2016-04-04

Before proceeding to suggesting solutions I find it important to clarify misunderstandings on the goals and functions of ethnic federalism and decentralization in Ethiopia. First, in the Ethiopian context ethnically based self-rule does not necessarily mean hate to other ethnic groups. In Ethiopia the idea of ethnic based self-rule came as a result of mistrust of central government. I think it is high time now to recognize the limits of the central government in economic development and changing the material conditions of the Ethiopian people. Whatever name given to itself, centralist, unionist, federalist, majority, etc. the historical records and economic theory show that the central government is not meant for fostering economic development in the country. The current protest in Oromo, and before that the Tigray popular movement, the session of Eritrea, the massive out migration of the Ethiopian youth, the suffering of our sisters in Arab countries, the nationwide hunger, extreme poverty in urban and rural areas, etc., shows the limited role of the central government in bringing development, peace and stability in Ethiopia. History and practice shows that the central government in Ethiopia cares for itself and its clients. Time and gain it has proved to be an extractive institutions despite changes in ideology and name. In 1991 the EPRDF government declared self-governing principle and conferred ethnic groups with power to be used as mechanism development and wellbeing. But using the ideology of developmental state and GTP (growth and transformation plan), EPRDF centralized power thus slipped back into the same tradition of unitarist or centralist. It seems that whatever mantle it wears, unitarist or federalist, the central Ethiopian state is true to its tradition: very much elitist and extractivist. Irrespective of time and place, in the eyes of the regional and local people, it always cared for itself. The bottom line is that ethnically organized groups do not trust the Ethiopian central government through no fault of their own and this does not mean hatred to other ethnic groups.

Second, the ethnic Federal Government and the ethnic regional states are not one and the same, and one is not the extension of the other. Even if there is a convergence between the Federal Government and the ethnic regional states, since both make up the strategic components of solving ethnic conflicts on a permanent basis, there are fundamental differences in the power, functions and purposes of ethnic federation and ethnic regions. The fundamental purpose of ethnic Federal Government is to achieve unity and understanding among the constituent ethnic groups (for details see my article The Model and Making of Ethnic Federalism: Problems for Consideration). On the other hand, the regional ethno-linguistically defined states are the focal points where one locates primarily the contradiction between competing political and economic interest groups belonging to the same ethnic group (see below).

Third, it is wrong to consider the ethnic based self-rule as if they do not have an economic objectives. Considering the essence of the political ideology of ethnicity, one can systematize and classify eight sets of objectives of ethnic based regional sates. These are i) Ethnic group empowerment, ii) Ethnic group protection, iii) Ethnic group cohesion, iv) Promoting ethnic group identity, v) Empowering civil society, vi) Promoting economic and social welfare of the ethnic group, vii) Capacity development, and viii) Conservation and management of natural resources. These objectives basically refer to the concept of autonomy, public service provisions and sustainable development. (For detailed case study see Tsegaye Tegenu (2006), Evaluation of the Operation and Performance of Ethnic Decentralization System in Ethiopia: A Case Study of the Gurage People, 1992-2000. Addis Ababa University Press).
Proposing Solutions

Consociationalism at Federal Level

There are practical problems in solving the above mentioned conflicts on a permanent basis. One can fix temporary solutions to the problems by devising mechanisms that may contain or arrest negative developments that threaten the unity of the groups. One way is the monopolization of power both at the federal and regional level through the formation of a coalition of parties or a front. Using the centralised structure of the party command, it might be possible to mitigate the conflicts between the actors. But this type of political solution is fragile and it may collapse if and when the coalition splits or as some members of it withdraw from it feeling marginalized. Another method can be the search for or use of a unifying ideological formula such as the Marxist-Leninist ideology which underlines the invariable significance of class struggle rather than cultural demands of ethnic groups. By definition, a worker or a peasant from one ethnic group cannot have a different interest from the other. However, this ideology has no future as it basically sweeps the ethnic issue under the carpet, for which purpose the regions were set up in the first instance. One may as well try to maintain internal unity of the regional states by emphasising some kind of an overarching assimilationist or integrationist supra nationalist identity named, for instance, after the name of the country. But this type of identity is only acceptable to those people particularly coming from mixed marriages, but not to proponents of the ethnic movements.

Ethnic federation is apparently dependent on democratic rules and it requires democracy for its successful accomplishment. It is advocated that consociationalism is the type of democracy (decision making process and mechanism) which fits the kind of constitutional structure of ethnic federation. The consociational approach places greater faith in the assurance of ethnic group rights and a belief in coalescent democracy (decision). According to Lijphart, consociationalism relies on four basic principles: a broad-based or grand coalition executive, minority veto, proportionality in the allocation of civil service positions and public funds, and group autonomy. The dominant feature of the consociational mode is the elite accommodation reached by a discussion going on “until a solution is found that is acceptable to all participants in the decision-making process, that is keep on talking until you agree.
At the federal level, the political relationship among the ethno-territorial regions can be organized according to consociational principles. In principle, federation implies the co-existence of a set of political groupings that interact as autonomous entities, united in a common order with autonomy of its own. It is a kind of contractual agreement (consent) which represents a balance between centralism and decentralization. The promotion of balance, contractualism, and compromise does not only lead to ideological notions. It involves some give and take, some reciprocity and consent. Federation has to protect the hard core interests and rights of the groups which agreed to the contract. Ethnic federation is thus meant as a respect for and management of political pluralism both within and among the territorial components of the multi-nationality state. Therefore, it does not accommodate authoritarian rule. If ethnic federation is not based on the culture of consociational democracy, it promotes republicanisation and secessionism, eventually leading to a collapse of the federation as happened in the former Yugoslavia. One of the major reasons for the breakdown of Yugoslavian federation was the absence of democratic governance at the center. Tito created the Yugoslavian federation after W.W.II and it remained for long under communist government. Tito and his followers in stead of adopting democracy they came up with an idea of what has come to be called a national communism not dependent on Soviet Union. This idea was used as legitimacy of communist rule. So long as the federation was under one communist party control committed to proletarian internationalism, there was no break down problem. But the absence of democracy made it difficult for the ethnic groups to genuinely understand each other’s perspectives, interests or aspirations. It rather fostered ethnic nationalism. When an incipient democracy began to emerge after the death of Tito, the problems were further exacerbated. The attempt even to circulate the state leadership democratically at the later stage among the constituent members did not save the system from collapse. By then the federal government was weak and nobody came to its aid. Everyone resorted to the ethnic groups and the regions. Yugoslavia is a best example of collapse of federalism not founded on democratic governance at the center. See Schöpflin, G. (1991), “The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia”, in McGrry, J. And O´Leary, B. (eds.), The Politics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation. London. Pp. 172-203. It is the promotion of a consociational type of democracy that breeds and sustains ethnic federation.

Democratic Governance at Regional Level

Devolution of power does not by itself mean self-governance. In practice what has been changed is the locus of public decision making, from the centre to the sub-national levels (regions, districts and locals). Just because a governmental unit is smaller in scope does not necessarily mean that the people are going to be involved in governing their own affairs. Regional and local governors may be unresponsive to the needs and demands of the people. The decision making may not be transparent and predictable. If there is no local people participation, accountability may not be achieved as a powerful local elite may make it difficult despite a formal election system. Devolution can only be a real self-governing exercise if it is based on the principles of democratic governance.
Governance has been defined in different ways by looking at its different aspects. There are those who define governance by looking at its domain (the activities of the stakeholders). In this category there are those who define governance as the function and exercise of power of government. This definition restricts governance to mean as government and leadership. But this definition is being criticised as limited since it conceptualises only one type (class) of people. But governance concerns more than just interactions between systems of government and the governed. Governance includes the ways that peoples and civil society engage and overlap. There are, therefore, those who define governance in a broader way including the civil society. They hold that civil society defines the principles by which a people are governed — not the other way around– therefore, “governance” is the result of the members of society working in association with each other.

There is still another category that defines governance by looking at its function. It views governance as the autonomy of the state, as the management of conflicts, as the management of developments. There is also another group that defines governance by looking at the institutions and mechanisms working in the society. This includes those who identify governance with democratic processes and institutions. According to this group, the term describes the means by which citizens and groups in any society voice their interests, mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and obligations. Governance discusses how parts of the system—the government, civic groups, private sector, etc—relate to each other.

UNDP defines governance by looking at the process. Accordingly, governance is “the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels  it comprises the mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences”. In this study governance is defined and understood as a process of decision-making. What are the criteria for measuring a good political decision making process? UNDP has a list of characteristics that make for good governance. These include participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, and strategic vision.
The characteristics of good governance outlined above are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Transparency requires that governments consult broadly to ascertain citizen interests, publicize plans and decisions, share information widely and in good time, and consistently act in an open manner. Accountability depends on governments taking full cognizance of responding to, and being monitored by, organized public opinions. Transparency and accountability encompass the concept of responsiveness, and are served by sharing decision making with local government entities.

What I tried to highlight in this paper and in my previous posting is the problems and solutions to ethnic federalism. Profound problems related to ethnic federation must be properly identified to find solutions. The problems at federal and regional levels are systematic in nature that they cannot be solved by ad hoc measures. What is required as solution is elite cooperation (consociationalism) at the federal level and democratic governance at regional level for the purpose of regional economic development.

For comments the author can be reached at tsegaye.tegenu@epmc.se

The post Suggesting Solutions to Problems of Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia – Tsegaye Tegenu, PhD appeared first on Satenaw.

Author’s Note: This is the second installment in a series of ongoing commentaries that I expect to post regularly under the rubric, “Ethnic Apartheid in Ethiopia”.

The twin aims of the series are: 1) to demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that the political system created and maintained by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) is a slightly kinder and gentler form of the racial apartheid system practiced by the white minority regime in South Africa before the establishment of black majority rule, and 2) to engage Ethiopia’s Cheetah (younger) Generation in broad and wide ranging conversation, debate and discussion necessary for the creation of the New Ethiopia cleansed of ethnic apartheid.

In the “Ethnic Apartheid in Ethiopia ” series, I aim to go beyond mere critical political and legal analysis and intellectual and academic examination of the objective political, social and economic conditions in Ethiopia under T-TPLF rule. Indeed, I aim to make a clarion call to Ethiopia’s Cheetah Generation: Ethiopia is in the palms of your hands. You have the choice of holding Ethiopia in the palms of your hands with your fingers together firm, tight and strong and handle her like a precious jewel. You have the choice of letting loose your fingers and dropping her and watch her shatter like glass. You have the choice of holding each other hand in hand, clasping palm to palm and walking alongside her. You have the choice of clenching your fingers and palms into a fist of fury and defend her honor and glory. My clarion call is, Ethiopia is in your hands; but “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”

My question to Ethiopia’s Cheetah Generation

In my first commentary, I challenged Ethiopia’s youth to begin systematically and critically questioning the meaning of “ethnic federalism” imposed upon Ethiopia by the T-TPLF, currently classified as a terrorist group by the Global Terrorism Database. I sketched out the outlines of my preliminary arguments against “ethnic federalism” and exhorted Ethiopia’s Cheetah Generation to reject it wholly and consign it to the dustbin of history.

In this commentary, I continue my challenge to Ethiopia’s youth by providing them legal evidence to aid in their ongoing scrutiny of the bantustanization or kililistanization of Ethiopia by the T-TPLF into nine ethnically-based “kilils” or regional “states”.

I believe the problem of the first two decades of 21st Century Ethiopia is the problem of the ethnic line. It is an ethnic line conceived and gestated in the womb of the T-TPLF and birthed to inflict destruction and ruin in the Ethiopian body politics.

