የኢትዮጵያ ድንበር ጉዳይ ኮሚቴ
Ethiopian Border Affairs Committee
P. O. Box 9536 Columbus, Ohio 43209 USA E-mail: ethiopianborders@gmail.com

An Act of Treason by the TPLF Ethiopians Must Reject
Public Statement
March 9, 2017

Ever since its formation, the Ethiopian Border Affairs Committee (EBAC) has been in the forefront of exposing the treasonous scheme of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to cede large tracts of Ethiopian lands to the Sudanese government. We reiterated and alerted the Ethiopian people and the international community at large that, if and when implemented, this treacherous and treasonous act is being perpetrated outside public view. It is detrimental to Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, national security, the wellbeing of millions and the peaceful coexistence of the Ethiopian and Sudanese people.

EBAC is pleased to note that over more than 11 years of advocacy, the overwhelming majority of the Ethiopian people, civic and opposition parties and prominent personalities, the media and others have provided us unwavering and steady moral, diplomatic and material support. On our part, we have been diligent in exposing the secret deal through press releases, the media, symposiums, research and the preparation of position papers that future generations of Ethiopians and succeeding governments could utilize in restoring Ethiopia’s legitimate rights to its lands.

Despite the TPLF’s outright dismissal of its treacherous acts that take place in secret negotiations with the government of the Sudan, we have repeatedly conveyed to the Bashir Government that handing over a “good chunk of Ethiopia’s fertile farmlands, waters and other natural resources” will undermine peace, stability, and security of the region in the decades to come. We have gone on record that ceding Ethiopian lands is illegitimate, illegal and source of destabilization in the area.

In our official letter to the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, we informed him that his party or government “has no authority to cede any Ethiopian territory without the consent of the people of Ethiopia.” Meles was fully cognizant then and his successors now that the government in power would face unprecedented opposition and public uproar. This is why Meles and now Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn refuse to discloses the contents of the deal to the people of Ethiopia.

Instead, this treacherous act is carried out with the highest level of secrecy; and purportedly involving the regional government of Tigray and Sudanese authorities. Matters of this magnitude require transparency, open discussion, participation by the Ethiopian people and at least a modicum of debate within the rubber stamp Ethiopian Parliament. Today, Ethiopia is characterized by a suffocating political environment of closed political and civic space and the criminalization of press freedom. There is no meaningful opposition. Civil society has been decimated.
In light of this suffocating environment and the current State of Emergency, the TPLF dominated government and media still purport that “Not a single Ethiopian is displaced from his ancestral farmland” and that no agreement has been reached. This claim suggests to us that the TPLF knows well that it has no authority to redraw Ethiopia’s national boundaries or to cede any Ethiopian territory to the Sudan.
EBAC wishes to underscore once again that any secret agreement with the Sudan will neither bind the rest of the country nor contribute to stability and peaceful coexistence between the two countries. On the contrary, any such agreement and deal will undermine the long-established tradition of peaceful coexistence, mutual benefit and friendly relations between Ethiopia and the Sudan. The Sudanese government ought to understand that the TPLF dominated government is doing the opposite of what is in the long-term interests of the Ethiopian and Sudanese people. The TPLF does this for short term economic and political gains. It has a well-established tradition of abandoning Ethiopia’s access to the sea. It leases millions of hectares of land to foreign investors and selected TPLF supporters while Ethiopians starve etc.

The government of the Sudan should respect international law
The government of the Sudan should be aware that the TPLF has no right to abrogate this enduring and mutually beneficial relationship between our two countries for short-term political expediency. The current government of Ethiopia dominated by the TPLF won’t last forever. But Ethiopia will. Equally, the government of the Sudan should acknowledge and abide by international law that guides borders and is intended to anticipate and to avoid current and future conflicts. The TPLF scheme can and should be avoided at any cost. The government of the Sudan should therefore recognize the fundamental principle that governs an international boundary, namely that it is not arbitrary or capricious. Ethiopia’s boundary should not be a tradeable commodity that the TPLF can present as a gift.

The TPLF does not abide by such principles or norms or the rule of law or respect for the rights of indigenous people or the human and economic and natural rights of a country’s citizens or the long-term interests and security of the Ethiopian people. International law provides a compelling degree of continuity and finality to a country’s boundary. This venerable principle will be respected and observed in practice by citizens concerned only if the given boundary was established in accordance with law rather than political expediency practiced by the TPLF.
The TPLF led regime which seized power unlawfully does not have any respect for Ethiopia’s national interests. The TPLF has no legitimacy or legal credentials to cede Ethiopian territory and to create conditions that would trigger perpetual war in this highly volatile region. The TPLF thrives on ethnic and religious division; and prolongs its grip of its hegemony by undermining the wellbeing of Ethiopians and the long-term interests of the country.

EBAC has reiterated its belief that, in order to avert future conflict and war, both the Sudanese and Ethiopian regimes have an obligation to abide by the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902 and an appropriate Boundary Commission that will carry out the demarcation process. No other secret arrangement that will affect Ethiopia’s 102 million people adversely will be acceptable to the vast majority of Ethiopians.
The latest news on this sensitive issue published on February 15, 2017 by the Sudan Tribune under the title “Ethiopia-Sudan border development conference kicks off on Thursday” came as a shock to the Ethiopian people and to EBAC. To our dismay, this potentially explosive deal and machination by the TPLF was not disclosed to the Ethiopian people. When asked the government of Ethiopia denied the deal and accused opposition groups of inflaming the issue. The fact is this. The TPLF-led government has a history of storytelling and utter denial of policy issues that affect the country and its 102 million people.

The Sudanese media has been forthcoming on the border issue. Quoting the Governor of Gadaref, Sudan Tribune announced from Khartoum that “The 18th session of the conference on development of the joint Sudanese-Ethiopian borders will be held on Thursday in Mekele, capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region.” It is clear from the announcement that the demarcation of this contentious and explosive boundary and the ceding of territories to the Sudanese government will be carried out in Mekele under the auspices, guidance and directive of the TPLF, the ultimate beneficiary of this treasonous deal.

We quote, “Governor of Gadaref State Mirghani Salih Sid Ahmed told the official news agency SUNA, that the conference would be held with the participation of the border states of Gadaref, Blue Nile, Sennar and Kassala from the Sudanese side and Beni-Shangul-Gumuz and Amhara regions from the Ethiopian side.” He also said that Sudan shall “seek to retrieve the agricultural lands confiscated by Ethiopian farmers.” To the best of our knowledge, Ethiopian farmers never “confiscated” Sudanese lands. On the contrary, the TPLF acquiesced to Sudanese confiscation of Ethiopian lands.

Further, the motive behind the negotiations in Mekele is to legitimize the transfer from Ethiopia to the Sudan a tract of land that covers, at minimum “250 square kilometers and consists of 600,000 hectares,” some of the most fertile lands in Ethiopia. This fertile farmland that is suitable for large scale commercial farming and future textile and related industries is supported by a river basin flowing from Ethiopia. This includes the Atbara River, a major tributary to the mighty Nile.

This transfer and or any other future transfer of any lands from any part of the Ethiopia to the Sudan has no legitimacy and won’t bind succeeding generations of Ethiopians and Ethiopian governments. The social, economic, psychological and political and security costs to Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people will be immense. For example, food insecure and food aid dependent Ethiopia with a growing population, cannot afford to transfer these lands to the Sudan or to any government. It is a matter of survival for Ethiopia.

As EBAC has noted numerous times before, if this latest secret deal in Mekele takes legal effect, the TPLF dominated regime of Prime Minister Hailemariam will cede huge swathes of our ancestral lands to the Sudan without the consent of the Ethiopian people. This will occur despite more than 11 years of relentless protest from EBAC; and the vast majority of Ethiopian opposition groups. This is the reason why we call it treason. It is treason because it is unprecedented in the annals of Ethiopia’s long history.
In our considered view, this latest deal must be exposed and rejected by all Ethiopians at home and abroad. The consequences are far reaching and dangerous to the Ethiopian people.

Members of the EPRDF and Ethiopia’s Defense Forces must reject the deal because it affects Ethiopia’s national security interests. It is their responsibility to defend Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and national honor. No party or defense force with honor and dignity trades its own territory for money or political power. Members of Ethiopia’s Defense Forces must hold the TPLF leadership accountable for this latest treason against Ethiopia and against the Ethiopian people.

EBAC wishes to remind the global community that Ethiopians received this announcement with utter shock, resentment and anger. Neither the current generation of Ethiopians nor those of future generations will allow the deal to stand. The Mekele deal won’t be binding.
EBAC repeats its relentless pleas that hundreds of thousands of our people will be forced to lose their homes, farms and investments if the border deal is implemented without the participation and consent of the Ethiopian people.

EBAC believes that the lead responsibility to defend and preserve Ethiopia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty reside in the Ethiopian people. We have full confidence in the resolve and determination of the Ethiopian people to defend their country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

EBAC states unequivocally that the border deal of today hatched by the unelected TPLF and its allies in Ethiopia will be the ticking bomb of tomorrow. Since the TPLF has neither support in law nor received the consent of the Ethiopian people, it will fester as a major source of friction and tension between the brotherly peoples of Ethiopia and the Sudan.
EBAC notes that the Horn of Africa region does not need an additional source of insecurity and instability beyond those that already plague the region.

Accordingly, EBAC wishes to urge Ethiopians everywhere to make their voices heard as they have done repeatedly in the past.
We call on all opposition groups and the media to make their objections known.
EBAC urges Ethiopian academics and commentators to raise awareness concerning the dire consequences of the demarcation and the ceding of large swaths of Ethiopian lands to the Sudan.

EBAC calls on all Ethiopians to express their outrage at this treason by the TPLF through social media.
EBAC goes on record again and asserts its right to defend Ethiopia’s territorial sovereignty as defined by the 1902 treaty – and not by any other agreement that is reached behind the back of the Ethiopian people.

We go on record that we will not honor any boundary that results from the agreement of the TPLF led and dominated government that is devoid of any support or legitimacy among its own people.

Finally, EBAC goes on record that the current extremely narrowly- based regime of Ethiopia and the similarly discredited government of the Sudan are grasping at straws by using the border deal as a way of ensuring their political survival by a mutual exchange of promises foreswearing the use of their territories by organized movements seeking to overthrow their respective governments.
EBAC and its cohort of Ethiopian supporters will never compromise on Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, internationally recognized borders that have been defended by successive governments before the TPLF took power and the country’s long-term economic and security interests as well as national sovereignty.

Long Live Ethiopia

Press Release
March 9, 2017

Ethiopian authorities should immediately release journalists Ananiya Sori and Elias Gebru or respect their right to due process. Since their arrest, on 18 November 2016, neither journalist, has been prosecuted or formally charged with any offense.

Elias Gebru, Ananiya Sori and Daneil Shibeshi

Elias Gebru and Ananiya Sori were arrested on 18 November 2016, together with their colleague and former leader of opposition party, UDJ (Unity for Democracy and Justice), Daneil Shibeshi by security forces. Outspoken journalist and former political activist Ananiya Sori was arrested following his recent criticism of government policies in reaction to widespread protests in the country during a radio debate organized by the pro-government media, Fana Broadcasting, in October 2016. In addition, Elias Gebru who is a freelance journalist and social media activist was apparently arrested in relation to his political analysis and published articles on social media.

