of these new universities varies widely; from thriving research schools, to substandard institutions built to bolster the regime’s power in hostile regions. One professor recalls a hurried evacuation from part of a recently completed university while he was working there: one of the buildings had collapsed.
But there have also been success stories. The University of Jimma, for example, has come first in the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s rankings for the past five years, and is held up as evidence of ADLI’s efficacy since its establishment in 1999. The most recent development at Jimma, the department of materials science and engineering (MSE), opened for students in 2013, and has quickly expanded to become one of the top research schools in the sub-Saharan region. The department’s founder, Dr Ali Eftekhari, has since received a fellowship from the African Academy of Sciences on the back of the project’s success.
This success is much-needed. At 8%, African higher education enrolment issignificantly lower than the global average of 32%, and Ethiopia trails even further behind, with fewer than 6% of college-age adults at university. Research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Stem) is starting from a particularly low base in Africa. The World Bank reported last year that though the sub-Saharan region has “increased both the quantity and quality of its research” in recent years, much of this improvement is due to international collaboration, and a lack of native Africans is “reducing the economic impact and relevance of research”.
Dr Eftekhari echoes these concerns: “The problem for development in Ethiopiaand similar African countries is higher education itself. This is the reason that I focused on PhD programs. “For instance, Jimma’s department of civil engineering has over 3,000 undergraduate students. These civil engineers are the future builders of the country, but there is not one PhD holder among the staff; most only have a BSc.”
Eftekhari improvised and sweet-talked in order to get the department established; in its first year, the department taught 18 PhD students – all native Ethiopians – on almost zero budget, with staff donating their time and money until funding was secured from the ministry of education. Despite the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) push for development, Ethiopia’s political landscape remains a minefield for education professionals, says Eftekhari: “People are always suspicious about the political reasons behind each new project. I decided to start with zero budget to allay those doubts. In developing countries everything has some degree of flexibility. I used this to borrow staff and resources from the rest of the university until we could secure a budget.
“Many of the staff saw the project as a career opportunity,” says Eftekhari, but altruism also played a part. The department’s research focuses primarily on solving the country’s pressing poverty and development problems. “They knew they were actually saving lives,” says Jimma’s innovation coordinator, Maria Shou.
The belief that science and engineering is key to alleviating poverty propels the work of the school. Projects range from the development of super-capacitors for the provision of cheap power, to carbon nanomaterials for Ethiopia’s expanding construction industry. “You only need a couple of weeks in Ethiopia to realise that materials science is a priority,” says Pablo Corrochano, an assistant professor at the school. “Even in the capital you’ll experience cuts in power and water; in rural areas it’s even worse. Producing quality and inexpensive bricks for building houses, designing active water filters, and supplying ‘off-the-grid’ energy systems for rural areas are all vital to the country’s development.”
However, Jimma’s success could be seen as a bit of an anomaly. Paul O’Keeffe, a researcher at La Sapienza University of Rome, who specialises in Ethiopia’s higher education system, believes that similar initiatives are needed, but that the government’s politics are an obstacle: “My research indicates that the rapid expansion of the public university system has seen a dramatic decline in the quality of education offered in recent years. Instead of putting resources into improving the existing system, or establishing a few good institutions, the EPRDF has built many new universities, largely for political reasons.
“A lot of the time the universities are merely shells. They do not function as universities as we would expect and are poorly resourced, and in some cases shoddily built. It would seem that they are built almost as a token where the EPRDF can say to hostile regions ‘look we are doing something for you, we’ve built a university’.”
Even when the universities do function, the quality of education is often low: “Once the funding, say from a western development agency, is finished for a particular course, it is no longer taught as the university authorities believe they can get funding for a new course instead; whatever is the latest fashionable course. So often this type of education for development is not sustainable.”