The problems of ethnic division and tribalism are not new to Ethiopia or Africa. Walter Rodney argued that even though ethnic differences exist on the African continent, they were not necessarily political differences. They were politicized by certain African elites who have created ethnic lines to aggrandize power and amass wealth for themselves and their cronies.

The T-TPLF has created ethnic lines and kilils to aggrandize power and amass wealth for itself and its cronies. What is curiously strange is the T-TPLF’s use of ethnic lines in the same way the minority white apartheid regime used race and ethnicity to divide South African society and dominate the political system and subjugate the majority black African population by controlling and manipulating ownership, access and use of land.

Like the minority white apartheid regime in South Africa, the T-TPLF has built its political and economic power by literally owning all of the land in the country (Art. 40 of the T-TPLF constitution) and by totally controlling political power (the T-TPLF “won” the May 2015 election by 100 percent and reinforces its dictatorial rule by the barrel of the gun), monopolizing the private sector (T-TPLF controlled interlocking syndicates maintain complete monopoly over the economy) and parceling out employment, educational and other opportunities in exchange for political support and allegiance.

In 2016, the problem of Ethiopia is the problem of T-TPLF domination, subjugation and exploitation of the majority population by using ethnicity both as a political line that cannot be crossed and as a political fulcrum on which all things political, social, economic and cultural pivot.

The land and “legal” basis of South Africa’s racial apartheid system

At the foundation of South Africa’s racial/ethnic apartheid system was land. Ownership of land. Use of land. Occupation of land. Control of land. Unequal distribution of land. Monopoly of nearly 90 percent of the land by white minority farmers. Land grabs by whites and evictions and displacement of the black majority population. Under-compensation for illegally expropriated land. Dispossession of ancestral lands of Black South Africans. Thus, the keystone and pillar of minority white apartheid rule in South Africa was the unequal distribution of land and the consequent dispossession and economic disempowerment of the black majority by a variety of “legal” means.

The foundation for apartheid was laid down in the Natives’ Land Act, 1913 (Act No. 27 of 1913), decades before its official introduction in 1948. The Land Act became the principal legal tool for the systematic land dispossession of the Black majority by the white minority controlled State. The Act reinforced by subsequent legislation severely restricted the black African majority’s right to own land only in the “native reserves”, which constituted only 14 per cent of the total area of South Africa while the Whites owned 87 per cent.

The Group Areas Act Group Areas Act 1950 later consolidated by Group Areas Act 36 of 1966 formalized residential segregation by race in South Africa. This Act empowered the minority white regime to designate rural and urban land for exclusive ownership by whites, colored, and Indians, but made no legal provisions for land to be owned or occupied exclusively by the majority black population. But black South Africans who were specifically prohibited from occupying or owning land in areas designated for other groups.

The Population Registration Act of 1950 (PRA) of South Africa required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and recorded in the population register according to their race and ethnic group. That PRA became the foundation of the apartheid system which served to segregate and facilitate political and economic discrimination against the majority black population and other non-whites. (The Afrikaans word “apartheid” literally means “separateness”, from Dutch apart “separate” plus –heid, equivalent of -hood. Under the PRA, individuals were classified as “native”, “coloured”, “Asian” or “white”. Identity documents were the main tool used to implement the strict racial segregation and subjugation.

The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 (BAA) (Act No. 68 of 1951; subsequently renamed the Black Authorities Act, 1951) was enacted to grant authority to traditional tribal leaders in their homelands. The BAA defined “Black areas”, “chiefs”, “tribal authorities” and established their powers, functions, duties and jurisdictions. The BAA created the legal basis for self-determination of the various ethnic and linguistic tribes into traditional homeland reserve areas and established tribal, regional and territorial authorities. The Bantu Authorities Act, 1951(“Black Authorities Act, 1951”) created the legal basis for the deportation of blacks into designated homeland reserve areas and established tribal, regional and territorial authorities.

The Group Areas Act of 1950 (as re-enacted in the Group Areas Act of 1966), divided South Africa into separate areas for whites and blacks and gave the government the power to forcibly remove people from areas not designated for their particular tribal and racial group. Under this Act, anyone living in the “wrong” area was deported to his/her tribal group homeland. The law also denied Africans the right to own land anywhere in South Africa and stripped them of all political rights. The lives of over 3.5 million people were destroyed by this law as black South Africans were forcibly deported and corralled like cattle in their tribal group bantustans.

The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 (PBSA) (Act No 46) set up 8 (later expanded to 10) distinct “Bantu Homelands” out of the existing reserves, each with a degree of self-government based on a hierarchical system of headmen, chiefs, paramount chiefs, and territorial authorities in the black areas. The governments of the homelands were given limited powers of taxation, control public works,and issue licenses and adjudicate disputes. The central aim of the PBSA was to eventually grant independence to the homelands, expatriate them from South African citizenship and provide the white minority population virtual majority power. The Bantu Homelands Constitution Act, 1971 authorized the white minority regime to grant independence to any “Homeland” as determined by the South African apartheid government. The aim of the Act was clear: “It is the firm and irrevocable intention of the government to lead each nation to self-government and independence.” In other words, the “Homelands” act was designed to ultimately convert traditional tribal lands into “fully fledged independent states Bantustans” with the power of self-determination. In accordance with this Act, “independence” was eventually granted to Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei between 1976 and 1981.

The virulent white supremacist South African prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd in the early 1960s used the PRA to institutionalize a policy known as “separate development.” Apartheid was intended to be the policy road map by which the “Bantu Homelands” were to become a nation with their own homeland, or bantustan. The minority white regime had other political objectives in implementing its strategy of bantustanizing the majority black population. First, they calculated that by dividing the majority black Africans into smaller discrete populations they could divide and rule them. Second, they believed they could eliminate any practical possibility of black South African unity if they could succeed in creating a bantustanized ethnic identity in which black South Africans feel estranged against each other.

As a result of bantustanization, the minority white regime “reserved” some 14 percent of the land as homelands (bantustans) for black South Africans while keeping all of the fertile, mineral and urban areas for the whites. Nearly 90 percent of South Africa’s commercial farmland was in the hands of 50,000 white farmers or state. Politically, bantustanization would allow black South Africans homeland rights and freedoms, but outside their designated areas they were to be treated as outsiders. Black South Africans could be denied equality within South Africa proper if they were citizens of their own ethnically defined states rather than the Republic of South Africa.

South Africa’s racial/ethnic apartheid system was based on the white minority regime’s determination to control the land and through control of the land control the identity, citizenship, residence, political, social and economic rights of the majority black population. The identity of South Africans was determined principally by their relationship to the land. The minority whites owned all of the productive land and black South Africans virtually none.

The land and “legal” basis of T-TPLF’s ethnic apartheid system

The extraordinary act of genius by the T-TPLF is the creation of an ethnic apartheid system in its 1995 constitution by incorporating the essence of all of the apartheid laws and policies the white minority South African regime enacted over decades.

In the 1995 T-TPLF constitution, the drafters melded together land and ethnicity to create kililistans which replicate the essential political, social, economic and cultural dynamics of South Africa’s bantustans. In its Preamble, the T-TPLF constitution declares, “We, the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia: Strongly committed, in full and free exercise of our right to self-determination…” In Article 8 (1), the T-TPLF constitution provides, “All sovereign power resides in the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia.” In Article 39, the T-TPLF constitution guarantees, “Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.” Art. 47(2) “Nations, Nationalities and Peoples within the States enumerated in sub-Article 1 of this article have the right to establish, at any time, their own States.” Interestingly, the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act 110 of 1983 makes a similar declaration that it aims “To respect, to further and to protect the self-determination of population groups and peoples.”

Like South Africa’s Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 which created 8 (later expanded to 10) bantustans (black homelands), the T-TPLF’s constitution in Article 46 (2) creates kililistans (“kilils”) “delimited on the basis of the settlement patterns, language, identity, and consent of the peoples concerned.” Art. 47 created 9 “states” (kililistans) defined by “settlement patterns, language, identity”.

Like South Africa’s apartheid constitution and laws which gave to the apartheid state and minority white population total control over the land, the T-TPLF constitution in Article 40 (3) ensures that ownership of all land is in the T-TPLF state and T-TPLF cronies, supporters and compradors in the kililistans: “The right to ownership of rural and urban land, as well as of all natural resources, is exclusively vested in the State and in the peoples of Ethiopia. Land is a common property of the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia and shall not be subject to sale or to other means of exchange.” Yet, the T-TPLF has been handing over hundreds of thousands of hectares of the most fertile land in the kililistans to shady fly-by-night “investors”. The Indian investor Karuturi a couple of months ago dared the T-TPLF to touch his “land-grabbed” territory the size of Wales in Gambella in Western Ethiopia and threatened to bring down the power of India on the TPLF thugs. Talk about chutzpah!

The kililistanization of Ethiopia has enabled the T-TPLF regime and its cronies to become the political and economic masters of the majority Ethiopian population. The T-TPLF has been able to do in 25 years what the white minority apartheid regime took decades to accomplish. The T-TPLF has corralled the population of Ethiopia in to an open air prison with the T-TPLF jail keepers ruling and micromanaging the politics and economy of the country right down to the hamlets in the kililistans.

As I have often argued, the late Meles Zenawi, the chief architect of ethnic kililistans” like the virulent South African white supremacist Hendrik Verwoerd in the early 1960s, was driven by a “vision” of ethnic division in Ethiopia. For nearly two decades, Meles toiled ceaselessly to shred the very fabric of Ethiopian society, and sculpt a landscape balkanized into tribal, ethnic, linguistic and regional enclaves.” Meles crafted a constitution based entirely on ethnicity and tribal affiliation as the basis for political organization.

In much the same way the white minority apartheid regime physically moved black South Africans from one native area to another, the T-TPLF has taken from the same playbook and forcefully evicted members of the “Amhara” ethnic group from Benishangul-Gumuz (one of the nine kililistans) in a criminal act of de facto ethnic cleansing. The late Meles Zenawi justified the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of Amharas from Southern Ethiopia stating, “… By coincidence of history, over the past ten years numerous people — some 30,000 sefaris (squatters) from North Gojam – have settled in Benji Maji (BM) zone [in Southern Ethiopia]. In Gura Ferda, there are some 24,000 sefaris.” Through “villagization” programs, indigenous populations have been forced of their ancestral lands in Gambella, Benishangul and the Oromo River Valley and their land auctioned off to voracious multinational agribusinesses.

The perils and untenability of T-TPLF’s kililistans have been documented in a landmark study by International Crises Group (ICG). In “Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Its Discontents”, the ICG warned of the problems engendered by “ethnic federalism” (kililistans) in “redefine[ing] citizenship, politics and identity on ethnic grounds.” The study argues that “ethnic federalism” has resulted in “an asymmetrical federation that combines populous regional states like Oromiya and Amhara in the central highlands with sparsely populated and underdeveloped ones like Gambella and Somali.” Moreover, “ethnic federalism” has created “weak regional states”, “empowered some groups” and failed to resolve the “national question”. Aggravating the underlying situation has been the Meles dictatorship’s failure to promote “dialogue and reconciliation” among groups in Ethiopian society, further fueling “growing discontent with the EPRDF’s ethnically defined state and rigid grip on power and fears of continued inter-ethnic conflict.”