Neither journalists have been informed of any formal charges against them and have been denied access to legal consultation or medical treatments. Both Elias Gebru and Anania Sori are also reportedly experiencing serious health problems due to the harsh detention conditions in several police stations across the capital, Addis Ababa. Elias Gebru is reportedly suffering from losing his olfaction senses. Together with Anania and Daneil, Elias was originally held in Bole Woreda police station for three months before being transferred to Qirqos Woreda Police station.  Anania Sori has also been transferred to the 6th Police station, currently called the Qirqos Sub-City Police Division.     .

The Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE) has documented and reported the arrest of several journalists, human rights defenders and political activists since the State of Emergency was declared on 8 October 2016. “The Ethiopian authority is using the decreed state of emergency as a pretext for escalating grave human rights violations, dismantling dissent and a political crackdown in the country.” said Yared Hailemariam, Director of the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE).

Background

Since the State of Emergency was declared in October 2016, thousands have been arbitrarily arrested in relation with widespread protests in the country, mainly throughout Oromia and Amhara regions. Even though different credible sources confirmed that more than 30,000 people have been detained under the State of Emergency, Ethiopian authorities have confirmed only the release of nearly 20,000 detainees after months spent in different military training centres located in different regions of the country. The authorities also claimed that the detainees were released after receiving rehabilitation training, despite the allegation that many of the detainees were reportedly tortured and subjected to inhuman, degrading and ill-treatments, and denied to healthcare, legal representation and due process.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) called for an international, independent, and impartial investigation into allegations of the security forces’ use of excessive and unnecessary lethal force to disperse and suppress peaceful protests in November 2016.

The state of emergency directive gives sweeping powers to the Command Post that has been appointed by the House of Representatives to enforce the decree, including suspending fundamental and non-derogable political and democratic rights granted under the constitution of the country, the African Charter on Human and People Rights and international standards of human rights.

AHRE strongly urges the UN Human Rights Council to address the deteriorating political environment of Ethiopia and the grave violation of fundamental rights. The UN HRC should takes a strong position and urging Ethiopian authority:

• to lift the ban on basic freedoms and fundamental rights that are enforced by the authorities and Command Post following the declaration of the State of Emergency;

• to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners, journalists, bloggers, human rights activists and opposition leaders;

• to ensure due process of law for those who were arrested before and during the time of the State of Emergency and to respect basic rights of prisoners,

• to allow independent and impartial investigation into allegations of gross human rights violations during the enforcement of the state of emergency and since November 2015 when the protest were began.

For further information, please contact:

Yared Hailemariam

Executive Director

yaredh@ahrethio.org,

+32 486 336 367,

Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE)

www.ahrethio.org

https://www.facebook.com/AHREthio.org/?fref=nf

William Davison
The Guardian

Business in the Sululta district of Ethiopia’s Oromia region is burgeoning. So why, despite abundant rainfall, does half the population have no access to fresh water?

William Davison, March 9, 2017

Towards the end of the day at the Abyssinia Springs bottled water factory near Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, workers hose down the car park liberally. Outside the gates, residents of the Sululta area trudge along the road with empty yellow jerrycans that they will fill from muddy wells and water points.

Over the past decade, the town in Oromia region has attracted plenty of investment. A Chinese tannery, steel mills, water factories and hotels have sprung up.

The boom has also lured workers for the building sites that litter the district with piles of rubble, electric cables, and eucalyptus tree trunks used for scaffolding.

Officials appointed last year amid a wave of unrest admit that they do not know the exact size of Sululta’s population. The local government has failed to keep up with the town’s chaotic growth over the past decade, which has contributed to anti-government sentiment.

Further protests by the Oromo people, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group – whose discontent is rooted in claims of injustice and ethnic marginalisation, as well as maladministration – could undermine official efforts to rectify the situation, not least those by the head of the water bureau, Messay Tadesse.

Although investing in water infrastructure is challenging for a poor country, funding is not the problem in relatively wealthy Sululta, according to Messay. Instead, he believes corrupt management of the land rush, a lack of demand on investors to protect the environment, and the government’s inadequate planning and data collection have contributed to the crisis.

“When the public burned the investments down, it was not that they wanted to damage them. It was our problem in managing them,” says Messay.

Initially peaceful, the protests that began in Oromia in November 2015 evolved into the angry ransacking of government offices and businesses after security forces used lethal force to disperse crowds. Human rights groups estimate that up to 600 people were killed across the country.

Since then, Ethiopia’s multi-ethnic ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which controls all the legislative seats in a de facto one-party state, has embarked on what it calls a process of “deep reform” to try to address governance failings.

For years, government officials and their development partners have claimed that funds were spent efficiently on public services for the estimated 103 million people in Africa’s second-most populous nation, citing improvements in socioeconomic indicators such as maternal mortality and access to potable water.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

In 2014 – the latest year for which data is available – the Ethiopian government received $3.6 bn (£3bn) in aid, while the government budget was $9bn, which included donor funding. Most cash for regional governments comes from federal transfers.

However, the impressive statistics rattled off at development conferences are of little comfort to low-income workers in Sululta, who say they feel ignored by a government that has licensed more than five plants for bottled water while failing to dig enough wells or build pipes to houses. According to WaterAid, 42 million Ethiopians lack access to safe water.

Worku Deme, 40, who delivers cement blocks around Sululta, says the community wrote to government offices two years ago asking for action on water supply. But nothing has changed, he says, beyond the faces of the administrators who ask people to be patient.

“There is no one to care about us,” says Deme, as a woman walks past with a jerrycan strapped to her back.

The situation is especially galling for Sululta because the town is situated in the highlands, where rainfall is abundant for about four months of the year.

The national government, which likes to describe Ethiopia as the “water tower of Africa”, is investing heavily in hydropower, including the continent’s largest dam, in the Nile basin. However, past failures to tap water resources in the rain-deprived east of the country contributed to a fifth of the population needing aid during a drought that began in 2015, killing livestock and causing crops to wither.

In Suluta, there has been investment in boreholes and pumps, but mostly by the private sector. Abyssinia Springs, in which Nestlé Waters bought a majority stakelast year, pumps 50,000 litres an hour, which means its capacity is more than half that of the local government.

“There’s water everywhere. The only problem is the government’s willingness,” says a manager at another company, Classy Water, who did not give his name.

Many non-water businesses have dug their own wells.

According to Getachew Teklemariam, a former government economic planner, there has been a lack of water infrastructure planning that takes into account demographic and economic changes across Ethiopia. Instead, development has been piecemeal and household water supply numbers are sometimes inflated by officials for political gain. “With a lack of insight into the reality on the ground, most efforts at improving infrastructure have been uncoordinated and wasteful,” he says.

In January 2016, the government shelved its “integrated development plan” to expand Addis Ababa into surrounding Oromia areas following protests and criticism that the plan would pave the way for more evictions of Oromo farmers.

Today, locals in Sululta travel on public transport to queue for water at a tap built by the Sudanese-owned Nile Petroleum, or pay others to do so. At the end of the town, which mostly lies along one main road, residents collect water from a faucet provided by China-Africa Overseas Leather Products. But the tannery has been accused of polluting water supplies, and in January 2016 protesters invaded the premises. Last month, it was a base for about 50 Ethiopian soldiers monitoring the security situation.

Messay, a mechanical engineer who has worked in the public water sector for a decade, says the government has erred by placing only minimal demands on investors in its eagerness to create jobs: “They [the leather company] drop their waste downstream. It is killing the farmers’ cattle, it’s making the fertility of the soil deplete.” Managers from the firm did not respond to requests for comment.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

Messay appears committed to solving the water problem but realistic. He is critical of property investors from the capital who, he claims, seized plots illegally, and of the “corrupt” land administrators who facilitated the town’s chaotic growth. “You expect them to be more responsible, as they are from a big city,” says Messay of the investors.

Turkish contractors are digging a borehole to increase the water supply, which Messay believes might be meeting half the demand.

Nestlé Waters says it wants to help and is funding Addis Ababa University experts to study the environmental and socio-economic situation of the area. The study might feed into another “integrated” plan and possibly an effort to turn Sululta into an “eco city”. But Messay is sceptical as to whether the corporation’s public interest is genuine, noting that there were similar noises from Abyssinia Springs when the water plant was built about seven years ago.

Testimony of Seenaa Jimjimo

President of Coalition of Oromo Advocates for Human Rights and Democracy House Subcommittee on Africa, Global health, Global Human Rights and Intentional Organization
March 9, 2017

“Democracy under Threat in Ethiopia”

*All points stated in my testimony are documented or can be validated by State Department report that came out on Friday March 3rd, 2017 and by HRW, AI, FR and other independent publication

Good afternoon!

Chairman Smith, Ranking Members Bass, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you very much for this opportunity. I must say my presence here is historical and I am beyond honored for the opportunity to speak before you here.

With the understanding of the countless suffering of Ethiopians like the Amhara, today, I am specifically here to speak about three generations of pain, agony and political oppression against the Oromo people. My grandfather’s saw massacres, my father and uncles served in
prison camps as do my younger brothers and sisters today. This is not just the story of my family, rather the story of many Oromos who constitute over 40% of Ethiopian population and occupy the most productive lands. Oromia is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, home for the country’ key export items: Coffee, gold, other precious minerals. Despite its huge demography and huge contributions to the national economy, the Oromo are politically and socially marginalized in Ethiopia. Oromia is supposedly a self-governing state, but in reality, it does not enjoy any more autonomy than as province under previous Ethiopian administrations. Culturally, the Oromo language, one of the country’s most spoken, is relegated to a provincial status. For example, while the capital is situated at the heat Oromia, the Oromo could not receive services there in their mother tongue. To make matters worse, not even simple translation services are available for them, which is why people resisted, in the face of widespread human rights violations, being incorporated into the capital through the botched Addis Ababa integrated master plan.

The human rights violations I talk about are of individuals I know personally, who got
killed, mutilated, tortured and still languish in prison. Their crime is for only being Oromo and outspoken.

I must also acknowledge that while hundreds better qualified than I can be here today, I bring a unique voice. First of all, I am a woman, the primary victims of human rights violations you often never hear about. Secondly, I am women’s rights advocate for voiceless within voiceless. Thirdly, I am a follower of Wakefanna, the much less talked about indigenous Oromo religion. Fourth, I represent a generation that knows, understands and lived in both countries (my birthplace and America, land of opportunity), from a place where religion is imposed to a country where religious diversity is celebrated. As an African in America, I am an eyewitness to the harms of religion extremism and sexism.

To speak the truth, I highly doubt my own people, for whom I am fighting day and night, will value me equal to my brother who cares less about them. It is with this understanding that I not only value the American interest in the region but believe it is necessary that the American mission in my region succeed because it gives voice to voiceless woman like me. Therefore, I want to assure this House that American interest is my interest, the interest of many Oromos.

