With their beautiful attire and Hijab on the head, Ethiopian Muslim women surprised Woyanes and everyone in Houston on Sunday, April 14, 2013. Instead of usual cordial and subservient Ethiopian woman, who were often absent from such rallies, Woyane Ambassador was  confronted with assertive, and bold Ethiopian women, who at last understood the damage the regime has done to their peopleregardless of where they hail from.

Unlike in the past the conference was packed, but the Woyane Ambassador might have thought the Muslim audience was his usual allies of the past from Tigre or some allies from the South. To his surprise, he faced a different class of Ethiopian women who at last decided to face the Woyane beast head on.

The Woyane amassed security, for  protection, and to silence the opposition, despite such preparation and the presence of such force, the Ethiopian women refused to be silenced and refused to be kicked out of the audience even after the Woyanes urged the police to do so.

The new face of Ethiopian resistance was no more men with jackets, and pants, but Ethiopian women with Hijab. With their coordinated attire, the women filled over half of the audience, showed their protest banners demanding the release of political prisoner and more.

The Ethiopian community in Houston showed up inside the conference room and on the streets in force to demonstrate its displeasure with the Woyane Ambassador from Washington. After months of advertising and promotion, the Woyane Ambassador Girma Biru showed up to collect funds for the Abay Dam, believing his cadres in Houston sold the idea with an ironclad confidence. At the beginning, Houstonians gave the Ambassador the benefit of the doubt to tell his version of the Woyane story and about the Abay Dam. At the beginning, the confident Ambassador narrated the importance of the dam to Ethiopia and how the Woyanes are pulling Ethiopia out of it darkness, while this assertion is highly debatable and probably patently false.

To the surprise of the Ambassador and many Ethiopians, almost half of the audience was women of the Islamic faith. The turnout was beyond any ones expectation; the conference room was packed and some people were forced to stand up. Besides filling the conference with their beautiful attire and yellow Hijab, the Ethiopian women put the Woyane cadres to the task repeatedly raising the plight of their brethren and forcing the police to ask some of them to leave. However, the women would not have it and refused to budge, and the police were forced to back down as the audience turned to their defense.

To his credit, the Ambassador agreed to answer all questions at the end despite his Woyane handlers’ recommendation that all questions be submitted in advance in writing so that they can dictate which questions to be asked or not to be asked. The audience protested to Woyane handlers’ recommendation and the Ambassador relented and took questions from the audience. Unfortunately, he was unable to give straight answers as the audience was looking forward, and the conference degenerated into chaos and the police were called in intervene a few times.

Another surprise to Woyane and other Ethiopians, most of the audience turned to be from the opposition. When the room was cleared off all the protestors, only small groups of people were left with the Ambassador.

As the meeting become unruly, the ambassador decided to call of the meeting and the Ethiopians audience starting singing “Woyane Leba” and Lelaba Genzeb Ansetim”

When the Ambassador cancelled the meeting, he urged those Woyane supporters stayed afoot to make their contribution. However, an awe struck Ambassador was left with an empty room of few supporters and Woyane cadres who organized the meeting. This should have been the most humiliating moment for him: seeing empty conference full of Police and Woyane cadres.

The demonstration continued outside the building and on the streets to make sure that the Ambassador did not leave without more humiliation and embracement and to make sure that he tells his masters in Ethiopia that the table has turned against them and the rumbling of the new freedom fighters, Ethiopian women with hijab. It should be very clear to Woyanes that the days of using religion and tribe are no more marketable as more people are becoming more aware of the damage the Woyane system has caused to every Ethiopians in the last 21 years.

While many in the audience have no problem with the construction of the dam, but they are keenly aware of what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN, the U.S. Department of State, and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have documented about the human rights violations committed by the incumbent regime. Using the Federal Police regularly intimidates and kills at will on streets, schools, churches and mosques, as it has done just recently in Anwar Mosque in Addis Ababa and in various cities throughout Ethiopia.

Many Ethiopians are aware of the overwhelming evidence about the tyrannical situation in Ethiopia and all believe that it went too far and for too long. The end of the Woyane appears imminent whether they realize it or not; the rising tide of resistance fueled by the unwarranted religious interference and oppression is unstoppable.

The yellow Hijab, a symbol of resistance adopted by the Ethiopian Muslims, will accelerate the downfall of the Woyanes, and restore nationalism and unity, missing for the last 21 years.

