Ethiopia Watch

Sudan's President Al Bashir addresses the mini-summit on the security situation in Somalia - ISSA rejects any Israeli role in Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 06:54:00 +0000

Sudan is keeping its diplomatic mission in Mogadishu despite the deteriorated security situation there.

The 1st Consultative Meeting held between the Council of Arab Peace and Security (PSC) and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union called for full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories.

Further details below.

ISSA Rejects any Israeli Role in Africa - Al Bashir Addresses the Mini-Summit on the Security Situation in Somalia
Source: Sudan Vision Daily - www.sudanvisiondaily.com
Author: Al-Sammani Awadallah
Date: Monday, 20 December 2010

(Khartoum, Sudan) – President of the Republic, Field Marshal Omer Al Bashir will address at 12:00 noon today in the Friendship Hall the Mini-Summit on the Security Situation in Somalia.

The summit will discuss the situation in Somalia amid broad participation from African Security and Intelligence services.

Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service Representative, Major General Hanafi Abdullah said in a press conference yesterday that the situation in Somalia will top the agendas of the summit, pointing our to the role played by Sudan in connection to the Somali issue and the financial and logistic support present to the government in Mogadishu.

He affirmed that Sudan is keeping its diplomatic mission in Mogadishu despite the deteriorated security situation there.

He said that the summit will discuss the proposed mechanism to upgrade the capability in Somalia and the current situation there. He pointed to the participation of the African Union and IGAD in this mini-summit to reach a united vision in supporting the AU Peace and Security Council to resolve the issue besides helping the African leaders in supporting stability in Somalia.

On his part, CISSA executive Secretary, Isaac Moyo said that Sudan is continuously supporting the CISSA and this meeting is evidence to the confidence of the CISSA in Sudan which is one of its founders.

He added that the CISSA held a workshop on the ICC through which the rejection voice of the African continent came out.

He disclosed that today's meeting is a unique chance to activate the data of the CISSA over Somalia to bridge any gaps, affirming that the African governments blessed the formation of the CISSA as a unique institution.

He said that the mini-summit will discuss on the sidelines of the meeting the situation in Sudan and the upcoming referendum.

Moyo affirmed that CISSA is an African entity working for the interest of the continent as a security mechanism to confront the security problems in the continent.

He confirmed that CISSA doesn't welcome any Israeli role in Africa and will unveil any Zionist plots.

- - -

The 1st Consultative Meeting held between the Council of Arab Peace and Security (PSC) and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union called for full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories.

Arab and African PSCs Call for Israeli Withdrawal from All Occupied Arab Lands
Source: Ahlul Bayt News Agency - www.abna.ir
Date:

The 1st Consultative Meeting held between the Council of Arab Peace and Security (PSC) and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union called for full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories.
The meeting was held at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

The councils issued a statement in which they urged the international community to recognize the State of Palestine within the borders of June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital and reach a just and comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The statement included several items that reflect the stances of the Arab and African countries concerning Sudan, Somalia and the Comoros, in order to achieve peace, stability, security and prevent external interference in those areas.

Ambassador Youssef Ahmed, Syria's Permanent Representative to the League of Arab States, stressed the importance of holding such meetings between the Arab and the African blocs to reach joint cooperation and coordination between them.

Ahmad stressed that these meetings should reflect clear and strong stances that reject the obstinate Israeli policies, which hinder the peace efforts and violate the international resolutions.

Ambassador Ahmad called for an effective Arab and African role to solve the crisis of Sudan and the Horn of Africa and achieve peace and stability in these areas.

The Council of Arab Peace and Security was established in 2006 during the Arab Summit in Khartoum. It aims at preventing, managing and solving crises.

The Council submits reports to the League's Council with its recommendations and suggestions on the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security, the outcome of negotiations, mediation and conciliation efforts conducted between disputing parties.

Understanding the Ethiopian hardliners

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 07:20:00 +0000

On Sudan, Getachew urged the U.S. to engage Bashir and the Sudanese leadership. Sudan, more than Somalia, poses the greatest threat to regional security and stability, Getachew argued. The prospects for a civil war which destabilizes the region would be devastating. The only country that would benefit would be Eritrea.

Further details below.

US embassy cables Meles Security chief and Yamamoto
Source: www.abugidainfo.com
Date: Wednesday, 08 December 2010.
US embassy cables Meles Security chief and Yamamoto
Monday, 08 June 2009, 12:33

EU contributed over €600 million to Ethiopia - “Ethiopia’s Stalled Democracy: A Spotlight on the Ogaden”

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:09:00 +0000

Mr. Marino Busdachin, UNPO General Secretary, stressed the need to discuss Ethiopia’s failed governance because “not enough people in the EU manifest enough interest in the Ethiopia issue.” A major conference was needed to bring new thinking to light – the EU contributed over €600 million to Ethiopia but was treated with contempt and its funds used not for, but against, democracy – this had to be stopped.

The plight of Ogaden women was presented by Mr. Abdullahi Mohamed and Ms. Abbey Augus of African Rights Monitor who cited cases of arrest, robbery, rape, and extrajudicial killings, that compounded critically low development indicators and a tolerance of underage marriage and female genital mutilation.

Full story below.

EU must end “business as usual” with Ethiopia
Source: Unrepresented Nations and People Organization
Reprinted by: africanpressorganization
Date: Thursday, 09 December 2010 (BRUSSELS, Kingdom of Belgium):

In a hearing convened on 7 December 2010 in the European Parliament, deputies, media and civil society heard that the European Union must uphold its values and support them with “concrete action” while the EU High Representative’s “softly worded” statements must be replaced by an assessment of the effectiveness of EU aid distribution and its impact on human rights and democratization, possibly leading to the consideration of identifying targeted sanctions.

Rare and moving testimony from an eyewitness to the severe and degrading human rights abuses being perpetrated in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia informed discussions in a cross-party hearing, entitled “Ethiopia’s Stalled Democracy: A Spotlight on the Ogaden” convened by Ms. Ana Gomes MEP in the European Parliament on 7 December 2010.

Opening the hearing, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Mr. László Tőkés MEP noted that the hearing represented an important step to understanding “Ethiopia’s complexity and the legitimacy of its peoples’ demands” emphasizing that “to look to the future we must understand the present.”

Ms. Ana Gomes MEP communicated her desire for a constructive dialogue – there was “a pressing need to assess where Ethiopian governance is heading” she noted and it was time the international community reacts ”against the domestic and international threat of Ethiopia’s repressive government.”

Mr. Marino Busdachin, UNPO General Secretary, stressed the need to discuss Ethiopia’s failed governance because “not enough people in the EU manifest enough interest in the Ethiopia issue.” A major conference was needed to bring new thinking to light – the EU contributed over €600 million to Ethiopia but was treated with contempt and its funds used not for, but against, democracy – this had to be stopped.

The plight of Ogaden women was presented by Mr. Abdullahi Mohamed and Ms. Abbey Augus of African Rights Monitor who cited cases of arrest, robbery, rape, and extrajudicial killings, that compounded critically low development indicators and a tolerance of underage marriage and female genital mutilation.

In a historical overview Dr. Barbara Lakeberg of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights drew from personal experience in Iraq the case of Ethiopians that fleeing the country to escape repression and the limits to free expression that made independent assessments of the situation in Ogaden so difficult.

Professor Jans of Tilburg University emphasized the need to develop a respect of minorities that went not in the direction of tolerance but rather a deeper and more positive “intercultural reciprocity” that placed Ethiopians under a law applicable to all – similar to that enshrined in the South African constitution.

SOURCE

Unrepresented Nations and People Organization

[End of copy]

Yemen key transit hub for Hamas arms: leaked memos

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:03:00 +0000

WASHINGTON saw Yemen as a key transit point for arms flowing to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Gaza Strip via Sudan, according to US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday.

"We understand a significant volume of arms shipments to Hamas make the short 24-hour transit across the Red Sea from Yemen to Sudan," a July 2009 memo from the US embassy in Saana said.

Full story below.

Yemen key transit hub for Hamas arms: leaked memos
Source: AFP - www.google.com/hostednews
By Paul Handley (AFP) – Tuesday, 07 December 2010:

(RIYADH) - Washington saw Yemen as a key transit point for arms flowing to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Gaza Strip via Sudan, according to US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday.