26 years ago, in June 1991, Ass Sec of State of Hermann Cohen testified in front of House Foreign Affairs. He said, “No democracy no support.” For 26 years Ethiopia has become an open prison for so many Ethiopians, particularly Oromos who make the overwhelming majority of the prison population. Today, 26 years later people are afraid to speak and exercise basic rights guaranteed by the constitution. Under the codename of “State of Emergency” a husband watches his wife and daughters get raped, sons taken away or killed. Even though I myself have lived

under terror and being watched and beaten by this government, what is new is the use of this new term State of Emergency, which allowed it to shut off the small means of communication between my people and the outside world. In Ethiopia all independent media, including VOA, is greatly curtailed, journalists jailed, opposition party leaders charged with terrorism, social media punishable by up to five years in jail, all rights organization banned and request by UNHRHC for independent investigation denied and US concern statements ignored.

In fact, opposition party leaders are arrested for speaking to EU leaders and human rights organizations. In a single year from Nov 2015-2016, over 1000 Oromos were killed. Using the emergency law, the regime forces citizens to feed armies patrolling the street, literally paying to keep its killers alive. Even though it seems like lots has happened to the world, for

us, Oromos abuse by the state has always been part of our upbringing, the fiber that
made who we are. What made 2016 special to us is not the amount of lives lost rather the fact the world has finally come to know and see the true color of this government, and the suffering of the Oromo people.

#OromoProtests erupted in Nov 2015 in response to what is known as Addis Ababa Master plan which sought to expand the capital into the Oromia region displacing millions of farmers, curving Oromia into two regions, changing the livelihood of 36 Oromia towns and 17 districts. When we think of Ethiopia’s capital city, we must remember Addis Ababa sits at heart

of Oromia, and an integral part of Oromia. Thus, the change would have meant for those displaced being forced to speak a new language, play by new culture, live under a new administration and these Oromos could no longer call themselves and be who they really are, Oromo. What is more is also that for Oromos the issue of land is tied to how they see themselves and how they worship their gods. All these happened without consulting residents. It was then

that primary and secondary school students took to the streets after watching their neighbors and families’ lands being sold to investors to grow flowers, cotton and seeing their siblings becoming beggars, porters and lowly-paid security guards. A land they once called home and a neighborhood they once saw as part of who they are becoming more and more alien to them and they becoming foreigners on their ancestral land.

On the other hand, although as early as January 2016 the Ethiopian government admitted to use of excessive force, no single individual has as of yet been brought to justice. Six month after its

admission, in June HRW release a 61 page document detailing interviews with hundreds of people who survived gruesome and inhuman acts by the security forces. As protests continued the government continued giving lip services to the western government by admitting that there were indeed serious issues of lack of good governance and that they will open talks with opposition parties. However, now two years later nothing has changed except the implementation of a brutal system of killing and silencing innocent people under the cover of martial law.

Moreover, torture never ends for Oromos even when they flee Ethiopia. It follows them wherever they go in the region. Tired of the deafening silence from the international community, having watched their fellow brothers and sisters being taken back to Ethiopia one by one, and facing discrimination and harassment from governments of neighboring countries, on July 28, 2016 two Oromo refugees set themselves on fire in front of Cairo’s United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in the hope of bringing attention to their dismal plight. As a

proud partner to the US war on terrorism, the Ethiopian government can go to Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and even as far as Saudi Arabia to bring back those that it considered threats to its hold on power. As if this was not enough, on September 3 the notorious Qilinto prison was set on fire killing 23 prisoners by government’s own admission but hundreds more are still missing nearly 8 month later. What is more, even though many see this as a failed attempt to kill high profile prisoners like BekeleGerba, the government is now turning around and charging them for starting the fire.

Among the most horrific acts of crime by this government, the October 2 Irreacha massacre stands as the darkest day in modern history for the Oromo where hundreds were killed though the government puts the causality at 53. I must also note that while Oromos and
the Oromia region was under the current form of military control for over a year, the official declaration of the state of emergency, code name for cover up came only in October 2016 and the only intent was to use it as an excuse to cut off the little information people received from abroad. We all know that the declaration of state of emergency bring law and order but rather to make sure no foreign media will cover heinous crimes being committed and to silence dissent.

Mr. Chairman, we know in no democratic country, let alone in Ethiopia, can a ruling party win an election by 100%. The “victory” of Ethiopian’s 2015 election, is achieved by using the Anti- Terrorism Proclamation to lock up opposition leaders as terrorists, intimidate their supporters, and rig the election when all else fails. Sadly, the US government, my government, is looking the other way.

In the name of standing with allies, we should not be enabling tyrants to oppress their people, disregard the rule of law, and trample upon basic human freedoms. At this age of international

turbulence, America cannot afford to send the wrong message to foreign leaders. The US has a moral obligation as the greatest nation on earth, as the beacon of hope for liberty and as a shining light many looks up to.

Moreover, we must know a blind support of this government can only extend what is inevitable. The death of thousands of Oromos and other Ethiopians cannot bring a lasting solution to the country’s mounting problems. In fact, Ethiopia’s growing domestic troubles are slowly but surely limiting the country’s ability to play a constructive regional role. One of the

main reason why Ethiopia was given $864 million in 2014 and far more in 2016 was for her role in the Somalia and Sudan peacekeeping missions. As of 2017, Ethiopia’s effectiveness in these roles has greatly diminished with growing domestic troubles, be it the protests, the insurrections and the looming famine, with larger and larger numbers of troop withdrawing, with large gains by Al-Shabaab, and with the election of the new Somali president handily defeating his Ethiopia- backed rival. Recent US rapprochement with Kenya and Egypt and its decision to open talks with Eritrea speak to Ethiopia’s diminishing regional role.

While I understand the need for strong, reliable and dependable partners in a volatile region too close to extremism, reliance on a minority-dominated government hailing from a mere 6% of a population 100 million strong cannot be sustainable and would rather endanger American interests. For now, under the draconian state of Emergency, Ethiopia may seem calm and the government may say they have brought back law and order but that should not fool us because

we know the truth. Ethiopia is a country of 100 million people inhabited by 82 different ethnic groups. Such a diverse state could not survive under a fake federalism, as farmer Ass Sec of State for African Affairs, Cohen said in 2016, where a minority clique clings to power through a divide and rule strategy. Some want to say as if there is no alternative to the ruling party. The alternative is not between an oppressive system and the unknown or chaos. The US has clear alternatives in Ethiopia. True democracy is the only lasting solution. I don’t think we should give into the unfounded fear of seeing that country disintegrate because the people have lived side by side for centuries. In fact, if there is a true democracy I don’t doubt the people will choose to live appear with their neighbors, family members which are intermixed with and lived happily side by side for generations. Love happens, it need not be forced. Oromos are one of the most peace-loving people that I have heard of, not because I said it but history show us. Time and again, Oromia has protected everyone that lives within her borders creating a safe-haven to everyone, including Tigreans at a time when they were brutally murdered by 1000s during the previous dictatorial regime.

Mr. Chairman, if what we seek is a united democratic nation where all people have equal opportunity as human beings, we must ask for accountability and push for real and tangible action. The United States government and Congress must ask for an immediate release of all political prisoners, journalists, dissidents, the lifting of the State of Emergency and the restoration of peace in border areas by stopping attacks by the Liyu Police with the backing federal army. Certainly, the introduction of H. Res 128 is a great start. While I thank the leadership behind it and all those who co-sponsored it, I ask you and beg you to reach out to your colleagues to co-sponsor and ask all those caring about Ethiopia to speak up before it is too late. The window of opportunity closes with each passing day, with each passing lives murdered at the hands of this government either at the border by Liyu police, at homes or refugee camps.

Clearly Ethiopia is in a serious not only from rising human violations but also the never-
ending requests for foreign aid to feed the millions starving Year after Year. We must ask ourselves, how long are we or should we keep financing a regime that got 30 billion in foreign since it came to power in 1991 and stole 30 billion according to (Steinman, 2017). The current government has been given more than enough opportunity and resource to uplift its people from poverty and transition to democracy. We must say enough and save Ethiopia before it is too late.

My generation, the Oromo people and many other Ethiopians look up to American democracy as a beacon of hope. We cannot ignore the young generation. The youth, who makes up 50% of the entire population, aspires for democracy, peace and security. We must not leave Ethiopia’s fate to the current government. We cannot leave it up to the current government to investigate into its own gross human rights violations documented by the United State government. It is time to work on alternatives. Ethiopia’s ruling party does not represent the country’s future but its past.

In fact, I think we have a brand-new opportunity with a new administration. Let the oppressive region know that American resources and support comes with accountability. A regime that kills its own people cannot bring peace in neighboring countries.

For me, I have young girls in middle school that I support in rural part of Oromia. They look up to me as their role model. They see me as the American girl but one of them to which they can

relate. If they can see me make it this far, they know it is a matter of time for them to go
further. With the rise of religion extremism, my presence as a secular voice is the most powerful message that women like me can give. Those girls mean the whole world to me. But today, because of what I said here this afternoon, I am putting them and my family members left
in Oromia in great danger. I chose to testify because this is not history but rather a testimony on my own personal experience for which I am ready to accept all sacrifices.

Thank you again for your tireless efforts to stop human rights violations in Ethiopia and for your commitment to promoting democracy, peace, justice and rule of law.

Source: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20170309/105673/HHRG-115-FA16-Wstate-JimjimoS-20170309-U2.pdf

Challenges of Justice & Democracy In Ethiopia, Testimony of Seenaa Jimjimo & Tewodrose G. Tirfe

ESAT Radio Fri 10 Mar 2017

Dr. Merera Gudina detained 3 months ago after making speech at European Parliament on politics in Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

An Ethiopian court Friday rejected the bail request of a prominent opposition leader detained for three months on suspicion of inciting violence and terrorism.

Wondimu Ibsa, the lawyer for opposition leader Dr. Merera Gudina, told Anadolu Agency that they will appeal the ruling, starting at the next hearing on April 24.

According to Ibsa, Gudina “expressed deep sorrow over the court’s decision to deny him bail, a right which is granted to any ordinary criminal.”

Prosecutors have argued the charges he faced were too serious to consider bail.

According to the charges, property worth $43.9 million was destroyed in protests he “incited”.

Merera, a leading opposition figure in Ethiopia and chair of the Oromo People’s Congress (OPC), was arrested after he gave a speech at the European Parliament on the political situation in Ethiopia.

Last December, government spokesman Negeri Lencho said Merera’s detention is related to the state of emergency declared in October.

AS

A security guard sits near a gate in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Oct. 10, 2016.

It’s been five months since Ethiopia declared a state of emergency in response to widespread protests and unrest, and there are no signs indicating when it might end.

Since October, thousands have been arrested and sent to military-style camps where they live in squalid conditions, perform strenuous exercises and get beaten when they falter, according to Befeqadu Hailu, a former detainee.

The prisoners have also undergone reeducation training, including a crash course on the country’s constitution.

“We didn’t have access to either family and friends, visitors or lawyers, so we didn’t have any contact to the outside world,” said Hailu, speaking to VOA shortly after his release.

Hailu is part of a group known as the Zone 9 bloggers, who were acquitted last year of charges of inciting violence under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law. Hailu was rearrested in October after he was interviewed by VOA’s Amharic Service.

Ongoing imprisonment

Despite the release of about 20,000 detainees, top opposition leaders remain in jail. Most have been charged under the Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law, which is often used to stifle dissent and arrest journalists.