Dula can be reached at dula06@gmail.com

ethiodemocrat

Dear President Barroso,

I am aware that you are meeting Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, this week. I would like to share some concerns with you, in the hope that you will raise them with the Prime Minister.
As you know, in the last few years, the crackdown against the free media and civil society in Ethiopia intensified under the regime of Meles Zenawi. Journalists like Eskinder Nega and Reeyot Alemu continue to languish in prison, despite western praise of their work and independent assessment that their conviction violates international law (please see enclosed). Unfortunately, European diplomats concentrated on pressing for the release of the Swedish journalists, but neglected Ethiopian journalists and pro-democracy activists,
who continue to be incarcerated. The hope for democratic transition and openness that we felt upon the new leadership of Mr. Desalegn fell void in recent months, since no groundbreaking reforms have taken place.
I believe that Mr. Desalegn himself would push for democratic change, but he alone has reduced margin of manoevre. It is important to stress, though, that any prospects of a peaceful democratic transition in Ethiopia must necessarily include the prompt release of all political prisoners. Therefore I would urge you to press for the release of political prisoners and highlight the need to amend the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which has justified arrests of both journalists and members of the political opposition, along with the Charities and Societies Proclamation law (CSO law), which severely restricts the work of NGOs in the country.
Moreover, apart from the refusal to settle the border with Eritrea, the military interference in Somalia, the barbarous repression in the Ogaden and against other people in Ethiopia, I am particularly concerned with the fact that the Meles regime started meddling in the Muslim community and creating dangerous resentment which is threatening the harmony developed for centuries between Christianity and Islam in Ethiopia. It is my conviction that the repressive EPRDF regime in Ethiopia, however deviously smart, is not sustainable and will not ensure long term stability in the country and in the region.I would thus equally urge you to stress for greater openness in the political space and respect for constitutional rights, in particular the rights of minorities.
Thank you.

Best regards, Ana Gomes

Strasbourg, 16 April 2013 

anagomes

During the dry season of the year, when the water table drops, the Nyangatom, Mursi and other tribes of south-west Ethiopia dig deep holes in river beds to water their cattle and to get drinking water. PHOTO | SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL  

Ethiopia may until recently have been a byword for famine, but in one part of the country at least there are people who have lived largely without outside help for hundreds of years.

With the connivance of the British government, this is about to change forever. The tribes of the Lower Omo Valley in south west Ethiopia – chief among them the Mursi, the Nyangatom, the Bodi and the Daasanach – depend on a combination of flood retreat cultivation on the banks of the Omo River, rain fed cultivation further back from the river, and cattle on the grass plains.

They move between these resources seasonally so as to exploit them to their best advantage. A self-sufficient existence outside mainstream society has
meant that few speak Amharic, and that fewer still can read or write. Like most of us they are strongly attached to their way of life and their traditions, and believe passionately in their right to decide for themselves whether and how to change them.

But flood retreat cultivation will become impossible when the Ethiopian government completes the Gibe III dam on the upper Omo, as it is expected to do shortly. Large-scale irrigation will follow, allowing government sugar plantations to gobble up huge swathes of their ancestral land.

At least ninety thousand people will be forced to relocate to permanent ‘villages’, compelled to give up their herds and become sedentary cultivators.

If experience elsewhere in Ethiopia is anything to go by, many will end up dependent on government handouts or starvation wages on the plantations.

A pastoralist way of life which has survived for centuries will disappear forever. With no political clout, and no chance of redress through the courts, the Lower Omo tribes lack any means to protect themselves.

But as the country’s second largest donor, the British government, is not without influence in Ethiopia and could, if it chose, do much to ensure respect for their basic rights.

Unfortunately for the Mursi, the Daasanach and the other tribes of the Lower Omo, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has proved remarkably reluctant to act.

A problem

The UK knows there is a problem. With masterly understatement, it has acknowledged that "past experience in other countries has shown that where people are resettled against their will this can impact negatively on their well-being and livelihoods." For ‘impact negatively', read ‘destroy utterly.’

In an attempt to avoid the worst excesses of forced resettlement, DFID and the twenty-five other aid agencies that make up the Development Assistance Group (DAG) have even produced a set of Guidelines for the Ethiopian government.

These stipulate that resettlements should be ‘voluntary’; that they should take place only after a feasibility study has been discussed with the community; that the community itself should participate in the planning and implementation of the resettlement programme; that prompt and effective compensation should be paid for losses suffered; and that there should be an independent mechanism to resolve grievances and disputes.

But in the Lower Omo Valley these safeguards have been totally ignored. The gulf between what is written on a sheet of paper and what happens in practice has never been wider.

No feasibility studies were carried out before work started on the plantations. Thousands have already been removed from their land against their will, and herded into ‘villages’ that they did not choose and do not want.

More forced resettlements are on the way. No compensation has been paid, and no system has been put in place to handle complaints.

When an American observer suggested to a DFID representative in Addis Ababa that few of the Guidelines had been followed, she replied that ‘none of them have been followed.’

