CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt says Ethiopia has “summarily rejected” its plan for key aspects of operating a giant dam the East African nation is building on the Nile, while dismissing Ethiopia’s own proposal as “unfair and inequitable”.

A boat transports people along the river Nile in Cairo, Egypt July 2, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The comments in a note circulated to diplomats last week show the gap between the two countries on a project seen as an existential threat by Egypt, which gets around 90% of its fresh water from the Nile.

The note distributed by the Egyptian foreign ministry, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, points to key differences over the annual flow of water that should be guaranteed to Egypt and how to manage flows during droughts.

It comes as Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan met on Sunday and Monday for their first talks over the hydroelectric dam in more than a year. A spokesperson at Ethiopia’s foreign ministry, Nebiat Getachew, said on Monday the meeting had so far produced no agreements or disagreements, and gave no immediate response to the Egyptian claims.

Egyptian officials were not immediately available for comment, but after the talks an Egyptian water ministry statement carried by local media said the meeting had been limited to procedural rather than substantive issues.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has expressed unease in recent days over delays in negotiations.

The $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was announced in 2011 and is designed to be the centerpiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, generating more than 6,000 megawatts.

In January, Ethiopia’s water and energy minister said that following construction delays, the dam would start production by the end of 2020 and be fully operational by 2022.

The dam promises economic benefits for Ethiopia and Sudan, but Egypt fears it will restrict already stretched supplies from the Nile, which it uses for drinking water, agriculture and industry.

DEADLOCK

Though nationalist, and sometimes belligerent, rhetoric between Egypt and Ethiopia has cooled in recent years, the sides have remained deadlocked.

A report from International Crisis Group earlier this year warned that Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan could “blunder into a crisis if they do not strike a bargain before the GERD begins operation”.

Egypt says it shared its proposal for filling and operating the dam with Ethiopia and Sudan on July 31 and Aug. 1, inviting both countries for a meeting of foreign and water ministers.

“Unfortunately, in a letter dated August 12, 2019, Ethiopia summarily rejected Egypt’s proposal and declined to attend the six-party meeting,” the Egyptian government’s note said.

Ethiopia had instead proposed a meeting of water ministers to discuss a document that included an Ethiopian proposal from 2018, it said.

Both proposals agree that the first of five phases for filling the dam should take two years, at the end of which the GERD’s reservoir in Ethiopia would be filled to 595 meters and all the dam’s hydropower turbines would become operational.

But the Egyptian proposal says that if this first phase coincides with an extreme drought on Ethiopia’s Blue Nile, similar to that experienced in 1979-1980, then the two-year period should be extended to keep the water level at Egypt’s High Aswan Dam from dropping below 165 meters.

Without such a concession, Egypt says it would risk losing more than one million jobs and $1.8 billion in economic output annually, as well as electricity valued at $300 million.

After the first stage of filling, Egypt’s proposal requires a minimum annual release of 40 billion cubic meters of water from the GERD, while Ethiopia suggests 35 bcm, according to the Egyptian note.

The note cites Ethiopia as saying last month that Egypt’s proposal “put(s) the dam filling in an impossible condition”, a charge Egypt dismisses.

“The Ethiopian proposal … overwhelmingly favors Ethiopia and is extremely prejudicial to the interests of downstream states,” it says.

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By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam

Africa’s First Responder for Peace, Ethiopia’s Globetrotter for Investment and Hardest Working Man in Politics

We are beginning to see hard evidence of PM Abiy Ahmed’s return on investments in domestic and regional peace initiatives, good governance and structural reforms and his unrelenting campaign to change the global image of Ethiopia as a land of opportunity for citizens and non-citizens alike.

I call this a “peace dividend”.

When you invest in peace at home and abroad, peace invests in you in ways that are infinite.

Peace and prosperity go hand in hand.

In July 2012, I issued my prescription for peace in Ethiopia in my commentary, “Dreams of an Ethiopia in Peace:

To restore Ethiopia to good health, we must begin national dialogue, not only in the halls of power, the corridors of the bureaucracy and the military barracks but also in the remotest villages, the church and masjid meeting halls and other places of worship,  the schools and colleges, the neighborhood associations and in the taverns, the streets and markets and wherever two or more people congregate.  We have no choice but to begin talking to each other with good will and in good faith.

Peace talks and peace actions are taking place all over Ethiopia despite the secret conspiracies and machinations of the warlords and lords of war to spread rumors of war, fear, loathing, strife and civil war.

The “peace infection” incubated in Ethiopia is spreading all over the Horn of Africa.

World leaders like what Ethiopia is doing with peace at home and abroad and are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Over the past, several weeks, I have been observing with sheer amazement as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed crisscrossed the globe trying to cash in his peace dividend by being Ethiopia’s drum major for trade, investment, business and tourism. 

“He’s here in Africa. No, he’s there in Asia. Yes, he’s in the Middle East.”

Now, you see him, now you don’t. But when you need him, he’s always going around the world as Ethiopia’s promoter-in-chief.

The amazing thing about Abiy Ahmed is this: If he is not chasing peace in the Horn of Africa, he is chasing investors, business people and tourists all over the world and doing his best to bring them back to Ethiopia.

But that’s not all.

Whenever he goes abroad, he never comes back empty handed. He will at least bring back with him Ethiopian migrants held prisoners  in foreign jails without due process of law or makes deals to send young Ethiopians to study on scholarships.

If James Brown was the “hardest working man in showbusiness”, Abiy Ahmed is surely the hardest working man in politics.

“People are looking at Ethiopia in a new way.”

When PM Abiy visited Israel on September 1, 2019, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu was quick to register his amazement:

During the year-and-a-half that you took office, you’ve become one of the most important and influential leaders in Africa. Your courage in promoting the standing of Ethiopia both internationally and regionally is exemplary, and I commend you on your achievements. You are making every effort to change the economy inside Ethiopia. I commend you for that, because frankly, Mr. Prime Minister, I do the same here, and it has results. People are looking at Ethiopia in a new way.

Our trade is small, only $300 million, and can grow 10 times [and] can cooperate  trade and investments, as well as cooperation in security, agriculture, water management and technology.

Deciphering Netenyahu’s “diplomatese” (the esoteric language of diplomats), the message is this: Abiy Ahmed in a very short time became an African leader, primus inter pares (first among equals) through courage, integrity, decisiveness, consensus-building and sharing the limelight. He is “exemplary” because all other African leaders should follow in his footsteps. He is “changing the economy” just as Netenyahu did in 2004, by aggressively pushing free-market economic reforms and by reducing the public sector, privatizing major state owned industries including banks, the national airline and shipping.

Today, “people (around the world) are looking” at Ethiopia as a land of business and investment opportunity and a prized tourism spot.

According to the May 2019 World Travel & Tourism Council, Ethiopia recorded the biggest growth in its tourism economy with growth by 48.6% in 2018, the largest of any country in the world.

Just get a load of that!!

Israeli investors are willing, able and ready to put their money where their mouth is and increase investments and trade by ten-fold.

I am puzzled by Netenyahu’s cryptic remark the “people are looking at Ethiopia in a new way?

Pray tell, “What is the old way people looked at Ethiopia before PM Abiy took office?

Let the truth be told.

For the past  27 years, people looked at Ethiopia as Africa’s beggar nation, the land of famine and starvation, the land of corruption, the (4th worst jailor) jailhouse of journalists and the land of ethnic apartheid.

What did Netanyahu really mean when he said, “People are looking at Ethiopia in a new way.”

He did not explain, but his words are self-evident.

People are looking at Ethiopia in a new way because Ethiopia now has 1) a courageous leader who has risen to the very top of African leadership totem pole as a statesman and peacemaker, 2) a salesman-in-chief who is always promoting investments, trade, tourism and business in Ethiopia, 3) a reformer who has taken significant steps to change the domestic economy to make it more attractive to investors and businesses and 4) a visionary who has made Ethiopia a bellwether of change in Africa.

What gave Netenyahu so much confidence and certainty to say Ethio-Israeli trade and investment could expand ten-fold?

All I can say is the blunt-talking Netenyahu knows what he knows and means what he says.

I can also say Abiy Ahmed has no problems playing at the poker table of the card sharks of the Middle East.  

When PM Abiy visited South Korea on August 26, 2018, he told the South Korean business community and investors that Ethiopia is open for business and they are all invited to take part in the country’s expansive growth:

Ethiopia has many features that make it attractive to foreign investment. The reform of business climate currently being implemented involves opening up sectors that were previously closed to foreign investors We hope to create more opportunities for attracting foreign direct investment, especially from our friendly country — Korea.

Ethiopia and South Korea have a very special common history written in blood, sweat and tears.

When North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel 1950 to invade South Korea, 6,037 Ethiopian soldiers fought for 5 years to stop and repel them. Some 122 Ethiopians lost their lives defending South Korea and 500 were wounded. None were taken prisoner.

An Ethiopian veteran of the Kagnew Battalion who fought in the Korean War observed, “ We went with Americans to the front line and fought together. From that, we helped a great nation, South Korea, to survive.”

South Korea not only survived but today thrives as the fourth largest economy in Asia and the eleventh in the world.

Korean African Foundation (KAF) Ambassador Yeon-ho Choi was reassuring: “I believe the visit of His Excellency Abiy Ahmed Ali … and this business forum organized on the occasion of the visit of His Excellency will serve as an important opportunity to discuss further economic and business cooperation between Korea and Ethiopia.”

During PM Abiy’s visit to Japan on August 29, 2019 (the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7)), Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his full support for PM Abiy’s domestic economic reforms and encouraged Ethiopia to take a leadership role:

I highly value Prime Minister Abiy’s efforts to promote harmony within Ethiopia and to realize peace and stability in the region. I hope that Ethiopia will play a role in TICAD7 to promote business taking into account Ethiopia’s experiences in achieving economic development.

PM Abe commended PM Abiy for his role and “efforts to achieve the peace and stability of the Horn of Africa including the promotion of peace with Eritrea.” He said Japan will support democratization reforms in Ethiopia and will support the election in Ethiopia through “The Project for Electoral Support in Ethiopia”. He pledged to support Ethiopia in improving agricultural productivity and health and medical services and human resources development.

PM Abiy expressed his appreciation “for Japan’s cooperation in the Horn of Africa, and   briefed Prime Minister Abe on Ethiopia’s ongoing political and economic reforms. He shared the vision of making Ethiopia one of the top 5 leading economies in Africa through “homegrown economic reforms” currently in the pipeline and called for increased Japanese investments in the Ethiopia’s agriculture, tourism, technology and mining sectors. He asked for educational and training opportunities for Ethiopia youth in Japan.

PM Abiy and PM Abe were on the same page moving forward in strengthened partnership and collaboration.

Abiy Ahmed’s peace dividend

Investments in peace yield returns in prosperity and progress.

Investment in war yields returns in death and destruction.

PM Abiy is using purposeful conflict resolution at home and in the Horn region to create conditions for free markets, investments, trade and tourism.

Let’s face facts.

No one wants to invest in a country that is wracked with conflict and strife.

No one wants to invest in a country whose leaders babble infantile complaints against neoliberalism or believe they can bring economic growth by sloganeering about  “revolutionary democracy” and “developmental state”.

Ethiopia’s phrase-mongering rulers over the past 27 years fantasized about making Ethiopia an African tiger (patterned after the Asian tiger states).

They thought they could bring about rapid economic growth and improvements in living standards by practicing voodoo economics in an empire of corruption.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Foreign  direct  investment  (FDI), trade and tourism are the only viable options available to Ethiopia for long term economic growth.

Ethiopia is a country that has long suffered under central socialist economic planning and kleptocratic developmental state  (state should lead economy development, not free market) corruption.

The “developmental state” and “revolutionary democracy” have saddled Ethiopia with crushing debt at 60 percent of GDP.

In July, the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance reported Ethiopia’s total debt from foreign and local lenders surpassed $52.3 billion

Last week, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa told Ethiopia it “must attract new investment and reduce its debt if it’s to achieve the government’s economic growth and job creation targets.”

Bloating debt will create “debt distress” and discourage the “private sector because Ethiopia will not be a creditworthy country.”

In the World Bank’s 2019 “Doing Business” report, Ethiopia ranks 159/194 in the world and 29/48 out of Africa.

Having tried and miserably failed with centralized state economic planning, foreign direct investment (FDI) (open trade and business and tourism) seems to be the only practical lifeline for Ethiopia to become “an African lion”. (Let the tiger stay in Asia).

FDIs are generally regarded as the most efficient, stable and effective sources of capital for developing countries. They are a much better alternative to addiction to borrowing and foreign handouts.

As the experiences of the Asian tigers have shown, FDIs have a dynamic effect on the local economy by providing a source of direct capital, transforming existing domestic capacities,facilitating  knowledge/technology transfer, improving use of existing  resources, access to global markets and  growth  in productivity and so on.

Countries interested in attracting FDI have provided a variety of fiscal (tax holidays/lower taxes) and financial incentives (grants,  subsidized credits, building of infrastructure, equity participation and other preferential treatment),  and other preferential treatment. They have also used  other  incentives  including subsidization of infrastructure projects, foreign  exchange  privileges,  and in some cases even granting them monopoly rights.