The ICG report makes it clear that in the long term “ethnic federalism” could trigger an implosion and disintegration of the Ethiopian nation. The late T-TPLF messiah Meles Zenawi once boasted that when he took power Ethiopia “was teetering on the edges, the country was on the brink of total disintegration.” He argued that “Every analyst worth his salt was suggesting that Ethiopia will go the way of Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. Since then, Ethiopia has not gone the way of Yugoslavia, Somalia, Congo or even the way of Eritrea.”

Meles, the little messiah, always overrated himself. He liked to trot out all sorts of boogeymen to scare the population into submission. The truth of the matter is that ethnic balkanization, fragmentation, segregation and polarization are the tools of trade used by the Meles regime to cling to power while lining their pockets. In a genuine federalism, the national government is the creature of the subnational governments. In Ethiopia, the “kilil” (regional) “governments” are creatures and handmaidens of the T-TPLF. In a genuine federalism, the national government is entrusted with limited and enumerated powers for the purpose of effectuating the common purposes of the subnational “governments”. In Ethiopia, the powers of the T-TPLF are vast and unlimited; and there are no barriers to its usurpatory powers in the kililistans which it exercises at will. In the T-TPLF kililistan system, there are no safeguards against encroachment on the rights and liberties of the people by the T-TPLF or T-TPLF comprador kililistan “governments”. Simply stated, the T-TPLF’s policy of kililistanization has become a recipe for T-TPLF tyranny (T-TPLF-T). Kililism has become the creed for secessionists in the name of self-determination.

The similarities between the minority white apartheid regime and the T-TPLF ethnic apartheid regime are too numerous to list. The T-TPLF exercises complete monopoly over political power, representation and decision-making in much the same way as the white minority apartheid National Party. The T-TPLF has sought to portray any critic of its kililistan policy as “Amhara” nationalists (so-called neftegna, soldier-settlers) from a bygone era whose aim is to reestablish Amhara hegemony over other ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The T-TPLF has sought to characterize other opponents as extremists and terrorists bent on creating civil war Rwanda-style interahamwe. The minority white apartheid regime called its opponents “communist terrorists”.

The T-TPLF functions in the same way as the apartheid minority white South African regime. The T-TPLF state within the state makes all of the critical decisions. When Meles was alive the state within the state included Meles’ trusted buddies from the bush and yes-men who fed at at the cash trough he built since taking power. Like the apartheid minority white South African regime, the T-TPLF allows independent decision-making in the kililsitans but in reality all decisions are centralized and predetermined in the T-TPLF state within the state. T-TPLF security and intelligence officers operate like a state within a state in the kililistans just like in South Africa’s bantustans.

Like the bantustans under the apartheid minority white South African regime, the T-TPLF uses patronage and public resources to control the kililistans who are so dependent on the T-TPLF for land and resources that they are incapable of challenging the T-TPLF. The T-TPLF security apparatus completely overwhelms local authorities in the kililistans. In fact, in areas considered politically unstable T-TPLF security and military operatives function independent of kililistan authorities just as was the case in the bantustans in apartheid South Africa. TPLF officers operate the security and military operations in the kililistans. Any official who does not tow the T-TPLF line in the kililistans is kicked out of power and often charged with corruption.

Like the the apartheid minority white South African regime in the bantustans, the T-TPLF in the kililistans uses a variety of strategies to maintain control. It uses the party structure in the make believe “EPRDF” party to manipulate, rubberstamp and implement its policies. Because the kililistans are dependent on the T-TPLF for budgetary and other support, the T-TPLF uses its “power of the purse” to keep them in line and tow the T-TPLF line.

Like their apartheid counterparts, the T-TPLF assumes the ethno-linguistic groups it created are monolithic and homogeneous. They were neither homogenous nor clearly “delimited on the basis of simplistic settlement patterns, language, identity.” The people of Ethiopia are of mixed parenthood, culture and identity. The whole fiction of “nations, nationalities and peoples” may be appealing to Stalinist T-TPLFers but it simply did not reflect the reality of historic ethnic heterogeneity and diversity. The T-TPLF’s conception of ethnicity is simply inconsistent with the historical reality.

A few weeks ago, Prince Mengesha Seyoum, Governor of Tigray until the monarchy was abolished in 1974, debunked the T-TPLF’s kililistan arrangement in the north of Ethiopia. Prince Mengesha rejected the T-TPLF’s kililistanization of Wolkait Tsegede in Tigray. In other words, in the Wolkait Tsegede kililistization the T-TPLF calculatedly created a bogus homeland which failed to meet its own constitutionally declared criteria of “settlement patterns, language, identity, and consent of the peoples concerned”.

The kililistanization of Ethiopia is a diabolical plan by the T-TPLF to divide Ethiopians along ethnic lines for the sole purpose of facilitating T-TPLF rule in Ethiopia and prolonging T-TPLF’s tenure in power. Prof. Ted Vestal, the distinguished Ethiopianist, in his article, “Human Rights Abuses in ‘Democratic’ Ethiopia: Government Sponsored Ethnic Hatred”, perfectly summarized T-TPLF’s kililistan strategy:

Another aspect of the EPRDF’s [the bogus organizational shell used by the TPLF to project an image of pluralism] strategy is to establish a governing system of ethnic federalism emphasizing rights of ‘nations, nationalities, and peoples.’ This high-sounding principle, cribbed from Lenin, is more Machiavellian than Wilsonian however. If the outnumbered Tigrayans who direct the EPRDF/FDRE can keep other ethnic groups divided and roiled against each other in ethno-xenophobias or content to manage affairs in their own limited bailiwicks, then larger matters can be subsumed by the one governing party. Thus, what the EPRDF views as the false ideology of nationalism for a ‘Greater Ethiopia’ can be kept in check and its proponents divided and conquered.

Ethiopia’s Cheetah Generation: “Ethiopia is in your hands.”

Gerry Spence, one of America’s great trial lawyers once delivered a closing statement in a criminal case which captures my innermost feelings about what Ethiopia’s youth can and must do for themselves and their country. Spence argued:

Ladies and gentlemen I am about to leave you, but before I leave you I’d like to tell you a story about a wise old man and a smart-alec boy. The smart-alec boy had a plan, he wanted to show up the wise old man, to make a fool of him. The smartalec boy had caught a bird in the forest. He had him in his hands. The little bird’s tail was sticking out. The bird is alive in his hands. The plan was this: He would go up to the old man and he would say, “Old man, what do I have in my hands?” The old man would say, “You have a bird, my son.” Then the boy would say, “Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?” If the old man said that the bird was dead, he would open up his hands and the bird would fly off free, off into the trees, alive, happy. But if the old man said the bird was alive, he would crush it and crush it in his hands and say, “See, old man, the bird is dead.” So, he walked up to the old man and said, “Old man, what do I have in my hands?” The old man said, “You have a bird, my son.” He said, “Old man, is the bird alive or is it dead?” And the old man said, “The bird is in your hands, my son.”

I say to Ethiopia’s youth, Ethiopia is in your hands. Only you know if she is alive or dead or if she will be alive or dead. Only you can ensure she lives forever!

TO BE CONTINUED…

The post The Bantustanization (Kililistanization) of Ethiopia | by Alemayehu G Mariam appeared first on Satenaw.

The following text of the speech was presented at Vision Ethiopia Conference on March 27, 2016. Because of time limitations, some paragraphs may not have been presented. I attended the conference as an academic only representing myself, and not as a member of a political party or any other group. As a result, the views expressed are mine alone. No financial support was requested or received from any individual or group, and my assignment was to respond to the following questions:

Quo Vadis? Where Do We Go From Here? Who Should Do What to Guarantee Democracy, Transition, and Unity in Post Conflict Ethiopia?

1. Background

1. Where We Have Been

There is no need to dwell too long on this part of my presentations, as all of you know so well where we have been over the past many decades. Suffice it to state that part of the failures in our past have to do with the excessive need to maintain and exercise power by the Atse Haile Selassie regime as well as by the Derg. In both cases, we have witnessed that they stayed in power too long; refused to listen to the citizenry; and never prepared the country for a peaceful transition of power in any meaningful manner. The result has been very familiar: assume power by force; get chased out of office by force.  The price the nation has had to pay for this state of affairs or dysfunction has been enormous. We have lost too many and too much both in lives and treasury; we have lost enormously in opportunity cost; and for all intents and purposes, the nation is still backward: we still can’t feed ourselves; and we have taught the young an incredibly bad lesson: that disordered force is the norm in Ethiopia. In my opinion, this is a truly sad state of affairs. On this, I am certain that there is general agreement on all sides.

1. B) Where We Are Now

As I leave where we have been and transition to where we are now, I am afraid that I don’t have too many things that are encouraging either.  Talking about where we are now requires one to take a sort of a survey – kind of a meta-study of the events and then conditions in which we find our country today. Let me first state that when we talk about the conditions in our homeland, we are not waging a vendetta or a personal campaign against anyone; rather it is simply an examination of the unflattering facts.

Though you are all students of Ethiopian affairs, let me try to summarize the situation in the following manner. This summary is based on the review of the literature of important studies; a thorough reading of the opinions and positions of people in academics, the professions, and most of all, of people in government; and a personal assessment of events and conditions on the ground in Ethiopia.

The African Development Bank, in a report on economic outlook in Ethiopia, recently stated that, “Ethnic Federalism has heightened and transformed historical territorial conflicts into contemporary inter-regional boundary conflicts. Inter-clan conflicts have begun to inform perceived or real disenfranchisement and inequitable distributions of economic and/or political benefits. Radicalism has also underlain sporadic religious clashes.”

Where we are today, can charitably be described as, what Thomas Hobbes referred to as “the chaos of competing enemies”. This chaos of the competing enemies afflicting the country is a classic strategy manufactured to sow conflict.  When resources are short (the resource here could also be power), people divide, scapegoating one another. What ensues is the turning of one region against another; one culture against another; older people against younger ones; one political party against the others; leaders against members; and one idea against another. Hobbes called this the pre-social pre-political world. For the ruling party, chaos has become power, and an opportunity to remake the world in their preferred configuration.

The ethnic stratification we witness in Ethiopia today, is the result of several factors: the introduction and implementation of the Killil system (a hammer blow to Ethiopian unity) the appearance or perceived appearance of ethnocentrism; the competition along ethnic lines for some common goal, such as power or influence, or a material interest, such as wealth or territory; and the emergence of deferential power. (See Donald Noel).  To make matters worse, there is evidence that the competition is driven by self-interest and hostility, and would result in inevitable further stratification and conflict. (See Lawrence Bobo & Vincent Hutchings).  These conditions, interwoven with what I will call the policy of ambitious domination, have the potential to produce ethno-national conflict.

1. Where We Have Consensus

Asserting that we have a general agreement on some things is a dangerous proposition among any group much less among Ethiopians who are very passionate about politics, and even more passionate about their country. Over the past quarter of century, we have debated as well as grieved. People are sad about what has happened in Ethiopia, and they have talked and written about all kinds of topics. I have to admit that this ‘grieving’ process continues even today.

I can safely state, however, that there is an amicable consensus on a number of fronts among the commenting class, and those who are engaged with the issue. The debates we have had over the past 25 years—and they were intensive debates–have rendered some arguments moot, and yielded consensus on others. What are the areas in which we have general consensus?

There is general consensus that we wish to see a Democratic Ethiopia. We have experimented enough with other forms of government, and that the future for Ethiopia must clearly, unambiguously and unalterably be Democratic.  An Ethiopia in which democratic institutions thrive; an Ethiopia whose leaders have an unflinching commitment to democratic values; and a country whose leaders have purged themselves of all forms of non-democratic impulses. Of this much, we agree.