"We understand a significant volume of arms shipments to Hamas make the short 24-hour transit across the Red Sea from Yemen to Sudan," a July 2009 memo from the US embassy in Saana said.

"These shipments usually transit in small groups of flagged and unflagged dhows" -- small wooden ships -- that hide by mixing with other similar vessels in busy harbours or in coastal mangroves, according to the document.

"The weapons are transported by boat across the Red Sea to landing points in Sudan ... Once landed, we assess that the goods are transported north by car through Sudan."

Weapons one group smuggled to Gaza included rockets, handguns, anti-armour rocket-propelled grenades, and anti-aircraft guns, the memo said.

It said the US was asking Sanaa for permission to conduct surveillance over Yemen's coastal sea using helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles to track the arms-smuggling dhows.

"In a recent case, sparse intelligence and a dhow's use of Yemeni territorial waters allowed a known shipment of arms probably bound for Gaza to transit undetected in international waters past a searching US warship," it said.

The same document said Yemen was a departure point for arms going to Somalia and other east African countries, and to Saudi Arabia as well.

Washington had information on a Yemen-based smugglers who were sending arms to African buyers, who possibly sold them on to Al-Qaeda-associated groups like Somalia's Al-Shabab rebels.

US embassy documents also spoke of the "robust black market" for weapons in Yemen.

One of the biggest worries for the US officials was the possibility that shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles could be obtained on the Yemen market.

In a cable from January 2010, US officials expressed concerns about Yemen's planned purchase of 30,000 assault rifles and ammunition from Bulgaria "given the unstable situation in Yemen and the potential for proliferation of small arms."

One month earlier, another memo spoke of worries that Yemen's defence ministry planned to buy a shipment of small arms and heavy artillery ammunition, sniper rifles, anti-aircraft guns and howitzers from a Serbian arms dealer Slobodan Tesic, who was on a UN travel ban list.

The embassy said it worried that the weapons could be diverted to the black market.

But a 2007 cable suggested Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh took a casual view toward the arms black market, and could benefit from it himself.

In the middle of a meeting with the White House's top counter-terrorism advisor, Frances Townsend, Saleh unexpectedly invited in known arms dealer Faris Manaa.

"If he does not behave properly, you can take him... back to Washington in Townsend's plane or to Guantanamo," Saleh joked with the Americans.

Ethiopia's ONLF rebels say killed 35 govt troops - Government says claim propaganda based on lies

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Region is eyed for potential oil and gas reserves
Government says claim propaganda based on lies

Ethiopia's ONLF rebels say killed 35 govt troops
Source: Reuters - uk.reuters.com
Author: Aaron Maasho
Date: Friday, 26 November 2010 1:14pm GMT

ADDIS ABABA, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Rebels in Ethiopia's Ogaden region said on Friday they had killed 35 government troops in three days of fighting, a charge dismissed by the government.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) wants autonomy for the ethnic Somali-dominated province, which is drawing interest from foreign firms who think its deserts might hold significant oil and gas deposits.

The group said in a statement that hundreds of civilians were tortured by government troops in November after they were displaced from their localities.

"A brigade has engaged the Ethiopian Army on multiple fronts around Degahbur from November 23 to 25. They lost 35 soldiers in the operation, with many wounded," the ONLF said.

"This operation was to disrupt the Ethiopian government's new strategy of evicting people from their habitat and confiscating their properties, then taking them to killing centres," the group said.

Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal dismissed the claim.

"What happened was that the army was conducting a mop-up operation to get rid of bandits. Six of their members were killed while two were captured," he told Reuters by phone.

Ethiopia says the Ogaden basin may contain gas reserves of 4 trillion cubic feet and major oil deposits.

The ONLF routinely claims victories over the army. The government has admitted to small skirmishes in the past year but Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the ONLF had been defeated.

Ethiopia signed a peace deal in October with a faction of the ONLF, although another division of the group called the deal "irrelevant".

"They (ONLF) have been crushed. This is a splinter group that is limited to highway robberies and nothing more," Shimelis said. Addis Ababa says the ONLF are "terrorists" supported by regional rival Eritrea.

(Editing by David Clarke and Jan Harvey)

New Sudan war would cost Ethiopia, region

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 13:59:00 +0000

New Sudan war would cost Kenya, region
Source: AFP / www.capitalfm.co.ke
Date: Thursday, 25 November 2010

(Khartoum, Sudan, Nov 25) - A return to civil war in the event that south Sudan votes for independence would cost the country, the region and international community more than 100 billion dollars, a study published on Thursday warned.

Aegis Trust, an NGO, and three research centres including the Institute for Security Studies, based in South Africa, drew up four post-referendum scenarios, ranging from peace to a resumption of full-scale war between north and south Sudan.

In the case of a 10-year conflict of medium intensity, the losses for Sudan would amount to at least 52.1 billion dollars (39 billion euros), on top of about 29 billion dollars for neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, the study estimated.

The impact on the international community would top 30 billion dollars in terms of peacekeeping missions and humanitarian aid.

"This report demonstrates the high cost of conflict. It implies that domestic, regional and international parties should be asking: 'Are we doing enough to avoid a war that might cost over 100 billion dollars and ruin countless lives?'" said Matthew Bell of London-based Frontier Economics.

The study calculated Sudan's losses in case of war on the basis of an annual 2.2-percent decline in Gross Domestic Product.

It would cost Ethiopia and Kenya more than one billion dollars a year in terms of forecast growth, the researchers said, warning that war would also damage Egypt, Sudan's northern neighbour and the region's leading economy.

The impact could be even heavier in the event of full-scale war that would disrupt the oil production of Africa's largest country, which has reserves of more than six billion barrels.

Khartoum and the former southern rebels signed a peace deal in 2005 after more than two decades of war. A central element of that accord is an independence referendum for the south scheduled for January. Since July, the two sides have been negotiating on key post-vote issues.

Chief among those crucial to a peaceful transition in case of partition is the sharing of oil resources.

Oil revenues make up the Sudanese government's main source of foreign currency earnings, while southern Sudan depends on oil for as much as 98 percent of its budget.

Most of Sudan's reserves are concentrated in the south but can only be exported through a pipeline passing through the north on the way to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

An oil-sharing formula would benefit both the north and south, whereas an interruption in production and exports would damage the whole country.

"Reaching some level of agreement before the referendum is important not only because both economies need uninterrupted revenue, but also to sustain the confidence of oil companies in their existing investments," the International Crisis Group said this week.

In case of peace and healthy ties between north and south Sudan as well improved security in Darfur, Sudan's growth would steady at an annual 6.2 percent for five years and even reach nine percent from 2016, the study said.

- - -

Report On The Cost Of A Possible Return To War In Sudan
Source: SRS (Sudan Radio Service) - www.sudanradio.org
Date: Thursday, 25 November 2010

(Nairobi, Kenya) – A report published by a coalition of European and African economic and political think-tanks on Thursday says a return to war in Sudan would cost Sudan, the region and the international community about 100 billion US dollars.

The report which comes amid fears that the referendum could trigger an escalation of violence attempts to analyze the economic cost of war to the region.

Mathew Bell an Associate Director of the London based, Frontier Economics spoke to SRS in Nairobi during the launch of the report.

[Mathew Bell]: “The report is an attempt to do with economic analysis of what the cost of war to Sudan and the region and the international community could be. It very explicitly sets aside the very real and important human costs of death and suffering that would result in war but to take a financial perspective as a way of adding to the debate around the cost of war. The headline itself looks like it would cost in excess of about a hundred billion dollars to the combination of Sudan the region and the international community should war break out. That figure breaks down into about 50 billion dollar cost to the Sudanese economy itself. About a 25 billion dollar cost to the regional economy including Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. And about a 25 to 30 billion dollar cost to the international community in the form of peace keeping in the form of humanitarian intervention.”

Mathew Bell recognizes the difficulties in measuring the costs of potential future conflict in the report. He explains the different scenarios.

[Mathew Bell]: “Because of the uncertainties of what may happen because nobody can be sure about what the outcome is going to be, we have looked at different potential scenarios; we have tried to come up with a range of figures. And the 100 billion dollar that we have been quoting is towards the bottom end of that range. And the Low, medium and high conflict scenarios are different levels of conflict from a low level civil war situation, to a very serious situation to a very serious full blown civil war that might involve some of the regional players as well, or ways of how to characterize different points in the spectrum of costs. What we don’t comment on at all is what the likelihood of different scenarios would be. But we want to give a range of potential costs.”