Prosper Africa, Prosper Ethiopia

Ethiopian Americans are in a unique position to help their motherland with investment, trade, business and tourism.

The old African saying is, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

I think we in Ethiopia have an opportunity to put that old adage on its head by showing the grass could indeed benefit from the rivalry of two elephants, better yet the rivalry of the eagle and the dragon.

The Trump Administration launched its “Prosper Africa” program at the Corporate Council on Africa’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Mozambique on June 19, 2019.

“Prosper Africa” seeks to promote prosperity, security, and stability in U.S.-Africa relations and use trade and investment as vehicles.

The recently-resigned National Security Advisor, John Bolton said the U.S. must counter the “predatory practices” of China and Russia by building up ties with African economies and creating opportunities for American businesses in Africa.

In March 2013, I wrote a commentary entitled, “The Dragon Eating the Eagle’s Lunch in Africa?” and noted:

For the past decade, the U.S. has been nonchalant and complacent about China’s “invasion” and lightning-fast penetration of Africa. It was a complacency born of a combination of underestimation, miscalculation, hubris and dismissive thinking that often comes with being a superpower. But the U.S. is finally reading the memo.

I concluded:

So far, we have heard a screaming Eagle grousing about the unfair advantage, immorality, amorality, opportunism and new colonialism of the Dragon. But will we ever see a fightin’ Eagle standing up to a fire-breathin’ Dragon in Africa and “win”?

I am gratified to say my “memo” was “delivered” to the White House  six years after I wrote it.

To me, Prosper Africa is proof that the screaming eagle has become a fighting eagle in Africa.

There is no more fiddling around with AGOA (The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which passed in 2000 and offered as a one-way, non-reciprocal preference program that rewards about 40 African countries with a significant degree of duty-free access to U.S. markets.

AGOA essentially seeks to enhance select Sub-Saharan African countries’ access to U.S. markets provided they meet certain criteria such as establishing a market-based economy, an implementation of the rule of law, elimination of barriers to U.S. trade and investment,   system to combat corruption and bribery etc.

Prosper Africa is a two-way trade and investment program.

The aim is to create a 200 percent increase in investment, trade and business between the U.S.  and Africa by helping  companies, investors, and workers both in Africa and the United States.

Prosper Africa aims to provide a one-stop shop that makes the full range of services available to U.S. and African businesses and investors. Among important services include “loan guarantees, market intelligence, building greater awareness of African investment opportunities in the U.S., matching US and African companies, expanding and  strengthening US trade and investment hub, leveraging USAID’s private sector teams to help facilitate deals and providing support for trade and regulatory reform in African countries.”

Prosper Africa should deliver on the promise of the 1903 Treaty of Commerce Between the United States and Ethiopia.

There is little doubt that trade, investment and business are the most direct productive paths for the future relations  of the U.S and Ethiopia/Africa.

US businesses and investors have many reasons to invest in Ethiopia and the rest of  Africa:

Six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world (including Ethiopia) are in Africa.

There is a large African diaspora community in the U.S. that can facilitate business, trade, investment and tourism with Africa.

African countries have a large consumer market for U.S. businesses to access.

American companies can bring significant capital, innovation, and proven solutions, and adhere to the highest standards of transparency, quality, and social responsibility.

American companies are increasingly recognizing that Africa’s growth presents immense opportunities.  Many U.S. companies are beginning to expand their investments in Africa.

U.S. businesses can help build Africa’s infrastructure and other development projects and expand economic growth.

Africa can benefit from a diversified investor pool. The European Union and China have large investments, but American companies can bring quality, state-of-the-art products and services, and ethical business practices to Africa.

The US wants to grow Africa’s middle class, promote youth employment opportunities, improve the business climate, and fairly compete with China and other nations who have business interests in Africa.

U.S. tourist activity to Africa is on the rise and with better information and promotions, the continent can be a magnate in the American tourism industry.

Prosper Africa for Progress in Ethiopia  

There are many different kinds of Ethiopians today:

those who do the heavy lifting and make sure Ethiopia prosper and those who prefer to see Ethiopia wallowing in a vortex of poverty;
those who take responsibility and make things happen and those who let things happen and squirm like a worm in silence;
those who make things happen and those who wonder what happened, scratch their heads and chase their tails;
those who say what they mean and mean what they say and those empty barrels who windbag about what they did not say and did not mean;
those who are filled with optimism and hope and those who languish in pessimism and despair;
those losers who sob and mope around moaning and groaning and those who joyously shriek out “Eureka! The sky is not the limit in Ethiopia!” and are sick and tired of the moaner and groaners;|
those who see Ethiopia as a rising state and those who see her as a failed state;
those who believe Ethiopia’s best days are yet to come and those who believe Ethiopia will never have a good day; and
those who see things as they are in Ethiopia and ask “Why?” and those who dream of things and ask “Why not?”

Abiy Ahmed is the kind of Ethiopian who makes things happen and does the heavy lifting to get it done.

He means what he says and says what he means.

He sees Ethiopia as a rising state on the African horizon. He believes Ethiopia’s best days are yet to come. He dreams of things that never were and asks, “Why not?”

That is why world leaders are pledging their support for Ethiopia.

That is why investors, businesspeople, traders and tourists will flock to Ethiopia.

I shall prophesy that in the next few years, the world will beat a path to Ethiopia’s door!

That is because Ethiopia will be open for business to anyone with the good will,  good faith and good sense to invest and Prosper in Ethiopia.

Let’s make Ethiopia the African economic lion and not a shadow image of the Asian tiger!

Ask not what Abiy Ahmed is doing to improve the Ethiopian economy, ask if you are doing your fair share to help Ethiopia to become economically strong.

The post The Peace Dividend of Abiy Ahmed’s Global Diplomacy in Ethiopia appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News/Breaking News: Your right to know!.

The upcoming Sidama referendum should trigger a much-needed nationwide conversation on ethnic and Ethiopian identity.

by Adem K Abebe

18 Sept 2019

By the end of November 2019, Ethiopia may have one more autonomous regional state within its borders. Late last month, the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia has announced that a referendum to decide on the Sidama ethnic group’s request for statehood will be held on November 13. The announcement came on the back of deadly clashes between Ethiopian security forces and activists seeking to unilaterally proclaim a Sidama regional state.

The Sidama are hoping to become the 10th member state of the Ethiopian Federation and they are almost certain to get their wish following the referendum. Nevertheless, giving the Sidama the autonomy they seek within the Ethiopian Federation is going to take a lot more than just a referendum, and delays and frustrations on the way may be unavoidable.

Formal decentralisation and de facto centralisation

Ethnicity has been central to Ethiopia‘s political discourse since the emergence of the “nationality” question in the 1960s. The attempts of the former communist Derg regime to forge a common national identity around “scientific socialism” failed spectacularly and the regime was forced to allocate a great deal of human and material resources to battle rebel groups formed around ethnic identities throughout its reign.

Despite its repeated attempts to suppress many ethnic identities of the peoples of Ethiopia, in May 1991 forces loyal to various ethnic groups within the country took over control and formed a democratic republic based on ethnic federalism.

The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of four ethnic-based parties led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, formed a transitional government and started governing the country. The biggest opposition force at the time, the Oromo Liberation Front, was similarly an ethnonationalist entity. The Ethiopianist/nationalist voices were in disarray and systematically excluded.

The transitional government constituted 14 regions, principally along ethnic lines. The 1995 constitution continued the ethnic-based federal arrangement, with a critical adjustment. The five regions that occupied the southern part of the country, including Sidama region, were merged into a single multi-ethnic Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Regional State (SNNPR).

The Sidama resisted the merger to no avail. The discontent was exacerbated by the fact that two ethnic groups with significantly lower population sizes, the Afar and Harari, were granted their own regional states.

The formation of SNNPR against the wishes of the Sidama was not the end of the story. Ethiopia’s ethnicity-based constitution allows for ethnic groups without their own regional states to form regional states, and those with a regional state to secede from the country.

Most audaciously, these guarantees are demand-based, requiring nothing more than overcoming remarkably flexible procedural hurdles. So for the Sidama, at least on paper, getting autonomy was a done deal.

However, there was one major catch. The highly decentralised formal constitutional framework was designed to function in a context where a ruling party founded on “democratic centralism” – the same governing concept that the Derg enamoured – is in power.

This centralist reflex within the governing coalition was antithetical to the decentralised nature of the constitution and took no time to replace it. In the long term, the de facto supreme authority of the EPRDF was used to persuade and at times outright suppress demands for new statehood, including notably from the Sidama.

The on-demand secession provision (both internal and external) of the constitution, therefore, was crafted with a certain political context in mind. This meant that no systematic effort was made to deliberate upon and establish detailed legislative and administrative procedures to give effect to the constitutional provisions for secession. It was assumed the EPRDF would nip these demands in the bud anyway.

Ethiopia never adopted a law to regulate the division of assets and debts between an old state and a new one. Nor was a referendum law formulated. There is even no clarity on who pays for referendums to decide on statehood demands. Until now, the party structure rather than the law mediated ethnic and other demands.

The serious popular protest movement that began in 2015 precipitated an internal party struggle and birthed the April 2018 transition and the emergence of Abiy Ahmed as prime minister. The internal rupture and consequent breakdown of party discipline and Abiy’s respect for the “federal spirit” of the country have seen the re-emergence of old demands. The party structure can no longer mediate or address these demands.

Referendum risks and challenges

The absence of a proper legal framework to regulate secession demands has immersed the newly constituted Electoral Board into an unenviable political volcano. As any responsible institution, the Board has taken it upon itself to create some order out of the constitutional and legal chaos in relation to secession.

Accordingly, while confirming a date for the Sidama referendum, the board required the SNNPR to produce a legal, administrative and institutional framework before October 13 to regulate key issues, notably the protection of ethnic minorities in a future Sidama state, division of assets and debts, as well as the status of Hawassa city, the centre of the Sidama demand and capital of SNNPR.

The board also requested the SNNPR, rather than the federal government or even the Sidama Zone, which is seeking statehood, to disburse the needed budget (close to three million dollars) to organise the referendum.

Subsequently, the board announced that all citizens residing in Sidama Zone, rather than just those of Sidama origin, would vote in the planned referendum. While this will not affect the outcome of the referendum, it sets precedence and has proved very controversial.

Unfortunately, while the efforts of the board to clarify the applicable rules are commendable, its decisions have provoked the ire of critics and political activists for exceeding its constitutional mandate or misinterpreting constitutional provisions. While the referendum has provided the newly minted board with a critical opportunity to test its capabilities in advance of the much larger and complicated 2020 elections, it could also potentially damage its reputation.

Fortunately, the SNNPR government, as well as the Sidama Zone, has so far cooperated with the board. To contain any long-term damage to its reputation, the relevant federal institutions should publicly express their support for its work. In the long term, relevant laws should be adopted to regulate, based on the lessons from the Sidama referendum, the process of addressing demands for statehood and the consequences arising from it.

While the Electoral Board has addressed some of the preliminary issues, it cannot decide on the consequences of the referendum. Under the constitution, a positive referendum outcome would automatically make Sidama the 10th regional state. Nevertheless, this needs the SNNPR to formally transfer its powers to the new Sidama state.

As the SNNPR has already supported the Sidama statehood aspiration, this support could be expected. Nevertheless, discussion over the status of Hawassa, division of assets and debts and the rights of ethnic minorities may prove controversial. Already, the SNNPR has requested two extensions from the board to finalise the framework. It is not clear if such an agreement would be achieved before October 13.

Moreover, the SNNPR remains under military command, which may create further hiccups.

Delay in agreement on these issues would also delay the referendum. As the 2020 elections are fast approaching, a pragmatic decision may be taken to hold the Sidama referendum alongside the elections.

Crucially, the prime minister has indicated that the formation of a Sidama state would require a constitutional amendment, which requires two-thirds approval in a joint sitting of the two federal legislative houses, and by six of the current nine regional states. This raises a massive procedural hurdle and even higher risk for Sidama aspirations.

The prime minister has on earlier occasions precluded the possibility of amending the constitution before the elections, as that could open pandora’s box. If Sidama statehood is not achieved before the 2020 elections, the expected emergence of new political forces would further complicate the process, with higher risks of instability.

The issues related to demands for Sidama statehood have been complicated by the passage of time. Notably, as the capital of the SNNPR, Hawassa has been the preferred destination for regional and federal investment, and place of residence for people from across the country. Had a Sidama state been formed in 1995, any secession would have been less fractious.

This provides a key lesson in addressing existing and emerging demands of other ethnic groups. If the current ethnic setup continues, as it is likely to, the earlier the demands are addressed the better. Attempts to discourage pursuits of statehood, as the prime minister has recently made in relation to the Kaffa ethnic group, may only create further disenchantment and complications.

A systematic response to budding statehood demands could perhaps be achieved through the recently established Administrative Boundaries and Identity Issues Commission. Alternatively, a new consensus may be forged.

While Ethiopia’s ethnic structure is likely to stay, the changed political context has unravelled the constitutional dispensation and ethnic competition has at times led to deadly skirmishes. The time may have come to deliberate the need for a countrywide conversation on the lessons learned so far and the adjustments needed to reimagine the ethnic and broader constitutional framework and forge a new consensus towards a complementary, rather than competitive, ethnic and Ethiopian identity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. 