Ethiopian men read newspapers at a cafe in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Oct. 10, 2016. Ethiopia’s government on Monday blamed Egypt for supporting outlawed rebels and forcing the declaration of the country’s first state of emergency in a quarter-century as widespread anti-government protests continue.

Earlier this month, several opposition members were charged with an attempted coup, including Jawar Mohammed, who runs the Oromia Media Network based in Minnesota, and Berhanu Nega, an opposition leader who had previously been sentenced to death. Both men are outside the country.

Another man, Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, was arrested in Ethiopia after returning from a trip to testify before the European parliament about human rights violations.

In a statement to the U.S. Congress this week, Human Rights Watch condemned the state of emergency as an effort to undermine expression and crush dissent without addressing underlying concerns about representation.

Ethiopian officials insist the state of emergency is stabilizing the country.

“As of now, the state of emergency has accomplished its goal,” said Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, speaking to reporters in January.

“We have to ensure that the goal is long-lasting. As long as we have ensured that, the state of emergency can be lifted anytime,” Desalegn said, adding that officials evaluate the state of emergency on a regular basis to determine whether it is still needed.

Power struggle

René Lefort, a journalist who has covered the region since the 1970s, believes the government’s actions reflect a power struggle between the federal government and regional police forces.

“The state of emergency didn’t play an important role in maintaining or reestablishing law and order in Ethiopia,” said Lefort. “Because, before the state of emergency, the security forces and the army or police had almost a free hand to act as they want without any heavy legal constraints,” he said. “The state of emergency has simply been part of the game between Addis Ababa and the local authorities or the regional authorities.”

Protesters run from tear gas being fired by police during Irreecha, the thanks giving festival of the Oromo people in Bishoftu town of Oromia region, Ethiopia, October 2, 2016

Ethiopia’s ruling party, the EPRDF, has engaged in dialogue with opposition members, but Lefort said they are yet to make meaningful concessions.

With protests and violence subsiding, he believes real progress may be possible if the EPRDF is willing to meet the opposition’s demands.

“We’re in a crucial period,” Lefort said. “Now that Ethiopia is relatively calm, we will know if the ruling power is really ready to discuss [things] with the opposition and to make some steps in the direction of the opposition.”

The opposition currently has no power in the national government. The EPRDF controls all 547 seats in parliament.

Alex de Waal, a research professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said the long-term solution for the country must come through reconcilation, not revolution. Diaspora efforts for an armed insurrection and overthrow could be disastrous for the country.

“It is reckless and irresponsible to call for armed insurrection. I think what we are seeing at the moment is an impasse where those [in] the internal domestic opposition in Ethiopia, Ethiopian civil society, recognize this, and their leaders are pressing for a reform rather than a revolution agenda,” de Waal said.

“I’m absolutely sure that’s the right way to go. The government is dragging its feet in responding, and we hope they don’t drag their feet, they do respond with more alacrity.”

People assist an injured protestor during Irrechaa, the thanks giving festival of the Oromo people in Bishoftu town of Oromia region, Ethiopia, October 2, 2016.

Pointing to the outcome of the Arab Spring, de Waal said that similar efforts could be perilous and a hit-and-miss affair.

“One hopes that there will be the kind of open dialogue and the kind of willingness to reform among the leadership and respond to the very authentic legitimate, heartfelt demands of the people to democratize Ethiopia.”

• Salem Solomon

  Salem Solomon is a journalist and web producer at Voice of America’s Africa Division, where she reports in English, Amharic and Tigrigna. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poynter.org, Reuters and The Tampa Bay Times. Salem researches trends in analytics and digital journalism, and her data-driven work has been featured in VOA’s special projects collection.

North America Ethiopian Lawyers Discussion on Tramp Immigration Law (VOA)

William Gallo
Victoria Macchi

WASHINGTON — Tucked deep inside two of President Donald Trump’s immigration-related executive orders are plans to gather data on the perceived threats posed by foreign-born nationals in the United States.

The new information will influence policies the president says are meant to protect national security, according to the orders.

The data collection appears part of a sustained effort by the president and members of his team, going back to the beginning of Trump’s run for the White House, to associate the foreign-born population with criminality despite evidence to the contrary. It also comes amid increasing concerns since Trump’s election about rising levels of hatred and prejudice in the country.

Earlier this week, a revised travel order temporarily suspended the U.S. refugee program and barred visas to nationals from six majority-Muslim countries. Replacing an earlier order, the new order also includes more far-reaching requirements to collect data on foreign nationals in the country, some of whom may not have been charged with or convicted of crimes.

Protesters chant during a rally against the travel ban at San Diego International Airport, March 6, 2017, in San Diego, California.

The first reports using this data will not be published for months, but some immigration policy analysts fear how the data will be gathered and presented, following what they view as selective and occasionally erroneous use of data by administration officials.

Critics of the administration say they already see signs that similar data is being misused to justify controversial policy proposals.

For example, as the travel order was made public Monday morning, multiple administration officials cited newly revealed information that the FBI is currently conducting terrorism-related investigations into 300 refugees admitted to the United States.

Citing the ongoing nature of the cases, the officials refused requests by VOA journalists and other reporters to provide additional information and context for the figure, which was immediately questioned by researchers.

“We don’t even know what that means exactly. What type of investigation? What stage are the investigations in? I mean, they just threw out a random number to scare people,” says Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

“They comment enough to make a political point but they don’t comment enough to give the public the information they need to actually evaluate the claims.”

Nowrasteh cross-referenced nine databases and documents to produce a report on immigration and terrorism last year, broken down by visa categories. He found that from September 12, 2001, until December 31, 2015, five foreign-born terrorists killed 24 people on U.S. soil, while attacks by native-born Americans and those with unknown nationalities killed 80 people.

Transparency?

The call for new data on foreign nationals is in Section 11 of the travel order and is wide-ranging.

It calls for reports every six months on the number of foreign nationals charged with or convicted of “terrorism-related” offenses, a slippery term as Nowrasteh pointed out in his report. The order also requires Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to report on behavior like “radicalization,” without defining what the phrase means.

DOJ did not answer a VOA request for clarification on the definitions of the above terms.

The executive order also orders statistics on those who provided “material support” for terrorist groups — a broad category that could include even those who provided support under duress or who were the victims of terrorists, like Syrians living in Islamic State-controlled areas — and singles out violence against women by foreign nationals, including so-called “honor killings.”

“That paragraph really tells you where he’s coming from,” Lavinia Limón, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), says of Trump. “He thinks these people are not OK. It’s very stereotypical and very sad.”

FILE – A photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows foreign nationals being arrested, Feb. 7, 2017, during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Trump’s critics see calls for such reporting as part of a wider pattern of anti-immigrant behavior. But supporters of Trump’s immigration policies disagree, saying the White House is simply trying to provide enough information for Americans to decide on policies that will help keep them safe.

“It appears to me that the goal of this is transparency, “ says Rosemary Jenks with Numbers USA, an organization that wants fewer immigrants. “More information is always better, in my view. That’s what America is all about — more information, more debate.”

Jenks advocates for the data to go even beyond what Trump has called for, suggesting that terrorism and crime committed by the children of immigrants counts differently than that of families who have been in the country longer.

“If we have fifth- or sixth-generation immigrants becoming terrorists, that’s a different problem to address than if we have immigrants or children of immigrants becoming terrorists,” she says.

Negative context

If Trump were merely calling for improved data gathering, policy wonks might rejoice, whatever their political preference; statistics related to certain parts of the immigration system are notoriously difficult to obtain.

But Trump’s early focus on the foreign-born in the first days of his administration follow a campaign in which immigrants and refugees were consistently and repeatedly discussed in negative terms.

The context makes his critics exceedingly skeptical of why he wants new data and how it will be used.

“Enforce a ban, then create the mechanism to create the facts necessary to justify it,” echoes Hassan Ahmad, an immigration lawyer in the Washington area and former head of the Capital Area Muslim Bar Association. “How? By publishing regular immigration statistics, and coupling it with reporting on foreign-born terror-related crime focused on Muslim perpetrators.

“Over time, this will build up an alternative factual narrative the administration hopes will defeat legal challenge.”

FILE – A bag containing the belongings of an undocumented immigrant family from Guatemala is pictured after their arrival to Annunciation House, an organization that provides shelter to immigrants and refugees, in El Paso, Texas, Jan. 17, 2017.

The travel order followed another executive order in January that revised guidelines on deportation and also calls for data on crimes committed by immigrants in “sanctuary cities”, as well as “the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States,” and the immigration status of detained or convicted foreign nationals.

That order, too, received broad criticism.

“We need balanced policy analysis about better interior enforcement, not the inflaming of passions through selective presentation of data or anecdote,” David A. Martin, a former Homeland Security official and immigration analyst, highlights in a review of the order.

The association of immigration and criminality is not exclusive to Trump; a 1931 government report by the U.S. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement highlighted how a century of efforts and assumptions connecting the foreign-born population — whether Italians, Jews, Germans or Japanese — to societal problems were not based on facts.

“Statistics have never justified their assumptions, and … the most recent official statistics fail to substantiate their charges,” it said.

The bulk of academic research still does not support the correlation between increased immigration and elevated crime.

According to Scientific American, although some individual studies found a correlation between immigration and crime rates, 2½ times as many studies showed that with more immigration, there was less crime.

“The most common finding was that immigration had no impact on crime,” several criminologists told the magazine in February, citing multiple reports. “The upshot? We find no evidence to indicate that immigration leads to more crime and it may, in fact, suppress it.”

In this short advocacy film, Ethiopian political activist Tadesse Kersmo describes the damage caused by surveillance. Can this damage be mitigated through transmitting an account of the surveillance? Tadesse Kersmo’s surveillance story has the potential to expose the totalitarian regime he has fled, and bring a wider awareness to the legal and practical issues that made his surveillance possible

By VOA For Citizen Digital

It’s been five months since Ethiopia declared a state of emergency in response to widespread protests and unrest, and there are no signs indicating when it might end.

Since October, thousands have been arrested and sent to military-style camps where they live in squalid conditions, perform strenuous exercises and get beaten when they falter, according to Befeqadu Hailu, a former detainee.

The prisoners have also undergone reeducation training, including a crash course on the country’s constitution.

“We didn’t have access to either family and friends, visitors or lawyers, so we didn’t have any contact to the outside world,” said Hailu, speaking to VOA shortly after his release.

Hailu is part of a group known as the Zone 9 bloggers, who were acquitted last year of charges of inciting violence under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law. Hailu was rearrested in October after he was interviewed by VOA’s Amharic Service.

Ongoing imprisonment

Despite the release of about 20,000 detainees, top opposition leaders remain in jail. Most have been charged under the Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law, which is often used to stifle dissent and arrest journalists.

Earlier this month, several opposition members were charged with an attempted coup, including Jawar Mohammed, who runs the Oromia Media Network based in Minnesota, and Berhanu Nega, an opposition leader who had previously been sentenced to death. Both men are outside the country.

Another man, Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, was arrested in Ethiopia after returning from a trip to testify before the European parliament about human rights violations.

In a statement to the U.S. Congress this week, Human Rights Watch condemned the state of emergency as an effort to undermine expression and crush dissent without addressing underlying concerns about representation.

Ethiopian officials insist the state of emergency is stabilizing the country.

“As of now, the state of emergency has accomplished its goal,” said Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, speaking to reporters in January.