According to the report the evidence suggests that the net impact of conflict would be significantly negative. Sudan would lose about 50 billion USD from its GDP, the neighboring countries would lose 25 billion USD of GDP and the international community would lose 30 billion USD in peacekeeping and humanitarian costs.

The report by the European and African economic and political think-tanks on the cost of war in Sudan was launched in Nairobi on Thursday.

South Sudan warns of violence over Jan. vote - Sudan NCP and SPLM to meet in Addis Ababa on resolution over Abyei

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 12:44:00 +0000

AFTER reaching no agreement on resolving the controversy over the formation of a commission to conduct referendum in Abyei in New York, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the National Congress Party (NCP) agreed to meet again in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. A delegation of the SPLM will leave today [Friday, 01 Oct] for Addis Ababa to a meeting that is scheduled to take place tomorrow [Saturday, 02 Oct], Salva Kiir said yesterday [Thursday, 30 Sep].

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday that the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, would participate Sunday in a meeting on Sudan in Ethiopia. Crowley said Clinton talked Friday about Sudan with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who "pledged to Secretary Clinton that he would likewise do everything he could to encourage the parties to reach an agreement on Abyei."

Clinton spoke Thursday with Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha to encourage the ruling NCP, based in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, to come to “Addis Ababa on Sunday prepared to negotiate and to make sure that the negotiating team will have specific authority to reach agreement on Abyei,” Crowley said.

“We are very conscious of the fact that we have just about 100 days remaining, and Abyei is one of the central issues that has to be resolved before we can hope for a successful referenda early in 2011,” Crowley said.

Speaking before a crowd of about 1,000 people, Kiir appealed to the armies and people of Sudan to shun war, saying that he is not a coward but only those who have not been in war “still drill for it.” He said the south was willing to negotiate with the north.

Leaders from the north and south meet this weekend in Ethiopia in search for solutions surrounding the January votes. The north-south border must still be demarcated and agreements made over oil wealth, much of which is located in the south.

At Kiir’s arrival at the airport, traditional dancers performed on the runway and Kiir released white doves into the air. A white bull — a southern cultural emblem of prosperity — was slaughtered as Kiir’s plane landed.

Juba residents lined the streets to welcome Kiir, and one youth group wore T-shirts that saying: “The referendum is your golden chance for total independence.”

Read full story here below by AP, Bor Globe, SOSA News.

From: The Associated Press (AP) by Maggie Flick
Date: Friday 01 October 2010
Title: S Sudan president warns of violence over Jan. vote:

(JUBA, Sudan) — The president of Southern Sudan on Friday warned cheering crowds of a return to violence "on a massive scale" if the region's independence referendum — now 100 days away — is not held on time.

President Salva Kiir's return to this dusty, former war garrison town follows meetings at the U.N. last week that focused new attention on the region in the run-up to a Jan. 9 vote on independence.

Kiir predicted the south's vote will pass overwhelmingly. The border region of Abyei — where much of Sudan's oil is located — holds a similar vote the same day, in which voters will choose whether the region will join Sudan's north or a possible new country in the south.

"Delay or denial of the right of self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan and Abyei risks dangerous instability," Kiir said, according to prepared remarks. "There is without question a real risk of a return to violence on a massive scale if the referenda do not go ahead as scheduled."

Tensions between north and south are high over stalled preparations for both the southern referendum and the separate vote for Abyei. The Obama administration has labeled it "inevitable" the south will declare independence, but U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also called the issue a "ticking time bomb."

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday that the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, would participate Sunday in a meeting on Sudan in Ethiopia. Crowley said Clinton talked Friday about Sudan with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who "pledged to Secretary Clinton that he would likewise do everything he could to encourage the parties to reach an agreement on Abyei."

Gration also has plans to meet with Meles before Sunday's meeting.

Clinton also spoke Thursday with Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha to encourage the ruling National Congress Party, based in Sudan's capital Khartoum, to come to "Addis Ababa on Sunday prepared to negotiate and to make sure that the negotiating team will have specific authority to reach agreement on Abyei," Crowley said.

"We are very conscious of the fact that we have just about 100 days remaining, and Abyei is one of the central issues that has to be resolved before we can hope for a successful referenda early in 2011," Crowley said.

Speaking before a crowd of about 1,000 people, Kiir appealed to the armies and people of Sudan to shun war, saying that he is not a coward but only those who have not been in war "still drill for it." He said the south was willing to negotiate with the north.

Leaders from the north and south meet this weekend in Ethiopia in search for solutions surrounding the January votes. The north-south border must still be demarcated and agreements made over oil wealth, much of which is located in the south.
At Kiir's arrival at the airport, traditional dancers performed on the runway and Kiir released white doves into the air. A white bull — a southern cultural emblem of prosperity — was slaughtered as Kiir's plane landed.

Juba residents lined the streets to welcome Kiir, and one youth group wore T-shirts that saying: "The referendum is your golden chance for total independence."

Sudan has been wracked by decades of war. A 2005 peace agreement ended the north-south conflict that killed 2 million people but by then the western Darfur region was at war. The referendum for the south's independence is part of the peace agreement.

- - -

From: Bor Globe.com by Mabior Philip, Staff Writer
Date: Friday 01 October 2010 at 6:05 pm
Title: Sudan NCP and SPLM to meet in Addis Ababa on resolution over Abyei controversy

(Juba, Sudan - Borglobe) - After reaching no agreement on resolving the controversy over the formation of a commission to conduct referendum in Abyei in New York, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the National Congress Party agreed to meet again in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

A delegation of the SPLM will leave to day for Addis Ababa to a meeting that is scheduled to take place tomorrow, Salva Kiir said yesterday.

He said the National Congress Party must implement the CPA with faith and commitment, including the Abyei Protocol and a verdict issued last year by The Hague based permanent court of arbitration, delimiting Abyei boundaries.

In statements yesterday at Garang’s Mausoleum, Kiir said the Addis Ababa meeting must reach a resolution to avoid Abyei confrontation that owned by the nine Dinka Nogk Chiefdoms transferred to Southern Kordofan in1905, from remaining a flash point of bloody north-south conflict.

The SPLM and the NCP are stuck on the formation of the referendum commission for Abyei, triggering worries from the troubled natives of the area that the NCP might be plotting to derail the long-savored vote.

Borders between the north and south have not been demarcated thus far and the boundaries of the contested Abyei have not been marked on ground despite a court ruling issued last year.

- - -

From: SOSA News.com by R. Amoko
Date: Saturday 02 October 2010
Title: President Kiir warns of violence over Jan Poll

(Juba, S. Sudan) – The president of Southern Sudan on Friday warned cheering crowds of a return to violence “on a massive scale” if the region’s independence referendum now 100 days away is not held on time.

President Salva Kiir’s return to this dusty, former war garrison town follows meetings at the U.N. last week that focused new attention on the region in the run-up to a Jan. 9 vote on independence.

Kiir predicted the south’s vote will pass overwhelmingly. The border region of Abyei, where much of Sudan’s oil is located, holds a similar vote the same day, in which voters will choose whether the region will join Sudan’s north or a possible new country in the south.

“Delay or denial of the right of self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan and Abyei risks dangerous instability,” Kiir said, according to prepared remarks. “There is without question a real risk of a return to violence on a massive scale if the referenda do not go ahead as scheduled.”

Tensions between north and south are high over stalled preparations for both the southern referendum and the separate vote for Abyei. The Obama administration has labeled it “inevitable” the south will declare independence, but U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also called the issue a “ticking time bomb.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday that the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, would participate Sunday in a meeting on Sudan in Ethiopia. Crowley said Clinton talked Friday about Sudan with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who “pledged to Secretary Clinton that he would likewise do everything he could to encourage the parties to reach an agreement on Abyei.”

Gration also has plans to meet with Meles before Sunday’s meeting.

Clinton also spoke Thursday with Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha to encourage the ruling National Congress Party, based in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, to come to “Addis Ababa on Sunday prepared to negotiate and to make sure that the negotiating team will have specific authority to reach agreement on Abyei,” Crowley said.

“We are very conscious of the fact that we have just about 100 days remaining, and Abyei is one of the central issues that has to be resolved before we can hope for a successful referenda early in 2011,” Crowley said.

Speaking before a crowd of about 1,000 people, Kiir appealed to the armies and people of Sudan to shun war, saying that he is not a coward but only those who have not been in war “still drill for it.” He said the south was willing to negotiate with the north.