Adem K Abebe

Dr Adem K Abebe is advisor and commentator on the African Union, and governance and democracy in Africa.

The post What Ethiopians can learn from Sidama’s thorny statehood journey appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News/Breaking News: Your right to know!.

September 18, 2019

Over the past four months, a cross-section of Ethiopians deeply concerned about the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia, especially the wholesale incarceration, harassment, persecution, torture, ethnically-oriented displacement of Amharas by targeting youth; and the burning of at least 21 Ethiopian Orthodox Churches; and the murders of clergy felt obligated to make their voices heard in unison.

After numerous teleconferences and individual and bilateral consultations with existing Amhara civil society organizations including ADMAS, AAA, AMBA, MORESH and with a limited number of chapters organized in Las Vegas and Arizona, our sense of urgency for solidarity and collaborative work among Amhara entities in the Diaspora was confirmed. This is the reason behind the proposed umbrella organization, the Global Amhara Organization that is still in the process of formation.

We concluded that Amharas face imminent threat of genocide regardless of where they live in Ethiopia. Their plight is one of sheer survival. The survival of the Amhara people is essential in order to avert civil war and genocide; and to prevent Ethiopia from total Balkanization.

In the light of the above consensus among key drivers of the movement towards the formation of one strong, competent and representative umbrella organization that will mobilize resources across the globe and channel them to bolster those who face formidable odds in defense of the Amhara population, we embraced the overarching theme of “To Save the Amhara is to save Ethiopia” and called for an All-Inclusive Amhara Convention.

The historical two days convention has began with a prayer led by the holy Arch Bishop Philipos of Pennsylvania, Baltimore Yesus Church and the Member of Holy Synod Orthodox Church of Ethiopia. Arch Bishop Philipos has condemned the persecution, the massacre, the harassment, and the detention of the Orthodox faith religious leaders and its vast followers, including the burning of the 31 churches. Arch Bishop has stressed the obligations of citizens to protect the Ethiopian Orthodox synod by standing firm in solidary to keep our sacred unity.

While we recognize the pitfalls of a hastily arranged Convention, we would like to inform you that invitations to attend and shape the direction of the Convention were extended to critical and essential Amhara civil society organizations. We are delighted to note that ADMAS attended and contributed immensely to the roadmap ahead. Al together, a total of 16 organizations inclining 7 civil society and political entities and 8-chapter representatives attended the Convention. Their inputs are invaluable and commendable.

The September 14-15 2019 Convention discussed and endorsed the following primary objectives:

1. Not to establish another and competing organization that further diminishes the Amhara and Ethiopian cause; and, instead to focus on the formation of an all-inclusive Convention that will lead to the formation of a global umbrella organization abroad;

2. To reach out to and to bring all Amhara stakeholders under one roof; and together to hammer out the socioeconomic, political, cultural, diplomatic, financial and information hurdles, challenges and opportunities facing the Amharas in the homeland that will drive our priorities;

3. Discussed and agreed on a framework, a road-map and practical and concrete organizational, collaborative, working relationship other practical steps in support of Amhara stakeholders in Ethiopia; and agreed to change the propagation of false narratives and demonization of the Amhara; and to mitigate risks that arise from character assassinations and other cyber linked assaults of Amara intellectuals, persons and organizations;

4. Agreed to strengthen Amhara material, financial and intellectual capacity and capability by establishing a global or umbrella consortium or coordinating structure and other concrete deliverables within a time frame of between 4 and 6 months if not sooner;

5. Notionally and conceptually discussed and arrived at a sacred covenant that together Amhara, allies and their other Ethiopian friends and their engagement and participation will contribute in cementing unity that is essential in helping the Amhara from all forms of assaults; and in preventing the collapse and disintegration of Ethiopia; and,

6. Determined that preliminary priorities include large-scale membership and grassroots level chapter and association formation drive, regular and innovative income generation in the form of an Amhara Support Fund, outreach work in the form of integrated and global lobbying, partnership with Ethiopia based organizations and formation of partnerships with other Ethiopian civil society organizations across the globe.

መሰናክል አንሁን” ከሙሉመቤት ገ/ዮሃንስ

መስራት የማይወዱ፤

መጀመርን እንጂ መጨረስ አይችሉ፤

ወይ ፀንተው አይቆሙ ወይ አይከተሉ፤

እንቅፋት የሆኑ ብዙ ሰዎች አሉ፤

መቻቻል መታገስ ያልለመደላቸው፤

ጥቂት ሰርተው ማቆም ችግር ሲገጥማቸው፤

ትንሽ ኃይል ሲል ማጣፊያው ሲያጥራቸው፤

ለኛ ይሁን ሳይሆን ለኔ ልማዳቸው፤

ጥሩ ልምድ ለሰው የማያካፍሉ፤

የዕድሜ ባለፀጋ አዛውንት ሳይሉ፤

ለታላላቃቸው ክብርን ከማይሰጡ፤

ለራስ ብልፅግና ከሚሽቀዳደሙ፤

በተግባር መርምረው ሃቁን ሳይረዱ፤

በቃላት ሽንገላ አምነው አይጎዱ።”

እባካችሁ ለሰርጎ ገቦች ቦታ አንስጣቸው። የእህታችን ምክር እንስማ!!

Respectfully yours,

Dr. Ambachew Woreta, Chairman, Coordinating Committee, GAC

aworeta@aol.com

Other contacts: tsigeredam2020@gmail.com and tefera212@yahoo.com

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The two nations disagree over the annual flow of water that should be guaranteed to Egypt, among other issues

Sileshi Bekele, Ethiopia’s minister for water, irrigation and energy, said on Wednesday Addis Ababa will put forward a different proposal.

“The proposal from Egypt was unilaterally decided…(it) didn’t consider our previous agreements,” he said. “We can’t agree with this … we will prepare our counter proposal.”

INSIDE STORY: Will the largest dam in Africa ever be completed? (24:50)
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), announced in 2011, is designed to be the centrepiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, generating more than 6,000 megawatts.

The two nations disagree over the annual flow of water that should be guaranteed to Egypt and how to manage flows during droughts.

Egypt relies on the Nile for 90 percent of its freshwater and it wants the GERD’s reservoir to release a higher volume of water than Ethiopia is willing to guarantee, among other disagreements.

“An Egyptian expert can’t control our dam,” Sileshi said and described the Egyptian plan as a potential violation of Ethiopia’s sovereignty.

Sileshi did not say how much water Ethiopia wants to release, but Egypt wants the dam to release a minimum of 40 billion cubic metres (52 billion cubic yards) of water annually.

Following construction delays, Ethiopia has said GERD will start power production by the end of 2020 and be fully operational by 2022.

Explainer: Egypt fears losing water supply to Ethiopia mega-dam (2:16)
SOURCE: REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

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Ethiopia: Pm Abiy Ahmed gave exclusive tour of the Royal Palace
 

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Renowned Ethiopian artist Aida Muluneh has taken a series of striking images to depict the harsh life of many women in rural areas – especially their daily efforts to obtain clean water for their families.

Her Water Life series, which was commissioned by the charity WaterAid, will be on display at London’s Somerset House from 24 September.

“We cannot refute that it is mainly women who bear responsibility for collecting water, a burden that has great consequences for our future and the development of our nation,” Muluneh said.

Almost 40% of Ethiopians do not have clean water close to their homes, compared to the global average of 10%, according to Water Aid.

Muluneh shot some of the photos in a studio while others were staged in the extreme landscape of one of the hottest and driest places on earth, Ethiopia’s northern Afar region.

Image copyrightWATER AID/AIDA MULUNEH

This image shows that a woman’s work never ends, and demands a great deal of strength.

The traditional coffee pot on the ground, called a “jebena” in Ethiopia’s Amharic language, is symbolic of a woman’s traditional role, while the broom highlights her responsibility for keeping the house in order.

The woman on the right symbolizes that she has to take care of chores inside and outside the house, and the window to the left her quest for a better future.

Image copyrightWATER AID/AIDA MULUNEH

This piece reflects the strength of women who have to endure much to ensure that their families have water to drink and food to eat every day.

The jerry cans are tied to a rope to reflect the shackles of carrying water while the woman in red has a clay water pot called an “insera” tied to her back to reflect the burden that comes with it.

“I assume there must be a glimpse of a thought that she has in the hopes that a better tomorrow will come for those she is caring for,” Muluneh says.

Image copyrightWATER AID/AIDA MULUNEH

This image deals with the impact that water has on sanitation and health.

The lack of water means people do not have proper bathrooms, creating a huge health risk in communities.

“I wanted to express this point through the structure that we built.

“The red door has been placed higher to express the lack of access and to emphasise the point,” Muluneh says.

Image copyrightWATER AID/AIDA MULUNEH

In this image, the prop of a traditional wooden bed expresses the reality that people in rural areas lie in this type of bed when they are ill, and may even be carried to a clinic for treatment.

The mask symbolizes the bacteria and diseases contracted from drinking contaminated water.

“While developing this concept, I have always questioned the many diseases that arise from the lack of clean water.

“I remember working in the southern regions of Ethiopia and hearing an old man speak about how the simple fact of getting a water well has reduced the number of deaths and illness in his community,” Muluneh says.

Image copyrightWATER AID/AIDA MULUNEH

This shot focuses on girls – especially how the lack of water and bathrooms in schools affects their education.

“The fact that most girls don’t attend school when they are menstruating is a major hindrance on the progress of women in our society,” Muluneh says.

In this piece, the moon is based on a woman’s monthly cycle, the red wings illustrate her freedom and strength but also the fact that she cannot achieve her full potential because she is shackled by the natural occurrence of menstruation.

“In a sense, it is like a caged bird that cannot fly but is grounded.

“The striped floor is symbolic of the road to destiny in which our path to success is in front of us but we must take the step forward,” Muluneh says.

Image copyrightWATER AID/AIDA MULUNEH

Photographed on the salt lakes of Dallol in northern Ethiopia, this image is intended to show that Ethiopia has huge water reserves underground, but many people still do have access to clean water.

“In a sense I wanted to express that we are walking on lands with water but due to the limited irrigation of the water, we are living in a paradox,” Muluneh says.

Image copyrightAIDA_MULUNEH

And finally in this image, the white bottles symbolize clean water while those marked with red dots address the relationship between water and life (blood).

“The access to clean water might be a norm for those living in the city while the same reality is not a privilege in rural regions,” Muluneh says.

Source- BBC

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By Alemayehu G. Mariam

In the interest of full disclosure, I have a special place in my heart for Nelson Mandela and South Africa.

That is understandable because Mandela in his autobiography, “The Long Walk to Freedom” wrote:

Ethiopia always has a special place in my imagination and the prospect of visiting Ethiopia attracted me more strongly than a trip to France, England, and America combined. I felt I would be visiting my own genesis, unearthing the roots of what made me an African.

Mandela’s passing in December 2013 was a personal loss for me.

In his memory, I wrote a commentary entitled, “Farewell, My African Prince”.

Mandela was a bridge builder. He built bridges across racial, ethnic and class divides. He was a fireman. He saved the South African house by dousing the smoldering embers of racial and ethnic strife with truth and reconciliation. Nelson Mandela was a pathfinder. He built two roads named Goodness and Reconciliation for the long walk to freedom and walked the talk.

Lately, accusatory fingers are pointing at South Africa and there is much demonizing of South Africans for being virulently xenophobic against African immigrants in their midst.

That is painful for me because during the anti-apartheid struggle Africans throughout the continent gave shelter to exiled South African freedom fighters and African governments provided material and diplomatic support.

H.I.M. Haile Selassie in his 1963 speech said without peace in Southern Africa, there will be no peace in Africa:

Until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, the dream of lasting peace will remain but a fleeting illusion. Until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed the African continent will not know peace.

As a college student in the mid-1970s, I was a passionate anti-apartheid advocate, joined demonstrations pushing disinvestment in apartheid South Africa and opposed the so-called Sullivan Principles and constructive engagement.

Our mantra I remember to this day: “Hey, ho ho, apartheid has got to go! Brick by brick, wall by wall, apartheid has to fall!”

To see and hear some South Africans today looting and burning while chanting “Hey, ho, ho, African immigrant must go!” breaks my heart.

Since the advent of majority rule in 1994, many Africans who took a long walk to freedom from their countries to escape political persecution or seek economic opportunity have faced violence, intimidation and persecution in South Africa.

When an outbreak of xenophobic violence occurred in South of Africa earlier this month, 12 “foreign nationals” were confirmed dead and 639 suspects were reportedly arrested. Some 1,000 “foreign-owned” businesses were damaged or destroyed.

Violence against foreign-nationals in South Africa has been taking place since 1994.

Incidents of xenophobic violence in South Africa are well-documented.

In 1998, three “foreign nationals” were thrown out of a moving train between Johannesburg and Pretoria because they were accused of “bringing diseases, taking jobs, the same rhetoric we hear today.”