There is consensus that we wish to see a united Ethiopia. By this we also mean one country, one people, with differentiated cultures but a common root. Diversity with a common root!

There is consensus that we wish to have an Ethiopia whose sovereignty is not questioned (not left to interpretations): not questioned by outsiders; and certainly not questioned by its children.

There is consensus that we wish to have an Ethiopia whose integrity is not violated. By this, we mean that the assurance of sovereignty is necessary but not sufficient: it must also be respected.

There is consensus that we wish to see a developed Ethiopia. What we wish to have is an Ethiopia that is socially, economically, technologically and scientifically developed.

There is no consensus on the issue of how to deal with the ruling party—the TPLF/EPRDF. I hold the very controversial view that when it comes to engaging the government; we might do better to focus on replacing, reforming, influencing and/or humanizing the TPLF/EPRDF rather than its complete eradication as some would wish to have it. The realistic choice that I think we face isn’t really a choice between an Ethiopia without TPLF/EPRDF and an Ethiopia with only TPLF/EPRDF. The realistic choice we face is between an Ethiopia where Democratic values, buttressed with democratic institutions, are supreme; where human rights are respected and upheld; and where the development process is all-inclusive versus an Ethiopia where these are lacking. Given that choice, the former sounds more appealing to me regardless of who rules the country. This, I believe, is an expansionist (as opposed to a reductionist) view that is not only proper, but also consistent with the principles of inclusion as well as that of true democracy.

Furthermore, I hold the view that the more serious and long-term threats to Ethiopia are not the TPLF/EPRDF or nationalist forces by themselves. Rather it is the coalescing threat on the horizon, that which might emerge from the Arab World. The petro dollar enabled alliance between Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti is likely to become an existential threat, with religion as the driving force, but the desire to weaken Ethiopia as the primary thrust.

III. What is Lacking Or What Must Be Done?

For a variety of reasons, Ethiopians have lacked unity in their responses to the ruling party’s policy of ambitious domination. This has been true of all segments of society. We espouse too many divisions; too many plans; too many groups; too much duplication of effort; and too many personal agendas. It seems to be natural to us, that in an instant, we fall back on an almost tribal urge to defend our side. And as you know, sometimes, one choice precludes another. As a consequence, we are ineffective in our efforts even if we were to come together temporarily.  It seems to me that what it is called for here is the Latin imploration  ‘in things important, unity’. Remember our own adage ‘Dirr Biabir, Anbesa Yasir’. Yet, it seems that when it comes to meaningful action, the adage gets thrown out the window. There are economic and non-economic explanations for that state of affairs.  But regardless of the explanations, what is undeniably true is that we remain intangible to those in power if we are not united. We remain intangible to those that might wish to assist us if we are not united; and we remain intangible to those that wish to dominate us if we are not united. The first duty we should have to each other on the matter of the motherland is unity! Unity based on ‘citizenship’ or some other super-ordinate goal.

The second thing we must have is reconciliation. One might ask, who is to be reconciled and with whom? Well, there is plenty of reconciliation that must take place before we unite for a purpose. To be sure, reconciliation is not just about receiving or just about corrective action. It is about the future. It is a means of addressing how we are going to live together; it is a means of taking constructive action; it is a means of sorting through choices; and it is a means through which we take responsibility for past mistakes, and pledge to never ever repeat the offense again.

As such, we should have true and genuine reconciliation between political parties. This requires that the transgressions, real or imagined, of the past must be buried for good, and new efforts must be made to start anew. And I am happy to report that there are groups gearing up and ready to assist with this.

We need reconciliation between the governed and the governing. This is so because the ruling party has so much to explain.

Reconciliation between the government and the opposition parties is also critical if the country is to deploy all available talent to overcome the multitude of challenges.

Reconciliation between Ethiopians and their history is another must. Though this requires time as well as patience, there is a general feeling that many in Ethiopia and some outside of it are revising the country’s history to fit current needs. It may be possible to embellish history, but unnatural to edit it without molesting the truth. As a consequence, our historians have their work cut out for them in this regard.

We also need reconciliation on the issue of ‘ethnic federalism’. There are essentially two recognized methods of dealing with this important issue.

The first method is for the government not to acknowledge ethnic, national or social identities but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. (See Jurgen Habermas & Bruce Barry).

It appears to me that this might be unworkable at the moment.  For one thing, the current generation and the one just before it primarily see themselves as belonging to an ethnic group first, and the prominence of ‘citizenship’ is not as strong as we might wish to see it. I have to concede here that while I can only judge my contemporaries, I can only make educated guesses about those before or after me.

Second, ethnic groups in general, and ethnic cultures in Ethiopia in particular, have moved up and down the ethnic ‘diacritic’ overtime. And which ‘diacritic’ of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. (See Ronald Cohen & Joan Vincent). Furthermore, ethnicity emerges when it is relevant as a means of furthering emergent collective interests and changes according to political changes in the society. (See Barth & Seidner for more on this). Unless the political system changes, people will cling to what appears to them to be safe, comfortable, or even expected.

The second method is for the government to recognize ethnic identities and develop a process through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries and/or sovereignty of the country. ( See Charles Taylor & Will Kymlicka). The Ethiopian government attempted to do the later but with provisions that have had disastrous consequences. These two points of view must be reconciled, and, I believe it is possible to do so.

The third thing that must be done is to provide a unified response to the three questions of: Land Ownership; Religion; and Ethnic Federalism.

Before the TPLF ascended to power and thereafter, it identified these three factors as wounds of the Ethiopian polity, and decided to turn them into weapons. Initially, the three issues resonated with the general population that had already been emotionally decimated by the Derg. While there will be disagreements on the efficacy, policy wise, of the particular factor, it is safe to say that the ruling party has used these three factors as a wedge issue between and among the populous. It is also safe to state that the initial euphoria generated among the population may have started to ebb as the public began to weigh and assess the benefits and costs associated with the particular issue. I am going out on a limb and suggest that the Ethiopian people have not embraced the ‘ethnic’ issue in a way that could make the ruling party claim success. In fact the opposite might just be true as Ethiopians began to view the ‘ethnicity’ issues as very divisive and threatening national unity and security.  Indeed, an honest and correct assessment of the issue, notwithstanding what the high priests of ‘ethnic federation’ might think, would lead us to conclude that the ‘ethnic cleansing’ that took place in parts of the country had repulsed Ethiopians and offended their senses.

In all cases, however, there have not yet been clearly articulated positions or alternatives provided by either opposition political parties or academe to the vexing issues of land ownership (as you know, ownership is the prerogative to control); the role of religion, if any; and viable alternatives to ethnic federalism acceptable to all.

The fourth thing that must be done is an identification of a new form of ambition. Simply stated, we need to formulate a new agenda, if you will. The ruling party had promised Ethiopians the freedom from hunger. That concept has sold well overseas where outsiders, having tired of watching little hungry kids on their television sets, had given the government the benefit of doubt. Now that we know the result of that promise, I will refrain from restating it here again. But I think that Ethiopians—both inside and outside of the country—wish to articulate a new form of freedom: the freedom not to have to consider ethnicity in their daily lives. Simply stated, we need to have a new ambition. Because all ambitions require forward thrust, perhaps, this will provide the forward momentum that we desperately lacked.

Finally, we must establish a post-conflict organization to instigate economic, political, social, technological as well as scientific reform, and to make sure that the gains achieved are maintained and advanced; to advance a genuine inclusion agenda that incorporates actors from all stakeholders, and assure that there is no backsliding; and to sustain a conflict containment agenda that is proactive to make sure that the economic costs of violence are contained and managed.

1. How Would We Accomplish These?

In two recent articles, I have argued that we must have conversation. The conversation we are going to have should be about the solutions to the problems the country faces, and would include conversations about politics, power, authoritarianism and hegemony. If we agree that it is time for solutions, we must also agree that such solutions must be based on a transparent and realistic account of what caused the problems in the first place. Here, I don’t mean to overburden our conversations with a chronology of what took place and when because that won’t help explain it. What we need to do is examine the motivation for the actions taken, and on what basis those actions were taken. In trying to do so, all sides must understand that while the regime in Ethiopia faces considerable opposition, it also enjoys internal support. Most importantly, the government also has powerful allies, notably the U.S and the U.K. just to mention two.

Having framed the issue in this manner, a message has to be framed and delivered, and that message has to be effective.  For a message to be effective, first, it must come from a unified group—a united opposition (just remember that no one in their right mind would wish to bargain with an intangible entity that can not deliver); and second, it must reach and influence those in control—whether they are elected officials, dictators, regulators, or private actors. That means, therefore, the communication would ultimately have to be with the ruling party. This is crucial. Take for instance women’s issues: to bring about change regarding women’s issues, it is not enough to talk to women alone. The conversation has to include men as well. Similarly, if we wish to bring about change in power and hegemony, the conversation would have to be with those that wield it. Peaceful change will only take place in Ethiopia with the positive involvement of the ruling party.

So what will we be the modality of the conversation with the ruling party? The Constitution, of course. I have written before that if there is ever anything we ought to talk about, it is the constitution. Why the constitution? Because, like it or not, accept it or not, the current government of Ethiopia is a ‘lawful’ regime and not an ‘unlawful’ one. It may be unlawful in many of its governing practices, but is recognized as a lawful regime by every country in the world. Hence, the focus on the constitution. It should be the center of our effort, the focus of our energies, and the roadmap to any peaceful change that is likely to bring about solutions to the problems Ethiopia faces to day. I have never advocated throwing away the current constitution in its entirety. I hold the opinion that the current constitution is one of the most liberally worded constitutions out there—it even allows for ethnic groups to cede from the motherland! How more liberal can you get? But like everything else, the devil is in the details. While there are elements of the document that might be useful to retain, there are also elements of the document that could produce disastrous consequences, and are damaging to the country.

Although not directly echoing my call for a constitutional reform, even the Chair of the Constitutional Assembly, Negaso Gidada, has given recent testimony that the drafting, approval and implementation of the constitution was fraught with many errors and problems, and expressed regret at the end product. Of the stunning admissions is his regret that the people of Ethiopia had no say in the final document. (See Teshome Abebe; & Negaso Gidada Interview).

1. Concluding Remarks

Let me summarize these comments as follows: Our country is distressed, and it needs our attention. Each person has an opportunity to contribute their talents and unleash some of their potential (ሀብት ያለው በሀብቱ፣ ጉልበት ያለው በጉልበቱ፣ እወቅት ያለው በእውቀቱ).

The ruling party borrowed strength from the position it held; and from the emotions created by using ethnicity, the issue of land ownership and religion as weapons. We now know the consequences of this ploy. But like all borrowed assets, borrowed strength eventually diminishes as one loses influence with those that they wish to impress, and the strength turns into weakness. It is at this juncture that we must ask, “what does the situation demand? What strength, what skill, what knowledge, and what attitude?”

To me, the situation demands that there must be unity: unity in goals, unity in purpose, unity in effort, and unity in principles.

The situation demands the strength of empathy: empathy to seek to understand, and then to be understood.

The situation demands the skills to build relationships and build them with consistency and sincerity, based on national imperatives and not personal agendas.

The situation further demands the knowledge to be able to teach, to explain, to organize and to execute.

And finally, the situation demands an attitude of reconciliation, inclusiveness, democratic values, and of a new ambition to a new kind of freedom for Ethiopians: the freedom not to have to consider ethnicity in their daily lives!