Leaders from the north and south meet this weekend in Ethiopia in search for solutions surrounding the January votes. The north-south border must still be demarcated and agreements made over oil wealth, much of which is located in the south.

At Kiir’s arrival at the airport, traditional dancers performed on the runway and Kiir released white doves into the air. A white bull — a southern cultural emblem of prosperity — was slaughtered as Kiir’s plane landed.

Juba residents lined the streets to welcome Kiir, and one youth group wore T-shirts that saying: “The referendum is your golden chance for total independence.”

Sudan has been wracked by decades of war. A 2005 peace agreement ended the north-south conflict that killed 2 million people but by then the western Darfur region was at war. The referendum for the south’s independence is part of the peace agreement.

Band Aid and UNHCR link up again to help Somali and Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 17:27:00 +0000

Somali refugees at a water outlet in Ethiopia. Band Aid's donation will help provide fresh water for refugees in Aw-Barre camp. (UNHCR)

Band Aid and UNHCR link up again to help Somali and Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia
From UNHCR.org
Friday, 17 September 2010

LONDON, United Kingdom, September 17 (UNHCR) – The Band Aid Charitable Trust set up by rock music legends Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in 1985 has given £55,000 (US$86,000) to UNHCR to help Somali refugees in eastern Ethiopia.

The grant will be used to construct a gravity-fed pipeline to provide a regular supply of fresh water to refugees in the Aw-Barre camp, which hosts some 13,000 Somalis who have fled their conflict-torn country. Some 30,000 Ethiopians living nearby will also benefit from the project.

The provision of clean water will have benefits for public health and personal hygiene. It will also have a positive gender impact as women and girls will no longer have to run the risk of being attacked or raped while collecting water outside the camp. They will also now have more time to spend on education or income-generation activities.

Claire Palmer, a fund-raiser for UNHCR in London, welcomed the collaboration and noted that "this project marks the rekindling of a relationship between UNHCR and The Band Aid Charitable Trust that began in the mid-80s when Band Aid supported UNHCR with funds to provide emergency humanitarian aid for Sudanese and Somali refugees living in Ethiopia."

The Band Aid Charitable Trust was set up to handle and allocate funds raised by the song, "Do They Know It's Christmas?," which was performed by a superband brought together by Geldof of the Boomtown Rats and Ure from Ultravox.

Led by the two men, the group featured artists such as Phil Collins, Sir Paul McCartney, Boy George, Bono, Paul Weller, George Michael, Sting and David Bowie. It became a massive charts hit. New versions of the song were released in 1989 and 2004.

Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid (Peter Gill)

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:36:00 +0000

Ethiopia Since Live Aid, Part III: On Africa, aid, and the West
From OUPblog - Thursday, July 8th, 2010:

Peter Gill is a journalist specialising in developing world affairs, and first travelled to Ethiopia in the 1960s. He has made films in and reported from Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, South Africa, Uganda, and Sudan, as well as Ethiopia. He recently led BBC World Service Trust campaigns on leprosy and HIV/AIDS in India. His new book is Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid, which is the story of what has happened in the country since the famous music and television events 25 years ago.
This third and final part of our ‘Ethiopia Since Live Aid’ blog feature is an original post by Peter Gill, in which he discusses the West’s view of aid and Africa. If you missed it, on Tuesday we read an excerpt from the book, and yesterday we ran an exclusive Q&A with Peter.

This 2010 ‘Summer of Africa’ has been promoted as a moment of transformation – an acknowledgment that the continent may at last be on the move, that it may be beginning to cast off its image as global basket case, ceasing to be a ‘scar on the conscience of humanity,’ in the phrase of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It was 25 years ago in July that a great Ethiopian famine and the Live Aid concert which it inspired underlined the physical and moral enormity of mass death by starvation. These events defined popular outrage at the human cost of extreme poverty and began to build an extraordinary consensus around the merits of aid. A generation later, in the teeth of financial gales in the rich world, this consensus is under increasing scrutiny.

Of course aid works and it works at many levels. Charity is an essential characteristic of social relationships. It saves lives and it helps individuals, families, sometimes whole communities to improve their existence. What the big aid flows – from governments and charities – have not done is to change the face of poor societies, to overcome the disgrace of extreme poverty.

Now the western world may have missed its opportunity to fix the problem. It may no longer have the means. It is also far too preoccupied with addressing the processes of how best to deliver aid, and has failed to sort out whether it had the right strategy in the first place.

What went wrong, I believe, is that we kept seeing Africa in our own image – as we would like it to be, rather than as it was. The colonial period may have become history, but the colonial mindset of ‘we-know-best’ has surely persisted. We compounded the error by allowing our hearts to rule our heads in how we spend the aid money. We have been more troubled by the symptoms of poverty than to see where our help was most needed.

Our fortunate way of the life in the West – prosperity allied with liberal democratic forms of government – may be the envy and the aspiration of many in the poor world, but did that give us the right in the name of ‘good governance’ to insist that there are quick and easy steps to achieving it? In the decades after Europe’s helter-skelter decolonisation, was it realistic to ignore the lessons of our own tortured political evolution and demand swift democratic reform as a condition of aid?

Our rich world sensibilities have, rightly, been offended by deaths from preventable diseases and we have, again rightly, poured money into ever more ambitious health initiatives. But we have made little corresponding effort to help African women plan their families by plugging the huge gap in contraceptive needs. Aid expenditure on family planning has actually fallen in the past decade and for 2010 the United Nations is projecting a paltry $414 million in Sub Saharan Africa compared with $16 billion for HIV/AIDS, 40 times as much.

As in so much, Ethiopia is the iconic example. At the time of the great famine in 1984-5, the population stood at 40 million. It is now 80 million and the demographers say it will double again within the next 25 to 30 years. This increase is barely sustainable.In recent years the Ethiopian government has made big efforts to bring modern contraceptive techniques to rural areas, but there has been no corresponding leadership from the West and that in turn has discouraged the Ethiopians from making population into the political priority it will have to be.

The West has been similarly negligent in the field of agriculture development. In a continent where up to three quarters of people are dependent on agriculture for survival, we have poured billions into getting children into rural primary schools, but have made little provision for the fact that too many of them come to school hungry, too many drop out within a year and that there are too few jobs beyond the land if they do finish school. In the 20 years after the Ethiopian famine aid to African agriculture collapsed by almost two thirds, from $3 billion to $1.2 billion.

A generation on from Live Aid there is now an alternative model of development emerging from the East. The Chinese have raised several hundred million of their own people out of poverty and are beginning to offer the lessons to Africa. There is less of an accent on charity and welfare, more attention paid to trade investment, technical inputs and, most of all, to infrastructure projects, including the roads to get an agricultural economy moving forward.

In the West the Chinese are commonly criticised for exploiting Africa’s natural resources and mocked for disregarding human rights in the name of ‘non-interference.’ But if we are truly interested in eliminating extreme poverty it is surely sensible to pose the question whether the West or the East is likely to have the better answer. Man of course does not live by bread alone, but it is an essential start. [end of copy]

Hat tip: Sudan news from The New York Times

Headlines Around the Web

What's This?

WALL STREET JOURNAL

JULY 10, 2010

Long Road Traveled for Some Dutch Fans

GLOBAL VOICES

JULY 10, 2010

Sudan: Activists abused, newspapers closed

SUDAN WATCH

JULY 9, 2010

Darfur Sudan peace talks: SLM leader Abdelwahid Nur agrees to Doha, Qatar consultation

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JULY 9, 2010

6 Months Until South Sudan Votes to Secede

OUPBLOG

JULY 8, 2010

Ethiopia Since Live Aid, Part III: On Africa, aid, and the West

More at Blogrunner »

New York Times Correspondent Facing Arrest over Child Soldier Interviews Flees Somalia

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:37:00 +0000

New York Times Correspondent Facing Arrest over Child Soldier Interviews Flees Somalia / Even in Times of Crisis, Government Has Duty to Uphold Journalists’ Rights, Says IPI
Source: International Press Institute (IPI)
MOGADISHU, Somalia - July 5, 2010 via APO:

Mohammed Ibrahim, New York Times correspondent and Programme Coordinator at the National Union of Somali Journalists. File photo

A Somali correspondent for the New York Times, Mohammed Ibrahim, told IPI by phone on Thursday that he had fled the country following death threats and attempted arrest by government security forces.