According to a 1998 Human Rights Watch report, “armed gangs of black South Africans attacked foreign nationals from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique living in the Alexandra township near Johannesburg for several weeks in 1995 in a drive to ‘clean the township of foreigners’”.

In an outbreak of xenophobic violence in 2008, at least 62 people, including South Africans, were killed, thousands were displaced and many businesses and stores owned by “foreign nationals” were looted and destroyed.

In 2015, African immigrants were burned alive in an act of unspeakable xenophobic  savagery.

Much of the xenophobic violence is directed at “foreign nationals” operating small shops and stores in the townships or settlements around them.

Most of the violent attacks have been carried out by black South Africans.

Most of the incidents have taken place in areas experiencing high levels of poverty, unemployment and low levels of social, community and public safety services.

Foreign nationals in these areas are particularly disadvantaged because of language problems, ignorance and fear of reporting crimes to police authorities and inability to access the justice system.

The South African government has long denied the existence of xenophobic attacks.

In 2008, former president Thabo Mbeki declared South Africans are not xenophobic but foreign nationals have been victims of  “naked criminal activity”. Mbeki claimed, “There isn’t a population of South Africans who attack other Africans simply because of their nationality.”

In 2015, his successor Jacob Zuma repeated the disclaimer stating, “South Africans are not xenophobic. We do not believe that the actions of a few out of more than 50 million citizens justify the label of xenophobia.”

Current president Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged the violence is driven by xenophobia and in a statement “condemned violence against foreign nationals in South Africa” and argued “African development depends on the increased movement of people, goods and services between different countries for all of us to benefit.”

Ramaphosa offered “profuse apologies” to Nigeria. “The incident does not represent what we stand for and the South African police leave no stone unturned, that those involved must be brought to book”.

The one South Africa leader who has not minced words about xenophobic violence is the colorful firebrand leader of Economic Freedom Fighters Party, Julius Malema.

In March 2019, Malema offered his explanation for xenophobia in South Africa:

You say the people from Nigeria and Zimbabwe are taking our jobs. But here are whites in South Africa who don’t have papers. They entered here legally. The Chinese, some of them do not have papers. You don’t call them Amakwerekwere. You don’t beat them up but you beat fellow Africans, why? You hate yourself.

Malema issued a stern warning:

Once you are done with Nigerians, Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Zambians, you are going to go for Shangaans from Giyani. I have to stop you now before you come for me. We are going to be victims. ‘They’re going to say, ‘The reason we don’t have jobs here is because of these Zulus. They must go back to Natal. Xhosas must go back to Eastern Cape, Shangaans must go back to Limpopo.’ Because there will be no foreigners left to fight.”

His remedial prescription is simple:

We are all Africans. We must love one another. Showing love to those who come from Mozambique, showing love to those who come from Guinea, from Egypt, from Nigeria is self-love. When you love yourself, you will love fellow South Africans.

For the most recent xenophobic violence earlier this month, Malema apologized:

Find it in your good hearts to forgive us, we are sorry, we are ashamed of ourselves and sincerely apologise for this madness.

Is there rampant xenophobia in South Africa?

Independent surveys on xenophobia in South Africa point to an endemic problem.

The most comprehensive study on xenophobia in South Africa is found in a 2016 doctoral dissertation.

Several opinion surveys over the past two decades have shown South Africans have low levels of tolerance of immigration or immigrants.

“A 1997 survey showed that just six percent of South Africans were tolerant to immigration. In another survey, 75 percent of South Africans held negative perceptions about black African foreigners.”

“A 2004 study by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) of attitudes among police officers in the Johannesburg area found that 87% of respondents believed most undocumented immigrants in Johannesburg are involved in crime, despite there being no statistical evidence to substantiate the perception.”

“A national survey of the attitudes of the South African population towards foreign nationals in the country by the South African Migration Project in 2006 found xenophobia to be widespread: South Africans do not want it to be easier for foreign nationals to trade informally with South Africa (59 percent opposed), to start small businesses in South Africa (61 percent opposed) or to obtain South African citizenship (68 percent opposed).”

“A 2012 independent survey showed Distrust of foreigners has increased in South Africa in the four years since a wave of xenophobic violence swept the country. Some 67 percent of South Africans say they do not trust foreigners at all, compared to 60 percent in 2008. Nearly a third of the 2,400 respondents would take action to prevent migrants from moving into their neighbourhood and 36 percent would try to stop them from operating businesses. Forty-four percent were opposed to their country providing protection to asylum seekers. 45 percent saying foreigners should not be allowed to live in the country because they take jobs and benefits away from South Africans.”

Holier-than-thou South Africa?

The old saw it true. “Remember, when you point a finger at someone, there are three more fingers pointing at you.”

Since all eyes are on South Africa today, it is appropriate to ask whether xenophobia is a “mental disease” that afflicts only South Africans.

I should like to argue xenophobia and ethnophobia afflict all African countries to varying degrees.

In the not-too-distant past, there have been instances of xenophobic violence and discrimination against “foreign nationals” in Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, South Sudan, Botswana, Angola and Zambia.

When global oil prices collapsed in 1983, Nigeria ordered the massive expulsion of illegal Ghanaian migrants working in the country. The argument then is not much different than what the South Africans are saying today. Ghanaians were accused of taking jobs from Nigerians and depressing the labor market.

In 2001, Cote d’Ivoire, home to large numbers of West Africans representing more than a quarter of the population, was accused of failing to curb the growth of xenophobia.

In 2006, the Government of Niger “ordered the expulsion of 150,000 Arab refugees from Chad and neighboring countries who have lived in this West African nation for decades.”

In 2010, concerns were expressed about the rise of “extensive” xenophobic attitudes towards Zimbabweans by Botswanans.

In 2013, there were serious concerns of xenophobia in South Sudan, Africa’s newest state.

In 2016, there were xenophobic attacks in Zambia.

In 2017, in an act of reprisal for an alleged murder, Ghanaians attacked and killed 5 Nigerians.

In 2018, Angola denied the occurrence of xenophobic violence against Congolese migrant workers.

In 1998, following the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the government of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia undertook a mass expulsion of 20 thousand people alleged to be of Eritrean national origin.

TPLF Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the time justified his arbitrary expulsion claiming “As long as any foreign national, whether Eritrean or Japanese etc . . . lives in Ethiopia [it is] because of the goodwill of the Ethiopian government. If we say ‘Go, because we do not like the colour of your eyes,’ they have to leave.”

There is no better example of xenophobia that deporting a person because of the color of his eyes or national origin.

Xenophobes and criminals?

Xenophobia (Greek xeno “stranger”, phobia “fear”) is not a crime. It is the “irrational, pathological fear or distrust of strangers”. Often, it manifests itself in acts of hostility, violence and discrimination against foreigners.

Are the South Africans who committed the acts of violence against other African “foreign nationals” xenophobes and/or hooligans/criminals?

The survey evidence is clear that xenophobia is a problem in South Africa, but I believe the infinitesimally small number of individuals who commit acts of violence, intimidation and looting are criminals, thugs, gangsters and hooligans.

I cannot believe the mainstream opinion of South Africans supports violent criminal activity against foreigners or others.

But I am not surprised to see anti-immigrant sentiment and violence in a nation where the unemployment rate is nearly 30 percent.

I believe many of the violent acts are committed by poor unemployed youth who have joined either criminal gangs or engage in crimes of opportunity.

Burning immigrants alive, looting and rioting will not create more jobs in South Africa. It will certainly drive away investors and tourists who could be sources of employment.

Foreign nationals are easy victims in South Africa because they have neither a voice nor representation in government and society.

The failure of the South African national government to take effective preventive and prosecutorial action against such criminals is deplorable.

Ethnophobia in Ethiopia

If xenophobia is the “irrational fear or distrust of strangers”, ethnophobia is the irrational fear and hatred of any ethnicity different to one’s own.

In 2018, Ethiopia topped the “global list of highest internal displacement”, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.

Internal displacement in Ethiopia has been fully documented and has multiple causes. “High levels of vulnerability among rural populations exposed to severe drought and floods, political and resource-based conflict and overstretched government capacity create a high-risk environment in which significant new displacements take place each year.”

However, the principal reason for internal displacement in Ethiopia, in my view, is the structure of internal colonialism created by the TPLF in the ethnic Kilil-istans (similar to South Africa’s Bantustans) which singularly accentuate and exploit ethnic and cultural differences in the country creating conflict and strife. 

For instance, the dispute between the Oromia and Somali kilils (regions) resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people is the outcome of Kililistan politics.

Over 100,000 people fled ethnic violence and became internally displaced persons in Benishangul Gumuz in Western Ethiopia for the same reason.

However, the government of PM Abiy Ahmed effectively implemented an IDP return program in May 2019 “following the announcement of the Federal Government’s Strategic Plan to Address Internal Displacement and a costed Re-covery/Rehabilitation Plan. By the end of May, most IDP sites/camps were dismantled, in East/West Wollega and Gedeo/West Guji zones.”

It is interesting to note that those who howled and growled about internal displacement in Ethiopia suddenly fell silent when the government of PM Abiy Ahmed returned the displaced persons to their places of origin.

For the past 27 years, the regime of the TPLF has exploited and manipulated the political situation in Ethiopia to maintain itself in power.

Using the kilil system, the TPLF has poisoned the interaction between and among ethnic groups, cultures, traditions, religions and sown ethnic and political misunderstanding, mistrust, unrest and conflict.

Today, the legacy of 27 years of ethnophobic propaganda by the TPLF and the fear, suspicion, intolerance, disinformation and false grievances that are perpetuated by empty barrel pseudo-intellectuals and hordes of social media ignoramuses continue to be a source of aggravation and anxiety.

Xenophobia in South Africa and ethnophobia in Ethiopia are products of racial/ethnic apartheid

Apartheid a virulent form and vestige of European colonialism.

In 1948, the minority white National Party (NP) introduced “apartheid” (“apartness”) as an ideology for the separate development of the various racial groups in South Africa.

NP prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd transformed apartheid into a full-fledged de jure separate development system with the passage of the Promotion of Bantu Self­  Government Act of 1959 creating 10 Bantu black homelands known as Bantustans.

The central aim of this Act was to fragment and separate black South Africans into small groups so that there would be no black majority aspiring or competing for power, and to make it impossible for them to unify under a single national organization. The Act also aimed to psychologically isolate the black majority while simultaneously de-nationalizing them and depriving them of a common identity.

Strictly enforcing the passbook laws, promoting trial consciousness and using a strategy of divide and rule, the minority white apartheid regime for over four decades succeeded in creating a society riven by ethnic, tribal, religious and regional divisions in South Africa.

Following the apartheid South African model, the TPLF regime created 9 kilils (kililistans or ethnic homelands) and two “chartered cities” in Ethiopia to geographically dismember and fragment regions while establishing a hegemonic regime of ethnic supremacy.

Put simply, the TPLF regime copied the racial apartheid system of South Africa to create an ethnic-based  system of internal colonialism.

I have discussed the TPLF’s system of  internal colonialism in previous commentaries at length.

I have also discussed the Bantustanization (Kililistanization) of Ethiopia in a previous commentary at length.

Suffice it to say that for 27 years, the TPLF’s internal colonialism succeeded through a systematic campaign of de-Ethiopianization similar to the way the colonial masters de-nationalized the people in their African colonies, created artificial ethnic and other boundaries (kilil homelands) and imposed their version of ethnic identities on the diverse people of Ethiopia.

The T-TPLF achieved control and exploitation of the majority populations by creating a bogus ethnic federalism and dividing them along ethnic, regional, religious lines using the politics of identity, historical grievances, ethnic demonization and ethnic fear and smear.

Until its ouster in 2018, the minority TPLF regime using a shell organization called “Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front” managed to establish total economic and political dominance in Ethiopia.

What is to be done about xenophobia and ethnophobia?

Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have already strained relations between South Africa and countries whose nationals have been subjected to criminal violence.

For instance, fearing reprisals, the South African government closed its Embassy in Nigeria.

Xenophobic attacks will have severe implications for the future of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement which aims to “create a single continental market for goods and services as well as a customs union with free movement of capital and business travelers.”

South Africa with its large manufacturing base could benefit significantly from the Agreement, but with a reputation of endemic xenophobia, that benefit could be in grave peril.

When President Ramaphosa signed the Free Trade Agreement he said, “it would create many opportunities and benefits for South Africa and moreover, would grow and diversify the South African economy through the reduction of inequality and unemployment.”

Xenophobia denialism in South African officialdom must be replaced with increased preventive and investigative law enforcement action and prosecution of suspects.

The newly enacted hate crimes and speech law should be vigorously enforced to protect the rights of foreign nationals.

Because foreign nationals have limited access or fear accessing the justice system, there should be official efforts to reach out to victims and communities affected by xenophobic violence and a system of monitoring and anonymous reporting established.

Civil society institutions in South Africa should maintain independent monitoring and reporting mechanisms on incidents of xenophobic violence and should be first responders to assist victims of mob violence.

South African political, religious, cultural and academic leaders must take an uncompromising stand on xenophobia in much the same way as EFF party leader Julius Malema. They must publicly and and without hesitation condemn criminal actions against foreign nationals.

What is to be done about ethnophobia in Ethiopia?

