Monday, May 12, 2014

Obama and Kerry Finally May Be Hearing Heartfelt Ethiopian Cries for Human Rights and Civil Liberties

May 12, 2014

San Jose, California, May 12 – Security was high at a Democratic National Committee fund-raising reception at San Jose’s Fairmont Hotel on May 9. And Ethiopian Journalist Abebe Gellaw probably chanced arrest more than the chance of educating the Obama Administration about the abject tyranny to which the people of Ethiopia have been subjected. As the President was wrapping up a speech to Silicon Valley political and business leaders, Mr. Gellaw spoke aloud, “Mr., Obama, we Ethiopians love you. We demand freedom for Ethiopia.”

President Obama: “I Agree With You.” “I love you back.”

The President was describing the importance of keeping the House and the Senate from Republican domination in the upcoming midterm elections. Gellaw interrupted the President, “Stand with the people of Ethiopia, don’t support tyranny.” “I agree with you,” replied Mr. Obama. Gellaw continued, “We have tyranny in Ethiopia. We love you!” “I love you back,” replied Mr. Obama. After Gellaw’s interruption, the President said that he would be around to talk with Gellaw after the speech. As promised, Mr. Obama briefly met with Mr. Gellaw, and Gellaw took the opportunity to hand over a letter specifically detailing the plight of the Ethiopian people.

Kerry’s Equivocation May Signal Acknowledgment of Ethiopia’s Plight

More than a week earlier, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a visit to the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa on Thursday, May 1. He held high-level talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom to discuss peace efforts in the region, especially in the Sudan, and to strengthen ties with Ethiopia, according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Her statements led Ethiopians to ask: How can a regime that rules with the rifle promote peace in other countries? Who would want to strengthen ties with a despotic regime that treats its people with disdain, intimidation, displacement, and even torture and death?

Important U.S. Ally

For decades the U.S. has considered Ethiopia a supremely important ally in the region, especially regarding the so-called war against terrorism. Kerry’s five-day tour included stops in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo to encourage democratic development, to promote respect for human rights, and to advance peace and security. Before leaving Ethiopia, Kerry gave a short speech summarizing the results of his session with the Ethiopian Prime Minister.

Kerry Praises Economic Growth

During the initial part of his speech, Secretary Kerry focused on Ethiopia’s economic progress, noting that the nation is among the 10 fastest-growing economies on the globe. He went on to say that America supports this economic growth because it will eventually lead to greater stabilization in the region, as well as providing much needed jobs. He briefly held forth that a free press and democracy were essential to sustained economic growth, noting that free political systems are just as important as free markets.

Surveillance, Renaissance and Revolutionary Democracy: An Ethiopian Dystopia

May 6, 2014

by Harben Seyoum

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas? Joseph Stalin.

It has finally come to the world’s attention that repression and internet-based surveillance in Ethiopia has grown extensive and routine. The Stalinesque TPLF-EPRDF regime keeps electronic tabs on its citizens, at home and abroad, to better survey and repress any emergent dissidence to the reigning ethnic paradigm. If push comes to shove, it uses its draconian Anti-Terrorist Decree to justify its extra-judicial practices against its subjects. This means, censors monitor citizens around the clock and normalize the unequal politics of bloodlines (ethnic federalism), and blunt criticisms of government policy in general. The entire Killil conception of governance is neither new nor federal. It goes back to the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia between1936-41. This unpopular “ethnicization” of the country was specifically designed by Mussolini for the conquest and occupation of Ethiopia. It was used by the TPLF in 1991 to disenfranchise Ethiopians and to empower the minority Tigrai-Tigrign population of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The core of the TPLF-EPRDF regime may be anti-Shabiyan, but it is fervently pro-Eritrean in sentiment. In fact, the ruling ethnic group stretches across the dividing Mereb line. Repression and internet-based surveillance in Ethiopia

In this system, the ethnically forged state has become an occupier and the ethnically divided population becomes the occupied. Some call the arrangement internal colonization. At any rate, the apartheid-based TPLF state disrupts ethnic solidarities, as well as the flow of information and public communications. All this control is to remain in power. Consequently, the aid-dependent TPLF-EPRDF regime has purchased the capacity to scrutinize the communications of its citizens, and by extension, to limit the type of information and ideas that are being infused and accessed among the occupied populace. Minority ethnic groups do not rule by consent, but rather by security police, espionage and intimidation. Steven Biko said it well, when he re-read the Stalinist dictum from the point of view of oppressed Africans. The most dangerous weapon of the oppressor, he wrote, is “the mind of the oppressed.” Indeed, notwithstanding the FDRE’s Constitution Article 29, why should the occupiers let Ethiopians have ideas and opinions that differ from the party line? Anyways, liberating ideas are usually fought for and rarely given.

Ethiopia: UN Review Should Condemn Crackdown

Activists, Journalists Persecuted Under Draconian Laws

MAY 5, 2014

The UN review is taking place just as Ethiopia is renewing its crackdown on free speech. To make this review meaningful, UN member countries should forcefully tell Ethiopia that its attacks on the media and activist groups are a blight on its human rights record.

Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director

(Geneva) – United Nations member countries should call on Ethiopia to stop targeting activists and the media under draconian laws. The UN Human Rights Council will review Ethiopia’s human rights record under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure on May 6, 2014.

A Human Rights Watch submission to the UN on Ethiopia highlights its ongoing suppression of the media and nongovernmental organizations, and the lack of accountability for torture and other serious abuses by its security forces. The arbitrary arrest of nine bloggers and journalists on April 25 and 26, just 10 days before the review, reflects Ethiopia’s blatant disregard for fundamental rights and should be strongly condemned by UN members.