Reports of spies, classroom propaganda, of curriculums that have been abandoned half-written due to funding cuts, and of unqualified staff are common at these universities, which make up the bulk of Ethiopian higher education, says O’Keeffe. “The party line is peddled during class, students are required to join the party, [there are] various reports of spies in the classrooms, who monitor what is said and who says it.”
A lecturer at Addis Ababa University, who wished to remain anonymous, is concerned primarily with the lack of qualifications among staff: “What is disturbing is that those who have just graduated with BAs and MAs are the lecturers. That is the manpower that they have. If you talk with students you wouldn’t believe that these students actually graduated from these so-called universities. Their inability to articulate their thoughts is breathtaking. It is extremely frustrating and you wonder how they have spent four years at university studying a doctorate.”
In this context, the MSE school provides a beacon of hope. The school’s success demonstrates that higher education – Stem research in particular – has the potential to thrive and play a central role in helping Ethiopia to reach its goal of becoming a middle-income nation by 2025, provided political interests are put to one side. Let’s hope the EPRDF takes note.
Africa: a continent of wealth, a continent of poverty
By Tom Lebert, senior international programme officer (Resources & Conflict) at War on Want.
At New Internationalist Blog
There has been much talk of an African renaissance in recent years. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s second post-apartheid president, has spoken of a ‘rebirth that must encompass all Africans’. So as African politicians and mining companies convene in London this week for ‘Mining on Top’ – Africa’s annual mining summit – where are the voices of civil society? Their absence speaks volumes.
Africa is blessed with a rich bounty of natural resources. The continent holds around 30% of the world’s known mineral reserves. These include cobalt, uranium, diamonds and gold, as well as significant oil and gas reserves. Given this natural wealth it comes as no surprise that, with the tripling of global mineral and oil prices in the past decade, mining has exploded on the African continent. Over the period 2000 to 2008 resource extraction contributed more than 30% of Africa’s GDP while the annual flow of foreign direct investment into Africa increased from $9 billion to $62 billion (most of this into extractive industries). However, despite being so richly endowed, and despite the mining boom of the past decade, Africa has drawn little benefit from this mineral wealth and remains one of the poorest continents on the globe, with almost 50% of the population living on less than $1.25 per day.
So, why is it that a continent with such vast potential wealth can remain so poor? It is in large part down to ‘illicit financial flows’: the illegal movement of money or capital from one country to another. The exploitation of mineral resources has all too often led to corruption and a large proportion of the continent’s resources and revenues benefiting local and foreign elites rather than the general population. Trade mispricing (and in particular transfer pricing and trade misinvoicing) is the most common way of transferring illicit funds abroad. Through trade mispricing, companies seek to maximize profits artificially through maximizing expenses in high-tax jurisdictions and maximizing revenue and income in low-tax jurisdictions. This enables corporations to minimize tax payments illegally and transfer the funds abroad.
Such illicit flows undermine social development and stymy inclusive economic growth. Instead of investing resource revenues into improving infrastructure, health and education, political elites, often in collusion with mining companies, have siphoned off proceeds from the continent’s mineral and oil wealth – lining their own pockets to the detriment of ordinary Africans.
Zambia presents as a wealthy country – the largest producer of copper in Africa and the 7th-largest globally. Yet Zambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 74% of the population living on less than $1.25 a day and 43% of the population being undernourished. This is in part due to a haemorrhaging of wealth, mainly to transnational mining companies. According to the Zambian Deputy Finance Minister, in 2012 the country was losing $2 billion a year from tax avoidance – around 10% of Zambia’s GDP. The mining industry was the largest culprit and the bulk of the loss was attributed to transfer pricing – where parts of the same company trade with each other at prices that they determine on their own – and to the over-reporting of costs and under-reporting of production. The situation is compounded by overly generous tax incentives provided to companies by the Zambian government.