The antidote to the legacy of ethnic apartheid/ethnic federalism in Ethiopia is Medemer philosophy.

Medemer aims to bring syntheses and synergy to Ethiopia’s contrived ethno-tribal politics. It aims to bring into harmony the politics of identity, communalism and sectarianism into syntheses with nation-building, civility, tolerance, love, understanding and forgiveness.

Medemer creates a simple calculus: Without Oromos, there are no Amharas; without Amharas, there are no Tigreans; without Tigreans there are no Somalis; without Somalis, there are no Sidama; without Sidama, there are not Woleyita; without Woleyita, there are no Afari; without Afari, there are no Harari; without Harari, there are no Anuak; without Anuak, there are no Gurage and on and on. Amharas, Oromos, Tigreans…. and the other groups can work cooperatively and even competitively for their collective betterment and prosperity.

Xenophobia is a global problem

Racism, xenophobia and ethnophobia are “sicknesses of the soul”.

Scapegoating the weak, powerless and defenseless “foreign nationals” is a growing trend.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a speech said three great challenges faced mankind: “the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”

In 2019, mankind, in addition to the evils mentioned by Dr. King, also faces the evils of xenophobia and ethnophobia, especially in Africa.

In my February 2017 commentary entitled, “The Times They Are A-Changin’ in the Land of Immigrants?”, I wrote about the xenophobia, discrimination, prejudice and unfairness towards “undesirable aliens” and vulnerable groups in America.

Recently, the acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli proposed a re-writing of the words on the Statute of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …”

According to Cuccinelli, it should be revised to read, “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”

Huddled masses to be replaced by huddled elites of the world!

Over a century ago, Gandhi wrote:

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.

Could Gandhi have inspired the King of Pop to write the lyrics to his song Man in the Mirror?

I’m starting with the man in the mirror (Who?)
I’m asking him to change his ways (Who?)
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change

Let all Africans start to change their ways with the (wo)man in the mirror.

Let is be the change we want to see.

Let us not forget every time we point a finger at others, three more are pointing at us.

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This year the ‘belg’ rainy season once again failed to bring much needed relief to the drought-striken region. Pastoral communities say they fear for the future of their livelihoods as experts blame climate change.

Three times a day, Sara Saban walks under the burning sun to fetch water for her family. Close to her village in the center of Ethiopia’s Somali Region, women, children and men line up in front of the only available well within walking distance. Their donkeys patiently wait as they fill their yellow jerry cans with water. A few meters away, others dig a hole in the dried-out riverbed to collect what little murky water they can find.

“The underground water is very limited because we are facing a drought,” Sara, a mother of ten, told DW. “The water quality is also very bad, so sometimes we suffer from stomach-related illnesses.”

Livestock dwindling

The Somali Region has suffered from chronic drought for several years, with the worst stretch recorded in 2016, from which many households have yet to recover. This year the short rainy season known as the ‘belg’, which typically lasts from March to May, once again failed to provide much-anticipated ground water. The livestock have already started to die.

This has had catastrophic consequences for the pastoral communities which make up the majority of the Somali population. They rely on cattle and other farm mammals for their livelihood: Selling them at the market, drinking their milk and eating their meat.

Since the beginning of the year, Sara lost one cow, 20 goats and five sheep. “It rained for only five days, and they were very small showers, so the grass did not grow enough to feed the livestock,” she explains.

Assistance not always enough

To counter the effects of the drought, the Ethiopian government has to rely of the help of NGO’s and the United Nations (UN). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently distributed livestock medicine and feed to 79,000 households. But it’s still not enough for everybody.

“We don’t have the capacity to respond [to drought] at the government level,” Tahir Beder Farah, the livestock officer for the Lasdenkeyre district, told DW. “We have our own resources but the drought impact is huge and the feed price is very high. So although we have our own [response] plan, that plan is not enough for our community.”

During prolonged periods of drought, animals become more vulnerable to diseases. Herds mingle more as water sources are scarce, increasing the risk of contagion. Swift and adequate treatment of their livestock becomes a priority for farmers.

“Cattle are the most vulnerable to drought, followed by sheep and goats,” says Ahmed Mohammed, FAO’s Somali Region field coordinator. “If we don’t protect the core breeding animals at this stage of the drought, this will lead to mass mortality of animals and the families will be stripped of their livelihood assets. Rebuilding these lost livelihoods later on will be an enormous task, so it is less expensive and more efficient to protect and save livelihoods before they are lost.”

According to Tahir Beder Farah, the FAO’s response was delayed by a month, which may explain why livestock mortality was higher than expected. But despite the assistance, tens of thousands of households still have not received adequate support, making them vulnerable to malnourishment and displacement.

However, those households who did receive emergency aid have already experienced improvements in their living conditions. After receiving livestock feed at the beginning of the month, Mahaba Ibrahim, a mother of eight, felt relieved when she was able to resume milking her two cows. “Before, our cows had no milk,” she told DW. “But now we are able to get milk for our children and the cattle’s condition is improving.”

Persistent drought linked to climate change

The feed is supposed to last at least three months. However, families are still worried that the rainy season will continue to fail in the years ahead. This fear has been reinforced by climate experts, who say they have noticed a correlation between recurring droughts in the region and climate change.

“Our research has strongly suggested that climate change has contributed to this decline [in rainfall],” research geographer Chris Funk from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) told DW. “FEWS NET research has advanced a clear causal explanation linking warming in the Western Pacific to increased rainfall near Indonesia and disruptions in the East African long rains.”

Read more: Water and climate change: ‘Era of stable abundance is over’

According to Funk, this trend is likely to continue in the years ahead. “The data suggests we should assume that the current increase in drought frequencies will persist,” he explains. “This is a little less scary than assuming that the trend will continue, but it’s still pretty grim. Just assuming [drought will persist] in Ethiopia suggests we will likely see about six poor seasons over the next ten years.”

In the Somali Region, up to 350,000 people have already been displaced from their home due to climate-related factors. This number is likely to increase in the coming years.

In the meantime, Mahaba says she is praying for heavy rains in October, which will provide the pastoral communities with much-needed relief.

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addisstandard .

Addis Abeba, September 23/2019 – The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) said on Saturday September 21 that it has captured various groups of suspected al-shabaab and ISIS members on a mission to carry out terrorist attacks on various targeted areas in Ethiopia, including the capital Addis Abeba. NISS’ statement attributed the coordinated effort by domestic and foreign security and intelligence apparatus.

The foreign security and intelligence apparatus attributed as having supported the arrest includes the US, Italy, France, Spain, Djibouti, Somaliland, and Puntland.

Al-Shabaab

According to NISS, the first group dispatched by al-shabaab was led by an individual called Muhamed Abdulahi Dulet, known by his alias, Yahya Ali Hassen. The group entered Addis Abeba via Djibouti and was studying, photographing and documenting targeted areas in the capital including places where people frequent, religious celebrations and hotels. The group was arrested in Bole area in the capital.

Other people linked to the one led by Muhamed Abdulahi Dulet but were based in Djibouti were also arrested in Djibouti in a joint operation. They include Abduk Mohammed Hussien and Redwan Mohammed along with a third individual and a member of Al-Shabbab who is known by his alias Simter Mohammed Iman Yusuf, NISS said.

The other group dispatched by Al-Shabaab include a group that originated from southern Somalia and entered Hargeisa, in the Republic of Somaliland and were attempting to coordinate with yet another terrorist group readying to enter Ethiopia. This group include Yishak Ali Aden and Aden Muhammed Mohammed the later known by his alias name as Aden Boray, all key members of the group and were trained as suicide bombers. NISS said they were apprehend in joint operation with Somaliland intelligence.

Among this group detained in Somaliland Yishak Ali Aden was detained carrying an ID card under a different name, Ibrahim Ali Aden, which was issued by Boh Wereda, whereas Aden Muhammed Mohammed (Aden Boray) was caught with two separate bank accounts holding more than 2.5 million birr at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, which was intended to finance the terrorist operation.

In addition to that among groups which already entered Ethiopia with similar mission included Eid Mohammed Ali, who was apprehended in Somali regional state, Chercher zone, Ararso Wereda; Bashir Osman Abdi, who was apprehended in Somali regional state, Fik area; as well as Osman Ali Hussien, who was apprehended in Moyale city, Oromia regional state.

ISIS

In a related development, NISS said that a group consisting of suspected ISIS members was arrested in Addis Abeba Bole area after a coordinated effort by the local intelligence and security apparatus. According to the statement, Fai’d Abshir Yesuf, a member of ISIS who entered Ethiopia via Hargeisa, Somaliland, was arrested in Bole area in Addis Abeba. Other members of this group were also detained in West Emi woreda of Afder zone in Somali regional state. Among them is Muhmud Guhad Budil. Another suspected member of ISIS, Seid Omer Shibeshi was also detained by security forces in Awash area. Several materials including communication equipment were also apprehended, NISS said.

The operation, which NISS said was a vast operation, to apprehend the suspected terrorist cells included members of the national defense force, federal police, regional security as well as foreign intelligence apparatus. It also acknowledged community cooperation in forwarding information.

NISS also said that it has shared several vital intelligence in connection with the arrests with 16 countries in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. AS

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Ethiopia’s Captain Guta Dinka Saved Mandela From Attempted Assassination in 1962 – Professor Mammo Muchie

A Remarkable Story of Fates Intertwined: Ethiopia’s Captain Guta Dinka and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela

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Call for Papers
September 25, 2019
Following eight successful conferences, of which the last two were held in Ethiopia, the Board of Directors of Vision Ethiopia, an independent and nonpartisan network of Ethiopian academics and professionals, is pleased to announce that the ninth conference will be held in Washington, D.C., on March 21 and 22, 2020. Consistent with our previous conferences, the Board calls upon scholars, professionals, civil servants and political and social actors to explore a wide range of issues that are relevant to transition, including the challenges of conducting a free and fair election; lessons learned from successful or unsuccessful transitions; and the roles of culture, education, State and non-State actors, and foreign powers (including Nile basin and Red Sea politics) in attenuating (accentuating) conflict and national unity.

The last few months have witnessed breathtaking developments in Ethiopia, both positive and negative. On the positive side, there initially appeared to be exceedingly encouraging signs of democratic reforms, which included the lifting of a draconian State of Emergency, the reduction of tension with Eritrea, the release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, and the desire by the Government to accommodate and engage opposition groups in the political process to advance a post-conflict democratization process and rebuild national unity. Unsurprisingly, these overtures and steps earned the new leaders of the ruling party unqualified support and acclamation from genuinely peace-loving Ethiopians, both at home and in the diaspora.

On the other hand, several questions and uncertainties have emerged in the course of time that dampened the hopes and aspirations of the people of the country to live in peace, freedom and fraternity. Many have started to question whether Ethiopia is actually better off today than it was before the new administration assumed power. The power base within and outside the ruling party has continued to be grounded on ethnicity. Inter-ethnic and clan conflicts have become acute and frequent occurrences, necessitating the establishment of military “command posts” in several parts of the country. Ethnically motivated loss of lives and internal displacements of millions of people, which are intricately linked to the political and institutional structures of the country, have eroded the social fabric of the nation.

As of June 2019, there were an estimated 3.2 million internally displaced people. The Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and regional and city administrators were assassinated. Churches, monasteries, mosques and heritage institutions were burned down and ransacked, in alarming similitude to the most extreme forms of radicalism witnessed in other parts of the world. In the milieu of these ominous developments, there is also an ongoing campaign to break up the age-old Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church by creating a rival Synod. At the time of preparation of this call for papers, prayers and protest demonstrations are being held in many parts of the country.

The absence of cohesion within the ruling party has exacerbated the problems, as there are now multiple centers of powers. The fracture within the ruling party has resulted in government ineffectiveness, ethnic and clan rivalery, and inability to maintain law and order. Fraud, corruption, illicit trade, illegal weapon circulation, human trafficking and crimes have worsned the fragility of the State, endangering the peace and security of the citizens, and of the diplomatic community. Security warnings of foreign embassies have become routine. In September 2019, aid agencies indicated that some 8 million people are in need of food assistance. Rampant inflation, severe foreign exchange shortage, debt, austerity measures, unemployment, forced outmigration, rural-urban influx, and the shift in the demographic structure of the country have heightened the propensity of the Ethiopian youth to be receptive of malevolently crafted propaganda. Social media and certain regisetered media outlets are worsening the situation by fanning the flames of hate.

The cumulative effects of the above have all but eroded the confidence of many in the effectiveness of the transition. Government actions and/or inactions are often open to various interpretations. Difficulties in running the day-to-day affairs of government and the major parastatals and national projects, and the wide gap between rhetoric and reality, have increased the uncertainty about the direction of the transition. How the Government addresses the double-edged sword of economic recovery and national unity, will determine not just the success of the transition but also the unity and territorial integrity of the country.

Many also question the feasibility of conducting a free and fair election under these circumstances. Whether election should precede constitutional reform, or vice versa, has continued to be a contentious issue. Ethnic-based parties espouse the former in the name of defending “the federal” system, while others put blame on the constitution as the primary source of the problems facing the country.