Semayawi (Blue) Party’s second successful demonstration

One of this year plans was to awake the public at large into participating in politics without a fear. Of all the methods we engaged in demonstration was one of it. On April 27, 2014, we decided to have the protest. Our enquiries are very clear: TPLF/EPRDF is incapable of ruling so it has to leave power and religious interference by the ruling party has to stop, forcing citizens to leave their neighborhood because of their ethnic group is a crime and that has to stop and forcing citizen to leave and demolishing their houses without any compensation because of ‘development’ is unlawful and negligent. Those are the issues we mainly raised in the protest.

When the day and place first decided, we wrote a letter for Addis Ababa City administration office to let them know about it. Within few hours they sent us a letter that suggests a change of date for a vague reason which is stated as “because there will be international meetings in the city” which is as well far from the truth. Then we had to send another letter to inform them that their reply was unacceptable for it lacks clarity and that conflict with the 1987’s proclamation of public gatherings. While three of the demonstration organizing committee delegates went to give the letter, the officer at desk snubbed and left them at the office with the letter. “He,” they said, “was scared and unconfident to receive the letter. Finally they counted witnesses and left the letter and returned back.

Ethiopia: UN condemns crackdown on journalists, increasing restrictions on freedom of expression

GENEVA (2 May 2014) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday expressed concerns about the increasing restrictions placed on freedom of opinion and expression in Ethiopia, following the recent arrest and detention of six bloggers and three journalists.

“I am deeply concerned by this recent wave of arrests and the increasing climate of intimidation against journalists and bloggers prevailing in Ethiopia,” Pillay said.

On 25 and 26 April, six members of the blogging collective Zone Nine and three journalists were arrested by police in Addis Ababa. They were later taken to the Maekelawi federal police station, where they remain in custody.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemns Ethiopia's crackdown on journalists

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Ethiopia

On 27 April 2014, they appeared before the Arada Court of First Instance in Addis Ababa. Although the exact charges against each of them remain unclear, the UN Human Rights Office has received information that they were arrested for “working with foreign human rights organizations and inciting violence through social media to create instability in the country.”

The nine detainees are reportedly held incommunicado and some of their family members who tried to bring them food over the weekend were denied access.

TPLF/EPRDF charges nine bloggers and journalists with inciting violence

(Reuters) – Ethiopia has charged six bloggers and three journalists with attempting to incite violence, their supporters said on Monday, prompting accusations from rights groups that the government is cracking down on its critics.

All nine defendants, including freelance journalists Tesfalem Waldyes and Edom Kassaye, appeared in court on Sunday after they were rounded up by police on April 25 and April 26, their colleagues told Reuters.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who visits Ethiopia on Tuesday, to press the government to “unconditionally release” all the defendants, but Addis Ababa dismissed the criticism of the case.

“The nine arrests signal, once again, that anyone who criticizes the Ethiopian government will be silenced,” said Leslie Lefkow, HRW’s deputy Africa director.

“The timing of the arrests – just days before the U.S. secretary of state’s visit – speaks volumes about Ethiopia’s disregard for free speech,” she said in a statement.

In 2012, Addis Ababa sentenced a prominent blogger and five other exiled journalists to between eight years to life on charges of conspiring with rebels to topple the government.

In the new case, a colleague of Tesfalem said security officials in plain clothes searched his house and confiscated several materials before taking him to a detention center.

An Ethiopian government official defended the case against the nine, saying it had nothing to do with muzzling the media.

“CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES”

“These are not journalists. Their arrest has nothing to do with journalism but with serious criminal activities,” Getachew Reda, an adviser to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, said.

“We don’t crack down on journalism or freedom of speech. But if someone tries to use his or her profession to engage in criminal activities, then there is a distinction there,” Getachew told Reuters.

Critics say Ethiopia – sandwiched between volatile Somalia and Sudan – regularly uses security concerns as an excuse to stifle dissent and clamp down on media freedoms.

They also point to an anti-terrorism law, passed in 2009, which stipulates that anyone caught publishing information that could incite readers to commit acts of terrorism can be jailed for between 10 and 20 years.

Addis Ababa says the law aims to prevent “terrorist attacks” as it is fighting separatist rebel movements and armed groups.

A court in Addis Ababa adjourned the hearing for the group of bloggers and journalists until May 7 and 8.

Kerry will meet Prime Minister Desalegn and Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom in Addis Ababa to discuss peace efforts in the region and to strengthen ties with Ethiopia, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The State Department says the aim of Kerry’s African tour – which will also take in Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola – is to promote democracy and human rights.

(Editing by James Macharia and Gareth Jones)

Ethiopia’s ‘villagisation’ scheme fails to bear fruit

Residents say government has not delivered on resettlement promise of land, clean water and livestock

by William Davison, from Gambella

The orderly village of Agulodiek in Ethiopia’s western Gambella region stands in stark contrast to Elay, a settlement 5km west of Gambella town, where collapsed straw huts strewn with cracked clay pots lie among a tangle of bushes.

Ethiopian government's contentious "villagisation" scheme

In the village of Elay, people are defying the government and returning home. Photograph: William Davison

Agulodiek is a patch of land where families gradually gathered of their own accord, while Elay is part of the Ethiopian government’s contentious “villagisation” scheme that ended last year. The plan in Gambella was to relocate almost the entire rural population of the state over three years. Evidence from districts surrounding Gambella town suggest the policy is failing.

Two years ago people from Agulodiek moved to Elay after officials enticed them with promises of land, livestock, clean water, a corn grinder, education and a health clinic. Instead they found dense vegetation they were unable to cultivate. After one year of selling firewood to survive, they walked back home.

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