The Zambian example is not an isolated case. Such corporate practices in the mining sector are common right across the continent. In South Africa, illegal capital flight through trade-misinvoicing (a means to evade tax) is rife in the ores and metals sector. Over the period 1995 to 2006 trade misinvoicing alone amounted to $167 million. And when it comes to fuel-exporting countries, over the period 1970 to 2008 states were losing on average $10 billion per year because of misinvoicing – the sum accounting for nearly half of all illicit financial flows from Africa during this time. Moreover, statistical data generated through the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, which was introduced in 2003, revealed that diamond production was nearly twice as large as estimated, indicating massive smuggling, under-reporting and tax evasion in the sector. The list goes on.
So, what is to be done? At the heart of any solution must be transparency. Countries need to be more open in their dealings with mining companies, put in place and enforce fairer tax regimes and anti-corruption rules, and pursue economic policies that promote diversified economies and reduce dependence on revenues from mineral wealth. International mining capital would also, of course, have to play by the rules or be held to account for its indiscretions. Such measures would go some way to ensuring that the continent’s wealth benefits ordinary people and puts Africa onto a path to greater prosperity.
Mining routinely disrupts and destroys people’s livelihoods while damaging their health and the environment. It is local communities right across the continent that are most affected by the extractives industry. ‘Mining on Top’ should be the perfect opportunity to bring these communities into the very discussions that will affect their lives. Shamefully, they’ve not been invited. So while the mining elite discuss how best to exploit a continent, ordinary Africans continue to lose out.
The ‘Mining on Top’ Africa – London Summit takes place on 24-26 June at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, 200 Westminster Bridge, SE1 7UT. On Thursday 25 June, War on Want will join London Mining Network and Gaia Foundation in protest at the failure of organizers to include civil-society representatives at the summit.
Sub-Saharan African countries are the poorest regions of Africa and the world. The World Bank’s Per Head Income trend from 2005 shows that Ethiopia’s trend is by far below Sub-Saharan Africa average trends with constantly widening gap. With Per Capita Income of below $500 throughout the trends, World Bank data shows that Ethiopia’s trend has been below the averages of world’s low income countries. So, what is the point of Ethiopia’s ‘fastest growth’ hype?
GNI per capita, Atlas method (current US$) GNI per capita (formerly GNP per capita) is the gross national income, converted to U.S. dollars using the World Bank Atlas method, divided by the midyear population. GNI is the sum of value added by all resident producers plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad. GNI, calculated in national currency, is usually converted to U.S. dollars at official exchange rates for comparisons across economies, although an alternative rate is used when the official exchange rate is judged to diverge by an exceptionally large margin from the rate actually applied in international transactions. To smooth fluctuations in prices and exchange rates, a special Atlas method of conversion is used by the World Bank. This applies a conversion factor that averages the exchange rate for a given year and the two preceding years, adjusted for differences in rates of inflation between the country, and through 2000, the G-5 countries (France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). From 2001, these countries include the Euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. -World Bank national accounts data, andOECDNational Accounts data files
Obama’s plan to visit Ethiopia criticised as ‘gift’ for repressive government
Ndesanjo Macha for Global Voices, part of the Guardian Africa network
Wednesday 24 June 2015
Activists express anger at US president’s trip to country widely criticised for human right abuses. Global Voices report
Barack Obama during a to Wajir in Kenya, close to the Ethiopian border, before he was elected US president in 2008. Photograph: Stringer/AFP/Getty Images
Barack Obama’s decision to visit Ethiopia has shocked human rights activists, who say the visit sends the wrong message to a repressive government widely accused of clamping down on dissent.
A White House statement said Obama will visit the east African country for meetings with government officials as part of his last African trip as president. As well as meeting the leadership of the African Union, the visit will form part of US efforts to strengthen economic growth, democratic institutions and improve security in the region.
But as activists and social media users have been making clear, Ethiopia’s track record on human rights and democracy is deeply troubling.