It is, thus, against these backdrops that the Ninth Conference of Vision Ethiopia will be held in Washington, D.C, with a view to providing an independent forum for all to discuss the challenges facing the transition, including the ethnic and religious conflicts, and to generate ideas that will help thwart the collapse of another State in the Horn of Africa. The theme of the conference is appropriately chosen to be: “Rethinking the Ethiopian Transition”. It is hoped that authors would fairly and independently asses the path taken by the transition thus far, and evaluate the requisites that enable free, fair and unfettered election. Studies on minority rights and the youth are also welcome.

Papers must be supported by reliable evidence. Authors must show that their manuscript is grounded on pertinent literature, and contextualized to the country’s situation. The integrity of the data should be tested and the research should meet ethical standards. Materials must be geared towards benefiting all Ethiopians, and avoid sectarianism. Authors and panelists must be dispassionate, forward-looking and objective, and avoid parochialism. The manuscript must be focused, and identify which transition problem it is trying to resolve.

Manuscripts and proposals for panel discussions will go through a normal review process. The decision about the format, venue or date of presentation of an accepted paper or panel proposal is at the discretion of Vision Ethiopia. Papers may be written in either Amharic or in English. However, speakers are encouraged to consider reaching a wider Ethiopian audience, as the primary mission of Vision Ethiopia’s conferences is the creation of public awareness of important issues of national significance. Completed papers not exceeding 5000 words in length along with an abstract and a conclusion must reach Visionethiopia18@gmail.com on or before January 31, Please note also that presenters and participants must cover their travel and accommodation expenses. Travellers from outside the United States must make their own visa and other travel arrangments.

As in previous cases, we aim to transmit the proceedings of the conference live and to make open space available for the media. The copyright of the videos is the property of Vision Ethiopia. Media owners that want to transmit the proceedings of the conference must show that they have the capacity to reach a wider audience in Ethiopia, and contact Vision Ethiopia before January 31, 2020. For more information about Vision Ethiopia, please visit http://visionethiopia.org/

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ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) — Ethiopian security forces have captured 20 Kalashnikov rifles and 53,921 light and heavy gun machine bullets in a sting operation, an Ethiopian official said on Wednesday.

The illegal weapons cache was captured during a joint sting operation carried out by the Ethiopia National Intelligence and Security Service and police in Ethiopia’s northeastern Afar regional state.

Ahmed Humed, Deputy Commissioner of Afar region police commission, said the large weapons cache was seized on Tuesday afternoon as it was being smuggled inside a freight truck which entered Ethiopia from neighboring Djibouti.

Humed further said in recent days his police commission has intercepted several rounds of large weapons cache, which were smuggled to Ethiopia from neighboring countries.

Ethiopia strictly controls licensing and movement of arms across the country and private arms ownership is relatively rare in the East African country.

Violent crimes are relatively rare in Ethiopia, but recent incidences of armed robberies in major cities and sporadic ethnic and religious unrest have led to a spike in demand of illicit arms ownership.

Ownership of arms is also seen as a sign of prestige and security in parts of Ethiopia, which has seen a history of rebellion and conflict.

The Ethiopian government is preparing a legislation that puts heavy prison terms on arms dealers, in a bid to stem the rising trade in illegal weapons in the east African country.

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ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia has appointed a transaction adviser in the privatisation process for state-run Ethio Telecom, and another adviser will be selected in coming weeks to oversee licensing in the telecoms sector, a senior finance ministry official said.

State Minister of Finance Eyob Tekalign Tolina said that Ethio Telecom had appointed international consulting firm KPMG to help with a process aimed at selling off stakes in the telecom.

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ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) — Ethiopia’s Chinese-contracted landmark 206-meter building, which is already regarded as the tallest structure in East Africa, has ignited young Ethiopian engineering students’ aspiration through successful knowledge transfer.

As the Chinese construction giant, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), on Thursday announced that the East African country’s new icon to be commissioned within the coming one year, with all structural and civil works already completed, young Ethiopian engineers are drawing inspiration from the landmark building.

CSCEC is undertaking the construction works of the 52-storey building at a cost of 298.5 million U.S. dollars.

Located at the heart of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the future headquarters of Construction Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) – Ethiopia’s largest public-owned commercial bank – is receiving constant acclaim for serving as a teaching platform for aspiring young Ethiopian engineers and students, as well as local construction companies.

Ashenafi Yenew, a fifth-year civil engineering student at the Addis Ababa University, is one of the thousands of aspiring young Ethiopian engineering students that have had the chance to witness construction works at the project site along with Chinese construction experts.

“It is a great experience for us to witness firsthand construction activities here at the project site,” Yenew told Xinhua on Thursday, adding that “majority of the technologies and construction techniques that are being employed here are by far new to us in Ethiopia.”

The 52-storey building, including four underground floors, has so far hosted more than 7,000 visits from actors in Ethiopia’s construction sectors as well as various other professionals, according to figures from CSCEC.

The project has also provided internship opportunities for more than 120 groups of local university students, most of the students eventually joined Ethiopia’s construction industry with firsthand experience of the most modern and state-of-the-art technology installed at the project.

Yenew, who spoke highly of the importance of facilitating internship opportunities for construction engineering students by the Chinese construction firm, also commended Chinese engineers and construction experts for their keen interest to share their “remarkable” experience to students like him.

“They are very open to share their experiences in the international construction sector to us during our internship period,” Yenew told Xinhua.

“They were keen and happy to teach us new construction procedures, which are very hard to obtain in other projects in our country,” he added.

The project’s construction was commenced in April 2015 on a lot of 164,429 square meters, just miles away from the iconic African Union (AU) Headquarters that was also built by CSCEC.

CSCEC, well known for its flagship AU headquarters building in Addis Ababa, is also currently building Ethiopia’s new National Stadium after an agreement signed with the Ethiopian Ministry of Youth and Sports in January 2016.

Feng Zhenlei, Deputy Project Manager of the CBE future HQ project at CSCEC, told Xinhua on Thursday that the project’s construction is progressing as per its initial schedule and will be completed by November 2020.

Feng also stressed that knowledge and technology transfer to Ethiopian engineers and construction experts have been key essences of CSCEC during the project’s construction phase.

The project, which also involves the construction of two 5-storey podiums in addition to the main tower, is also being praised among Ethiopian experts and scholars in the construction sector.

According to Isaias Gebre-Yohnis, project supervisor and professor at the Addis Ababa University, said the project has been “a practical teaching center” for Ethiopia’s future engineers and construction sector professionals.

“The project has been very significant for the country as well as construction technology schools,” Gebre-Yohnnis told Xinhua recently, adding that “for one thing it is now an iconic image of Ethiopia, and also it ignites a new momentum in the country’s construction sector with the most modern and state-of-the-art technology.”

The company is also undertaking another landmark structure commissioned by the National Oil Company (NOC) Ethiopia.

Bacha Gina, President of CBE, had recently told Xinhua that the project, in addition to its timely completion, has served as a teaching platform for Ethiopian engineering students as well as construction companies.

“It is a great construction project,” Gina said, adding that “Since the project’s first phase, it has helped the Ethiopian construction industry in so many ways.”

Addis Ababa City Administration Deputy Mayor Takele Uma said during his visit of the CBE’s future headquarters project along with senior CBE officials earlier this month that the iconic stature “will contribute a lot in enhancing the city’s image upon completion and in knowledge transfer as well.”

Noting that the building is an exemplary figure for other future similar high-rise buildings in the Ethiopian capital, Uma stressed that the city administration would give the necessary support for the project’s successful completion.

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by Alemayehu Biru (PhD.)

This topic bears a very common binary way of putting complex sociopolitical issues by politicians and, at times, even by scholars, as if those concepts are as distinct entities as orange and banana.

This is expressed in its most rudimentary form in the current Ethiopian political discourse. Raise any kind of sociopolitical issue, you are prone to be categorized either as citizenship or identitypolitics promoter. The binary choices are considered to be the only two alternatives in representing political interests or ideologies of the country; And they are often presented not just as two different concepts but rather as antonyms. We are told, those who are pro citizenship are more of a political, rational and universal perspective, while those with identity politics are more of a primordial, particularistic and emotionally charged perspective. Such categorization makes no exception: It applies almost to all positions in respect to every specific policy issues such as education, economy, environment, election, democracy or any other roadmap issues that are related to the future political course the country ought to follow. Such a very general but ironically a narrow categorization has been pronounced even by the regime whose coming into being was justified by its opening-up of the political space. Opening up the political space while narrowing down the horizons of political thought itself! An interestingly baffling paradox!

This article aims at examining whether this “either or” way of understanding the political reality is, theoretically, tenable and, practically, helpful in resolving the major political issues of the country. Let me embark on the issue at once, without much methodological pedantry, by asking: Can the so called “Citizenship Politics” be exclusive to that of Identity? In order to provide answer to the question, we need to know first what citizenship is in the first place.

Citizenship as Membership

I don’t think there is a single conception of citizenship as such. Leaving aside the historical disparities, there are different conceptions by different political thoughts such as liberals, social democrats, socialists or republicans. For liberals citizenship is a membership to a given political community whose primary responsibility is to fairly distribute, secure and protect the basic liberties of each member. Republicans see it as a membership to a political community that should have a practical expression in collectively participating in the decision-making-process and the corollary sense of patriotism based on a historically established public moral virtues. Social democrats and socialists give much emphasis to equality, welfare and solidarity as the most binding elements of citizenship.

Whatever differences these conceptions may mean, there is one common understanding among all of them: citizenship as membership to a political community.

Membership is not however a wholesale affair. As much as it designates inclusiveness to those it is conferred upon, it also implies exclusivity to those not. The best example to mention here is the conception of the Ancient Greek, generally, much eulogized to be the source of modern understanding of citizenship and democracy.

In ancient democracy, citizenship means membership to the free male inhabitants of the city states. The adjective free immediately implies the unfree, the slaves, who were mostly war prisoners, as much as the adjective male outrightly disqualifies the female. Citizenship is valued for the privileges it bestows upon some in exclusion of others. In other words, what makes one appreciate or enjoy the value of citizenship lies more in its exclusivity than in its inclusivity, in its negativity than in its positivity. A citizen is one who is not a slave or a female. A citizen is defined by what he is not. This is because the talk about citizenship makes little or no sense, if all human beings in that community are equally citizens.

As the saying goes “freedom for the pike is death for the minnows”, the privilege of the citizens can only feed itself on the inhibition of the non-citizens.  All those rights of citizenship – be it property right, social, legal or political rights, can only be realized by and through those who are deprived of those very rights. The liberty to be a proprietor, a politician, an artist or a philosopher presuppose in practice, as Aristotle honestly remarked, the existence of physical laborers for them to have the necessary leisure time to exercise their privileged activity. The liberty to be a slave master presuppose the existence of slaves and the necessary jurisdiction and theoretical justification for the relationship. The concept citizenship was conjoined therefore with membership to each city-state as defined and justified in its legal, political and philosophical system.

As long as this membership is in respect to individual-state relationship, not in respect to ethnic or religious identities, one may argue that the Ancient Greek conception of citizenship is purely political. But this is to miss the point as the issue of ethnic or cultural diversity was not at all an issue in ancient Greek city states. All city states were culturally, linguistically and even ethnically homogeneous. Besides this fact, there is nothing political about female-exclusion, for example, except, on the contrary, that ascriptive identity is politicized in order to justify male domination. What is political about a war captive to become a slave, if it is not the otherness in him be politicized in order to justify social stratification, political domination and thereby economic exploitation? This shows clearly that political membership was eventually determined by identity (by gender identity or the city state to which one belongs), since each city state was considered to be a sovereign political entity albeit parallel to the nation-states of the modern time. Therefore, the interplay between political and identity based membership in defining citizenship is already apparent in Greek democracy itself. It came to be even more manifest in the Eras of the Roman Empire and the subsequent aristocratic European colonial empires.

Citizenship as Kinship

Under the Roman Empire and all the subsequent empires, social stratification and the corresponding privileges have been diversified with more hierarchical membership to the state. Though that hierarchy has been changing with the ever expansion of the empire, there were generally four kinds of membership to the Roman Empire: proper citizens of Rome who were called cives, Latins, the surrounding Latin language speaking people (who had some abrogated rights with the possibility of promotion to cives), the so called peregrines, the alien or outlandish, and finally the slaves, the conquered, devoid of any human rights whatsoever. The qualification for citizenship emanated not merely from residence membership to Rome but rather from the status of parents. It was to be inherited by birth. Membership to a political community is pre-determined by kinship relations.

The Roman Empire is known, after all, for its creation of what we know today in the Western world as a three-part name – whereby the last one should bear the name of the tribe from which the individual under discussion descended all through generations. The tria nomina, as it was called, was a sign of Roman citizenship, legally prohibited for others to adopt it, in order to protect and preserve the purity of the Roman citizenship.