Graphic account

The scale of oppression in the Lower Omo will probably never be known, but is at least partly described in a report published in January 2013 by International Rivers: The Downstream Impacts of Gibe III Dam: East Africa’s ‘Aral Sea’ in the Making?

The systematic violation of tribal rights in the Lower Omo is also charted in a petition that Survival International has now lodged with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

None of this is news to the British authorities. As long ago as July 2009, Survival met with DFID to express its concerns about the threat that Gibe III poses for the Lower Omo tribes.

In September 2011 Human Rights Watch told the Department that security forces relied almost as a matter of course on beatings, harassment and arbitrary arrests to crush tribal opposition to the plantations.

DFID was sufficiently concerned by the allegations – or at least by the political fallout that it might suffer if they became more widely known – that in January 2012 it sent officials to the area to find out for themselves.

At meetings with Mursi and Bodi they were told not only about the arrests and beatings but of the deliberate destruction of grain stores; of denied access to the Omo River; of threats to sell or kill the cattle of any who refused to move; and of the widespread use of the military to intimidate people into giving up their land.

There were numerous allegations of rape.

For several months DFID said nothing about these complaints in public, and so far as is known did nothing about them in private.

Spurred

It appears to have been spurred into action (of a sort) only when its interpreter on the January trip warned, in September 2012, that in the continued absence of any progress he would release his audio transcripts of the meetings. These give a graphic account of the suffering that the tribes have had to endure.

One Mursi man, for example, had asked: ‘Now if you go to the Omo River … will you see any Mursi there? We have left it without any people there and we are staying here in the plains being hit by the sun. The people were beaten away by the Government that brought its force.’

Another had complained that ‘the Government never came here, and we didn’t get to discuss with them about the sugar cane. They just went to the bush without talking to us, and looked at all the land, and then drove in their trucks and started clearing.’

A third had told DFID that Government officials ‘come and take up all our land and give us violence, and they rape our wives. [They have done this to] the people of Bongo and also in the Bodi. If they give us violence and we are killed off then they can take over the land. It will be taken over by the people who can read and write. To me, this is my land, the Mursi land, our ancestor’s land.’

In October 2012 – shortly after it had been shown the audio transcripts – DFID prepared a so called ‘report’ of the January visit. The report was undated, did not name its authors and did not explain why they had waited ten months to write it. It was released only after Parliamentary Questions about the trip had been put to the Secretary of State.

Perhaps because DFID now knew of the transcripts, the report conceded that the allegations of human rights abuse were ‘extremely serious.’ It concluded, however, that a more detailed investigation would be required to ‘substantiate’ them, and that this would have to be based on a ‘robust methodology’.

'Cruel farce'

An investigation was apparently regarded as the necessary corollary to the equally ‘robust’ stand that DFID has taken, so the report claimed, towards the violation of human rights anywhere in the Lower Omo. There was no mention of the fact that ten months down the line none of the allegations had yet been investigated, or was likely to be investigated any time soon.

More than six months on, we are no further forward. DFID and other DAG officials returned to the Lower Omo last November, but only to monitor progress on the sugar plantations. More than a year and a half after they first learned of the allegations of rape, beatings and false arrests nothing has been done to ‘substantiate’ any of them.

In the meantime twenty six agencies have continued to fund a government which, for all they know, has not only violated repeatedly the fundamental rights of its most vulnerable citizens but has continued to do so with impunity.

A substantial chunk of these funds has gone to the Protection of Basic Services programme, without which the forced resettlement of thousands of tribal people probably could not have been contemplated. An ‘investigation’ of the horrific events in the Lower Omo would have faced huge obstacles even if it had been conducted when news of them first unfolded.

The Ethiopian authorities would still have decided whom the DAG team would be allowed to visit and where it would be allowed to go. They would still have concealed any material likely to support the allegations, and allowed DAG access only to those officials thought to be sufficiently
rehearsed in their protestations of innocence.

But an investigation now of abuses perpetrated in 2010 or 2011 would be a cruel farce. The physical evidence will have gone. Some of the victims of the worst violence will have died, and others will have disappeared.

Many more will fail to see the purpose of an ‘investigation’ that is too late to change anything: whatever evidence DAG might now unearth, it will do nothing for the thousands already expelled from their lands by intimidation, assault or worse.

DFID and its colleagues on DAG must be aware of all this. They must realise that it is now well nigh impossible to ‘substantiate’ the original allegations of multiple rape, land theft and arbitrary arrest in the Lower Omo – and that if they want to take a stand on the violation of human rights at all, they must form the best view they can on what they already know.