Thank you

The post Ethiopia: Where do we go from here? – By Teshome Abebe (PhD) appeared first on Satenaw.

by Belén Fernández

“This government is at least better than previous ones,” remarked a 74-year-old Eritrean man to me last month in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, his longtime residence. Clad in a tattered grey suit and speaking to me in Italian, the man was peddling a book of useful Amharic phrases he had compiled for the foreign visitor, proceeds of which would go toward the purchase of a second-hand comforter for his bed.

As it turned out, his assessment of the relative superiority of the current Ethiopian administration was for good reason: two of his children had been killed by a previous ruling outfit, the Derg military junta that took power in 1974 and began eliminating suspected opponents in droves.

Although that particularly bloody epoch came to an end in 1991, many a resident of Ethiopia might nowadays still have cause to complain about homicidal activity by the state. In the Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa, for example, there are claims that more than 200 people have been killed by Ethiopian security forces since November 2015, when protests broke out in response to the government’s so-called “Master Plan” to expand the boundaries of the capital by a factor of 20.

As a Newsweek article explains, the Oromo inhabitants of the region viewed the plan as “an attempted land grab that could result in the forced eviction of Oromo farmers and the loss of valuable arable land in a country regularly plagued by drought.”

This was no doubt a valid concern given the government’s established tradition of wantonly displacing Ethiopians in the interest of “development”—that handy euphemism for removing human obstacles to the whims of international and domestic investment capital.

Comprising some 35 percent of the population, the Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and have regularly decried discrimination by the ruling coalition party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which is dominated by ethnic Tigrayan interests. Politically motivated detention, incarceration, and other abuses have long characterized the landscape in Oromia, and the current protests have seen children as young as eight arrested.

Apparently, torture has also been a difficult habit for security forces to break.

And while the government has opted to shelve the Master Plan for now, protests in Oromia have continued. When I recently visited the town of Woliso, one of many protest sites in the region, residents pointed out that cancelling the plan wouldn’t bring back the dead people.

Events in Oromia have been described as the worst civil unrest in a decade. The United States, never too quick to condemn the excesses of its African ally, helpfully responded by emitting a “security message” for U.S. citizens and restricting the movements in Oromia of its government personnel; the British government, for its part, provided a color-coded map of Ethiopia on which a vast chunk of land around Woliso is designated inadvisable for “all but essential travel.”

Even without the Master Plan, meanwhile, the government is doing a decent job of courting investors. As I traveled west from Addis Ababa toward Woliso — a journey of about two hours — I passed sprawling factory complexes, including one featuring a Turkish flag flying alongside its more indigenous counterparts.

A January report by the Ethiopian News Agency outlines the government’s goal of luring Turkish and other investors to “priority areas” as part of an overall scheme to convert the economy from agriculture- to industry-based. Noting that “about 110 Turkish investment projects have become operational” and that “incentives from the government includ[e] electricity and cheap labor,” the report highlights the exploits of the Ayka Addis textile factory 20 kilometers west of the Ethiopian capital, in the Oromia region.

Launched in 2010 with a price tag of US$140 million, the Turkish factory is said to occupy several hundred thousand square meters of land.

The website of the Ethiopian Investment Commission furthermore lists Ayka Addis as one of “a number of private Industrial Zones” in Ethiopia, described as “success stories.” The site, which advertises thousands of hectares worth of “investment opportunities” in the country, cites perks including exemptions from customs duties for machinery and other equipment as well as certain exemptions from income taxes.

Indeed, the EPRDF can point to double-digit economic growth over recent years to justify plowing ahead with its development model. But there’s more to life than GDP — as sizable poverty-stricken sectors of the Ethiopian population can presumably confirm.

If we want to consider other, less superficial digits, we might take a look at the estimated 10.2 million Ethiopians currently “in need of urgent food assistance”— as reported, perhaps ironically, in a March edition of the English-language Ethiopian newspaper Capital, “the paper that promotes free enterprise.”

Additional troublesome statistics are contained in a 2014 BBC dispatch titled “The village where half the people are at risk of blindness.” The village in question is Kuyu, located in the Oromia region; the risk is due to infectious trachoma, “the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness.”

At the time of the article’s publication, 200,000 people were reportedly in danger of trachoma-induced blindness in Oromia alone. Quoted in the piece is one Simon Bush of the Sightsavers organization, who remarks that trachoma is “a disease of poverty” that is “endemic in areas which have poor access to water and sanitation.”

All of this is merely to point out that, in the end, a lot of people in Oromia and beyond might have greater priorities than, say, income tax immunity for international developers. Because it doesn’t take a functioning eyeball to see that such development models are themselves in need of some serious development.

Belén Fernández is the author of “The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work,” published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine.

Source: telesurtv

The post Events in Oromia have been described as the worst civil unrest in a decade appeared first on Satenaw.

Alemeneh Wase News: 9000 Ethiopian immigrants to be brought to Israel over 5 years time

The post Alemeneh Wase News: 9000 Ethiopian immigrants to be brought to Israel over 5 years time appeared first on Satenaw.

By Degeufe Hailu

“Nations cannot realise the full promise of independence until they fully protect the rights of their people,” Barrack Obama, president of the United States, said on tour to Kenya and Ethiopia last year. This is ironic, because on that trip he failed to criticise human rights abuses by the Ethiopian government, which he hailed as “democratically elected”.

Ethiopians are very familiar with the government’s attempts to oppress any opposition. The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) government took power in 1991. All opponents are persecuted as terrorist collaborators.

Today, Ethiopia stands as a nation in contempt of human rights. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ethiopia has the second highest number of journalists forced into exile between 2010 and 2015 after Syria.

Evidence of the denial of freedom of expression includes the arrest and incarceration of Zone 9 bloggers in 2014. Their name is a reference to the eight divisions of the infamous Kaliti Prison — suggesting that Ethiopia as whole is effectively the jail’s ninth division. The arrest of the bloggers for publication of news and opinion pieces that were critical of the government and its repressive entourage exposed the country’s non-existent due process.

Last June, Andargachew Tsige, the secretary-general of Ginbot 7, a group banned for allegedly advocating the armed overthrow of the Ethiopian government, was deported to Ethiopia from Yemen while in transit to Eritrea. This transfer violated international law prohibiting sending someone to a country where they are likely to face torture.

Tsige has been detained without access to family members, legal counsel or consular representation, which he is entitled to as a British citizen. His detention location, to date, is unknown.

Terrorising those who publically criticise the government’s endeavours, however, is not limited to media outlets. In April 2015, peaceful protests in Oromia over the government’s planned expansion of the Addis Ababa municipal boundary were met with excessive force, including shootings. Many protesters perished, while others continue to be detained without charge.

Protest against displacement from land and family is not new to Ethiopia.

Under the “villagisation program” 1.5 million rural people have been relocated under the guise of improving their access to basic services. One example of this forced displacement is in the Gambella region, for which relocation was accompanied by insufficient compensation and consultations, and violence including beatings and arbitrary arrests. This was just in the first-year of the “villagisation program”.

In subsequent years, 200,000 indigenous persons from 240,000 hectares of land in the lower Omo Valley were displaced without compensation or consultation, due to the government’s development of sugar plantations. The clearance of land, sold to foreign interests, year-in year-out has lined the pockets of the government, without regard for the region, or the Ethiopian people in general.

Inherent in this inculcating of terror, is the need to maintain the status quo. This is evident in the landslide victory in June 2015 of the ruling party and its insipid allies. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a rebrand of the TPLF, overwhelmingly ejected the only opposition parliamentarian from office.

“This result was completely expected, there is no multi-party system in Ethiopia. It’s just fake,” said Taye Negussie, a sociology professor at Addis Ababa University.

President Obama’s visit to Kenya and Ethiopia was to whitewash a continent.

US collaboration with the TPLF, a party that has expelled all opposition and is dedicated to a reign of pure terror, has a long history — Obama and three of his predecessors have visited.

The people in the Horn of Africa can live in harmony and in peace, and flourish through the development of a stable region, without the need for foreign interference.

The mission to oust the oppressive regime in Ethiopia, is aimed to stop a culture of fear and suspicion, especially if we want to enter into a serious problem-solving dialogue.

We need to be united participants of the political process and not the subjects of a repressive and terrorising government, to address our problems genuinely and solve them definitively.

The post Ethiopian regime has a 25-years-long bloody legacy appeared first on Satenaw.

LADUE, Mo. (KMOV.com) – Three suspects have been charged in what police are calling a multi-state credit card theft scheme.

Kayla Burleson, Fana Kiros, and Haben Sebhatu face felony charges of trafficking in stolen identities and possession of a forgery instrument, police say.
KMOV.comThe three were arrested in the early morning on March 25 after a traffic stop for speeding on I-64 at McKnight Road.

The officer reported smelling marijuana in the car, which led to a search, revealing over 100 credit and debit cards, a laptop computer, and credit card reader/writer device.

According to police, those are telltale signs of what is now becoming a common crime.

“We also found a number of gift cards in there,” said Sergeant Ray Hahs of the Ladue Police Department. “It’s very common to use the stolen credit cards or re-encoded credit cards, and then they’ll buy gift cards and they’ll take the gift cards and buy whatever items they want, so that it’s very difficult to track.”

Police say the suspects came to the St. Louis area from Seattle and made several stops.

“We believe they flew into Chicago, rented a car in Chicago, and then they went through Indianapolis, then came down this way, and went into Arkansas,” said Hahs.

Police say it is unclear whose identities may be on those stolen cards, or how many victims are located in the St. Louis area.

Copyright 2016 KMOV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.

The post Police: Suspects charged in multi-state credit card theft scheme appeared first on Satenaw.

ESAT Special Program Vision Ethiopia & ESAT Conference | Ermias Legesse Speach Video

The post Video: Vision Ethiopia & ESAT Conference -Ermias Legesse Speach appeared first on Satenaw.

ESAT Radio Fri 08 Apr 2016

The post ESAT Radio Fri 08 Apr 2016 appeared first on Satenaw.

Nothing seemed amiss when an Ethiopian government vehicle arrived to collect the traditional leader of the Konso people for a meeting in March. But instead of being taken to discuss his community’s requests for more autonomy, Kala Gezahegn was arrested.

Kala’s detention marked a low point in fraught relations between the Konso in southern Ethiopia and the regional authorities in the state capital, Hawassa. Five years ago, the Konso lost their right to self-govern, and growing tensions since then mirror discontent in other parts of Ethiopia.

The 1995 constitution in Africa’s second most populous country allows different ethnic groups to self-govern and protects their languages and culture under a system called ethnic federalism. The largest ethnicities – such as the approximately 35 million-strong Oromo – have their own regional states, while some smaller groups administer zones within regions, as the Konso effectively used to do.

Many of Ethiopia’s ethnic identities, which number more than 80, were suppressed during the imperial and national-socialist eras that preceded the federal system.

What happened in Konso followed demonstrations and killings by security forces in Oromia, the most populous region. A rights group says 266 people have been killed since mid-November during protests over injustice and marginalisation.

Demonstrations were sparked by a government plan to integrate the development of Addis Ababa and surrounding areas of Oromia. After fierce opposition from the Oromo, that scheme was shelved in January, but protests have continued, fuelled by anger over alleged killings, beatings and arrests.

In Amhara, a large region north of Addis Ababa, there was violence late last year related to the Qemant group’s almost decade-old claim for recognition as a group with constitutional rights. The fact that the Qemant rejected a territorial offer from the authorities, saying it was too small, may have provoked local Amhara people. In December, federal security forces were dispatched to contain escalating communal violence.