This tradition has descended to the emerging feudal systems to the point the concept citizenship be identified only with the aristocratic class by reducing all others to mere subjects. Later on, even the aristocratic class came to be denied that status with the ascendance of absolute monarchy to the point the very purpose of State and politics itself became nothing but to full fil the Will of God in and through the Emperor. Since the Emperor was constitutionally above the law, there was no any sort of right or liberty of any one that could be taken for granted. Even members of the ruling class were not all citizens as long as their liberties and rights are ultimately dependent on the Will of the Emperor – not on the law of the state. The law itself is an institutionalized expression of the Emperor’s Will, which was tantamount to the Will of God as the Emperor was proclaimed to be an elect of God Himself. So there was no basis of the concept citizenship under the system of empires, which were basically territorial states rather than nation-states.

Ethiopian Political Orthodoxy

There is no a more perfect example in the modern time than the Ethiopian Empire in demonstrating the alienation of the entire political community itself to the status of subject,  not to speak of the mass of peoples.

I don’t really know the etymological root of the Amharic word zega or zeginet, equivalent of the concept citizen and citizenship, respectively. But we all know for sure that the concept must be alien to Ethiopia since there have never been citizens in the entire history of the country to this date. A minister or a senate dignitary in the parliament oaths and presents himself as a personal servant of the Emperor, never of the Nation-State. This tradition has continued to be practiced even after the abolition of the monarchy under the personal dictatorship of Mengistu and Meles Zenawi. Loyalty to the leader is the most important measure for public office. Government and heads of government are the only sovereign entities.

Even the concept state is missing in Ethiopian vocabulary in the sense that the modern world understand state as an organized political community based on the will of its people. The Amharic word for government is Mengist, but it also means state. It appears therefore that government and state are conceptually interchangeable as they have been in political practice. Mengist in Ethiopia is apriori to society and state both in its practical importance and logical primacy. In other words, Mengist has always been the raison d’etre for the existence of state and society, not vice versa. This is true not more about Ethiopian political history than it is about its present political condition.

In Ethiopia, citizenship has never been a reality so far in which ever form it may be. However, it became everything all of a sudden in the current Ethiopian political discourse, particularly, for those political forces who consider themselves unitarist as opposed to those federalists. The reason is obvious. The unitarists consider the issue of citizenship as uniting, but not clear as to how it can be uniting without appealing to the issues of identity which much of the largest political community consider of the essence in defining the very concept of citizenship itself. In order for the concept of citizenship to be uniting, universal and political, as the unitarists often claim it to be, it needs at least, conceptually, to be inclusive of what it considers to be particular, primordial and sentimental. Otherwise, the concept citizenship would turn out to be a universalized particularity, to the best, or an empty abstract concept which has no political relevance whatsoever.

The issue at hand is not whether the question of citizenship should occupy a central importance in the future Ethiopian politics but, rather, whether it should be all inclusive or not. All federalist forces recognize its importance but not as a means of self-negation. They conceptualize citizenship as membership to a political community in which different interests are considered to be independent agents in determining the very nature and form of that political community. That means citizenship is more of a substantive right than being merely a procedural one. It must include among others the right to make the political community itself, not just the right to maintain it as unitarists consider it to be. According to the unitarists, citizenship right in Ethiopia would be achieved, if fair and free election takes place without much structural change. According to the federalists, however, citizenship cannot be achieved short of making a socio-political contract that guarantees the sovereignty of the peoples as it is the case with all modern democratic societies. Citizenship should be understood as authorship.

Citizenship as Authorship

It was only in 18^th century pioneered by the Enlightenment movement that nation-state started to emerge as a reaction to the extremely suffocating empires. Nationalism became the new galvanizing ideology that gave birth to democracy and nation-states. As Habermas correctly put it “The nation-State and democracy are twins born out of the French Revolution. From a cultural point of view, both have been growing in the shadow of nationalism”. Freedom of the individual from the tyranny of the state and society, on the one hand, and freedom of nations from the yoke of empires, on the other, are considered to be necessary corollaries.  Thus a new conception of citizenship as authorship.

Since the French Revolution, democratic nation-states started to understand themselves as associations of free and equal citizens. Membership to a political community depends on the principle of voluntarism as it has been articulated in socio-political contract theories by the great minds – ranging from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke through the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the contemporary American political philosopher, John Rawls. They all underlined in their theories that no state or political authority should any longer be justified by appealing to Nature or God. Because all human beings are by nature rational and therefore free and equal, they are autonomous agents whose will and only will matters in the creation and maintenance of a political community. The social agreement made among its inhabitants is the only source of legitimacy both for its coming into being and further maintenance. All the institutions such as state and government emerged thereof are only instruments of that popular covenant and, therefore, means never ends in themselves. Peoples’ sovereignty is sacrosanct. It is precisely this sovereignty which is the bedrock of citizenship. Citizenship is not just a set of rights that enable citizens only to elect their government every four or five years but essentially authorship to the very law that creates and governs a political community. Freedom and authority are no longer contradictory in this case since people should abide only to their own will.

Those great contractarian theorists assumed ethnic and cultural homogeneity for their theories to be true. Nation-State was both their premise and objective. In case assimilation is successful, as it was with in France, the nation-state is the premise from which the contract should proceed. If a nation failed to be a state as it is the case with pre-Bismarck Germany, the contract theory provided the rational to create it. And in empire states like Austro-Hungary, the contract theory has justified their disintegration and encouraged, instead, the emergence of new nation-states as natural course of socio-political development.

Alternatively, it also envisioned federal system as a means to coup-up with the new reality in those empires like Great Britain, Spain, Belgium etc. so that group identities be preserved, protected and promoted within the larger political union. Multicultural citizenship is taken, in this last case, as a mediating concept between the universal values of freedom of the individual, on the one hand, and freedom of cultural, linguistic or ethnic communities, on the other. Self-determination (voluntarism) both at the level of individuals and communities became the key to understand what modern citizenship should be. This has become an international norm particularly in post 2^nd World War and even more so in post “Cold War”. With the ever globalization of democracy as a World order, it became imperative to recognize collective identities such as race, ethnic, culture, gender etc. Ironic as it may sound, globalization must be conjoined with pluralism – as the coming into being of the European Union became the main reason to thematize pluralism as the most important concept of political philosophy in our time.

Liberalism, communitarianism & Pluralism

In the last three decades, there have been a steadily growing interest in the issue of group diversity by political philosophers. Tension between globalism and nationalism, mass immigration and the rise of minority rights, ethnic conflicts and breakup of nations in  Eastern Europe, increasing integration of the European Union conjoined with the persistence of sense of distinctness among members, ever rising strive of gender, sexual orientation, environmental movement etc. are some of the major practical reasons for this. Explaining the issue of how right claims of those diverse forms of group identities be related or connected to the established liberal-democratic principles of freedom is the major theoretical issue of our time. Basically, liberalism and communitarianism are the two contending school of thoughts in that regard – theoretically initiated by an American philosopher John Rawls in his monumental work A Theory of Justice. The third line of thinking I termed above as pluralism is a dialectical outgrowth of the debate between the two.

Liberals are generally well known for their individualism.  As they are here represented by John Rawls, the individual, as free and rational being, is said to be autonomous by his/her nature. The practical implication is that liberty of the individual must be protected not only from political authority but also from the cultural one – as social norms and traditions have been oppressive to the development of human rationality.  Not only state is oppressive but also customs and cultural values. Therefore, individual liberty and freedom should be seen in contradistinction to any particular collective identity. As John Rawls aptly puts it, the priority of individual liberty is uncompromising “that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” As the self is prior to its ends, individual right should be pursued independent of any conception of good. According to Rawls, the essence of citizenship lies in the liberty of the individual to form, revise and change social conceptions of the good – not in sharing definite moral values or some distant collective or national goals. Otherwise, he argues, the whole idea of social contract does make little or no sense. The social contract should serve not to come up with a pre-shared conception of Social-Good but rather to make possible a difference-blind social arrangement that can promote the right of each contracting parties to form, revise, change or pursue her/his conception of good.

For such a neutral standpoint be achieved, Rawls assumed a hypothetical society he called the Original Position. He further assumed what he calls “the veil of ignorance” in representing the contracting individuals’ ignorance about their conception of the Good or social identity prior to the agreement.  Both assumptions are justified by the need to achieve an impartial state of mind of the contracting parties in order to arrive at a neutral principles of social arrangement. It is based on these two important assumptions that Rawls later arrived on his famous two principles of justice.

The reaction to Rawls’ work was so immense that it awakened political philosophy from its long time slumber. His critics can generally be classified into two schools of thought, namely, communitarianism and pluralism. Both critics refuse to accept Rawls’ individualism. They consider his conception of individual autonomy as utopian to the best and tricky and manipulative to the worst. According to them, real individuals are not “unencumbered selves” as the priority of right to social good, the self to its ends or the assumption of the veil of ignorance under the original position suggest. In actual life, our identity is a given one, not even a matter of choice. It is often what Martin Heidegger calls “thrownness”. In real life, we all are with dense identity, as bearers of particular social role, as someone’s son or daughter, a member of this clan or that tribe, this or that nation, whose native language is this or that etc.

Although both streams of critics concede to the liberal’s main thesis that individuals are indeed the only living social agents, they simultaneously claim that collective identities are not less real than the individuals themselves. This is because, they argue, individuals are not born and raised in void. Family, neighboring and local communities, stories, tales and languages, schools and childhood memories etc. are all constitutive of the very agency of the individual. Individuals become agents only as social beings. The fact that their agency itself presuppose society as a field of self-realization shows that the rationality and freedom of the individual is anchored in being social by nature. Individual human beings are embodiments of their natural and social environment as much as they are rational agents in adopting to or changing those environments. Therefore, collective identities are real and objective as forms of social relations if not as entities.

For communitarians, particularly, those social relations are stable as a cultural or moral mark of the group under discussion. They are comprehensive and historical by their nature to be constitutive, in the strongest sense of the term, of its individual members. In this sense, communitarianism clearly stands in a diametrically opposite direction to liberalism. It postulates the primacy of community over the individual, the importance of particularism over universalism. It tends to classify and rank collective identities according to certain established meritocratic values. Communitarianism appears therefore to be a modern version of republicanism in its conception of citizenship too. Sharing a virtuous moral life, forging collective responsibility and common goals are the mark. Difference is seen as a social challenge, not as an opportunity. Here depart the pluralists.

Unlike communitarians, the pluralists value group identity not just for its own sake but, rather, for the practical relevance it has in determining the life of the individual. Its version of communitarianism is, therefore, not primordial or essentialist.  Collective identities are fluid social relations – not given and static as communitarians assume. Group identities can be better understood, according to pluralists, as dialectical phenomena – relational and changing.

We always talk of group identity visa-vice another group. Their relation is often marked by conflict and hierarchy. Institutionalized oppression and domination are the major forms of socio-political relations in determining group identities. The strength of self-awareness as a group hinges most of the time on the strength and intensity of domination-relation perpetuated by another group. This is not because groups have their own sense of rivalry by nature, but essentially because the position of the group has a direct effect on the individual members of the groups.

The opportunities and challenges of the individual agency would ultimately be determined by the position of the group to which the individual belongs or associated. A group identity can be an enabling or disabling to the individual agency depending on the power-position of the group to which one belongs. The distribution of opportunities and challenges is therefore predetermined in a multi-cultural state. This means the individual in its relation to the state is mediated through group identity to which the individual belongs (be it race, cultural, ethnic, gender or even sexual orientation).  Therefore, citizenship cannot be conceptualized as a simple unilinear individual-state relationship without considering that mediation.

Instituting equal citizenship requires, first of all, the recognition of difference as a fact of life in general. It requires the recognition of those collective identities as political agents – in order to enable individual members can redress their disadvantaged standing vis-vice the state. For example, recognizing the Oromo language as a state language would enable an individual Oromo, who is not in good command of Amharic, to have equal access to public office or public hearing. Here we need to emphasize that the recognition of the collective identity, in our case the Oromo language, should not be made for its own sake or for the value one may attach to it. It is rather for its mediating role in enabling or empowering the individual to have equal opportunity, by removing the unjustly created institutional obstacle. There can be no reason consequently to consider that such recognition is not consistent with universal values of democracy which puts individual agency at the center of its conception of citizenship. There is no theoretical inconsistency between federalism as a multi-cultural conception of citizenship and that of the liberal conception based on universal freedom. Pluralism in this sense is a splendid synthesis of the two extreme doctrines, individualism and communitarianism.

This brings me back to reconsider the Ethiopian political discourse in the light of this lately developed conception of “multicultural citizenship”.

Indifference to Difference

I assume there is no question or debate about the multiethnic or multicultural nature of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a self-declared empire just four decades ago and, a multi- nations-state since the monarchy was abolished in 1974. It was only in the last 25 years that those multi-nations and nationalities were acknowledged as political entities to govern themselves and take part in the affairs of the federal. This is just to mention the official policy of the ruling EPRDF regime as articulated in the constitution, not to imply anything further. Ethiopia is also one of the most backward countries in its overall economic development and therefore with little or no liberal or republican democratic tradition. The autonomous individual of liberalism is not yet born – as the proletariat class was not during the Proletarian Revolution in the 1960s.

Given these facts, it is simply perplexing to continuously hear an ever increasing louder voice by those unitarist forces and the new government in charge of the “transition” about the citizenship politics as a magical remedy to all problems of the country in the way it reminds us of scientific socialism and revolutionary democracy during Mengistu and Meles Zenawi, respectively. More perplexing is the fact their conception of citizenship often contrasted to federalism.