What they already know is that people from different tribes have given remarkably similar accounts, to different individuals at different times, of the methods used to evict them from their lands. The consistency of these accounts is a powerful testament to their truth, as is the absence of any obvious motive to lie.

They also know, if they have any understanding at all of the Lower Omo Valley, that none of its tribes would willingly give up their ancestral land or the cattle on which they depend to make way for someone else’s sugar plantation. Why would they?

DFID knows too that the Guidelines that it has so laboriously put in place might just as well not exist. It knows that the Ethiopian government has conspicuously failed to enact into law the land rights supposedly guaranteed to pastoralists by the Constitution; and it knows that this is because the authorities in Addis Ababa believe that pastoralists are hopelessly ‘backward’, that they must be sedentarised for their own good, and that it is irrelevant that this is the last thing they want.

They cannot be expected to know any better.

Partnership principles

If DFID had really taken a ‘robust stand’, it would have concluded more than 18 months ago that the allegations of human rights abuse and forced resettlement in the Lower Omo were overwhelmingly likely to be true.

But this in turn would have required it to decide whether to suspend or reduce aid to Ethiopia until the government mends its ways. It has, or thinks it has, good political reasons not to do this.

In 2011 – the same year in which state violence began to spread through the Lower Omo Valley – the UK pumped £344 million into Ethiopia. This was more than twice as much as it donated to any other African nation over the same period. Payments on a similar scale in 2012 and in each of the next three years will give the UK a significant stake in the country’s ‘success’.

DFID has no wish to upset the Ethiopian apple cart, or (as it sees it) to abandon the millions of people likely to benefit from British aid who are not to blame for what has happened in the Lower Omo. DFID may think that there will be no let up in the wholesale violation of tribal rights whether or not it pulls out.

It may even have been persuaded by ministers in Addis Ababa that the days of the semi-nomad are over, and that they must not be allowed to stand in the way of ‘progress’. Above all, perhaps, the UK will worry that if it withdraws or restricts aid to Ethiopia as a mark of its disapproval, it will lose influence over one of the few stable regimes in a strategically important part of the world.

But none of these considerations is compatible with DFID policy. It has solemnly announced, for example, that a core ‘vision’ of its aid programme for the country is ‘to protect the most vulnerable Ethiopians’.

The most vulnerable, however they are defined, must surely include the tribes of the Lower Omo, and their ‘protection’ must at least include the protection of their right to exist. DFID is equally committed to the four ‘partnership principles’ that underpin all its development programmes, one of which is that countries which accept British aid must in return respect the human rights of their citizens.

If the money continues to flow when they persistently fail to do so, this principle is stripped of any meaning. What is more, as a signatory to the Vienna Declaration, the UK supports the rule that a desire to ‘develop’ tribal groups cannot justify the abridgement of their basic rights.

The UK wants to avert if it can a collision between the principles that it has officially endorsed and what it sees as the realpolitik of Addis Ababa. The pretence that DFID or DAG will eventually conduct some sort of ‘investigation’ in the Lower Omo, and that in the meantime business must continue as usual, fits the bill admirably.

By the time any report is produced one of the businesses in question – the annihilation of a pastoralist way of life and of the people who live it – will almost certainly have been accomplished. DFID will shrug its shoulders and move on. What else can it do?

There is plenty of long grass in this part of Ethiopia – or at least there was, until the earth moving equipment appeared on the scene – but none as long as the grass into which DFID has firmly kicked the tribes of the Lower Omo.

Gordon Bennett is a human rights lawyer and author of 'Aboriginal Rights in International Law'.

africareview

Privacy International takes on HMRC

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is the subject of court action by Privacy International.

The privacy organisation has filed for judicial review after the tax collector refused to reveal the state of an investigation into Gamma International. Privacy International claims the company has been exporting sophisticated surveillance technology, which has been used to spy on dissidents in Bahrain and elsewhere.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) building

It said the FinFisher software had been linked to use in more than two dozen countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

Now the group has gone after HMRC, which it claims has “categorically refused to provide any details regarding any investigation into Gamma’s export practices”, arguing it is statutorily barred from releasing information to victims or complainants.

It said it denied that it has any obligation to be transparent about any activities relating to the potentially illegal exports of British surveillance technology by Gamma International.

Privacy International, however, believes that the HMRC is acting unlawfully, either because it misconstrued the law to justify its evasive practices, or because it issued a blanket refusal without considering the facts of the case at hand.

“Furthermore, in rejecting Privacy International’s requests for information, HMRC was not only in contravention of the law, it also failed to recognise well-established principles regarding the rights of victims of crime,” the organisation said in a statement.

