Ethiopia: Activists turn to social media to demand freedom of assembly
by Dharra Budicha
May 11, 2013 (OPride) —An Ethiopian activist and blogger group, Zone9, has launched its third online campaign demanding the Ethiopian government respect citizens’ rights enshrined within the Horn of Africa nation’s constitution.
Under Twitter hashtags #Assembly4Every1 and #Demonstration4Every1, the Addis Ababa-based activists are requesting the government to uphold Article 30 of the constitution – which grants the right to freedom of assembly and demonstrations.
“Peaceful demonstration and assemblies are rights granted by the constitution to enable citizens to associate and express their common views of their choices,” organizers said in a statement. “[These rights need] to be respected.” Read more…
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Ethiopia arrests minister, 11 others over corruption
Melaku Fenta, Director of Customs Revenue Authority Minister
May 11, 2013 (Reuters) – Ethiopian police have arrested a minister and 11 other people on corruption charges, an official and state media said on Saturday, in the country’s most high-profile swoop against graft for more than a decade.
Businesses in the region regularly complain of corruption as an obstacle to their work. Transparency International ranked Ethiopia 113 out of 176 nations worldwide in its 2012 perception of corruption index, where No. 1 is considered least corrupt.
That ranking puts Ethiopia above most nations in the Horn of Africa and east Africa regions, although Rwanda is ranked 50.
Melaku Fenta, a senior ruling party member and director general of the revenue and customs authority with the rank of minister, was arrested on Friday alongside two other officials from the authority, government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said. Read more…
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Ethiopia: Loss of Lives and Displacement Due to “Border Dispute” in Eastern Ethiopia
HRLHA Urgent Action
May 7, 2013
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) would like to express its deep concern over the negligence of both the federal and regional governments in Ethiopia regarding the violence that has been going on for about six months against the Oromos in Eastern Hararge Zone of Oromia Regional State.
According to reports obtained by HRLHA from different sources, this government-backed violence that has been going on in the name of border dispute around the Anniya, Jarso and Miyesso districts between the Oromia and Ogaden regional states has already resulted in the death and/or disappearance of 37 Oromo nationals and the displacement of about 20,000 others. Around 700 different types of cattle and other valuable possessions are also reported to have been looted. The reports indicate that the violence has been backed by two types of armed forces (the Federal Liyou/Special Police and the Ogaden Militia) from the Ogadenis side, while on the side of the Oromos, even those who demonstrated the intentions of defending themselves in the same manner were disarmed, dispossessed and detained. Despite these facts, the reports also dissociate the Ogadeni nationals from the violence mentioning that they have never made claims of ownership of the piece of land in the name of which the government-backed violence has been taking place. HRLHA has also learnt that the said piece of land was demarcated and declared to be part of Oromia Regional State during the 1996 referendum. Read more…
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Mysterious Lake Threatens Ethiopian Sugar Ambitions (Addis Ababa)
May 4, 2013, ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — A saline lake in Ethiopia that’s baffled scientists by its 15-old growth threatens to spill into the nation’s longest river and damage plans by Africa’s biggest coffee grower to become a commodities powerhouse.
Lake Beseka in the Rift Valley has grown to its largest size ever amid irrigation runoff and seismic shifts in past years. Should salt waters contaminate the Awash River, they would risk Ethiopia’s oldest state-owned sugar estate and an India-funded project downstream that’s key to the government’s $5 billion plan to turn the country into a top sugar exporter. Read more…
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Ethiopia: Terrorism Law Decimates Media
Ethiopia’s journalists shouldn’t be spending World Press Freedom Day in jail on trumped-up terrorism charges. Freeing these journalists would be an important step toward improving Ethiopia’s deteriorating record on press freedom.
Eleven journalists have been convicted and sentenced since 2011 under Ethiopia’s repressive anti-terrorism law, including six in absentia. Three of the eleven are currently in prison. Two other journalists are currently on trial under the anti-terrorism law. Another journalist, Temesgen Desalegn, the editor of the now defunct independent magazine Feteh, is on trial for three offenses under the criminal code. Read more…
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US slams Ethiopia’s ‘political persecution’ of critics
May 3, 2013 (AFP) — The United States Thursday slammed “harsh” sentences handed down to an Ethiopian blogger and an opposition leader, voicing concerns about the “politicized prosecution” of government critics.
An Ethiopian court dismissed the appeals of blogger Eskinder Nega and opposition leader Andualem Arage, jailed last year for terror-related offenses.
Eskinder was given an 18-year sentence, while Andualem was jailed for life.
The US was “deeply disappointed” that Ethiopia’s federal supreme court upheld the men’s “conviction and harsh sentencing,” acting deputy State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.