In Konso, after Kala and other leaders were locked up, thousands took to the streets to protest. During clashes with police on 13 March, three people were killed, and now the dispute seems entrenched.

The crux of the issue is a 2011 decision to include the Konso – which is in the multi-ethnic Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) and has 250,000 people – in the newly created Segen zone, thereby removing their right to self-rule. That decision was taken without consultation and resulted in worsening public services and unresponsive courts, says Kambiro Aylate, a member of a committee chosen to represent the community’s demands.

The budget for Konso’s government was reduced by 15%, says Orkissa Orno, another committee member. “The Konso people used their rights to ask for a different administrative structure,” he says.

In a recent interview, prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn blamed the unrest in Oromia on high youth unemployment and a “lack of good governance”, a line echoed by officials in other regions.

Kifle Gebremariam, the deputy president of the SNNPR, said the Konso leaders were arrested on suspicion of maladministration and corruption, issues “completely different” from the political question.

Kifle added that discussions had been held with residents about the status of the administration. “The regional government, including the president, gave them the right response, but they are not peacefully accepting this.”

Kala’s supporters dispute that account, although there have been signs of compromise, with the traditional leader permitted to take part in recent negotiations.

Concerns over the federal system’s ability to withstand such strains are not new. For example, southern groups such as the Wolayta were involved in violent clashes before they were granted their own zone in 2000.

In 2009, the International Crisis Group wrote in a report (pdf): “Ethnic federalism has not dampened conflict, but rather increased competition among groups that vie over land and natural resources, as well as administrative boundaries and government budgets.”

Officials have argued for decades that the focus on minority rights has been integral to an unprecedented period of peace and development.

Assefa Fiseha, a federalism expert at Addis Ababa University, agrees the system has brought stability to a country threatened with fragmentation in the early 1990s after ethno-nationalist rebellions overthrew a military regime.

But a lack of democratisation and centralised economic decision-making works against local autonomy and exacerbates grievances, according to Assefa.

“The regional states, as agents of the regional people, have to be consulted on whatever development project the federal government wants to undertake,” he says.

In fact, the government appears to have been moving in the opposite direction, as its legitimacy depends on economic growth and improving social services and infrastructure.

National projects – 175,000 hectares (430,000 acres) of state-owned sugar plantations in the ethnically rich south Omo area, for instance – are designed, implemented and owned by federal agencies.

The now scrapped integrated Oromia-Addis Ababa plan is another example, as it was developed without scrutiny by “key stakeholders” in the Oromia government, Addis Ababa city and the federal parliament, Assefa says.

One reason for quick decisions in a devolved federation is that the political positions of Ethiopia’s diverse communities are filtered through a rigid ruling coalition.

Along with allied parties, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front won every federal and regional legislative seat in May’s elections, extending its control of all tiers of government.

The EPRDF has held power for 25 years, partly by building a popular base of millions of farmers and demanding strict obedience to party doctrine and policy, but some say this is now changing.

The wave of protests, so soon after the landslide election victory, shows that the “dominant party system is facing problems”, Assefa says.

“Growing ethno-nationalism, centralised policymaking and the failure to provide space for political dissent combined together make a perfect storm for violence.”

The post Ethiopia’s clampdown on dissent tests ethnic federal structure appeared first on Satenaw.

Ethiopians were today on 09.04.2016 on the streetof Frankfurt Germany voicing their protest against the 25 years long dictatorial rule of the EPDRF ( Woyane) in front of the Ethiopian Embassy. At the time when more than 10 million Ethiopians are under severe drought and famine crisis, the ruling party cadres are in the middle of Europe (Germany) hosting a meeting to discuss on the very possible way that they could prepare huge fests in the Amahra region in order to celebrate the so called “Diaspora’s Festival in Amahra region”. The fact that the ruling party disciples, supporters and cadres thinking of fest and party at such critical time when millions of Ethiopians’ life hang on a thread in lack of daily bread has triggered the anger of the Ethiopians in Germanyto gather and oppose these cruel actions.  Demonstrates showed their anger on thisSaturday afternoon with unity and oneness. Every one seemed very upset due to the fact the ruling party’s irresponsible actions of spending millions of dollars for unnecessary feasts for exampleto celebratethe Diaspora Day while more than 400,000 children life is on steak because they lack loaf of bread.

BBC has broadcast  on its news coverage on 31. January.2016 that more than 10 million Ethiopians are under severe hunger.(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKqAtJiZUY).In fact these figure is definitely growing in an alarming rate every single day. In addition Aljezera on its news coverage on 25. January.2016 has compared the drought situation in Ethiopia with the political and human crisis in Syria by stating the bitter reality that more than 400,000 children are in need of desperate food aid.(source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ver43qpLTaY)

“Well I am very happy to achieve this goal because it is, it gives us great opportunity and as well as intensives to go forward to achieve even more goals in the next sustainable development agenda. So it is a great achievement and we are so thankful for that.”(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxKIoNes0uo)The above was the direct quote of the present prime minister Haile Marima Dessalegne on the 7^th June 2015 at the FAO(Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United nation) in Rome as he took a prize as an example of a country which is self dependent in terms of food and agriculture. The saddest part is that he has not even waited a year toopenly and officially urged the world to lend its generous hand because he failed to feed the Ethiopians. What a shame! “I think if the international community support, it is good, we will continue with that get the support and move forward. And I urge organization like UNICEF, if they think that this is the worst scenario, they have to come in, just talking is not a solution…”. The primeminster has said once in his life the truth “…just talking is not a solution..” That was and is what the Ethiopians saying. The 25 years dictatorial rule was full of talk and problems but with no correct solution. Coming a long way to the heart of Europe and begging for money to spent itonsuch valuelessceremony(Diaspora Day) will not bring our country from these horror of hunger and drought.  This is why the Ethiopians were on the street of Frankfurt to voice their protest and direct the TPLF people to their sense.

The EPDRF is under huge influences inside  and outside the country. Civil disobedience and protests have been intensified in the Oromiya, Amhara and konso region. On the other hand Ethiopians are putting pressure every time the TPLF representatives or cadres arrange meetings or discussions In Europe or North Americacountries. Although nature has cause the drought and famine, the ethnic centered and dictatorial rule of Woyane has failed to control the problem in its infant stage.  Opposition parties, journalists, Educators, religious leaders and human right activities had been trying to highlight the fact that TPLF’s dictatorial rule would lead the country into severeproblems such as migration, civil disobedience and poverty. However the TPLF’s leaders have intensified theirdictatorship and dragged the country into one of the worst hunger and drought crisis in 50 years.  John Graham, director of save the children Ethiopia, has given the following comment on Aljezera regarding the current drought in Ethiopia “…. Wehave to be very direct now. It is not the time to be nice and diplomatic. Childrens’life are hang in to the balance.”(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3TGWrRbGiU). Ethiopians who live in and abroad are raising their voice saying it is already too late to handle the Woyanes dictatorial leaders and regime in diplomatic way.  As prime minister Haile mariam urged and begged the international community to lend their hands to get Ethiopia out of this famine, he should probably do the same (urging and begging) his party members to hand over the power because his party brought dictatorship,  killings of civilians,corruption and hunger. The game is lost!

By AbenezerAhmed

From Germany

The post Ethiopians voice their protest in Germany- By Abenezer Ahmed appeared first on Satenaw.

Britain is giving more than £1m to train security forces who kidnapped Ethiopia’s ‘Mandela’ as EU envoy to Rwanda admits: ‘I am proud to fund a dictator’

• Britain is giving over a million pounds to train Ethiopia’s security forces
• Country’s regime abducted a Briton and holds him under sentence of death
• Foreign Office is spending £500,000 on a master’s programme in ‘security sector management’ run by Cranfield University in Ethiopia
• £546,500 is being spent on the Ethiopian Peace Support Training Centre 

By IAN BIRRELL FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

Britain is giving more than a million pounds to train Ethiopia’s security forces – even though the country’s repressive regime abducted a British citizen and holds him under sentence of death.

Andargachew Tsege, a father of three from North London, was snatched almost two years ago while travelling through an airport in Yemen. After being forced on to a plane to Ethiopia, he was paraded on television and held for months in secret detention.

Yet the Foreign Office is spending £500,000 on a master’s programme in ‘security sector management’ run by Cranfield University in Ethiopia – a one-party state accused of horrific human rights abuses. Another £546,500 is being spent by the Ministry of Defence to help support the Ethiopian Peace Support Training Centre, which opened last year.

Sentenced to death: Andargachew Tsege, who was snatched almost two years ago while travelling through an airport in Yemen, pictured with his family

I am furious,’ said Yemi Hailemariam, Mr Tsege’s partner and mother of their children.

‘It’s crazy that we’re giving aid like this. They say it is to improve human rights there but then they go and help the security apparatus detaining Andy.’

The funding – made through the £1 billion Conflict, Security and Stabilisation Fund – emerged in a Freedom of Information request to the Foreign Office, although it declined to detail a human rights assessment on the grounds that it might ‘prejudice relations’.

There are 35 students on the security management course, which includes modules on intelligence operations.

They include officials from Djibouti and Rwanda, another repressive state, as well as Ethiopia.

‘It is deeply alarming that UK taxpayers appear to be funding the very Ethiopian security forces responsible for the kidnap and rendition of British citizen,’ said Maya Foa, from campaign group Reprieve.

Eighteen months ago, International Development Secretary Justine Greening suspended a similar programme ‘because of concerns about risk and value for money’. 

This followed the seizure of Mr Tsege, 61, who has lived in Britain since 1979 and been called his nation’s Nelson Mandela.

His case was highlighted last month by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in a report condemning the Ethiopian government for back-pedalling on human rights.

Internal emails obtained by The Mail on Sunday show that shortly after Mr Tsege’s kidnapping, the Foreign Office’s Africa director complained that a British Minister had raised the case with the Ethiopian Prime Minister ‘but in the same week that DFID announced lots of extra aid, which rather mixes messages’.

Mr Tsege fled Ethiopia after falling out with then-president Meles Zenawi for exposing corruption and later establishing a pro-democracy party.

Seven years ago he was branded a terrorist and sentenced to death in absentia for allegedly preparing a coup, which he denies strongly.

He was abducted in June 2014 while travelling to Eritrea. After a year in solitary, he was moved to a prison near Addis Abba called a ‘gulag’ by human rights groups.

He had a broken thumb when he last met British diplomats, and there have been fears of torture.

Ethiopia, seen as an important ally in the war on terrorism, is the second biggest recipient of British aid, receiving £277 million in direct donations this year.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘Ethiopia is heavily engaged in the fight against Al Shabaab in neighbouring Somalia, which is vital to build stability in the region and to UK interests.’

EU envoy told me: ‘I am proud to fund a dictator’

By Anjan Sundaram

Eyewitness account 

‘I have no problem giving money to a dictator,’ a European ambassador to Rwanda told me.

The ambassador had just promised about £200 million of European taxpayer money to the Rwandan government, whose repressive ways he was familiar with.

He said Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame ran one of the most ‘effective’ governments in Africa.

‘I’m proud to be giving him money,’ he said. ‘We will influence the government in the right direction.’

Over the last decade the world, including the United Kingdom, has financed Paul Kagame’s government while watching Rwandan politicians, military figures, journalists and civil society activists one by one be killed, imprisoned, or flee the country, fearing for their lives.

Independent institutions have been all but stamped out. The parliament, the courts and the media are all under Kagame’s control. Even Kagame’s admirers admit that his power is almost absolute.