Eric King, head of research at Privacy International, said in the wrong hands surveillance technologies could have “devastating effects”, and the public, especially victims targeted by this surveillance, had a right to know what the UK government is doing about it.

“HMRC’s refusal to provide information to the pro-democracy activists who have been targeted is shameful. In order for the public to have full confidence and faith that these issues will be addressed, we’re asking the court to force HM Revenue & Customs to come clean,” he said.

FinFisher products work by covertly installing software onto a target’s computers and mobile phone without their knowledge, usually by tricking the user into thinking they are opening an attachment or downloading fake updates from seemingly legitimate sources like Apple or Adobe.

Once the user installs the software, victims’ computers and mobile devices can be taken over, the cameras and microphones remotely switched on, emails, instant messengers and voice calls (including Skype) monitored, and locations tracked. Investigations have revealed that such technology has been used in monitoring and tracking victims who are subsequently subjected to torturous interrogations.

In November, Privacy International provided a 186-page dossier of evidence against Gamma International to HMRC, the body responsible for enforcing export regulations, regarding this potentially criminal breach of the export control regime.

Having received no response, Privacy International wrote again on 21st December 2012 on behalf of Dr Ala-A Shehabi, a British born Bahraini pro-democracy activist whose computer had been targeted by the Bahrain authorities using technology exported by Gamma International.

HMRC finally responded on 9 January 2013 stating that by reason of the Commissioner of Revenue and Customs Act 2005 (“CRCA 2005”) s 18 it had no power to “disclose any information held by HMRC in connection with its functions” and thus “will be unable to keep you or other third parties informed about the progress of any investigation”.

ECADF

There are only 1,000 days to go until the deadline for the Education for All goals, but there are still 61 million primary school age children out of school. Half of those children live in just eight countries. The Learning for All Ministerial is bringing together their ministers of finance and education with leaders from development partner organizations in Washington on Thursday, to discuss how to accelerate progress, building on the momentum of the UN Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative launched last September.

Many of the children not in school in those countries – Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Yemen and South Sudan – miss out because of inequality linked to factors such as where they live, poverty, conflict, gender and ethnicity. We highlight those patterns of inequality in graphic form in a new booklet featuring fresh data from our World Inequalities Database on Education (WIDE), released this week to coincide with Learning for All Ministerial meetings in Washington.

Our data show that the factors keeping children out of school are different in each country – and that some countries have made much greater progress than others, demonstrating what can be achieved when effective policies aimed at reaching the marginalized are backed by political commitment.

Bangladesh, for example, has made great progress in getting children into school, and in gender parity. In most low-income countries, more boys than girls attend school, but in Bangladesh it’s the other way around, partly thanks to a successful cash stipend programme for girls.

Nigeria, by contrast, is a wealthier country than Bangladesh but has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children – 10 million. Nigerian children’s chances of entering and completing primary school vary hugely depending on where they live, and on whether their family is rich or poor. In northeastern Nigeria, almost three-quarters of the poorest children aged 7 to 16 had never been to school in 2008, whereas almost all of the richest children had.

Similar divides show up in Ethiopia, despite considerable progress in getting children into school over the last decade – and in rural areas, the nomadic lifestyle of pastoralists makes them particularly vulnerable, as our new data show. In Addis Ababa, the capital, almost all children now start school. By contrast, almost six out of 10 of the poorest children living in Afar, a predominantly pastoralist region, have never had a chance to go to school.

Ethiopia, 2011: Never been to primary school, aged 7-16

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the most striking gap is between those who live in conflict zones and those who don’t. Almost all children aged 7-16 in the capital city, Kinshasa, have been to school, whether male or female. In the conflict-affected region of Katanga, the richest children have a similar chance of going to school as those in Kinshasa. But one in three of the poorest children have never been to school. The poorest girls in Katanga are the worst off of all: 44% have never been to school, compared with 17% of boys in the region.

Putting education first means that ministers of finance need to work together with ministers of education to tackle disparities such as these. The Learning for All Ministerial meeting, which will be co-hosted by Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group; Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general; and Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, are an opportunity to ensure this happens before the 2015 deadline for getting every child into school.

efareport

*where are Bekele Gerba and Albana Lelisa?
(By Getahune Bekele, South Africa)

Bekele Gerba
The forcible and secretive transfer, besides being a provocative action, is regarded as arbitrary and illegal, especially since it is against the very same constitution written by the same ruling Tigre junta.Some well known Oromo and Amhara political prisoners accused of having links to Ginbot-7 and OLF have been violently taken from Klinto prison in Addis Ababa to malaria and bubonic plague infested seaside concentration camp of Zeway, near the rift valley in southern Ethiopia.
Regarding the reason for this disturbing move, the only thing clear is that at least overcrowding for common offenders, but for political prisoners, there was no prior pretext to justify their clandestine departure from Addis Ababa.