In its 2014 report, Human Rights Watch noted that Ethiopia increasingly clamps down on the freedoms of its citizens “using repressive laws to constrain civil society and independent media, and target individuals with politically motivated prosecutions”.
Last month, Ethiopians voted in parliamentary elections which were widely denounced as unfair. Though the African Union declared that the vote was peaceful, they fell short of using the words “free and fair”.
While the US state department has expressed concerns about restrictions on civil society, media, opposition parties, and independent voices, Ethiopia remains a significant recipient of foreign aid money and security support.
On Twitter Hannah McNeish, a freelance journalist , juxtaposed last month’s suspicious elections results with the White House’s decision to honour Ethiopia with an official visit:
Elections where a ruling party wins 100 percent of the seats in parliament should always ring alarm bells. Results in Ethiopia from the May 24 general election, released yesterday, are no exception. According to Ethiopia’s National Electoral Board, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition won 546 parliamentary seats (with the 547th seat still to be announced).
The results shouldn’t be seen as a stamp of approval for Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s government – rather they are the inevitable outcome of a political system in which opposition parties face extraordinary challenges and nearly all avenues for citizens to engage in political debate are closed.
The seeds for this situation were sown years ago. Since the last election in 2010, in which the EPRDF won a mere 99.6 percent of parliamentary seats, political space has been further restricted: the independent media has been decimated, civil society groups virtually eliminated, and peaceful public demonstrations quelled, sometimes by force.
The crackdown on opposition parties and their supporters was the final piece of the puzzle. In the lead-up to the elections, the authorities arrested leading members of the opposition and put them on trial on trumped-up terrorism charges. Political parties reported difficulties in registering candidates and acquiring funds to which they are legally entitled. Security force personnel arrested and harassed people organizing rallies, confiscating their equipment and unfairly denying them permits. Over the last two weeks, several opposition members and candidates have been beaten to death in suspicious circumstances.
International observers were largely absent, choosing not to monitor a vote that provided little opportunity to be independent and effective observers. The African Union was the exception, concluding that the elections were “calm, peaceful, and credible” – a standard very different from being free and fair.
The European Union and the United States, two of Ethiopia’s key allies, were largely silent on the political crackdown. Instead, they congratulated Ethiopia for a “peaceful” election, more concerned with the increasing potential for violence than with a fair electoral landscape. This is short-sighted and dangerous. Authoritarian control rarely provides long-term stability and nearly always compounds significant human rights violations.
For many Ethiopians, the elections confirmed what they already knew: the ruling coalition completely controls all aspects of their daily life and permits no alternative political views. The question is, when will Ethiopia’s allies open their eyes?
The following is a press release from the Minister for Africa of the UK government regarding the General Elections of 2015 in Ethiopia. —– Press releaseMinister for Africa expresses concern over Ethiopian electionsMinister for Africa James Duddridge calls on Ethiopian government to increase diversity in parliament and ensure the voices of all citizens are heard. Commenting on the election results, Minister for Africa James Duddridge said: “I welcome the fact that the recent Ethiopian parliamentary elections were conducted in a generally peaceful environment and that the Ethiopian people turned out in large numbers. I agree with European Union concerns about the negative impact on the electoral environment of arrests of opposition members and journalists, closure of media outlets, and obstacles faced by the opposition while campaigning … “In light of the results I urge the Ethiopian government to explore ways to increase the diversity of political parties in future parliaments, and to ensure those who voted for other parties this time still feel their voice is heard in the next five years. I hope that they will comprehensively address all the issues raised in the African Union Election Observation Mission report. The UK stands ready to offer support which might help in this regard.” —- – Source: Gov.ukhttps://www.gov.uk/government/news/minister-for-africa-expresses-concern-over-ethiopian-elections
Mr. Berhanu Rebo, Hadiya National and member of Medrek foundation committee was murdered by Fascist TPLF Ethiopia’s killing squads on 18th June 2015. His body was damped near river bank. Mr. Berhanu Rebo was a resident of Diinaa Tooroo in Sooroo district, Hadiya Zone (Southern State). Mr. Rebo was a husband and father of five.