Kagame announced this New Year’s day that he would seek a third term in power, breaking previous promises to respect what had been a two-term constitutional limit.

Kagame had once claimed he would have failed should he not find a successor at the end of his terms as president.

On New Year’s day, after a referendum on a constitutional change specifically designed to allow Kagame to remain president until 2034, he addressed the Rwandan population, ‘You requested me to lead the country again… I can only accept.’

It was a classic dictator’s speech, and it revealed just how small Kagame’s circle of trust has become.

Many observers had expected him to at least engineer a Putin-style cosmetic transfer of titles; a few truly believed he would step down. But Kagame has made sure that there are no alternatives to him in Rwanda.

Most of his political opponents are either dead, languishing in Rwandan prisons, or living in exile, having been forced to flee Rwanda.

The United Kingdom has been one of the staunchest supporters of Kagame’s government through this repression.

Dfid gave £76m in aid to Rwanda last year, money that strengthens Kagame’s systems of mass control as it goes through government agencies and to government-approved projects.

Kagame also enjoys political friendships across the British political spectrum. Tony Blair’s Africa Governance Initiative places British consultants at the heart of Kagame’s presidential office.

Cherie Blair is a lawyer for the Rwandan government, recently defending the head of Rwanda’s intelligence in a British court on alleged war crimes. And the Tory party’s runs ‘Project Umubano’ in partnership with Kagame’s government, sending MPs to Rwanda for social work each year.

I lived in Rwanda for nearly five years between 2009 and 2013, training some of the last independent journalists working in the country.

I watched as even benign criticisms of Kagame were met with the closure of newspapers and the harassment of journalists.

One journalist who brought up the attacks on the press at a conference in front of Kagame was beaten into a coma. Another colleague of mine was shot dead on the day he criticised Kagame.

Two young women were sentenced to several years in prison for insulting Kagame. Others fled to Europe, fearing they would be killed.

Many journalists either began writing up propaganda in favor of Kagame or simply abandoned journalism as it was too dangerous. In my book I list more than 60 journalists who faced harassment, leading to the country’s current state: a place where the government’s voice dominates.

None of this is news to the Western governments that finance Kagame’s government and other repressive states like Ethiopia.

Western aid has reinforced Kagame’s regime – it has helped him build a highly efficient state that can produce far-reaching changes on a whim, because people will not resist government orders.

When Kagame orders plastic bags to be eradicated from the country – a benefit to the country – the bags disappear overnight. When he orders people to wear slippers they comply.

Western donors, including the United Kingdom, have helped Kagame build this powerful system but they cannot control how he uses it.

When the Rwandan government tells people to come out and vote for Kagame they comply in huge numbers: participation rates are regularly above to 95%. Kagame won 93% of the vote in the 2010 presidential election.

I witnessed thousands of people who had done themselves harm, tearing down their roofs and living in the open in the rainy season, contracting pneumonia and malaria, because Kagame had called the grass roofs primitive, and local officials had insisted that people tear down their roofs.

The people complied without asking whether replacement housing had been built. Who would they speak out to? There was no one who would listen. A small town pastor, one of the few to protest, was imprisoned for threatening state security.

When people cannot speak, harm becomes possible on a massive scale, and much of it goes unreported: newspapers and radios in Rwanda dared not shed light on the government’s repression.

Western financing for repressive states like Rwanda and Ethiopia has meant people in those countries have to choose to give into repression in order to receive state benefits – in ways that we would never accept for ourselves, our families or our societies.

Many Rwandans are silent about family members who have disappeared or been killed because they fear the repercussions, which include losing access to Western-financed welfare programs.

It is presumptuous to claim to be able to measure progress in places like Rwanda when the very people participating in that progress cannot speak freely about their experience of it.

Researchers from the World Bank who surveyed Rwandans, questioning the government’s narrative of poverty reduction and increasing freedoms, had their data destroyed and project cancelled. Participants in the survey were questioned by the Rwandan police.

A UN report that highlighted increasing poverty by certain measures was retracted after the Rwandan government protested, and the researchers were blacklisted.

Subsequent research teams, at the government’s invitation, have found that life is improving and poverty decreasing, supporting the government’s narrative.

Western donors have developed a perverse relationship with autocrats. The more repression there is in places like Rwanda, the less criticism there is of Western aid programs. This silence benefits donors.

I’ve seen more than one aid official obtain promotions on the back of their alleged successes in Rwanda.

Donors are eager to talk about the good they are doing, but they are silent about the harms their aid inflicts on people, and it is quite convenient for them that the people themselves cannot speak up.

• Anjan Sundaram is author of Bad News: Last Journalists In A Dictatorship (Bloomsbury).

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3531930/Britain-giving-1m-train-security-forces-kidnapped-Ethiopia-s-Mandela-EU-envoy-Rwanda-admits-proud-fund-dictator.html#ixzz45T3DL83G
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The post Britain is giving more than £1m to train security forces who kidnapped Ethiopia’s ‘Mandela’ appeared first on Satenaw.

By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam

Author’s Note: The following is a true and correct copy of my letter to USAID Administrator Gayle E. Smith dated March 16, 2016, and the response I received from T.C. Cooper, Assistant Administrator, USAID Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs dated April 7, 2016..

My letter questions recent statements made by Ms. Smith regarding the famine in Ethiopia and solicits factual and policy clarifications.

Mr. Cooper’s letter is non-responsive to my inquiries and ignores specific factual and policy issues I have raised with the Administrator.

It is a matter of public record that I have fiercely opposed Ms. Smith’s confirmation to become USAID Administrator.  But as a true-blue constitutionalist, I acknowledge and respect the Senate’s vote to confirm Ms. Smith despite my personal opposition.

My inquiry letter[1] is guided purely by my concerns as an American citizen and taxpayer, and not by any residual personal animus from the confirmation process.

In one of my first commentaries opposing Ms. Smith’s confirmation, Ipromised, “We will use every legal means available to us under American law to question Smith’s official actions and decisions…” The fundamental purpose of my inquiry letter is to hold USAID accountable in its use of American tax dollars in a country whose “government” has a proven history of “using aid as a weapon of oppression” and as an insidious tool  of corruption.

Our inquiry shall continue.

===========  ==============  =============  ============

March 16, 2016

Ms. Gayle E. Smith
Administrator
United States Agency for International Development
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20523

By U.S. Mail Certified

Dear Ms. Smith:

I am writing to follow up on your March 3, 2016 interview with James Kirby in which you discussed “new measures” aimed at addressing the “drought” in Ethiopia.

Before I get into the gravamen of my letter and in the interest of full disclosure, I should like to state at the outset that I am one of the individuals who fiercely opposed your appointment to head USAID.

I came out against your confirmation in my op-ed in The Hill on May 12, 2015.

I have also expressed my opposition in a variety of other advocacy forms and forumsincluding on my own website.

My opposition to your confirmation was based on three factors. First, I believe your record in promoting and supporting democracy, freedom and human rights in Africa is poor. Second, I believe your unwavering support for African dictators for the past three decades has been detrimental to the welfare of Africans.  Third, I disagree with your approach to U.S. foreign policy in Africa, which I believe treats Africans as welfare aid recipients who must be perpetually tethered to the pockets of hard working American tax payers.

I am making the foregoing disclosures not to rehash my past opposition, but to contextualize the instant inquiry letter.

In your interview with John Kirby on March 3, 2016 concerning “what USAID is doing to mitigate the effects of drought in Ethiopia”, you made a number of observations which surprised, confused and bewildered me.

First, in your interview comments, you appeared to strongly suggest that the current “drought” in Ethiopia is solely the result of “this phenomenon called El Nino, which is striking hard at a number of parts of the world, nowhere harder than in Ethiopia.”

I found your remark quite jarring as it suggests that Ethiopia is being singled out and struck harder than any other country on the planet as a manifestation of divine curse and wrath.

I trembled as I contemplated your remark and the possibility that the Black Horseman of the Apocalypse has been sent to visit Ethiopia on a divine mission of retribution not meted out to any other country.

Why is “El Nino” “striking Ethiopia harder than any other country” on the planet?

Second, in your remarks you mentioned absolutely nothing about the role of poor governance, lack of planning and organization by the ruling regime in Ethiopia as even a partial proximate or actual cause for the “drought”. You also made no mention of the manifestly poor response to the human costs of the drought despite advanced warning by your own Famine Early Warning System. Do you believe that poor governance and planning are at least aggravating factors in the causation, spread and/or persistence of the current “drought” in Ethiopia? Has your agency  inquired and come to any conclusions concerning the fact that the absence of good governance, bureaucratic incompetence and corruption in the ruling regime in Ethiopia have contributed to the “drought” or consequences of the “drought”?

Third, you stated that the “United States has, to date, provided over $500 million” and “deploy[ed] what [is] call[ed] a disaster assistance response team.” You also indicated the U.S. is “prepared to look at more” than $500 million.

The sum of USD$500 million is undoubtedly a considerable amount of money. As an American taxpayer, I feel the sting of such generous alms-giving.

My concern has to do with corruption in the expenditure of the $500 million. As you may be aware, the ruling regime in Ethiopia has been accused of misappropriating, stealing and converting humanitarian assistance for political purposes (e.g. buy votes) and corruption.

I refer to Human Right Watch’s report, “Ethiopia: Aid as a Weapon”. That report  documents, “Ethiopia’s repressive government has put foreign aid to a sinister purpose, with officials in Ethiopia’s ruling party using their power to give or deny financial assistance to citizens based on their political affiliation.”

I believe you may also be aware of the conclusions of the USAID’s Office of Inspector General which concluded (p. 26, also Appendix 1):

… [W]we could not determine the extent of that contribution because of weaknesses in the mission’s performance management and reporting system. Moreover, the audit could not determine whether the results reported in USAID/Ethiopia’s performance plan and report were valid, because mission staff could neither explain how the results had been derived nor provide support for those reported results.

What safeguards, if any, are in place to ensure the ruling regime will not put any of the $500 million to political purposes?

What accountability processes are in place to ensure the prevention of corruption in the administration of the aforementioned assistance in Ethiopia? How much of the $500 million is provided to the ruling regime in Ethiopia in the form of discretionary or non-discretionary expenditures?

Fourth, I am completely shocked by your remark, “You get into a worst-case scenario if they’re forced to sell their land or abandon their land for temporary employment.”

With all due respect, are you aware that the “government” owns all land in Ethiopia? Are you aware that Ethiopian farmers cannot sell the land by law? Is it possible you may have confused Ethiopia with some other country where full private ownership in land is permitted?

Fifth, as you may be aware, “land-grabbing” facilitated by the ruling regime has been alleged as the principal cause of recent uprising throughout the country. For a number of years, various informed commentators have suggested that the “government[‘s] leasing [of] fertile land to foreign investors” is partially to blame for famine and food insecurity in the country. What do you believe to be the consequences of foreign investors leasing large swathes of fertile land on Ethiopia’s food sufficiency and mitigation of food deficits? Do you believe there is any causal relationship between landlessness and the incidence and severity of famine in Ethiopia?

Sixth, you stated, “We are moving earlier in this case because we have found that there is real alignment between donors, NGOs, the government, and UN agencies that if we move very, very, very quickly, we can avert the worst impacts of this drought.” What exactly is the “real alignment” between donors and the other elements of the humanitarian communities? Was it the absence of “real alignment” between donors, NGO’s, etc., in the past which has undermined rapid response to “avert the worst impact of droughts”?