“We have to ensure that the goal is long-lasting. As long as we have ensured that, the state of emergency can be lifted anytime,” Desalegn said, adding that officials evaluate the state of emergency on a regular basis to determine whether it is still needed.

Power struggle

René Lefort, a journalist who has covered the region since the 1970s, believes the government’s actions reflect a power struggle between the federal government and regional police forces.

“The state of emergency didn’t play an important role in maintaining or reestablishing law and order in Ethiopia,” said Lefort. “Because, before the state of emergency, the security forces and the army or police had almost a free hand to act as they want without any heavy legal constraints,” he said. “The state of emergency has simply been part of the game between Addis Ababa and the local authorities or the regional authorities.”

Ethiopia’s ruling party, the EPRDF, has engaged in dialogue with opposition members, but Lefort said they are yet to make meaningful concessions.

With protests and violence subsiding, he believes real progress may be possible if the EPRDF is willing to meet the opposition’s demands.

“We’re in a crucial period,” Lefort said. “Now that Ethiopia is relatively calm, we will know if the ruling power is really ready to discuss [things] with the opposition and to make some steps in the direction of the opposition.”

The opposition currently has no power in the national government. The EPRDF controls all 547 seats in parliament.

Alex de Waal, a research professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said the long-term solution for the country must come through reconcilation, not revolution. Diaspora efforts for an armed insurrection and overthrow could be disastrous for the country.

“It is reckless and irresponsible to call for armed insurrection. I think what we are seeing at the moment is an impasse where those [in] the internal domestic opposition in Ethiopia, Ethiopian civil society, recognize this, and their leaders are pressing for a reform rather than a revolution agenda,” de Waal said.

“I’m absolutely sure that’s the right way to go. The government is dragging its feet in responding, and we hope they don’t drag their feet, they do respond with more alacrity.”

Pointing to the outcome of the Arab Spring, de Waal said that similar efforts could be perilous and a hit-and-miss affair.

“One hopes that there will be the kind of open dialogue and the kind of willingness to reform among the leadership and respond to the very authentic legitimate, heartfelt demands of the people to democratize Ethiopia.”

At least 30 people were killed and dozens more hurt in a giant landslide of garbage at Ethiopia’s largest rubbish dump on the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa, a city official said Sunday.

An AFP journalist at the scene said the largest pile of rubbish at the Koshe landfill appeared to have collapsed, triggering Saturday’s tragedy that levelled dozens of homes of squatters living there.

“The death toll is now 30,” said Dagmawit Moges, head of the city communications bureau.

He said many of the victims were squatters who scavenged for a living in the dump.

“We expect the number of victims to increase because the landslide covered a relatively large area,” he added.

The Koshe site has for more than 40 years been one of the main garbage dumps for Addis Ababa, a rapidly growing city of some four million people in the east African country.

Source: AFP

Mesfin Mekonen / Washington Update

March 12, 2017

A congressional hearing last week highlighted bipartisan criticism of the Ethiopian government. Members of Congress made it clear they are convinced that the Ethiopian government is routinely violating human rights.

Speaking at a March 9 hearing of the Africa and Global Health Subcommittee, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said he is “deeply concerned and troubled about the deteriorating conditions in Ethiopia. The EPRDF regime is becoming increasingly totalitarian. My concern continues for the deteriorating condition of political prisoners, who testified to this committee, and continues to languish in prison in Ethiopia, along with hundreds of other [political prisoners] and journalists without access to medical care and due process.”

According to the State Department’s newly released Human Rights Report on Ethiopia, security forces killed ‘hundreds’ in the context of using excessive force against protestors in 2016,” said Smith, Chairman of the Africa Subcommittee. “In addition, there are at least thousands more people held in jail who are considered political prisoners, and the government continues to arrest and imprison critics of its actions. Dr. Merera arrested upon his return to Ethiopia after testifying in November at a European parliament hearing about the crisis in his country.”

Ethiopia’s Communication Affairs Minister, Negeri Lencho, says his government has been providing Merera with protection as a prominent member of  a legal opposition party. Lencho acknowledged that Merera, who he said is being held for violating the terms of the state of emergency, is very well respected in the country.  “He met with terrorist organizations, groups that the Ethiopian parliament designated as terrorists,” Negeri told VOA Amharic, adding the court will decide whether to jail or release Merera once an investigation is completed.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said that “unfortunately, the Ethiopian regime shows deteriorating signs of human rights practices, This oppression is preventable,” said Smith. “Rather than spend hundreds of thousands on consultants to try to mislead Members of Congress on the facts and inciting e-mail form letter campaigns by supporters, the Government of Ethiopia can acknowledge their challenges and work with the U.S. government and others in the international community to seek reasonable solutions.  We are prepared to help once they are ready to face the ugly truth of what has happened and what continues to happen in Ethiopia today.”

The hearing followed the introduction of House Resolution 128, which offers an outline to bring Ethiopia back onto the path towards democracy. This resolution is designed to promote democracy and good governance in Ethiopia and, among other key provisions, condemns the actions of the Government of Ethiopia and calls on the Secretary of State to improve the oversight and accountability of U.S. assistance in Ethiopia.

Terrence Lyons, Associate Professor at George Mason University, noted the extreme control the regime has over the media: “Following the 2005 elections and subsequent crackdown, the regime successfully expanded and institutionalized its system of authoritarian control, virtually eliminating independent space for opposition political parties, civil society organizations, and non-state media. The EPRDF controls mass organizations for women and youth, humanitarian and development organizations, and large economic enterprises.” Click Here to read Lyons’ Full Statement.

Felix Horne, Senior Researcher for the Horn of Africa at Human Rights Watch said, “The state systematically ensures that many of the country’s 100 million citizens are dependent on the government for their livelihoods, food security and economic future.” Click Here to read Horne’s Full Statement.

The President of the Coalition of Oromo Advocates for Human Rights and Democracy, Seenaa Jimjimo, explained the strife within Ethiopia, “Today…people are afraid to speak and exercise basic rights guaranteed by the constitution. Under the codename of “State of Emergency” a husband watches his wife and daughters get raped, sons taken away or killed. I myself have lived under terror and being watched and beaten by this government.” Click Here to read Jimjimo’s Full Statement.

Tewodrose G. Tirfe, a Board Member at the Amhara Association of America, highlighted the plight faced by the Amhara people, “As stated in the 2007 Ethiopian Census that was released in 2010, the Amhara population was short by 2.5 million. A debate was not even allowed in parliament when this fact was presented. Some estimates have the number now closer to 5 million. We believe there has been a systematic effort by the government to depopulate the Amhara population.” Click Here to read Tirfe’s Full Statement.

Guyaa Abaguya Deki, a Representative for the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition and a Polio survivor, gave his personal experience with the Ethiopian Government, “They picked me up in a taxi. The driver punched me in my mouth with his pistol, and I lost my two lower teeth. They kept me for three days in solitary confinement in a tiny dark cell. I had to crawl on the ground outside the cell to lift myself up to get to the toilet. And I was only allowed to go to the toilet twice a day. My hands were tied to a chair and my mouth was wrapped up with dirty wet socks.” Click Here to read Deki’s Full Statement.

Deacon Yoseph R. Tafari spoke about the religious persecution going on in Ethiopia, “Ethiopia is ruled by a minority ethnic regime which has brought about highly destructive governance by perpetually marginalizing and terrorizing other ethnic group and religious groups by pitting one against the other.” Click Here to read Tafari’s Full Statement.

Smith has held four hearings on Ethiopia with the first, “Ethiopia and Eritrea: Promoting Stability, Democracy and Human Rights,” was held more than a decade ago in 2005.

The hearing and report make it clear that the world realizes the Ethiopian government is preparing to steal another election, and that it fails to respect basic norms of human decency, human rights and democracy. The real question is if the U.S. or the European Union will do anything about it, or if it will take a tragic event to focus the world’s attention on the Horn of Africa.

In the mean time Reuters news agency reported that Millions of drought-stricken Ethiopians needing food, water and emergency medical care are not receiving it due to funding shortages, the United Nations said, warning the crisis will worsen if spring rains fail as predicted.

Some 5.6 million people need food aid in the Horn of Africa nation, which has been hit by a series of back-to-back droughts.

“The needs relating to the developing emergency exceed resources available to date,” the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.

“Each day without food assistance exponentially increases human suffering, lengthens the recovery period of affected people, puts increasing pressure on humanitarian and development systems, and the interventions become that much more expensive.”

All hands for Ethiopia – Ethiopian Drought response report from Debre Genet Medahnalem Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Temple Hills, Maryland, in a town Hall gathering with its members and supporters to report the drought response that was raised funds to help address the food disaster in Ethiopia. The church has raised total of $385,303.96 for food assistance. The committee worked with four credible non governmental organizations to distribute food assistance to the major affected area through out Ethiopia.

This kind of efforts must be encouraged by all Ethiopians in the Diaspora.

Mesfin Mekonen

Tadesse Nigatu

“Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation.”

Atifete Jahjaga                                                                                                                

Introduction

EPRDF has been making deafening noise about its fight against corruption. Does it mean it?  We will find out. One thing is clear. That is the government is admitting that its officials and members have plagued the country with corruption. It is also telling us that it is winning the fight. Anyone that has closely observed it is quick to doubt that EPRDF is serious.

To be fair, EPRDF’s predecessors were not known to be corruption free either. The only difference is, EPRDF has taken corruption to its peak level, to make Ethiopia among the top corrupt countries of the world.  Per transparency International, in 2015, Ethiopia ranked 103 out of 168 countries, scoring 33 on a scale of 100.  (Source: www.transparency.org/cpi).  We all know that EPRDF brags for being a pro-development government. The problem with this bragging is that corruption and development do not go together. If anything, they contradict each other. It is no wonder that Ethiopia is still 173^rd of 186 countries in the UN human development (GDP) ranking Source: UN Human Development Report 2015. This at similar ranking level as during its predecessors (the emperor as well Mengistu) times. This is despite all the noise about double digit economic growth that EPRDF is not tired of telling.

Interestingly, EPRDF does not shy away from telling us how progressive its government is (referring to education, health, transportation etc.) comparing itself to the Derg and the Feudal system.  But what it does not tell us about is the tens of Billions of dollars it has collected in foreign aid and loan on behalf of the Ethiopian people. Its lips are tight also about the facts that significant amount of the donated and borrowed dollars have been siphoned to its officials’ personal accounts, as the result of which, its officials have become millionaires.

EPRDF wants us to believe that it can win the fight against corruption without addressing political repression, economic exploitation, disregard for law as well as ethical values that have blanketed the whole country. The truth is that, there is strong relation between repression, exploitation, low morale/ethical value and corruption. In this write up, I attempt to show the only effective way to win corruption is by empowering the Ethiopian people through democratic reforms. There is a strong inverse relationship between democracy and corruption. The reason why EPRDF deliberately isolate corruption from democracy is to prolong corruption as it is the foundation of its existence. In other words, corruption, political repression and EPRDF cannot exist without each other. Therefore, EPRDF’s fight against corruption should not be taken seriously.

What is corruption?