Jiraataan Biyya Hadiyyaa, konyaa Sooroo, ganda Diinaa Tooroo fi miseena kommiitee bu’uraa partii Madrak kan ta’an lammiin saba Hadiyyaa Obbo Biraanuu Reeboo ergamtoota wayyaaneen Kamisa, Waxabajji 18 Bara 2015 qeyee isaaniitti admfamanii ajjeefamanii laga qaraqara irratti gatamuuni isaan beekame.
Every five years the Ethiopian people are invited by the ruling party to take part in a democratic pantomime called ‘General Elections’. Sunday 24th May saw the latest production take to the national stage.
With most opposition party leaders either in prison or abroad, the populace living under a suffocating blanket of fear, and the ruling party having total control over the media, the election result was a foregone conclusion. The European Union, which had observed the 2005 and 2010 elections, refused to send a delegation this time, maintaining their presence would legitimise the farce, and give credibility to the government.
With most ballots counted, the National Election Board of Ethiopia announced the incumbent party to have ‘won’ all “442 seats declared [from a total of 547], leaving the opposition empty-handed…the remaining 105 seats are yet to be announced.” ‘Won’ is not really an accurate description of the election result; as the chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Merera Gudina, put it, this “was not an election, it was an organised armed robbery”.
The days leading up to the election saw a regimented display of state arrogance and paranoia, as the government deployed huge numbers of camouflaged security personnel and tanks onto the streets of Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar. For months beforehand anyone suspected of political dissent had been arrested and imprisoned; fabricated charges drawn up with extreme sentencing for the courts, which operate as an extension of the government, to dutifully enforce.
Despite the ruling party’s claims to the contrary, this was not a democratic election and Ethiopia is not, nor has it ever been a democracy.
The country is governed by a brutal dictatorship in the form of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that has been in power since 1991, when they violently overthrew the repressive Derg regime. The EPRDF speaks generously of democracy and freedom, but they act in violation of democratic principles, trample on universal human rights, ignore international law, and violently control the people.
Independent international bodies and financial donors, from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to the European Union and the US State Department, are well aware of the nature and methods of the EPRDF, which is one of the most repressive regimes in Africa. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that Ethiopia is “the fourth most heavily censored country in the World”, with more journalists forced to leave the country last year than anywhere except Iran.
In the lead up to the recent election, CPJ found that, “the state systematically cracked down on the country’s remaining independent publications through the arrests of journalists and intimidation of printing and distribution companies. Filing lawsuits against editors and forcing publishers to cease production.” Various draconian laws are used to gag the media and stifle dissent, the Anti Terrorist Proclamation being the most common weapon deployed against anyone who dares speak out against the government, which rules through fear, and yet, riddled with guilt as they must surely be, seem themselves fearful.
Democracy and Development
The government proudly talks a great deal about economic development, which it believes to be more important than democracy, human rights and the rule of law, all of which are absent in the country. And yes, during the past decade the country has seen economic development, with between 4% and 9% (depending on who you believe) GDP growth per annum achieved, the CIA states “through government-led infrastructure expansion and commercial agriculture development.” It is growth, however, that depends, the Oakland Institute make clear, on “state force and the denial of human and civil rights.”
GDP figures are only one indicator of a country’s progress, and a very narrow one at that. The broader Ethiopian picture, beyond the debatable statistics, paints a less rosy image:
Around 50% of Ethiopia’s federal budget is met by various aid packages, totaling $3.5 billion annually. Making it “the world’s second-largest recipient of total external assistance, after Indonesia” (excluding war torn nations, Afghanistan and Iraq), Human Rights Watch states. The country remains 173rd (of 187 countries) in the UN Human Development Index and is one of the poorest nations in the world, with, the CIA says, over 39% of the population living below the low poverty line of $1.25 a day (the World Bank worldwide poverty line is $2 a day) – many Ethiopians question this figure and would put the number in dire need much higher.