Inveterate foes of Tigre tyranny in Ethiopia, the political prisoners who are serving disproportionately long prison terms inside jails that are transformed into fascist concentration camps over the course of 21 years are the most forgotten, the most abused and the most neglected souls on earth.  
According to a damning report appeared on issue 71 April edition of the popular Finotenetsanet Amharic Newspaper, the two highly regarded political prisoners Bekele Gerba and Albana Lelisa are no longer serving their sentences at Kilinto’s zone-2 maximum security section. They are in Zeway prison hundreds of kilometers away from their wives and kids.
Furthermore, the following is the list of political prisoners forcibly removed from Klinto Prison and transferred to Zeway between the month of March and April, starting with a political prisoner whose whereabouts remains a mystery after suddenly removed from Zone-2 high security zone in early March…    
1. Yared Sheferaw, still unaccounted for since March 2013
Transported to Zeway prison after being severely abused and kept in solitary confinement for several months…are
1. Simeneh Mitiku
2.Ambachew Zeryehun
3. Anteneh Ampolo
4. Saied Hussein
5. Nadew Firde
6. Kassahun Abdela
7. Yordanos Girma
8. Dejazmach Beyene
9. Aleneh Belata
10. Gebre Sisay

Arrested as suspected members of the main opposition party in exile, Ginbot-7, these two political prisoners were at Kilinto’s maximum security zone for more than 3 years and 8 months in handcuffs before taken to Zeway prison in April 2013…
1.    Brigadier Gen Tefera Mamo
2.    Asaminew Tsege
Other perceived Ginbot-7 members recently transferred to Zeway prison…are
1.    Lieutenant Col Demisew Anteneh
2.    Lieutenant Col Alemu Getinet
3.    Lieutenant Col Solomon Ashagre
4.    Major Mekonnen Worku  
    Political prisoners tortured by Tigre wardens and still held at Kilinto maximum security zone…
1.    Ashenafi
2.    Yonas Asfaw
For the past 21 years, the heavily battered Ethiopian free press repeatedly highlighted the suffering of captive men and women held inside known jails while calling on the international community to rescue those buried away in catacombs strewn across Tigrai province.
Still, of particular concern is the fate of hundreds deported from north Sudan, Djibouti, South Sudan and Kenya under a controversial prisoner exchange deal signed shortly before the death of the late loathsome warlord Meles Zenawi.



infohorntimes@gmail.com
@infohorntimes
 zehabesha

Several new WikiLeaks publications allow for an interesting insight into the origins of the Oromo Liberation Front and the continued strife they endure in Ethiopia.

Below is an article published by O Pride:

The whistle blowing website WikiLeaks has just published 1,707,500 U.S. diplomatic and intelligence documents from 1973 to 1976. While most of the latest documents have already been declassified and were available through the National Archives, WikiLeaks has created a searchable online database for quick access.

Several of the 1.7 million cables sent from U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia offer interesting insights into the gathering of rebellion against the Ethiopian rulers of the time, the Derg. The telegrams cover a wide range of topics including the formation of Oromo and Tigrean Liberation Fronts, and the execution of Tadesse Birru


We have identified a few that deal with Oromo insurgency and earlier clandestine efforts to organize the Oromo Liberation Front in the center of the country. More than the details contained in the cables though, aside from an intriguing fact that American diplomats were keenly aware of the buildup of the rebellion, the files reveal how little has changed in Ethiopia, especially for the Oromo.

For instance, the documents show that the only one-hour Afan Oromo radio broadcast in the country, starting then for the first time, was heavily censored and controlled. Amhara observers apparently told the Americans that the broadcast would increase Oromo self-awareness, tribal consciousness, as they called it, and ultimately “divide the country rather than to unite it.” While the coverage had expanded now, with a separate Oromia Radio and Television station, there is still no independent media in Afan Oromo. The Voice of America radio was beginning to feel the wrath of authorities began pulling its broadcasts and alternated for more of  “Ethiopia Tikdem” programs, the official philosophy of Ethiopian socialism.

What’s more, in mid-70s too, Oromo students actively protested against government repression and mobilized the Oromo peasantry during Zemecha — a national mass education campaign with a focus on establishing farmers unions.  While other ethnic groups were not immune then, according to these cables, many Oromo students were dismissed and imprisoned, a practice that has become all too familiar in the last two decades. Oromo leaders were arrested and executed under trumped up charges, another practice that continues to date (minus the executions).