In a country where inequality and, as a result, a long standing conflict alongside ethnic, cultural or religious identities have had deeper root, I hope they are not imagining that Rawls’ veil of ignorance is at its magical mission in letting those living people abandon their collective identity for the difference-blind-principle to rule. There is a common man temptation to consider blindness to difference as impartiality or neutrality, though. But blindness to an existing difference is to ignore the difference so that it should further be perpetuated unnoticed. Particularly differences as a result of past inequalities and domination-relation, as it has  been the case with Ethiopian polity, need full attention – not just blatant indifference called difference-blind-principle. How indifference to difference can result in principles of justice that promote equal citizenship in the first place?

Indifference to difference is not an innocent standpoint as it appears to be. It is rather an active coverup in diffusing strives of those marginalized or dominated identities. It is an ideological maneuver in maintaining the already existing overall structure by means of reducing all group identities to what is common to all, namely, the individual. But then they portray the individual after their own image as a yardstick for all individuals so that the larger unity continue to be reproduced in the old way. It goes on camouflaging the particular for the universal.

Liberal individualism is just a recipe to forced assimilation as communitarianism is to segregation. Both consider difference as otherness but, differently. Liberalism wants to do away with it through assimilation. Communitarianism wants to essentialize difference so that hierarchical social form of organization be maintained.

The Ethiopian state have attempted so far both ways: exclusion and assimilation by the Monarchy and the Dergue, respectively. But both failed; and they failed devastatingly in the way they can never resuscitate again. It is absolutely beyond the scope of this paper to explain why. But it may suffice here to echo the famous statement: “an empire dies of indigestion”. The indigestion is even more likely when the minority tries to swallow the majority as it has been the case with Ethiopia. Ethiopia has died as an empire, already, long time ago. It only continued to persist as a state. It may has been deformed or disfigured for some of us who remained nostalgic of her past but, still persisting. Another trial to swallow the different, the otherness, may even result in a very risky business of getting her chocked up for ever.

Therefore, compromise on middle ground should be a categorical imperative for co-existence of diversity in unity and vice versa. The middle ground is to adopt a dual system of rights: liberal universal rights which are the same for all and specific empowering rights to group identities. The middle ground is a position that forwards an ideal of deliberative or “talk centric” democracy alternatively to “vote centric” or just liberal democracy that depoliticizes public life in general. That is precisely what I tried to term so long as a pluralist conception of citizenship as opposed to the monolithic one proposed by those who call themselves “unitarists” – while continue assuming speaking Amharic language, dancing eskista, adhering to a Coptic Church, adoring Menelik II, promoting the legendary tale of Queen Sheba and the Jewish descent of the Ethiopian dynasty etc. as a measure of a true Ethiopian citizen, Ethiopiawinet.

The author can be reached at alemayehubiru@gmail.com

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By Belayneh Abate

As African rulers look wealthier than the leaders of prosperous nations at the annual United Nations Assembly, the National Public Radio (NPR) of America reported on September 27, 2019 that the People of Gambia suffer from pain after complicated surgeries because no pain medicine in the country.  NPR news should know that many other African dictators treat their people worse than the Gambian rulers. The peoples of Africa suffer from many forms of physical and mental pains because they are held in chains and their wealth is robbed by their rulers.

The heinous African Rulers! I don’t have to say dears because you are not Africans dears; neither do I need to say leaders precisely because you are not leaders.  If I must address you by name, I would rather say the monstrous dictators.

As usual, you are enjoying New York City while your people are suffering from endless starvation and preventable diseases. Are you here to promote the interests of Africa or to promote your interests? Are you here to solve Africa’s health problems or to look for the best health care providers for you and your families? Are you here to solve Africa’s economic and social problems or to find Western and Eastern banks where you can store the money you robbed? Are you here to talk about freedom of speech or to lobby human right activities and good leaders that accuse you of heinous crimes?  Are you here to shop for feasible technology or to shop for jewelry and dresses for you wives and mistresses? Are you here to make sure your voices are heard or to take orders from your superpower masters?

Do you think you represent Africans? Alas representation! Let’s forget the phony representation and talk about your attires. Look at your ties!  Nice ties; aren’t they? Who purchased them for you? Look at your suits! Marvelous!  Where did you get them from?  What do the labels scratching the back of your chunky necks read? I am sure, the labels do not pronounce made in Abuja, Kinshasa, Lagos, Addis Ababa or Nairobi; do they?  While considering yourselves as “African leaders” you are promoting the commodities of France, Italy, Great Britain, USA and others, and you are proud of it; Aren’t you?  Look at your shirts! They are unequivocally classical; aren’t they?  Allah wua Kiber! Look at your shoes! Astoundingly archetypal and shimmering! Am I not correct? How much you shelled out for these distinctive shoes? Who paid for these luxurious outfits?

What percent of the people, you disgracefully claim to represent, wear these types of ties, suits, shirts and shoes like you do? Representation by definition is symbolizing the whole. In other words, representatives are samples of the whole.  Do you really consider yourselves as samples of the whole Africa?

I request each of you to look at each other for one moment.  I believe you observed pumpkin cheeks, chunky necks and distended bellies; Didn’t you? I also demand that you compare the pictures you had before assuming your power with the current ones. May I ask what you regularly put in your plates in the palaces you luxuriously live in? Is it interfering in your personal life if we want to know the beverages you enjoy, the couches you park yourselves on and the beds you snooze in?  What portions of the people in your tyrannical rule obtain access to one meal and a glass of water in a day? What portion of your general population is homeless?  What proportions of the African infants, the young and the elderly die from man-made starvation?

Unlike your mind, your flesh looks healthy; doesn’t it? Where do you get your quality health care services? Ehi… that is right! Even when you have temporary indigestion from gulping down too much, you dash to Europe, America, and Israel by chartered airplanes; don’t you?  On the other hand, what portion of African population has access to the minimum health care services even once in 25 years? What fraction of African population dies from communicable diseases, which basically are turned to history and locked up in museum in western countries?  What segments of African population still utilize stone-age technologies to farm, communicate and travel?  Despite this colossal lifestyle discrepancy between you and ordinary Africans, you still think you represent destitute Africans; don’t you?  O lord! Even those of you who came from East Africa are raising your hands to profess that you represent your people! I shall say at this juncture that your conscience plates are either congenitally absent or surgically removed.

Please close your eyes and review your administrations (if you call them administrations at all), in silence.  Do not your ministers, congressmen, senators and managers serve like water pipes that do not leak or rust whatever corrosive material you pass through them?  Do not they convey your unholy orders and commands unaltered as long as you feed them? Do not you invest substantial amount of your budget to spy your own people? Do not you bridle your people like horses and mules? Do not you place your peoples under nonstop restraining orders to deprive them of using their sense organs and processing brains? Do not most of you beg on behalf of your people and exploit the baloney you received to strengthen your dictatorial power?

Who owns the mass- media?  Will your mass-media speak the truth ever? Do people believe even the date and the time portrayed at the bottom of your TV screen?  Are not your people suffering from suppurative chronic ear infections as a result of your eternal lies and irksome voices? Are not your people sick of watching you acting like experts in economics, engineering, agriculture, public health, medicine, journalism and other professions while you, in fact, employ your muscles as solitary organs of thinking?  Don’t you hound, silence or put experts in exile if they don’t agree with your callous and precarious behaviors?

Do you mind looking at your own hands at this moment, please?   Aha! Your decorated wrists and fingers with diamond and gold trinkets look soft and clean! However; are your hands really unsoiled and shiny as they appear in this bogusly garnished United Nation’s hall? How many of you have hands doused with blood?  How many of you eliminated even your own colleagues and comrades, during your journeys and ascensions towards power? How often you direct your soldiers to kill your fellow Africans for no apparent reason?  How many of you wreak ethnic fracas to stay in power? How often you coerce your flunky judges to rule in favor of your chair? How many million innocent people die, languish in jails, and suffer from torture under your wicked rules? How many children live under orphanage because you wiped out their parents? How many parents shed tears as we speak because you executed, arrested and locked up their children? Do people elect robbers, butchers and murderers?  Do you still assume that you represent Africans? Shame on you!

I wish we had the opportunity to discuss concepts and ideas that foster development and annihilate misery in Africa. Unfortunately, however; what most of the African rules that fly to New York every September are collections of heads engorged with lusts of power and material treasure. Sorry for wasting your WHISKY and STEAK time.  Enjoy the Africans’ flesh and blood until you face the final call known as death-a natural conqueror that cannot be embezzled, tortured or exterminated.

With best disregards,

Belayneh Abate

The writer can be reached at abatebelai@yahoo.com

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Hayalnesh Gezahegn

Addis Abeba, September 27/2019 – In its response to the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (EZema), said that, as one stakeholder concerned with the ongoing reform programs in Ethiopia, it was following the process of reform within democratic institutions “closely and carefully.”

EZema’s statement came as a response to NEBE’s yesterday statement, which disputed Prof. Berhanu Nega’s assertion during an interview with ESAT TV that his party’s legal experts took active part in the reform processes of the restructuring of the new electoral board and the new electoral and political parties bill. In its statement, NEBE said that the reform process involving the revision of the new electoral bill and its board’s restructuring processes were done based on inputs from consultations with stakeholders, members of parliament and political parties. However, the drafting itself was conducted exclusively by the democratic institutions reform task force, a task force within the Legal Reform Council under the auspices of the Federal Attorney General’s office.

Acknowledging the efforts of various working groups within the Legal Reform Council, a council established to undertake the overall judiciary branch reform programs within three years period of time, EZema’s statement said that its legal experts continue to participate in “open consultations organized for all public stakeholders” during the reform processes of restructuring democratic institutions and amending of laws.

Its legal experts are not only tasked to participate in these public consultations to provide feedback but also to evaluate the processes and advise the leadership of EZema if these processes were ongoing “impartially and sustainably.” In that regard the party said it believed the democratic institutions reform process was “more or less successful.”

Regarding the interview with ESAT TV, which prompted NEBE to issue the statement, EZema said that during the interview what its leader Prof. Berhanu Nega did was an attempt to highlight the fact that such reform programs, which aim at transforming Ethiopia to a democratic state, were not to be left for the governing party alone and that all stakeholders should take part in the process, as did its members.

“EZema understands that such opportunities in which all Ethiopians participate in the process is a key input in order for this transition to be completed successfully. In addition, we believe all stakeholders involved in identifying gaps and providing inputs to improve the laws, including working groups and members of the Advisory Council, as well as institutions undergoing through these reforms should discharge their responsibilities free of political influences.”

“EZema’s leadership and its members strictly adhere to these principles,” the statement further said. It also expresses the party’s “highest respect” for all stakeholders who volunteered to participate in these reform process including members of the Advisory Council and the various working groups under its auspices.

AS

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27 September 2019 | By GCR Staff

Ethiopia’s controversial dam on a main tributary of the Nile River may begin generating electricity as early as next year, according to a government minister, say reports.

Seleshi Bekele, Ethiopia’s water and energy minister, made the comments after visiting the project, known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Bekele said the project had shown remarkable progress after the replacement of the Metals and Engineering Corporation (Metec), a state conglomerate run by the Ethiopian military, by international contractors, reports Ethiopian news website Borkena, citing the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC).

His statement came amid a rise in tension between Ethiopia and Egypt, which relies on the Nile for nearly all its water, after talks earlier this month failed to settle the issue of how much the river’s flow would be disrupted during the filling of the GERD reservoir.

Seleshi said more than 96% of the spillway and the saddle dam were complete, the main dam had reached 145m height, and work had begun on filling the void in its centre with concrete. So far, 8 million cubic metres had been filled, according to Borkena/EBC.

The saddle dam is an auxiliary structure built to contain water in the reservoir.

The latest round of talks between Ethiopia and Egypt, and including Sudan, took place over 15-16 September in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, but failed again to reach a satisfactory settlement on how fast the GERD’s reservoir should be filled.

Egypt wants the reservoir to be filled in a seven-to-10-year timeframe, limiting the disruption to the river’s flow, but Ethiopia has rejected that plan, preferring its three-year timeframe, according to Egypt Today.

Another round of talks are scheduled for October, Egypt Today reported.

Egypt Today also reported that Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said he had started what the news outlet called “diplomatic escalation” to bring other countries in to influence the long-running standoff.

Meanwhile, Abreham Belay, the general manager of Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), gave a press conference on Wednesday (25 September) in which he said that two turbines in the left powerhouse were half complete, and could start generating 740MW of hydroelectric power as early as next year. According to Belay, the entire project is now 68% complete.

The 6,450MW dam is being built on the Blue Nile, one of two main tributaries to the main Nile River, in the Benshangul Gumuz region of Ethiopia, near the border with Sudan. Work began in 2011 and was due to be completed within five years.

After Metec was removed from the project in August last year (see Further reading), EEP hired China Gezhouba Group to execute the pre-commissioning activities and Voith Hydro Shanghai to carry out electrical, mechanical, and various civil and structural works. Full completion is now expected in 2022.

Image: Work under way on the Renaissance Dam (Jacey Fortin/CC BY-SA 4.0)

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