Per capita income is among the lowest in the world and less than half the rest of sub-Sahara Africa, averaging, according to the World Bank, “$470 (£287)”. This statistic is also questionable, as Dr. Daniel Teferra (Professor of Economics, Emeritus at Ferris State University,) explains, “In 2008-2011 income per capita (after inflation), was only $131,” contrary to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) 2013 report, which put the figure at $320.
The cost of living has risen sharply (current inflation is around 8%) and, as The Guardian reports, “growing economic inequality threatens to undermine the political stability and popular legitimacy that a developmental state acutely needs. Who benefits from economic growth is a much-contested issue in contemporary Ethiopia.” Not amongst the majority of Ethiopians it isn’t: they know very well who the winners are. As ever it is the 1%, who sit in the seats of power, and have the education and the funds to capitalize on foreign investment and development opportunities.
Some of those suffering as a result of the government’s development policies are the 1.5 million threatened with ‘relocation’ as their land is taken – or ‘grabbed’ from them. Leveled and turned into industrial-sized farms by foreign multinationals which grow crops, not for local people, but for consumers in their home countries – India or China for example.
Indigenous people cleared from their land are violently herded into camps under the government’s universally criticised “Villagization” program, which is causing the erosion of ancient lifestyles, “increased food insecurity, destruction of livelihoods, and the loss of cultural heritage”, relates the Oakland Institute. Any resistance is met with a wooden baton or the butt or bullet of a rifle; reports of beatings, torture and rape by security forces are widespread. No compensation is paid to the affected people, who are abandoned in camps with no essential services, such as water, health care and education facilities – all of which are promised by the EPRDF in their hollow development rhetoric.
An Insult to the People
Economic development is not democracy, and whilst development is clearly essential to address the dire levels of poverty in Ethiopia, it needs to be democratic, sustainable development. First and foremost Human Rights must be observed, and there must be participation, and consultation, which – despite the Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s duplicitous comments to Al Jazeera that, “we make our people to be part and parcel of all the [developmental] engagements,” – never happens.
The Prime Minister describes Ethiopia as a “fledgling democracy”, and says the government is “on the right track in democratizing the country”. Nonsense. Democracy is rooted in the observation of Human Rights, freedom of expression, the rule of law and social participation. None of these values are currently to be found in Ethiopia.
Not only is the EPRDF universally denying the people their fundamental human rights, in many areas they are committing acts of state terrorism (one thinks of the abuses taking place in the Ogaden region and the atrocities being committed against the Oromo people for example) that amount to crimes against humanity.
The recent election was an insult to the people of Ethiopia, who are being intimidated, abused and suppressed by a brutal, arrogant regime that talks the democratic talk, but acts in violation of all democratic ideals.
Oromian Economist 
Oromia: Macha-Tulama Association Requests President Obama to Rethink Visit to Tyrannical, Undemocratic Ethiopia July 6, 2015
Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.Tags: Africa, Freedom House in response to comments by Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Macha-Tulama Association Requests President Obama to Rethink Visit to Tyrannical Ethiopia, Obama's plan to visit Ethiopia criticised as 'gift' for repressive government, Oromia
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The following is a letter to President Obama from the Macha-Tulama Association-USA, Inc.