Seventh, you stated that the “[Ethiopian] government has actually put forth a fair amount of money. As I recall – and don’t quote me on this; I think you should ask them for the number – they were, I think 350, 400 – [Interviewer: 1.2 billion is what they said.] No, no, no. Well, maybe. Maybe. That may be their number. I’m aware of the last announcement they made when I was there, which was significant. I think what is significant here is the government is responding and they are putting money into the mix and doing their equivalent of kind of an emergency request and adding money to the budget. But I would refer to them for the exact numbers.”

You added, “I think what is significant here is the government is responding and they are putting money into the mix and doing their equivalent of kind of an emergency request and adding money to the budget.”

I should be glad to be corrected but the Ethiopian “government” has made no public statement regarding its contribution of “1.2 billion” “into the mix”. Is that $1.2 billion USD, Ethiopian birr or some other currency?

The “Ethiopian National Risk Management Coordination Commission” in December 2015  announced that “1.2 billion USD is required to cope with the current drought that affected over 10 million fellow citizens.”

Bandying around the “1.2 billion” figure without empirical support could seriously mislead the Ethiopian public and ultimately undermine the credibility of USAID. It may be helpful if USAID were to issue a clarification on this issue.

Nonetheless, the core question is exactly how much money in USD or birr the Ethiopian “government” is putting “into the mix and doing their equivalent of kind of an emergency request”. Could you share that piece of information?

Eight, I am shocked by your statement: “Now, I don’t want to underestimate the fact that it’s already having impact. There have been losses to livestock. There are signs and growing signs of malnutrition. We are at risk of poor farmers invoking coping mechanisms and thus becoming poorer and more vulnerable over time. But again, the important thing here is this is almost an act of emergency prevention.”

You also stated, “Because, as you all know very well, what too often happens is we wait until the newspaper and the televisions are littered with images of starving children. In this case, there is a great deal of human suffering now, but we think it’s more prudent to get ahead of it.”

Your remark strongly suggests the only “losses” to date are livestock.

Media reports are currently headlining, “Ethiopia hit by worst drought in five decades”.

It is well-established that in the 1984-85 “drought” 32 years ago hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of famine.

It is also established that in the 1973-74 “drought” 42 years ago, hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of famine.

I am completely bewildered by your exclusive reference to livestock “losses” and not even mention any losses of human life in Ethiopia in 2016 when Ethiopia is hit by the “worst drought in five decades”.

Has USAID surveyed for human losses in the current “drought”? If so, what are the losses in human life?

Ninth, you stated in your interview that, “We are challenging the world not just to respond to human suffering, but to respond quickly enough to prevent something even worse.”

Pardon me for being confused. What could be “something worse” than the “worst drought in 50 years”? What could be worse than the “biblical famine” of 1973-74 or the cataclysmic famine of 1984-85?

Do you believe you have a moral obligation to tell the Ethiopian people that there is “something worse” than the “worst drought in 50 years” possibly in store for them in 2016?

Tenth, in your interview you also touted the “considerable progress [in Ethiopia] of something called the Productive Safety Net Program… where through harvesting small amounts of water that can be used for livestock for people and for agriculture they can build a buffer so that when people face things like drought…”

I am encouraged by your remark that “We and our partners always have in place robust monitoring systems to make sure that it gets where it needs to go.”

As you may be aware, Human Rights Watch and others have reported (pp. 75-78) that the Development Assistance Group, of which USAID is a part, has resorted to willful ignorance to well-founded allegations of “politicization” of the Productive Safety Net Program. There are some informants who allege nothing has changed in the politicization of that program over the past six years.

In your claim of “considerable progress” in the Productive Safety Net Program, what do you consider to be “progress” and what are you criteria for measuring progress?   What safeguards are in place to prevent future “politicization” Productive Safety Net Program by the ruling regime in Ethiopia? What are the specific “robust monitoring systems” you mentioned were in place “to make sure that it gets where it needs to go”?

Eleventh, you stated that “in the case of Ethiopia, we are constantly looking at the numbers to try to determine are we staying at 10 or are we moving to 11 or are we getting ahead and moving down. So that’s an iterative process that’s done on a regular basis.”

I take it the “10” and “11” refer to millions of people “affected by the drought”. Your comments are not clear to me. Are you suggesting that you have a margin of a million people to determine if the drought situation is turning into a famine situation? What is the significance of staying at the 1o million magic number in quantifying the number of people affected by the “drought”?

I have no illusions that you will respond to my inquiry given my fierce opposition to your nomination. By the same token, I would not be surprised if you felt my inquiry is not made in good faith.

I should like to suggest that I am not the only person who has questions about your  answers in your recent interview.

Let me assure you that I am writing this letter as an inquiry from a concerned citizen and a tax payer. I am also writing in the spirit of vigilant citizen engagement in the democratic process in much the same way the U.S. Supreme Court explained (p.242) the  “basic purpose of FOIA [which] is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.”

I do not believe in political gamesmanship. I do believe in gathering facts to “hold the governors accountable to the governed.”

I trust you will accept my declaration that my only purpose in writing this letter is to make sure that U.S. humanitarian aid is delivered in Ethiopia is put to proper use and in conformance with applicable U.S. laws.

Nonetheless, I hope to raise the questions herein with my considerable readership  in Ethiopia and globally.

I shall present your responses to my readers unedited should you find it appropriate to respond.

I shall await for your responses until April 8, 2016.

Sincerely,

Alemayehu (Al) G. Mariam, Ph.D., J.D.
Professor and Attorney at Law

cc:
USAID
Attn: Office of Inspector General
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20523

Click  HERE  to read the true and correct PDF copy of the response to my letter by USAID’s T. Charles Cooper, Assistant Administrator.

[1] Note: References in the original letter were provided in footnotes, which have been converted herein into hyperlinks.
                                         

The post USAID and Famine in Ethiopia: What Does Gayle E. Smith Have to Say?- by Al Mariam’s Commentaries By Al Mariam appeared first on Satenaw.

 

Interview with Prince Ras Mengesha Seyoum – SBS Amharic

The post Interview with Prince Ras Mengesha Seyoum – SBS Amharic appeared first on Satenaw.

Twitter and WhatsApp Offline in Ethiopia’s Oromia Area After Unrest

by William Davison | Bloomberg

• Messaging apps said unavailable on phones for more than month
• Authorities alleged to have killed at least 266 protesters

Internet messaging applications such as WhatsApp haven’t worked for more than a month in parts of Ethiopia that include Oromia region, which recently suffered fatal protests, according to local users.

Smartphone owners haven’t been able to access services including Facebook Messenger and Twitter on the state-owned monopoly Ethio Telecom’s connection, Seyoum Teshome, a university lecturer, said by phone from Woliso, about 115 kilometers (71.5 miles) southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa.

“All are not working here for more than one month,” said Seyoum, who teaches at Ambo University’s Woliso campus. “The blackout is targeted at mobile data connections.”

A spokesman for Twitter Inc. declined to comment on the issue when e-mailed by Bloomberg on Monday. Facebook Inc., which bought WhatsApp Inc. in 2014, didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Protests that began in November in Oromia over perceived economic and political marginalization of Ethiopia’s most populous ethnic group led to a crackdown in which security forces allegedly shot dead as many as 266 demonstrators, according to a March report by the Kenya-based Ethiopia Human Rights Project. The government has said that many people died, including security officers, without giving a toll.

One social-media activist, U.S.-based Jawar Mohammed, disseminated information and footage from protests to his more than 500,000 followers on Facebook.

No Explanation

Restricting access isn’t a policy and may be because of “erratic” connections, according to government spokesman Getachew Reda. “We have not yet found any explanation,” he said by phone from Addis Ababa on Monday.

The government has the technology to “control” the messaging applications, the Addis Ababa-based Capital newspaper reported on April 10, citing Andualem Admassie, Ethio Telecom’s chief executive officer. Andualem didn’t answer two calls to his mobile phone seeking comment.

Hawassa city in Ethiopia’s southern region has suffered similar difficulties in accessing applications for more than a month, said Seyoum Hameso, an economics lecturer at the University of East London. “We couldn’t communicate with relatives,” he said in an e-mailed response to questions on Monday.

The post The Impact of Obama’s appreciation of democracy in Ethiopia:Twitter and WhatsApp Offline in Ethiopia’s appeared first on Satenaw.

An Ethiopian man in his 30s has been found dead from gunshot wounds in his Chickasaw, West Louisville home on Tuesday morning following an overnight shooting in the neighborhood.

At around 3 AM, police officers were reportedly called to his home located on the 1000th block of Cecil Avenue.

Louisville Metro Police spokesman Dwight Mitchell said the victim was found dead of apparent gunshot wounds.

The victim, whose identity has been withheld, was reportedly asleep when the shooting occurred. The man was killed in his sleep from the shooting, which left five bullets holes in the wall.

At the moment, not much information has been released about the deceased or the perpetrator. Reports indicate that the victim, who is from Ethiopia, worked at a liquor store behind his home.

The deceased reportedly has a wife and an eight-month-old baby, who both live in Ethiopia. He reportedly traveled to America before his child was born.

According to his friends and family, the deceased cared for his family and sent his salaries back to Ethiopia for their upkeep.

The family of the deceased in Ethiopia have reportedly not yet been contacted.

Louisville Metro Police have made no arrests in connection with the shooting. However, homicide detectives are currently investigating the incident.

The police officials have asked the members of the public with information regarding the shooting to call this anonymous tip line 502-574-LMPD.

The post Ethiopian Man Shot Dead While Asleep in His Kentucky Home appeared first on Satenaw.

ESAT Daily News DC 12 April 2016

The post ESAT Daily 12 April 2016 -Gedu Andargachew appeared first on Satenaw.

Date:

The post Human Rights in Ethiopia – An Update appeared first on Satenaw.

ESAT Radio Wed April 13 2016

The post ESAT Radio Wed April 13 2016 appeared first on Satenaw.

Labelled ‘Computer Crime Proclamation’, the draft law was presented to the Ethiopian Parliament on Wednesday.

THURSDAY, APRIL 14 2016

Daily Nation

The Ethiopian government has drafted a new law, which will punish spammers with up to five years of imprisonment for mass mail distribution to advertise or sell products and services PHOTO | FILE  NATION MEDIA GROUP

ADDIS ABABA, Wednesday

The Ethiopian government has drafted a new law, which will punish spammers with up to five years of imprisonment for mass mail distribution to advertise or sell products and services as well as people who share pictures and other contents using computer network.

Labelled ‘Computer Crime Proclamation’, the draft law was presented to the Ethiopian Parliament on Wednesday.

“Whosoever intentionally intimidates or threatens another person or his family with serious danger or injury by disseminating any writing, video, audio or any other image through a computer system shall be punishable, with simple imprisonment not exceeding three years or in a serious cases with rigorous imprisonment not exceeding five years,” reads article 13 sub article 1 of the draft proclamation which talks about crimes against liberty and reputation of persons.

It is not yet clear if the new law targets people who share pictures exposing the misdeeds of law enforcement agencies like the recent photos of the dead and wounded people during the recent Oromo students’ protests, which went viral on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, among others.

The 53 pages of the new law didn’t mention how it may impact government’s ongoing effort to bring good governance to the country by collecting information from whistle blowers and victims of human rights violations and corruption, among others.

Unless there is a prior consent from the recipient, dissemination of messages to multiple email addresses at a time, will lead up to imprisonment of five years and fine not exceeding 50,000 Ethiopian birr (around $2,355).

The post Ethiopia to criminalise mass email, spamming appeared first on Satenaw.