“Today’s decision further reinforces our serious concern about Ethiopia’s politicized prosecution of those critical of the government and ruling party, including under the anti-terrorism proclamation.” Read more…
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Needs of Ethiopia’s Street Children not Met, Aid Group Says
An Ethiopian man uses his mobile phone to take a picture of street children sleeping on a street of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia,
May 1, 2013, ADDIS ABABA (VOA News) — Shelter is among the many things Ethiopia’s street children long for. But a study by the international aid group Save the Children indicates that local non-governmental organizations and community organizations rarely offer what the street children want.
Azeb Adefrsew, a researcher with Save the Children, said the limited services provided by local NGOs do not match what the kids see as their greatest needs.
“The children say that their major problem was shelter. But the street children organizations were providing mainly food and other items, clothing and so on,” Adefrsew explained. “But the children were not satisfied with the services they were receiving.” Read more…
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Ethiopia: fire destroys UNESCO-registered coffee forest
April 30, 2013 (OPride) – A recent massive brush fire in the Illu Abba Boora zone of Oromia region, Ethiopia has wiped out a sizable portion of the UNESCO-registered Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve, reports said. The cause of the blaze, which has spread around the Yayu forest over the last several weeks, remains unknown.
According to eyewitness accounts, the blaze has scorched an estimated 50 to 80 acres of the thick coffee forest. “Such fire has never happened before in the history of the Yayu forest and the knowledge of the people living in the area,” one Yayu resident, who asked not to be named, told OPride. “It has been burning for several weeks without any intervention from the government except that of the local community to contain it to protect its advancement to their side.” The internationally recognized Yayu forest is home to the last remaining species of wild coffee Arabica and some of Ethiopia’s rare flora and bird species. Read more…
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Ethiopia, Somalia and some gentle diplomatic blackmail
April 27, 2013 (Daily Maverick) — Ethiopia doesn’t really want to keep its troops in Somalia much longer. It’s an expensive business, and they’ve got other engagements to deal with. But who will replace them, and make sure that those hard-won conquests don’t fall back into Al-Shabaab hands? No one’s particularly keen, which is why Ethiopia has had to resort to an empty threat. By SIMON ALLISON.
The problem with being an occupying army, almost by definition, is that at some point you’re going to want to pack up and go home, leaving your hard-won conquests behind. Read more…
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Generational Shift May Shake Up Ethiopian Politics After Meles Zenawi
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, January 5, 2008
April 26, 2013 (World Politics Review) – The death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in August 2012 marked the end of an era in contemporary Ethiopian politics. After defeating the brutal Derg regime in 1991, Meles headed the powerful ruling party that led the country of more than 80 million through a massive transformation. But it is a mistake to think of his tenure as a period of one-man rule or his death as creating either a political vacuum or an opportunity for liberal reform, as power, authority and resources never rested in Meles’ hands alone.
Meles’ Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) created an Ethiopia based around ethnically defined regions and political parties, state control over land and other key economic assets and a strong authoritarian political party. Meles’ aim was to create a developmental state through revolutionary democracy, a project that more closely resembled the Chinese model than Western notions of liberalism. Levels of economic growth have been high and the expansion of health care impressive. At the same time, however, Ethiopia has effectively criminalized dissent and made it virtually impossible for civil society organizations to engage in human rights monitoring or democratization initiatives. Read more…
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The rise of Islamophobia in Ethiopia
By FRANCOIS CRAIG
April 26, 2013 (Open Democracy) — Recent demands have been the most vocal and the most sustained in the history of Ethiopian Muslims. But if they have gone the least bit beyond the scope of religion, then, ironically, they have been overtly secularist.
Many observers have documented the rise in Islamophobic sentiments in many western lands, especially since 9/11. While any collective castigation of a community is as stupid as it is immoral, sometimes it is not surprising. When innocent people get confronted successively with the shocking facts of sudden loss of life and property by through the actions of certain members of a group of people, the suspicion towards the whole group gets amplified. Read more…
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Ethiopia says preparing to pull troops out of Somalia
Editor’s Note: Any body has a record how many times Woyanne lied about withdrawing from Somalia? Soba dhuma hin qabne. Rabbi nama haabaasu!!
Aaron Maasho
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
By Aaron Maasho
April 23, 2013 (Reuters) – Ethiopia will withdraw its troops from Somalia soon, its prime minister said on Tuesday, voicing frustration with the Mogadishu government and African Union peacekeeping forces that are also battling Islamist militants there.
After waging an ill-fated war in Somalia in 2006-2009, Ethiopia in 2011 once again rolled troops into Somalia to fight al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab, opening a third front alongside Kenyan troops and an African Union mission.
At the time Ethiopia pledged to stay in the war-ravaged country until Somali government could ratify a new constitution and its ragtag military was able to fend off the Islamist threat on its own. Read more…
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