Macha-Tulama Association – USA, Inc
811 Upshur ST NW
Washington, DC 20011
contact@machatulama.org
July 2, 2015
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
NW Washington, DC 20500
Your Excellency President Obama,
The Board of Directors of the Macha-Tulama Association (MTA), U.S.A., is writing this urgent letter regarding your plan to visit Ethiopia in July 2015. The MTA is a non-profit organization incorporated in the U.S.A. because it was banned in Ethiopia. It advocates for human rights and for social justice for the Oromo and others in the Horn of Africa and beyond. For almost a quarter of a century, Ethiopia has been ruled by the Tigre People’s Liberation Front, which calls itself the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. This minority regime has been engaging in sham elections, which are elections only in name. The regime disregards all the principles and practices of democracy in spite of its pretension to be democratic since 1991. The regime’s promise of democratization by restructuring the state, liberalizing the economy, and respecting and protecting human rights has been subverted. While claiming to be a democratic government in order to receive ‘development aid’ and to gain political legitimacy, this regime has killed, imprisoned and tortured the Oromo and other ethno-national groups who have struggled for democracy, national self-determination, human rights, and social justice. In fact, the Oromo people have been mainly targeted for elimination and repression because they are the largest national group in Ethiopia, and they have started to recover, manifest, and exercise their rights to culture, history, and language, which have been repressed by the state of Ethiopia for over a century.
According to a recent Amnesty International report, entitled ‘Because I am Oromo: Sweeping Repression in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia,’ between 2011 and 2014 alone, at least 5000 Oromo were arrested, tortured, and sentenced with extra-judicial executions because of being Oromo and for also peacefully demonstrating against the regime’s land grabbing policies and the so-called Addis Ababa Master Plan, intended to evict millions of Oromo farmers from their homelands in and around Addis Ababa (which the Oromo call Finfinnee), the capital city of Ethiopia. Since 1992, several human rights organizations have been reporting that Oromo prisoners have been predominantly populated Ethiopian prisons and other detention places. As a result these prisons and concentration camps speak Afaan Oromo (the Oromo language), as testified by many nonOromo prisoners.
Mr. President,
It is with shock and profound sadness that we received the message of your intention to visit Ethiopia in July. As the leader of a great country that subscribes to the principles of democracy and fundamental rights and liberties for all human beings, and as the leader of a country whose foreign policy in principle is committed to promoting the ideals of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy around the world, we believe your visit will send a wrong message to the regime and its likes across the globe that they can get away with grotesque violations of human and democratic rights as long as they remain ‘strategic allies’ to the United States.
Mr. President,
Because of these reasons, we earnestly request that you rethink your intention to visit Ethiopia. We believe your visit to the country also sends three messages: First, it encourages the Ethiopian government to continue intensifying its repressive policies. If your government continues to support and finance the regime regardless of what it does, the regime will see no reasons for changing its violent and dictatorial policies. Second, your visit to Ethiopia demonstrates to the affected people that the United States government only gives lip service to democracy and human rights while supporting the dictatorial minority regime of Ethiopia. To the 90 million people who are facing massive human rights violations in Ethiopia, particularly to the over forty million Oromo, your visit will mean that the U.S.A. does not care for the aspiration to live in a free, open, and democratic society. Your visit will also mean that human rights and democratic self-governance are not part of the list of U.S. priorities in Africa and beyond. Third, it convinces the people in Ethiopia and beyond that your policy is not different from some of your officials, such as Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, who recently undermined the process of democratization in Ethiopia by endorsing the regime’s record whose democracy, she said, is ‘improving.’ The Undersecretary has been roundly criticized, and we believe, rightly so.
In closing, we would like to bring to your attention that when, in July 2009, you visited Ghana, you made a speech in which you promised that the U.S.A. does not, and will not, support dictatorship and strongmen, and that you seek to assist the development of “strong and sustainable democratic governments” everywhere in Africa. We believe it is only appropriate now to request that you do not ignore your commitment and promise of that historic speech you made in Accra, Ghana, by visiting Ethiopia, the graveyard and prison house of thousands of men and women who have been killed, imprisoned, tortured, maimed, and disfigured only because they have aspired to exercise their God-given rights and to live in a democracy by demanding national self-determination and democratic rights in their own country.
Sincerely,
Asafa Jalata, PhD.,
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Macha-Tulama Association &
Professor of Sociology and Global and Africana Studies