While there was a widespread and multi-ethnic resistance against the status quo, which was then mantained by ethnic Amharas, the Americans remarked, an outbreak of any serious Oromo rebellion had a destabilizing impact for whole of Ethiopia. In one cable from 1970, the embassy official noted, “Any effective coalition of traditionally disparate Oromo groups (estimated 40 percent of population) would have significant impact on stability and future directions country.”  The Oromo struggle, which was then only a clandestine effort to forge a unified and pan-Oromo resistance, has since achieved remarkable heights. Today there are a plethora of organizations, in and outside of the country, even if weak and divided, that are fighting for Oromo rights. But the Oromo remain largely marginalized with no real political power in Ethiopia.

 unpo

Religious and Political Freedom in Ethiopia with Jawar Mohammed

The Danish Social Appeals Board withdrew the license of Danish adoption agency DanAdopt to work with the Ethiopian orphanage Enat Alem on February 27, 2013. The decision was made because “fundamental ethical principles” were breached at the orphanage. Following further investigations by the Social Appeals Board, DanAdopt had its license for adoption from Ethiopia revoked temporarily on April 5. The decision came following the testimony of four birth mothers who were persuaded to give up children for adoption by so-called “Child Harvesters”. These employees of Enat Alem would go to

vulnerable families and convince parents to give up children for adoption promising parents that their children would get an education, financial support for their other children and so on. Parents also had the impression that the children would someday return.

DanAdopt now has to clarify and document their operations not only in Ethiopia, but also in all other countries where they operate. Another Danish adoption agency AC Børnehjælp has also been asked to clarify and document their operations, but so far only in Ethiopia, Their license has not been suspended. The scandals have changed the Danish public debate. Open adoptions and third party independent monitoring of adoption agencies and orphanages are now being considered politically. Some journalists are now beginning to ask whether there are better alternatives to helping parents and children who are in need of support.

We are also getting a bit closer to a more comprehensive investigation of unethical and unlawful adoption practices not just today, but also historically. This is something we need to push further through by documenting that these practices are neither new nor unusual. These past few weeks have been intense, but we are perhaps getting a bit closer to some significant changes in Danish adoption practices. As adoptees we have to come forward and support a comprehensive review and reform of adoption in solidarity with those families in the sending countries who have not yet had a voice in the debate.

BUT we also need to do this in a manner that respects the diverse range of adoptee experiences, good or bad. We can not let this become reduced to a discussion about whether adoptees had a good or bad experience as adoptees. It is about the right to know one’s family and background, and the rights of birth parents and families to access alternatives to transnational adoption. This in turn requires us to address issues of social, economic and political marginalization and discrimination in sending countries as well as the practices of the adoption industry.

adoptionskritik

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday ordered a three-month delay to a crackdown on migrant workers which has led to thousands of deportations, to give foreigners in the kingdom a chance to sort out their papers.

The world’s top oil exporter has more than nine million expatriates whose remittances home provide important revenue for countries including Yemen, India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

"King Abdullah directed both the Interior Ministry and the Labour Ministry to give an opportunity to workers in breach of the labour and residency regulations in the kingdom to clarify their status in a period not exceeding three months," said a statement carried on official media.

More than 200,000 foreigners have been deported from the country over the past few months, a passports department official said in comments reported by al-Hayat daily this week.

The crackdown is part of labour market reforms aimed at putting more Saudi nationals into private sector jobs, where they now make up only a tenth of the workforce. The most recent central bank statistics, for 2011, showed nine in 10 working Saudis were employed by the public sector.

The Middle East’s largest economy grew by 6.8 percent last year, but regards low employment among nationals as a long-term strategic challenge, a view given added impetus after joblessness in nearby countries contributed to revolutions.

"The Labour Ministry does inspections inside the enterprises to make sure there are no violations to the labour system … We will continue our work to make sure labour system regulations are applied," Labour Ministry spokesman Hattab al-Enazi told Reuters on Saturday before the king’s announcement.

Under Saudi law, expatriates have to be sponsored by their employer, but many switch jobs without transferring their residency papers.

That has allowed companies to dodge strict Labour Ministry quotas regulating the number of Saudis and expatriates each firm can employ by booking their foreign workers under a different sponsor. Companies with too few Saudi employees face fines.

It has also led to the emergence of a labour black market in which sponsors illegally charge expatriates to renew their residence documents when they in fact work for somebody else.

Some businesses in the past week have reported difficulties operating as expatriate workers stayed at home to avoid inspectors coming to check their residence permits.

Parents of children at two private schools in Riyadh said there had been unscheduled holidays for the past week as teachers stayed at home for fear inspectors would discover their residence papers were incorrect.

"Now my kids can resume studies as normal," said the mother of three children at one of the schools.