On 15 June, the New York Times ran an article headlined “Children Carry Guns for a U.S. Ally, Somalia,” under the byline of the newspaper’s East Africa bureau chief, Jeffrey Gettleman. The piece included information from interviews conducted by Mohammed Ibrahim with child soldiers.

The Somali government has since denied that its army employs child soldiers.

In a later New York Times article, foreign backers of Somalia expressed concern over the allegations.

In response, the Somali government began hunting down anyone involved in the child soldier piece, said Omar Faruk Osman, who heads the National Union of Somali Journalists – for which Ibrahim also works.

Members of the Somali security services began contacting Ibrahim shortly after the story ran, he told IPI. He received an email from the director of communications at Villa Somalia, the presidential palace, asking him to appear for a meeting with security chiefs. The communications director assured Ibrahim that he would not be harmed.

“It was like a trick,” Ibrahim said. He never showed up.

On 24 June, the government held a press conference during which it again denied that it used child soldiers, Ibrahim told IPI. According to Ibrahim, the government had detained the child soldiers interviewed for the piece, and forced them to recant their story.

On the same day, security officers attempted to arrest Ibrahim while he was eating lunch in a restaurant. According to Ibrahim, he was set up by an acquaintance from the government-run Radio Mogadishu who has ties to Somali intelligence. Thanks to a tip from another source, he was able to leave the restaurant before security personnel arrived. Ibrahim reportedly later spoke to witnesses who said that over twenty police officers arrived to arrest him, some of whom were spotted with Mohammed’s name written on their palms.

On 26 June, Ibrahim said, he spotted police officers looking for him in the Trebiano area of Mogadishu, where he had gone to purchase a plane ticket.

“The guys were the same guys who attacked me at the restaurant on 24 June…. and I immediately noticed that they were in search of me and left the area immediately,” Ibrahim said in an emailed statement. He left the area immediately. Ibrahim said he realized then that he could not leave the country through the airport – which is controlled by the Somali government.

Ibrahim travelled by bus for three days to reach Nairobi. Now, he is afraid that he will not be able to return, for fear of reprisals by security officers, including arrest and brutal interrogation.

“It was horrible,” he said. “They are angry and these security forces might kill you.”

Others involved in reporting the story were also threatened, according to New York Times East Africa Bureau Chief Jeffrey Gettleman. “Somalia’s transitional government was outraged by our story on its use of child soldiers and has threatened all the local people who helped us report it, including Mohamed; another translator; and even the owner and staff of the hotel where we stayed when we reported that story,” he wrote in an email to IPI.

“I tried to tell government officials Mohamed had done nothing wrong and that there was a large body of evidence about this issue – the UN recently issued a report listing the Somali government as one of the most flagrant users of child soldiers in the world,” Gettleman wrote.

IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills said: “The International Press Institute is gravely concerned at the allegations that Somali government security services threatened, and were seeking to arrest, Mohammed Ibrahim because they were angered by the interviews he conducted with alleged child soldiers in the Somali army. We urge the Somali government to respect the right of journalists to report on anything that is in the public interest, without fear of arrest and physical harm.”

Meanwhile, despite the fact that Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed has announced the launch of an investigation into the possible existence of underage soldiers in the Somali army, other officials continue to deny the allegations. Government spokesperson Abdi Kadir Walayo contended that the story was fabricated, in an interview with Voice of America, published on 29 June.

The Somali government, currently locked in a violent conflict with Islamist insurgent groups in southern and central Somalia, is backed by the United Nations and is an ally of the United States in its war against terrorism.

Ethiopia-Sudan relations strengthening: Ambassador

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Ethio-Sudan relations strengthening: Ambassador
Report by WaltaInfo.com - Wednesday, 09 June 2010:

Addis Ababa, June 9 (WIC) – Ambassador responsible for bilateral and regional relations at the Sudan Embassy in Ethiopia, Mohammed Yousif Hassan, said the socio-economic ties between Sudan and Ethiopia is improving from time to time.

In an exclusive interview he held with WIC, Hassen said in addition to the existing people-to-people ties, the socio-economic relations between the two sisterly countries are improving all the time following the construction of a road that linked them.

He said the two countries are registering impressive achievements in promoting legal trade, transportation and communication links through peaceful means.

A Sudanese cultural troupe recently staged performance in various towns of Ethiopia including Metema, Bahir Dar, Gondar and Addis Ababa traveling in land transport, he indicated.

The cultural shows will play a key role to further strengthen the people-to-people ties between the two countries, he said, adding an Ethiopian cultural troupe will also travel to Khartoum, Sudan soon.

He added the two countries relations in the tourism and investment sectors have shown a remarkable progress owing to the trade fairs and bazaars as well as investment forums held in both countries.

He said the bilateral trade volume between the two countries is also growing. According to him, Sudan supplies oil, gas and various industrial products to Ethiopia, while Ethiopia exports sesame and other oil seeds to Sudan.

He said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s presence at the swearing-in ceremony of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir indicates the strength of relations between the two nations.

According to Hassen, the peaceful and free elections held with a high turnout in the two countries would contribute a lot for the prevalence of peace and security in the Horn of Africa.

This report can be found online at: http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21924&Itemid=134

Al-Qaeda trained foreigners help fuel Somalia uprising

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:37:00 +0000

Al-Qaida trained foreigners help fuel Somalia uprising
Report by Sudarsan Raghavan, The Washington Post
Dated Wednesday, 09 June 2010:

Foreign fighters trained in Afghanistan are gaining influence inside Somalia's al-Shabab militia, fueling a radical Islamist insurgency with ties to Osama bin Laden, according to Somali intelligence officials, former al-Shabab fighters and analysts.

The foreigners, who include Pakistanis and Arabs, are inspiring the Somali militants to import al-Qaida's ideology and brutal tactics from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A significant number of Americans are also being drawn to the Somali conflict. Two New Jersey men were arrested Sunday in New York City and charged with planning to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabab.

In April, suicide bombers drove a white truck filled with explosives into an African Union peacekeepers base, mirroring recent bombings in Baghdad or Kabul. Within hours, a grainy photo emerged on local websites of a young, gap-toothed man clutching a sign in Arabic over the words "Distributed by al-Shabab." It declared the operation revenge for the U.S.-aided killings of Abu Ayyub al Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the top leaders of the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq.

"The foreign jihadists were once in the shadows," said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst in Nairobi with the International Crisis Group, a conflict research organization. "Now, there is no doubt they have taken control of the movement."

Foreigners are increasingly foot soldiers in Somalia as well.

The two New Jersey suspects, Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Newark on charges of conspiring to kill, maim and kidnap people outside the United States.

In September, a Somali American from Seattle drove a truck bomb into an African Union base in Mogadishu, killing 21 peacekeepers. In December, a Dane of Somali descent blew himself up at a hotel in the capital, killing 24 people, including three government ministers.

In February, al-Shabab formally declared ties to al-Qaida. The militia has received praise from bin Laden and radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who has been linked to the suspect in last year's shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, and the suspect in an attempted attack aboard a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. Mr. Aulaqi has been cited as an inspiration by the Pakistani American held in last month's attempted bombing in Times Square.

Al-Shabab's main rival, Hezb-i-Islam, also has proclaimed bin Laden welcome. "We are both fighting the Christian invaders in Somalia," said group spokesman Mohamed Osman Aruz, referring to the West and to Somalia's mostly Christian neighbors who back the government.

The rise of the foreign fighters suggests a growing internationalization of the conflict, part of a trend emerging from Yemen to Mali, where al-Qaida's regional affiliates are showing increasing ambitions nearly a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Today, U.S. officials consider the vast, ungoverned lands of the Arabian Peninsula and Africa the second-biggest terrorism threat after Afghanistan and Pakistan. As the United States focuses its military muscle in those regions, there is concern that more al-Qaeda-linked fighters could migrate to this part of the world.

"The lesson of the last 10 to 15 years of counterterrorism is that, as pressure goes on the network in one place, it moves elsewhere," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said during a recent visit to Cameroon's capital, Yaounde.

Somalia is where the United States and the West are quietly engaged in the most ambitious effort outside the theaters of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to halt the spread of radical Islam and al-Qaida's influence. The United States and its allies are providing weapons, training, intelligence and logistical support to the fragile government.