Per transparency international corruption is the abuse of power for private gain. (see the above sited website) Here, the key terms are:  power, abuse and private-gain.  It means that for corruption to occur there must be someone with power (political power that is), and that power must be abused (misused) and the abuse results in private gains (to benefit the power holder). These three are interlinked and interdependent. Abuse of power can take many forms (for example, creating psychological fear, physical torture, incarceration etc.) and private gain can mean to benefit self, family members, group, party affiliates etc. with money, labor and other valuables.

The Origin of abusive power

Where does political power come from? The short answer is that it comes from people.  The old Ethiopian flock lore, that says “Two people are stronger than one individual” alludes to that fact. One key criterion to gain power is, for people to have common purpose. Another way of saying this is that, two people with a common goal have more power than 100 individuals with hundred different goals going in hundred different directions. Therefore, more people who have common goal have even more power than few people or individuals.

People are still the source of power even under undemocratic (dictatorial) settings. In undemocratic communities, political power is forged by charismatic individuals, be it bullies, tribal chief, kings, or warlords “liberation” fighters etc. Those individuals (power centers) are not elected by the public but they get their power from the people that they forced to rally behind them. This is the genesis of undemocratic power.

Of course, political power can also be forged by agreement when people democratically (willingly) agree to invest their collective power. This collective power is then dispensed for a common good by care-takers (or leaders), who herself/himself is democratically elected.

In both (democratic and undemocratic) cases, the source of political power are people who agreed or forced (in undemocratic case) to have common goal. The difference is undemocratic leader have full monopoly of the collective power and can abuse it while the democratically elected ones only dispense their power following the rule of law. Undemocratic power is coercive power and coercive power is corruptive by nature. Corruptive power is coercive in its very nature. To say that there is corruption means that the power used to corrupt is not a legitimate (democratic). It is rather coercive power right from the very start.

Corruption is an indirect way of usurping something of value (money, labor, or other valuables) by force and without fair compensation. For the usurpation to take place, there must be power imbalance between the corruptor and the corrupted. That is, the corruptor must have more power than the corrupted.

Abuse of power take place, if the power is used to benefit the few at the expense of the many. If the use of power is not guided by rule of law and ethical values, it can be misused (abused). If there is no mechanism to counter-balance and assure a fair utilization of power, there are all kind of possibilities to abuse it. If power is not regulated, the human tendency is, to abuse it and take advantage for private gain.

Patterns of corruption

If corruption was something that takes place just between individuals and happens at random, it wouldn’t be anybody’s concern. The problem is, corruption is everywhere in Ethiopia touching millions. It is practiced by people at the highest national office as well as the local level Kebele officials. The practice is affecting almost every economic function throughout Ethiopia. It is systemic pattern that is ubiquitous all over the country. Corruption is like infectious disease that is spread all over and paralyzing any reasonable economic and political activities of the nation.

To wage effective fight against this economic, political as well as societal disease we call corruption, understanding the mechanism of its emergence as well as how it spreads is a good starting point.

At a risk of being repetitive, I say that corruption is unproductive political as well economic activity. Political: because, it involves political power abuse. Economic: because it involves the taking away of someone’s wealth, labor or other valuable holdings without reasonable compensation. Let’s visualize how it takes place by considering a very simplified corruptive activity and then we move on to a more involved scenario of corruptive activity.

Let’s take two people. One of them has power because, say, he works for the government. The other has nothing except his labor.  The man with power asks the laborer to do some work for him with promise to pay fair market price after the job is completed.  After several days of laboring, the worker completed the job and asked to be paid. The man with power made only partial (not full) payment and gave unjustified excuse of poor workmanship not to pay in full. The job was well done. But the man with power did that because he knew that the laborer has no means or power to make him pay in full.  The worker then took his case to the court. The problem is, the court would not favor the worker because the judge and powerful guy have common economic interest. Therefore, the Jude is not neutral. The Judge is more interested in helping his body instead of the fair implementation of the labor laws of the country. The laborer, at least should be able to complain and expose what happened to him in the hope to shame the powerful guy so that he won’t repeat his corrupt actions. But the problem is the local media is owned and controlled by the government do not expose anything the criticize people in power.  Worst yet, even the private media owners would not cooperate for fear of retaliation by the politician.

This is the type of corruption that takes place every day, in every part of the country to millions of working people.  Not getting paid for the day’s work is bad enough. But corruption hurts even more than that and has much more lasting effect. For one thing, corruption robs the thrust that people should among each other. Secondly, it tarnishes people’s view of work as the legitimate way to earn living. Instead, it encourages beggary, theft and other deceptive ways to earn living. Think about the number of people and the economic scale this affects, when this is happening on millions of people all over the nation.

From the above, it is easy to see corruption thrives in the interplay between the following three simple conditions.

1. Repressive Political power without rule of law and ethical value
2. The court Harmonizing with repressive political power (instead of being counter-balancing force)
3. Press and Media controlled by repressive political power (no free speech)

Now think of the corruptive economic and social pattern that covers the whole country when the above three conditions are met at every level of the government by every EPRDF member. Yes, this is the Ethiopia that EPRDF rules.

The above picture is when corruption happens on person-to-person basis. Now, let’s looks at corruption happens to many people at the same. To show this, we look at deals that the EPRDF officials make with foreign investors.

These types of large scale corruption start when foreign investors can lease a fertile land from EPRDF to initiate industrial scale farming to produce crops they sale in the investors’ home country. That is, the investors pay large amount of money to EPRDF to lease millions of hectares of farmland. Since the farmlands to be leased are already occupied by native farmers, the deal would require that hundreds of thousands farming families be forcefully removed from their land without having any say or getting equivalent compensation.

Why do the EPRDF officials do this cruelty to hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens?  The answer is, they do it because they could for they have the power.  They do it because, there is nothing to stop or control them from abusing their power.  They do it because the officials have monetary gains to make.

EPRDF call this deal development but the truth is it is corruption which is anti-development. The outcome is more severe than the one-to-one corruption because it affects thousands of people in just one deal. Now, think of all the dealings that the EPRDF has already made with the various so called international investors to give the already settled fertile farmlands, be it to foreign or to national investors at the misery of millions of farmers.

I only drew two scenarios of corruption.  But corruption comes in many different forms. It takes place in banks, in mining fields, in educational and medical settings, in import and export offices, in market places etc. In short, in almost all economic political and social activities.

In all of them, it is easy to see the abuse of power to make personal gain. Victims were not allowed to see their days in court. They did not have freedom to express their grievances. The same outcome repeat for all the victims. They are, misery, joblessness, poverty and poor health for the millions.

Why is it that corruption is everywhere in the country and with the same results?  The answer is that the seed of corruption is planted in the highest political office of the country. It starts at the head. It is the EPRDF leaders who set up the initial conditions from which the nation-wide corruption pattern emerged to infest the nation with economic and political cancer.

Corruption has become a systemic phenomenon infecting the whole country. If one wants to get rid of a system, one starts by rooting out its cause-operational rules- that brought it to existence in the first place.  The system of corruption that has plagued Ethiopia cannot be eliminated by removing officials at random. It cannot also be eliminated by decree. It can be eliminated only by institutionalizing a genuine democratic system and building a system that respects the rule of law and guided by ethical values. Independent judicial system and free speech are also necessary to combat corruption.

Considering this, let’s see what EPRDF has been doing over the years to “combat” corruption.

EPRDF’s attempt to combat corruption

EPRDF has been telling us about its “relentless fight” against corruption for the last twenty or so years.  Per https://acauthorities.org/country/et,   which is EPRDF government’s web site, the following highlights its bogus activities to combat corruption:

• The Government of Ethiopia established an anti-corruption commission in 2001 (and defined powers in the revised Proclamation 433 of 2005).
• Decreed the Criminal Code Proclamation No. 414/2004; The Criminal Procedure Code 1961;
• Revised Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Establishment Proclamation No. 433/2005;
• Established Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission of Ethiopia is responsible for preparing a national report on anti-corruption efforts across the country.
• Revised Anti-Corruption Special Procedure and Rules of Evidence Proclamation No. 434/2005; Assets Disclosure and Registration Proclamation No. 668/2010;
• Decreed protection of Witnesses and Whistleblowers of Criminal Offences Proclamation No. 699/2011;
• Decreed prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism Proclamation No. 657/2009; Source:
• Hired world bank experts to help reduce corruption
• Shuffled or rearranged position of high ranking corrupt political officers, while jailing low ranking ones
• In the last few months, (after the mass resistance that is,) EPRDF’s media is telling us that it is discharging and arresting thousands its own members accusing them of corruption and incompetency.

What did (or will) Ethiopians gain from these?  Clearly, the results were very disappointing. Instead of weakening, corruption became even stronger. The imbalance of wealth and political power between the haves and have-nots became wider and wider.  What ordinary Ethiopians saw is more greed, intensified exploitation, fake development, displacement of farmers, joblessness, hopelessness and then mass political unrest and uprising.

After two decades of dishonest anti-corruption propaganda and a year-long intensified mass protest, EPRDF still insist that the corruption problem can be solved by jailing some corrupt officials. The “intensified corruption cleansing” campaign of the last few months will face the same failure as the many bogus attempts.

EPRDF controls the courts, the law enforcement machinery and the mass media. But they could not clean corruption. The reason why their decrees, courts and law enforcement did not reduce, let alone, eliminate corruption is, that corruption cannot be fought and won by corrupts themselves, without dealing with its root-cause.

The truth is that EPRDF officials are not that dumb. They well know that they cannot cleanse corruption by repeating the same activities that created the system. It is either they lack the will power to change or it is who they are and can never change. In the latter case, like all short-sighted greedy group, they have chosen to die as corrupt Billionaires.

Just in case, it is just in case, that they have the will power to change but did not know how, let’s revisit the connection between corruption, democracy and ethical values.

Democracy and ethics: the most potent tool against corruption

If corruption means the abuse of political power, then the best way to weaken or eliminate corruption is to distribute that political power equally to all citizens and eliminate power concentration from the hands of the few. How do we do that? We do that, by creating a society where there is political equality among all citizens. In other words, democratization is the way to spread power and combat corruption. Political equality of all citizens is an essential principle of democracy.

To prevent its abuse, power needs to be spread among the citizens and the different branches of government. Power needs to go back to its original source, the people.

Corruption is an infectious behavior that is practiced by every power holders. It can only be defeated with the participation of the masses who are empowered to exercise their civic and democratic rights.

If people’s democratic rights are respected, they can organize themselves as they see it and tackle corruption. Democracy and freedom calls for independent free press and media (radio, TV, internet).  Democracy enables to expose corruption and corrupt individuals by writing or speak against them without fear of reprisal.  In free society, transparency and flow of information will make facts available to all but not to those in power only.  Corruption can be won when fought by the people who seriously are hurt by it and want to get rid of it but not by its perpetrators.

Power abuse and corruption have difficult times in democratic society, since the judicial system

• protects the rights of citizens
• guards the integrity of the constitution.
• limits the power of the government and those who run it.