On Monday Yemen expressed concern at the rapid pace of deportations of its workers, who provide around $2 billion in remittances a year to Saudi Arabia’s impoverished neighbour.

In India, Oommen Chandy the Chief Minister of Kerala, home to a large number of expatriates based in Saudi Arabia, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to intervene, Press Trust of India reported on Friday.

The most recent annual report from Saudi Arabia’s central bank said remittances from the country in 2011 grew by 5.4 percent from 2010 to 103.5 billion riyals, or 17.4 percent of its current account surplus.

"When I heard of the inspection campaigns I was very depressed. I am the only source of income to my family and in light of the current situation in Egypt, I thought if I went back I would find no real job," said Abo Hassan, who did not give his full name.

He said he pays his sponsor 1,500 riyals a year while working privately as a driver.

Last month the Labour Ministry said extensive reforms adopted over the past year have put more than 600,000 Saudi citizens into private sector jobs.

ethiopianreview

His Excellency Berhan Hailu
Minister of Justice
P.O. Box 1370
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia

Via facsimile: +251-11-517-755
Via email: justice@telecom.net.et

Dear Minister Birhan Hailu,

We are writing to bring to your attention the case of Ethiopian journalist and teacher Reeyot Alemu, whose health has deteriorated since her imprisonment in June 2011 on terrorism charges and who is now being threatened with solitary confinement. The Ethiopian Ministry of Justice has publicly subscribed to a vision in which "human and democratic rights are respected," yet Reeyot's full human rights are being denied to her in Kality Prison.

The Ethiopian High Court sentenced Reeyot, a columnist for the now-defunct independent weekly Feteh, to 14 years in prison on January 2012 under the country's anti-terrorism law. In August 2012, the Supreme Court acquitted her on two counts, but upheld the charge against her of participation in the promotion or communication of a terrorist act, and reducedher sentence to five years.

Prison authorities have threatened Reeyot with solitary confinement for two months as punishment for alleged bad behavior toward them and threatening to publicize human rights violations by prison guards, according to sources close to the journalist who spoke to the International Women's Media Foundation on condition of anonymity. CPJ has independently verified the information. Reeyot has also been denied access to adequate medical treatment after she was diagnosed with a tumor in her breast, the sources said.

We would like to draw your attention to the 2011 report by Juan E. Méndez, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, in which he urged the prohibition of "the imposition of solitary confinement as punishment--either as part of a judicially imposed sentence or a disciplinary measure." We would also remind you that Ethiopia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and is legally bound to uphold these principles.

As a current member of the United Nations Human Rights Council and a signatory to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Ethiopia has committed itself to upholding the human rights of all of its citizens. This includes the right to freedom of expression and speech, as well as protection from cruel and inhumane forms of punishment such as solitary confinement.

All of the charges against Reeyot were based on her journalistic activities--emails she had received from pro-opposition discussion groups and reports and photographs she had sent to opposition news sites. Reeyot, who received the International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award in 2012, has covered key developmental issues in Ethiopia such as poverty, democratic opposition, and gender equality.

The prison sentence against Reeyot for performing her duties and exercising her rights as a journalist to ask questions and express opinions calls into question Ethiopia's commitment to the democratic values and human rights the country claims to uphold.

We urge you to fulfill Ethiopia's promise to build a humane and democratic state by withdrawing the threat of solitary confinement against Reeyot and ensuring her access to adequate medical care. No journalists should face detention or imprisonment in the exercise of their duty.

Yours sincerely,

Joel Simon
Executive Director

CC List:

Shiferaw Tekle-Mariam, minister of federal affairs of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia

Girma Birru Geda, ambassador of Ethiopia to the United States

Donald Booth, ambassador of the United States to Ethiopia

Lieselore Cyrus, ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ethiopia

Greg Dorey, ambassador of the United Kingdom to Ethiopia

Xavier Marcha, head of the European Union Delegation to Ethiopia

Juan E. Méndez, special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, U.N. Human Rights Council

Claudio Grossman, chairperson, United Nations Committee against Torture

Firmin Edouard Matoko, UNESCO representative to Ethiopia

Pansy Tlakula, special rapporteur on freedom of expression, African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights

Med S.K. Kaggwa, special rapporteur on prisons and conditions of detention, African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

Reine Alapini-Gansou, commissioner and special rapporteur of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

Margaret Sekaggya, U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders

Arnold Tsunga, director, Africa Program, International Commission of Jurists

Antoine Bernard, chief executive officer, International Federation for Human Rights

Berhane Melka, head of Federal Prison Administration, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Tombet Ariane, head of delegation, International Committee of the Red Cross, Ethiopia

Alana Barton, program manager, International Women's Media Foundation, United States

CPJ