They are also funding the African Union peacekeeping force that protects -- many say props up -- the government. Yet al-Shabab, or "The Youth" in Arabic, now controls large patches of south and central Somalia. The government, divided by political infighting, controls less than five square miles in Mogadishu.

In the capital, al-Qaida-inspired tactics have altered the landscape. Hotels are tucked behind steel gates. Peacekeepers use high-tech gadgets to frisk visitors for explosive belts. Ordinary Somalis avoid empty, parked cars.

The foreign fighters in Somalia number 300 to 1,200, according to Somali and U.S. intelligence estimates. Most are from neighboring countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen and Sudan. But they include Afghans, Pakistanis and Arabs, say former al-Shabab fighters.

At least 20 Somali Americans have joined the militia, including a top field commander, Omar Hammami, an Alabama native whose nom de guerre is Abu Mansoor al-Ameriki. He has starred in propaganda videos to attract more foreign fighters.

[ Credit: This report can be found reprinted online at Post-Gazette:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10160/1064187-82.stm ]

From The New York Times -

Headlines Around The Web

What's This?

LA TIMES JACKET COPY

JUNE 8, 2010

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's passionate criticism of Islam

THE NEW YORKER

JUNE 7, 2010

20 Under 40 Fiction Q. A.: Dinaw Mengestu.

THE HUFFINGTON POST

JUNE 7, 2010

Ethiopia: Speaking Truth to the Powerless

NEWS.YAHOO.COM

JUNE 7, 2010

Ethiopia Govt Denies Manipulating Food Aid

SPERO NEWS - RELIGIOUS NEWS

JUNE 6, 2010

Ethiopia: Government denies food aid "manipulated" for political gain

More at Blogrunner »

In Africa, 50th anniversary of independence is an occasion to celebrate, lament

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sat, 22 May 2010 17:52:00 +0000

Note, the following report says Ethiopia receives nearly a billion dollars a year in U.S. assistance, and Rwanda receives hundreds of millions in U.S. aid each year. And, former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan noted that:

"South Korea and Sudan had the same per-capita income in the 1960s; South Korea is today one of the world's wealthiest countries and is "a respected member" of the international community."

Also, in the past two years, there have been military coups in Niger, Madagascar and Guinea. Sudan's first multi-party elections in more than two decades were marred by vote rigging, intimidation and boycotts.

And last week, Burundi ordered a Human Rights Watch researcher to leave the country. The group had documented official inaction over political violence in the run-up to its first presidential elections after nearly 16 years of civil war next month.

Ivory Coast, once a model of stability, crumbled into civil war in 2002 and remains tense and divided.

In Africa, 50th anniversary of independence is an occasion to celebrate, lament
Report from The Washington Post
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 22, 2010; 10:26 AM

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON -- Former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan stepped up to the podium to speak about rule of law and human rights, Africa's hopes and obstacles.

Behind him, seated in a row of red velvet chairs, were the leaders of Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Chad and the Republic of Congo. All had gained power through military coups, civil wars, inheritance or manipulated elections.

"It wasn't a group of the continent's biggest democrats," remarked Richard Moncrieff, West Africa project director for the International Crisis Group.

Over the past week, hundreds of dignitaries arrived in this Central African capital to celebrate 50 years of independence from colonial rule for Cameroon and 16 other African nations. But casting a shadow over the occasion was a sober acknowledgment that the actions of many of Africa's leaders were hurting the continent's image and potential, as well as tarnishing its successes.

Ahead of national elections Sunday, Ethiopia -- a close U.S. ally -- has jailed political rivals and journalists, denied food aid to opposition supporters, and even killed opposition leaders, according to human rights activists and diplomats.

Ethiopia, which receives nearly a billion dollars a year in U.S. assistance, has denied the allegations. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, once viewed as a new breed of reformist African leader, is expected to extend his 19-year rule.

"There are still too many instances of corruption, of elite capture of resources, of growing inequality in work and opportunity, abuse of electoral processes and selective adherence to the rule of law," said Annan, who is from the African country of Ghana.

The leaders behind him nodded.

U.S. and Western officials also once hailed Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni as Africa's greatest hopes. But they, too, are accused of using repression to suppress dissent and extend their rule. Rwanda goes to the polls in August, but reports of a state crackdown on opposition parties and independent journalists are already surfacing.

"There is a very serious problem of winner-takes-all politics," Moncrieff said. "That means the stakes of presidential power are so high that people are willing to use violence to get it or abuse the rule of law to keep it."

Africa vs. Asia

Many Africans lament their continent's slow progress in comparison to Asia. Africa is rich in oil, gas and minerals. Yet several Asian countries, which also gained independence from colonial rulers a half-century ago, are among the world's most advanced.

Annan noted that South Korea and Sudan had the same per-capita income in the 1960s. South Korea is today one of the world's wealthiest countries and is "a respected member" of the international community, Annan said. Despite its oil wealth, Sudan is one of the poorest countries, and its president has been indicted by a war crimes tribunal.

"If Africa is put on the right track, it could be a major player," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is from Egypt.

In the past two years, there have been military coups in Niger, Madagascar and Guinea. Sudan's first multi-party elections in more than two decades were marred by vote rigging, intimidation and boycotts.

Last week, Burundi ordered a Human Rights Watch researcher to leave the country. The group had documented official inaction over political violence in the run-up to its first presidential elections after nearly 16 years of civil war next month.

Rwanda, which receives hundreds of millions in U.S. aid each year, also recently ordered a Human Rights Watch monitor to leave the country, accusing the organization of publishing "propaganda" against the government.

There have been successes. Civil wars have declined since the 1990s. There are strong democracies, such as Ghana and South Africa. Nigeria has so far smoothly managed a political transition after the death of President Umar Yar'Adua this month.

The continent has one of the highest rates of cellphone growth. Investment from Asian nations such as China is booming, fueling relatively strong economic growth rates. The region is starting to bounce back from the global financial crisis.

Still, even the strongest and most stable African economies can quickly disintegrate. Ivory Coast, once a model of stability, crumbled into civil war in 2002 and remains tense and divided.

Kenya's 2007 election violence spurred investors to pull out or postpone investments for months. "It affected the whole region," said Valentine Rugwabiza, assistant director general of the World Trade Organization.

Calculated repression

Demonstrations erupted after Ethiopia's 2005 elections, when opposition groups charged that the government had cheated them out of parliamentary seats. Ethiopian security forces suppressed the protests, killing dozens and arresting thousands. This time, the state repression appears to be a calculated strategy to erase any serious political threat and to prevent a repeat of violence, said human rights activists and diplomats.

The State Department's most recent human rights report concludes that Ethiopian "security forces committed arbitrary and politically motivated killings," and that "there were reports of politically motivated disappearances." It noted "numerous credible reports" of unlawful detention of opposition candidates and their supporters, as well as security officials who "tortured, beat, and mistreated detainees."

A recent Human Rights Watch report accused the government of politicizing the distribution of humanitarian assistance, much of it from the United States. They accused officials of withholding food aid, fertilizer and seeds from opposition supporters, in a nation where many people survive on such help.

In a telephone interview, Ethiopian Communications Minister Bereket Simon denounced both reports as "baseless."

"We are implementing democracy based on the Ethiopian context. We are not taking any prescription from any master," he said. "This is a free and fair election. You will see how Ethiopians will give their approval for this government."

In Yaounde, none of the dignitaries who discussed Africa's future on panels or in speeches mentioned Meles. But the names of Tanzania's first president, Julius Nyerere, and South Africa's Nelson Mandela were still uttered with pride, as models to emulate.

As he concluded his speech, Annan described Africa as "a sleeping giant about to be awoken." He spoke of the potential markets, the rapid spread of modern technology. He said the continent's opportunities "are real, but also under threat."

He implored leaders to respect human rights, rule of law, to be more transparent. He urged those at the helm of oil-rich nations to use their wealth to help their people. He urged leaders to address the rights of women.

"It is strong leadership and good governance that will make difference both at home and the global stage," Annan said.

Behind him, his host, President Paul Biya of Cameroon, nodded.

Biya has been in power for 28 years and wields tight control over the government and the economy. The watchdog group Transparency International describes Cameroon as among the world's most corrupt countries. There is no real political opposition. Authority and wealth is derived from loyalty to Biya.

His portrait is everywhere, including a mega-size one that hangs in the sports arena. His supporters wear shirts emblazoned with his face and burst into song in front of him. Banners on the street proclaim him "a wise man at the service of Africa."