Ethics is the other tool that dismantles corruption and corruptive behavior. If the day-to-day actions of all citizens are guided by ethical conducts, corruptive practices can fade gradually. These ethical values start with the golden rule that says “Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you”.  The other rules include:

• Work hard and smart Earn your living and void what is not yours
• Be Patriotic Love people and country without discrimination
• Be Fair     Serve justice, treat with equality, be honest
• Be respectful   Respect people, the environment and property
• Seek Peace  Be tolerant, resolve conflict peacefully
• Pursue Happiness  Enjoy life without hurting other’s happiness

If practiced diligently, these are powerful guides that can shape a society one person at a time. That is, if every person in a family follow the rules, then the whole family practice them. If every family practices them, then the whole village practices them. If the practice keeps growing from villages to communities to districts, then to the nation everyone in the country is guided by the same ethical values. That means, that, if every family discourages corruption then the communities do the same. If every community discourages corruption, then the whole country discourages corruption.

In this way, the synergy of democracy and ethical values can become a potent weapon against corruption. So, if EPRDF is serious to defeat corruption but did not know how to, this is the way! Anything short of this is nothing but diversion.

In summary

Corruption is a societal cancer that paralyzes any reasonable economic activity including a country’s development. Political repression, lack of democratic rights  as well as disrespect for the rule of laws are the necessary conditions that corruption thrives on.

EPRDF has admitted that corruption is a serious problem. But the methods it is using to tackle corruption is very superficial.  The only way to eliminate a bad tree is by uprooting it all together but not by cutting one of its branches. In the same token, the only way to uproot corruption is by democratically empowering the Ethiopian people so that they can challenge the corrupt officials. Only ethical and empowered people can eliminate corruption but not the corrupt government and its decrees.

So, if EPRDF is genuinely seeking to eliminate corruption, it should start by entrusting the Ethiopian people with their inalienable democratic rights. Anything different is deception.

Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam

“Having been on this Committee now 36 of my 37 years,  I have to tell you that  I remember when Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania, one of the most brutal dictatorships, with the Securitate, the KGB equivalent, every year his lobby form would come around with bullet points. They  made them look like they were Mother Theresa. It’s just incredible.

“We’ve got a very sophisticated report from the Embassy [of Ethiopia] which I suspect is prepared in whole or in part by their lobby organization which was set up and funded January 1^st SGR LLC; and if the filings we’ve seen are correct, we’re talking about a $1.8 million per year cost for the lobby. We all need to look at that submission [by SGR LLC] carefully, but the lobby firms are very adroit at putting together that obscure, very often, the heinous human rights abuses we are trying to highlight.”

Chairman Chris Smith, comparing the nearly $2 million lobby efforts of the T-TPLF regime to that of  Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Cold War communist regime of Romania at the “Democracy Under Threat in Ethiopia” Hearing (3/9/2017).

Author’s Note: On March 9, 2017, the Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a “legislative” hearing on “Democracy Under Threat in Ethiopia”. The hearing was conducted partly in preparation for further legislative action on the pending H.R 128  (“Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia.”) introduced on February 15, 2017.

Committees of Congress rely on hearings to gather, analyze and synthesize information, facts and opinion in the course of the legislative drafting process. Often, government officials, special interest groups, academics and ordinary citizens likely to be impacted by proposed legislation are invited to testify before a hearing.

There are different types of hearings: oversight (focusing on performance or federal programs and officials);  investigative (focusing on possible official wrongdoing);  confirmation (solely in the Senate on presidential nominations) and field (held outside of Washington, D.C.)

Congressional hearings are useful not only in drafting effective legislation but also serve to inform and educate the public on the work of  their elected representatives, provide transparency and accountability in the legislative process and encourage civic action and engagement, among other things.

Those who regularly follow Congressional hearings on C-SPAN, Youtube and other media are likely to learn more about government and feel empowered to act.

Below are “snippets” taken from statements made by Subcommittee members and witnesses who testified at the “Democracy Under Threat in Ethiopia”  hearing.  Snippets will not tell the full story and all are encouraged to watch the video or read the statement of witnesses. The snippets have been edited for syntax.

The full hearing is available on Youtube HERE.

The written statements of witnesses are available HERE.

Go tell it on Capitol Hill and “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope” for Ethiopia

Subcommittee Chair Christopher Smith:

We have no opposition parties appearing today [given] the tendency of the “Ethiopian] government and its supporters to see anyone, anyone who disagrees with them and their actions as supporting terrorists seeking to overthrow the government; presumably this Subcommittee falls in that realm as well.

There are at least 10,000 more people held in jail who are considered political prisoners and the government continued to arrest and detain critics of its actions.

In January, journalists from the faith-based Radio Bilal, Khaled Mohammad and Garsema Sori were sentenced to 5 and 4 years for reporting on government interference in religious affairs.

Referring to the 2016 U.S. Human Rights Report: The “government” of Ethiopia “has killed hundreds of people in 2016” and “tens of thousands have been detained without due process of law.”

Menashe Levy [an Israeli businessman] has been in prison for a year and half on allegedly financial crimes charges. The government officials charged with levy have been released from jail but Levy’s trial continues to be delayed. Levy has been beaten in jail and denied proper medical care.

The government has denied United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights  access to Oromiya and Amhara regions.

We have introduced H.R. 128 to provide a “true picture, as true as can be painted as to what’s going on in Ethiopia today.”

We’ve got a very sophisticated report from the Embassy [of Ethiopia] which I suspect is prepared in whole or in part by their lobby organization which was set up and funded January 1^st SGR LLC and if the filings we’ve seen are correct, we’re talking about a $1.8 million per year cost for the lobby. We all need to look at that submission carefully, but the lobby firms are very adroit at putting together [materials] to obscure, very often, the heinous human rights abuses we are trying to highlight.

It is my belief that until the government of Ethiopia can squarely face the consequences of its actions, there will not be the genuine reform it has supported. For example, government officials say, ‘We have mistakenly said the ruling coalition holds 100 percent of the legislative seats whether in the name of the coalition itself or as an affiliate parties. The government cannot be honest with us or itself in such an obvious manner, it is unlikely the conditions for reform can exist. The government seems to realize it is in a precarious position.

Karen Bass, Ranking Member:

There is a huge number of people outside [the hearing room] that are not able to come in; hopefully we can find room for them [to come in] over time [by rotating people in the gallery].

The Ethiopian American community has bee has been one of the most successful African Diaspora communities in the U.S.

The Ethiopian Diaspora has never turned its back on its country and has contributed millions of dollars in remittances to the country’s economy.

There are numerous reports of the government committing arbitrary and unlawful killings using excessive force against protesters. The protesters were mainly in Oromiya and Amhara regions. At year’s end, more than 10 thousand people are believed to have been detained.

The suspension of civil liberties [under the state of emergency]  affects every facet of life. The people cannot travel around to visit friends or relatives or carry on business.

Terrence Lyons, Associate Professor, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University:

Predictions that the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was heading toward a crisis have been common over the years [but the regime] has demonstrated greater resilience than many analysts – this author included – understood.

It is important to recognize that the ruling party retains considerable strength. It has  successfully expanded and institutionalized its system of authoritarian control, virtually eliminating independent space for opposition political parties, civil society organizations, and non-state media. The party has approximately 8 million members and controls mass organizations for women and youth, humanitarian and development organizations, and large economic enterprises.

In 2016 an unprecedented wave of protests erupted in Oromia and later in the Amhara National Regional State.  The Ethiopian regime has followed a pattern in responding to protests. The regime typically refuses to consult or open dialogue with protesters but rather launches mass arrests, particularly of young men. Allegations of torture of those arrested are widespread and credible. On some occasions, live fire has been used to disperse crowds, resulting in the deaths of demonstrators.

Ethiopia appears to be at an important crossroads. The protests and State of Emergency suggest that the political dispensation put in place by the EPRDF in 1991 is unlikely to remain the basis for a stable political order. The [regime must take specific] steps: End the state of emergency and reduce the role of the Ethiopian Defense Force in domestic political affairs.  Release political prisoners, notably Bekele Gerba and Merera Gudina as well as journalists and other prominent activists, and initiate an all-inclusive political dialogue with all political parties. Scrap the civil society proclamation and replace it with regulations to encourage non-governmental organizations to engage in advocacy, rights based development, and monitoring on human rights and democracy. Recognize and protect the space for legally registered alternative political parties to articulate their policy positions and critique of the incumbent regime. Engage in dialogue with all stakeholders on revising the electoral law, reforming the National Election Board, allowing domestic election observation, and allocating state-owned media time to all political parties.

Felix Horne, Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch (Ethiopia and Eritrea)

Many Ethiopians live in fear. The current government – the only one since 1991 – runs the country with an almost complete grip on power, controlling almost all aspects of political, public, and even much private life. Pervasive telephone and online surveillance and an intricate network of informants allow the government to quickly curb any threats to its control; it silences critical voices through the use of arbitrary arrests and politically motivated prosecutions. Ethiopia remains among Africa’s leading jailors of journalists.

Independent civil society groups face overwhelming obstructions. The 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation has made obtaining foreign funding nearly impossible for groups working on human rights, good governance, and advocacy and leading members of the human rights movement have been forced to flee abroad and many organizations have stopped working on human rights and good governance to avoid problems.

The state systematically ensures that many of the country’s 100 million citizens are dependent on the government for their livelihoods, food security and economic future. It controls the benefits of development including access to seeds, fertilizers, jobs, health care, and humanitarian assistance, even when funded by the US or other donors. [U.S. Aid] adds to the repressive capacity of the government by bolstering Ethiopians’ reliance on the government for their livelihoods and ultimately for their survival.

Since imposing the state of emergency, the Ethiopian government has repeatedly committed publicly to undertake “deep reform” and engage in dialogue with opposition parties but the only changes the government has made so far are largely cosmetic and fall dramatically short of the protesters’ calls for the protection of basic human rights.

Despite abundant evidence of serious and growing repression by the Ethiopian government, particularly since the 2005 election, the US government has been a muted critic. Quiet diplomacy proven ineffectual and has coincided with the dramatic downward spiral in human rights and a serious constriction of political space that has led to the crisis Ethiopia is in today. It is time for a new US approach to Ethiopia in which Congress can play a leadership role in seeking a more balanced policy and requiring more deliberate oversight as it has done in other countries in crisis, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt.

Ms. Seenaa Jimjimo, President, Coalition of Oromo Advocates for Human Rights and Democracy

In a single year from Nov 2015-2016, over 1000 Oromos were killed. Using the emergency law, the regime forces citizens to feed armies patrolling the street, literally paying to keep its killers alive. Even though it seems like lots has happened to the world, for us, Oromos abuse by the state has always been part of our upbringing, the fiber that made who we are. What made 2016 special to us is not the amount of lives lost rather the fact the world has finally come to know and see the true color of this government, and the suffering of the Oromo people.

As early as January 2016 the Ethiopian government admitted to use of excessive force, no single individual has as of yet been brought to justice. Six month after its admission, in June HRW release a 61 page document detailing interviews with hundreds of people who survived gruesome and inhuman acts by the security forces. As protests continued the government continued giving lip services to the western government by admitting that there were indeed serious issues of lack of good governance and that they will open talks with opposition parties. However, now two years later nothing has changed except the implementation of a brutal system of killing and silencing innocent people under the cover of martial law.

Among the most horrific acts of crime by this government, the October 2 Irreacha massacre stands as the darkest day in modern history for the Oromo where hundreds were killed though the government puts the causality at 53.

We know in no democratic country, let alone in Ethiopia, can a ruling party win an election by 100%. The “victory” of Ethiopian’s 2015 election, is achieved by using the AntiTerrorism Proclamation to lock up opposition leaders as terrorists, intimidate their supporters, and rig the election when all else fails. Sadly, the US government, my government, is looking the other way.

For now, under the draconian state of Emergency, Ethiopia may seem calm and the government may say they have brought back law and order but that should not fool us because we know the truth. Ethiopia is a country of 100 million people inhabited by 82 different ethnic groups. Such a diverse state could not survive under a fake federalism.

Tewodrose Tirfe, Co-Founder Amhara Association of America

TPLF purports to represent the Tigray ethnic group which makes up 6% of the population. In essence, the result of the TPLF’s rule is a minority party controlling the majority of the population in Ethiopia. Since coming to power, the TPLF ruling party has been persecuting Amharas to achieve their mission as stated in their Manifesto.

The TPLF led government has forcefully annexed historical Amhara lands of Wolkite, Tegede, Humera, Tselemete and Raya-Azebo to Tigray. The TPLF transferred thousands of Tigray settlers to the annexed Amhara land in an attempt to change the demographic make-up of the region. The land mass of the Tigray Region has grown by a 3rd since annexation of historical Amhara lands including lands annexed from the Afar Region. This forced annexation has had a devastating effect on the Amhara people in the Wolkite Region.  The Amhara people in Wolkite [have] their native tongue Amharic suppressed. Widespread discrimination, killing, arrest, torture, and confiscation of land have led to many of the ethnic Amhara people in this region escaping to Gonder City, other regions of Ethiopia, and foreign countries for survival.

As stated in the 2007 Ethiopian Census that was released in 2010, the Amhara population was short by 2.5 million. A debate was not even allowed in parliament when this fact was presented. Some estimates have the number now closer to 5 million. We believe there has been a systematic effort by the government to depopulate the Amhara population. Thus, the recent protests by Amharas was not about democracy or economics, but was simply about their identity, their land, and the need to survive as a people.

The Amharas of course are not the only victims of this brutal regime; we have witnessed the atrocious violence committed against Oromos where thousands have been killed while peacefully protesting, the Konso people, Anuaks, Afars, Somalis, and I can go on and on. It is very disturbing to see a government forcefully remove millions of people from the land they have farmed and cared for for thousands of years only to be sold to foreign investors and the beneficiaries being TPLF bureaucrats.

As an Ethiopian-American based organization, Amhara Association of America would like to make the following recommendations to our elected officials: All Foreign Aid to be tied directly to measurable improvement towards democracy and improvements in human rights. Release of all journalists, political opposition leaders and members, human rights activists, and protesters who were arbitrarily detained during and after the protests.  Allow opposition political parties, independent media, independent civil institutions to operate without persecution. Open up radio, television, and Internet to private and independent Ethiopian companies. All these entities are now under the control of the Ethiopian government. Repeal the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP) which has been used to jail journalists, human rights activists, and opposition politicians and the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO) which has shuttered many nongovernmental organizations. Stop the persecution of Amharas and other ethnic groups and return and integrate Wolkite and Raya-Azebo Region to the Amhara State. Allow for international, independent, and transparent investigation to the cause of 2.5-5 million missing Amharas [and victims] of [killings] by Ethiopian security forces. [Impose] immediate and targeted sanctions including travel visa bans to individuals and entities that have committed internationally recognized human rights atrocities.

Guya Abaguya Deki, Representative, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition

Ethiopia is a one-party ethnic dictatorship ruled by cadres from the Tigray ethnic group, which makes up only six percent of Ethiopia’s population; Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups are the Oromo and the Amhara. The EPRDF has held power since 1991 and wants control over the entire civilian population [including]  women’s associations, youth associations and all the associations representing people with disabilities. They will not allow any independent organization in the country. Because I was the leader of a disability rights organization, the government tried to force me to join the ruling party. They wanted me tell the media and my community what a great job the ruling party was doing for disabled people. But none of this was true. The government punished me by detaining me nine times, torturing me and forcing me to flee Ethiopia in 2013.

I was continually harassed and intimidated by the government because I refused to participate in activities to promote the ruling party. The security forces kept warning me: “You are defaming the ruling party. You are agitating people with disabilities against the government.” In 2007, security forces abducted me in a van and took me to a forest called Ashewa meda, in the Burayu area, about 25 kilometers from Addis Ababa. They threw me and my wheelchair out of the van, breaking one of my fingers and badly bruising my shoulders. They thought I would be killed and eaten by hyenas, the area where they threw me was known as a forest with lots of hyenas.  Local families from the Oromo ethnic group found and rescued me.

I hope that House Resolution 128 passes Congress which calls on the Secretary of State and the Administrator of USAID to improve oversight and accountability of United States assistance to Ethiopia. This aid is essential to people like me. But the government diverts far too much of this aid for political purposes, to promote the ruling party and pay off government supporters. There needs to be a stronger monitoring mechanism to ensure American funds are used wisely, and not to strengthen Ethiopia’s one-party ethnic dictatorship.

Yoseph Tafari, Co-Founder, Ethiopian Drought Relief Aid of Colorado

From the early days of its foundation, TPLF goals has been well documented. It is to breakup over the Ethiopian population by ethnic identity while simultaneously controlling  all the nation’s resource for the benefit of a single ethic minority group. All actions in every layer of civic duties, legislation, public policy, economic planning as well as national security is shaped by this singular mission. Today Ethiopia is strained to a breaking point due to excessive marginalization of the majority ethnic Ethiopians in the last 25 years. Desperate for their lives, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians are fleeing the country making it one of the world’s top refugee producing nation.

The TPLF is a silent killer utilizing covert methods including assassins, sniper sharp shooters, poisoning, and numerous inhuman methods against its own people. The Emergency decree is an added blanket tool in its lethal arsenal to efficiently execute its barbaric measures against humanity.

Much ink has been spelled in documenting the crimes of the TPLF regime against the Ethiopian people. In short Ethiopia is a country with no opposition, judicial system, civil society, independent media or political space. Instead the country has turned into closed killing chambers and the prisons and detention centers are packed with thousands of political prisoners while the world is looking the other way.

Ethiopia has been gripped by Apartheid like system of governess affecting 100 million of its citizens. The regime has repeatedly showed the world that it operates much as an underground criminal enterprise than ruling body with mandate to govern an ancient country like Ethiopia. All its activity and sheer existence is for monetary gain from the nation which has made few individuals of the inner circle fabulously wealthy. To these individuals Ethiopia is for sale and the asset of the nation is to be monetized in every turn. By providing material assistance it receives under the pretext of “ally against terror’ the regime should never be given the license to terrorize its own people.

Where do we go from here?

Is H.R 128  likely to pass? What’s in H.R. 128?

H.R. 128 is hortatory. It exhorts and encourages the “government of Ethiopia” to take and refrain from taking certain actions to improve its human rights record and set a course for inclusive good governance. It does not contain specific measures aimed at securing compliance with set requirements.

H.R. 128 could be seen as a shot across the bow, a warning shot before Congress takes more drastic and forceful action in the nature of H.R 2003 (Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007).

H.R. 128 “condemns” specific actions of the regime in Ethiopia and “calls” on the regime, the State Department and USAID to take remedial  actions.

H.R. 128  “condemns” the regime’s arbitrary killings, arrests and detentions of journalists and  political leaders who exercise their constitutional rights and the politically abusive application of the “Anti-Terrorism Proclamation” to stifle dissent.

H.R. 128 “calls” on the “Government of Ethiopia to lift the state of emergency; end the use of excessive force by security forces; conduct a full, credible, and transparent investigation into the killings  in the Oromia and Amhara regions; release imprisoned dissidents, activists, and journalists; respect constitutional rights and allow a rapporteur appointed by the United Nations to conduct an independent examination of the state of human rights in Ethiopia.”

H.R. 128 calls on the Secretary of State to conduct a review of security assistance to Ethiopia in light  of recent developments and   the Administrator of the USAID  to immediately lead efforts to develop a comprehensive strategy to support improved democracy and governance;  to improve oversight and accountability of United States assistance to Ethiopia,  take appropriate sanctions on foreign persons or entities responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of  human rights.

The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF does not give a hill of beans about H.R. 128 or whatever the Africa Subcommittee will do. The T-TPLF is confident that its multi-million dollar lobbyists and Senator James Inhofe will stop any legislation with teeth dead in its tracks. They have a track record of doing that.

For now, the T-TPLF is laughing at the Africa Subcommittee and all of the Ethiopian Americans working to improve human rights in Ethiopia.

I take a rather philosophical view of the T-TPLF laughing at us all. In the words of Victor Hugo, “Never laugh at those who suffer; suffer sometimes those who laugh.”

And so I shall!!!

NBC News

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A landslide swept through a massive garbage dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, killing at least 35 people and leaving several dozen missing, residents said, as officials vowed to relocate those who called the landfill home.

Addis Ababa city spokeswoman Dagmawit Moges said most of the dead were women and children, and more bodies were expected to be found in the coming hours.

It was not immediately clear what caused Saturday night’s landslide at the Koshe Garbage Landfill, which buried several makeshift homes and concrete buildings. The landfill has been a dumping ground for the capital’s garbage for more than 50 years.

Rescue workers search for those buried by a landslide that swept through a massive garbage dump in the Kolfe Keranio district of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 12, 2017. Minasse Wondimu Hailu / Anadolu Agency – Getty Images

About 150 people were there when the landslide occurred, resident Assefa Teklemahimanot told The Associated Press. Addis Ababa Mayor Diriba Kuma said 37 people had been rescued and were receiving medical treatment. Dagmawit said two had serious injuries.

Many people at the landfill had been scavenging items to make a living, but others live there because renting homes, largely built of mud and sticks, is relatively inexpensive.

An AP reporter saw four bodies taken away by ambulances after being pulled from the debris. Elderly women cried, and others stood anxiously waiting for news of loved ones. Six excavators dug through the ruins.

“My house was right inside there,” said a shaken Tebeju Asres, pointing to where one of the excavators was digging in deep, black mud. “My mother and three of my sisters were there when the landslide happened. Now I don’t know the fate of all of them.”

The resumption of garbage dumping at the site in recent months likely caused the landslide, Assefa said. The dumping had stopped in recent years, but it resumed after farmers in a nearby restive region where a new garbage landfill complex was being built blocked dumping in their area.

Smaller landslides have occurred at the Koshe landfill in the past two years but only two or three people were killed, Assefa said.

“In the long run, we will conduct a resettling program to relocate people who live in and around the landfill,” the Addis Ababa mayor said.

Around 500 waste-pickers are believed to work at the landfill every day, sorting through the debris from the capital’s estimated 4 million residents. City officials say close to 300,000 tons of waste are collected each year from the capital, most of it dumped at the landfill.

Since 2010, city officials have warned that the landfill was running out of room and was being closed in by nearby housing and schools.

City officials in recent years have been trying to turn the garbage into a source of clean energy with a $120 million investment. The Koshe waste-to-energy facility, which has been under construction since 2013, is expected to generate 50 megawatts of electricity upon completion.

Ethiopia, which has one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, is under a state of emergency imposed in October after several months of sometimes deadly protests demanding wider political freedoms.