NYT Blogrunner - Headlines from Around the Web

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:27:00 +0000

Photo credit: EPA/Stephen Morrison
Source: The New York Times

From The New York Times -

Headlines Around The Web

What's This?

SOLOMONIA

MAY 12, 2010

Video: PA to Israelis: Go to Europe and Ethiopia - Israel is "stolen" land

GADLING

MAY 12, 2010

Somaliland adventure: getting to nowhere

SUDAN WATCH

MAY 9, 2010

International consultative meetings on Sudan held at AU HQ in Ethiopia's Addis Ababa: NCP and SPLM partnership important to Sudan's future

THE HUFFINGTON POST

MAY 9, 2010

Ethiopia: Happy Mother's Day Birtukan!

THE SCOTSMAN

MAY 8, 2010

Two killed in Ethiopia election grenade attack

More at Blogrunner »

CTV Interview: Mo Ibrahim's search for good governance

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Mon, 10 May 2010 08:14:00 +0000

Photo: Mo Ibrahim (Source: moibrahimfoundation.org)

Mo Ibrahim's search for good governance
From CTV News (undated report) by Gordon Pitts:

Ask Mo Ibrahim how he rose to become the billionaire superstar of African business, and he will talk about luck.

Born in strife-riven Sudan, he insists he was lucky to get an education, and to be an expert in mobile communication just as the cellphone revolution was about to sweep the world. And lucky to sell his African mobile phone company, Celtel International, in 2005 to a Kuwaiti firm for $3.4-billion (U.S.), making him one of the great success stories of today’s Africa.

For Mr. Ibrahim, 64, moving a continent from episodic luck to permanent opportunity is the role of governments, whose performance on behalf of citizens is wildly mixed in Africa. He has made the pursuit of good governance the mission of his London-based Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and the driving purpose of his post-business life.

By governance, he means government’s ability to deliver a basket of public goods to its people, things like education, health services, rule of law and gender rights. Some countries, like Mauritius, do it quite well; others like Somalia and Zimbabwe are appallingly bad.

Mr. Ibrahim’s four-year-old foundation (The Mo Ibrahim foundation) posts a score card of all 53 countries in Africa (called the Ibrahim Index), from top to bottom. But his greater purpose is to spark a conversation. “We are trying to have a debate about what exactly our governments are doing,” Mr. Ibrahim says.

Are you a role model for young Africans?

Many African people are smarter than me – kids who could have been better. I have no claim for genius.

You have to work hard and make the right decisions, but if you don’t have the opportunity, you don’t make it. So I owe something to my friends, family, my people. If I can go back and help, I must do that. That is a duty.

Is the idea of good governance progressing in African states?

We see slow improvement.

Why is it happening?

The end of the Cold War was essential for Africa. The superpowers used to have client states, to which they’d say: “It doesn’t matter if you are a dictator or not, as long as you are in my camp – in the scramble for resources or votes in the UN or whatever.” It made for bad company. I think the Cold War was worse for Africa than colonialism.

Now, we are starting to notice the rise of the civil society in Africa. And new technology: There are 450 million mobile phones in Africa now, out of 950 million people, so it has really enabled people to communicate with each other.

And what about cellphone banking?

That is happening in Africa more than anywhere else. You will see a lot of wonderful applications where Africa is leap-frogging, not because we are necessarily smarter but because we need that. Retail banking in Africa is very weak. You can’t go to a village and get money from an ATM or visit a branch of the bank. So people have to use the Internet.

Do you agree with those who say aid is the problem, not the solution?

In most part, it is a silly discussion. Whenever there is disaster or famine somewhere, we cannot stand by and watch. On HIV, malaria, Darfur, or Somalia, we need to help our brothers and sisters. So there is not much discussion about humanitarian aid.

And we must really focus on developmental aid. We need to deliver better aid and untied aid. Actually, we need to deliver aid to end aid. Nobody in Africa loves to be a beggar, or a recipient of aid. Everywhere I go in Africa, people say ‘when are we going to stand up on our feet?’

Africa as a continent is rich, but Africans as a people are poor. The answer is governance. We really need to get our act together to improve the quality of life of our people. Developmental aid will speed up this process.

What about just borrowing more capital from banks?

That is just a fantasy. Unfortunately, our malfunctioning banking system doesn’t deal with Africa. They think Africa is too risky. You cannot rely on Goldman Sachs or whoever to really help – those guys just love subprime mortgages and all the other crap.

We should also support projects that help economic integration. Africa is disconnected. Internal African trade is about 8 per cent of the trade total. In Africa, we have 53 little countries and we are intentionally determined not to communicate and trade and move goods between each other. It’s stupid.

How do you feel about the rising wave of Chinese investment in Africa?

We welcome the Chinese, we welcome the Indians, we welcome anyone who would like to trade with us. Chinese demand for our raw materials helps increase prices that have been stagnant for almost 50 years. But the Chinese need to learn from the mistakes committed in the past by the West.

Let us trade honestly and with transparency. To say ‘we don’t care what kind of government is there, we are not interfering’ – that is a little bit dodgy. If you are supporting a repressive regime, that is a political act; you cannot claim it is just trade.

When we had the military coup in Guinea last year, the African Union stood firm, and ostracized the junta. Then we had the massacre in the stadium of peacefully demonstrating people. The soldiers raped women. The same week we hear that a lifeline of $7-billion has been extended by China to the regime. What is that? Are we throwing a lifeline to a criminal regime?

So when you throw money to a regime, you can’t be considered neutral?

That is the point. I say to our Chinese friends, please be friends to us, the people, because we are there, we will be there all the time. Dictators come and go. The West learned that lesson. They supported Mobutu, Idi Amin, these other guys, for whatever short-term reasons. But we have learned this expediency doesn’t work in the long term.

Are Canadians doing enough in Africa?

They can afford to do more, although in general Canada has been a positive force. I noticed you are now declaring 20 countries as your priority [aid] countries and you have only eight sub-Saharan countries on the list. I hope you pay more attention to sub-Saharan Africa. Tell your friends: ‘Hi guys, we are here; please don’t forget us.’

How do you convince people Africa is a place to invest?

People are too shy about Africa. All you see is 10 seconds in any news bulletin. After they talk about Darfur and [Zimbabwe President Robert] Mugabe, time is up. People have the impression Africa is troublesome, all about dictatorships and bad rule, but what they see is the bad examples. Of 53 countries, there are at least 29 or 30 democracies, and we have a good work force.

Around Christmas, what you see on TV ads for Oxfam and Save the Children is famines, terrible conditions, and that creates an impression. They think we are all sick or weak, but actually we have very healthy people. Just watch the Olympics – we run faster, we jump higher, we are excellent footballers. We are good people and we can be a good place to invest. According to World Bank reports, the highest returns on investment in the last few years were always in Africa.

But what do you do about corruption?

International business carries as much or more blame. We built mobile networks in 15 countries and we did not pay bribes whatsoever. We said no one can write a cheque of more than $30,000 without going to the board. Why can’t companies do that? It is not enough for boards to say ‘we uphold values.’ You need decisions that in reality help people out there. That raises issues of corporate governance in the West. While we are fighting for governance in public institutions, we equally need to fight for good corporate governance too.

What else do you do in your foundation?

We give a prize for African leadership, the largest prize in the world. We need to celebrate success in leadership.

What do you want people to do with the prize?

What we want is to honour African leaders who come forward, do the right thing, take their country forward and leave on time. Believe me, to be a leader of an African country is a tough job.

If somebody comes and really deals with this trouble, takes half a million out of poverty and creates jobs, rules justly and equally, isn’t that wonderful? This person needs to be honoured and we need to create role models in Africa – we had [Nelson] Mandela but that is not enough. We need to produce many Mandelas.

Read a complete biography of Mo Ibrahim on his website

EU deployed its election observers mission across Ethiopia

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:48:00 +0000

EU deployed its election observers mission across Ethiopia
From Sudan Tribune - Thursday 29 April 2010 by Tesfa-Alem Tekle:

April 28, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) — The European Union on Tuesday dispatched a first group of its election monitors throughout Ethiopia, ahead of next month’s national election.

A first phase of 90 observers unit on Tuesday left the capital, Addis Ababa, to the different regions of the country.

With a budget of eight million Euros, the EU will deploy a total of 150 monitors in Ethiopia, with 60 more observers to land in the horn of Africa’s country one week before polls open on May 23 elections. The bloc’s mission said.

The deployment comes after the Ethiopian government signed a memorandum of understanding with EU this week.

"They will observe all phases of the election from the opening of polling stations to voting, closing ad counting," said the statement.

"Their findings will be part of the overall evaluation and assessment of the process by the European Union Election Observation Mission."

Earlier this month, the head of the EU monitoring team said it will remain impartial after the bloc was accused of bias by Addis Ababa in the 2005 polls The EU observers will asses the electoral campaign, voting day, compilation of results and post-election activity, including complaints and appeals procedures.

"They will also evaluate the general political electoral context, the work of the election administration, media environment and role of civil society, the human rights situation as relates to elections, and the participation of women and minorities," the EU observer mission further said.

Ethiopia’s biggest opposition coalition, The Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (Forum) last week said that it does not consider the African Union and European Union Election Observers neutral.

"We know how the AU and EU observed previous elections in Ethiopia. This time, too, we don’t expect any impartial observation from them," Beyene Petros, chairman of Forum, told Ethiopian Reporter.

Beyene added that his party had no idea as to what exactly the election observers were doing in Ethiopia and that the observers have not made any attempts to talk to any of his party members, according to Reporter.

Around 32 million Ethiopians will go to polls to cast their votes for the May 23 national polls, country’s fourth elections since the fall down of Communist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. (ST)

White honey grows scarce as bees abandon Ethiopia's parched peaks

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:22:00 +0000

Ethiopia is Africa's biggest honey producer and the world's fourth biggest beeswax exporter.

Such is Ethiopians' love of honey that apitherapy clinics offer treatments for many ailments. The national drink is tej – honey mead.

White honey grows scarce as bees abandon Ethiopia's parched peaks
From The Observer
By Alex Duval Smith in Ethiopia
Sunday, 18 April 2010:

Drought forces bees into valleys in search of flowers, meaning they produce yellow honey

The truffle of the apiary world – rare white honey from Ethiopia's highest peaks – is in danger of disappearing, according to beekeepers in the Tigray region. "No rain for the flowers,'' said Ashenaf Abera as he stood on his rocky, parched slope in the northern Ethiopian region whose famine inspired Bob Geldof to stage Live Aid in 1985. "The bees need high-altitude flowers for the white honey. When they cannot find them, they go to other plants and produce yellow honey.''

Abera is paid £65 a month to mind 270 hives for the Asira Metira monastery, one of a dozen religious centres in an area whose 4th-century rock churches are among the wonders of the world. "We know about bees,'' said honey seller Sheikh Mohamed Ahamedin. He grips a large screwdriver with both hands to ladle a dollop of thick and lumpy white honey out of a plastic bucket. It is snow-white and tastes sweet and more waxy than yellow honey.

"The price is the highest it has ever been this year, because of scarcity,'' said Ahamedin who sells white honey for £7.75 per kilo. Last year he charged £4.50. Ethiopia is Africa's biggest honey producer and the world's fourth biggest beeswax exporter. After coffee, gold and cowhide, bee products are major contributors to the economy, especially through exports to Italy, where white honey is considered a delicacy. Bees' products are the only export item produced by Tigray's impoverished 4.6 million people, whose region is said to be one of the worst-hit in the world by climate change.

Such is Ethiopians' love of honey that apitherapy clinics offer treatments for many ailments. The national drink is tej – honey mead.

Beekeepers are increasingly scrapping traditional mud hives for square box-like hives from Europe which produce a higher yield. "The bees will not make white honey in the modern hives, but at least with them we can obtain a decent yield of yellow honey,'' he said.

The region's bee population is also in decline, with climate change and deforestation to blame. Tigray was a wealthy, lush region 150 years ago when its king, Johannes IV, brought a carpenter from Italy to fashion his imposing throne from local juniper wood. But wars with Italy, Egypt, Sudan and neighbouring Eritrea led to deforestation. '"Without the trees, the rainwater – which seems to be declining – does not run off the limestone in a useful way. That is why we end up with a landscape of rocks and little else,'' said local water expert Leul Fisseha.

Eritrean refugees have new camp in Ethiopia

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 18:02:00 +0000

Eritrean refugees have new camp in Ethiopia
From Sudan Tribune, Sunday, 18 April 2010:

April 17, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) – Ethiopian authorities said this week they opened a new camp in the northern part of the country to meet the growing number of Eritrean refugees who arrive each month.

The new center located in Adi Harush in Tigray is the fourth to be established in the region since 2004.

The first batch of 356 people arrived on Thursday at the camp 80 per cent of this group is composed mainly of young people between 21 and 34, said a statement released by the Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).

According to the ARRA, up to 2,000 mostly young men and women are now crossing the border each month to "avoid excessive repression, gross human rights violations and forced conscription into the army."

Rights groups accuse Eritrea of turning into a "giant prison" where detentions, torture and prolonged military conscription have become rife since a 2001. But Asmara rejects these accusations saying they are immigrants for economic reasons.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plans this year to resettle some 3100 Eritrean refugees to a number of western countries.

Nearly all Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia refuse home-return for safety reasons and the UN agency believes that resettlement to a third country is the appropriate option.

Since 2006, a total of 5,850 Eritrean refugees screened from different camps are resettled to different western countries. (ST)

Copy of 2 Forum messages

18 April 03:12, by visitor
We don’t want them in the West. Our countries are becoming hell-holes of tribal and religious fighting and endless neediness. A Sudanese man (Dinka) I met who had gone back to Sudan said to me "Europeans have built up their countries by themselves. We need to do the same." I agree. We can’t survive in the West if we have thousands and thousands of refugees turning up every year, costing us a fortune. The Eritrean people should stay in their countries and fight for freedom. They wanted independence; they got it. Now the UN says their problem is our problem? We can’t go on like this! Especially as they are bring too much Islam to Christian countries, and demanding that WE change to suit them.

18 April 05:07, by miss JOOK
You are absolutely right Visitor, am sudanese Dinka myself and i salute the southern who stayed and fought for their freedom. Eritreans wanted their freedom so they have it now. what else do they want?

Sudanese in Ethiopia voting for country’s presidency seat

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:22:00 +0000

Photo: Sudanese woman waits outside a polling station in Omdurman, west of Khartoum April 12, 2010. Sudan's elections commission on Monday announced a two-day extension to voting until April 15, after many voters experienced delays across Africa's largest country in the first open elections in 24 years. (Yahoo)

Sudanese in Ethiopia voting for country’s presidency seat
From Sudan Tribune, by Tesfa Alem Tekle, Tuesday 13 April 2010:

April 12, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) - Hundreds of Sudanese residing in Ethiopia are smoothly casting their votes in the presence of election observers here in Addis Abab since yesterday.

Voting in Addis Ababa began early on Sunday with Sudanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Moheieddin Salim Ahmed, casting the first vote.

A according to the Sudanese embassy, there were nearly one thousand eligible Sudanese in Ethiopia however most didn’t register.

Ambassador Moheieddin affirmed that the process being going on smoothly pointing out that the number of registered voter amount to more than 230. He added that the voting process is taking place in the presence of observers.

Nevertheless, Sudanese refugees in Ethiopian refugee camps, one of the largest in neighboring countries, will not participate.

"We have talked to the UNHCR and they said the refugees cannot vote. We are convinced with their explanation," the Ambassador told reporters.

The voting here is underway with observers from Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the African Union (AU) and the Arab League.

Voting in Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years is underway for a second day amid reports of confusion and delay in many regions.

The presidential, parliamentary and state polls are part of the comprehensive peace agreement that ended Sudan’s north-south civil war.

For many in Southern Sudan, these elections are a prelude to the referendum next January on self-determination.

Sudanese residing outside the country participate only in the presidential vote. They have no representatives in the national parliament.

The Electoral Commission of Sudan, voting to the presidential elections is underway in 21 countries, including in nine Arab countries, five European and four African states, in addition to the United States, Canada and Malaysia. Voters abroad are said to amount about 0.8 percent of the total Sudanese who are entitled to vote estimated at nearly 16 million.

SPLM's Kiir visits Maiwut County near Ethiopian border

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:04:00 +0000

SPLM's Kiir visits Maiwut County near Ethiopian border
From Sudan Tribune by James Gatdet Dak Friday 9 April 2010:

April 8, 2010 (JUBA) – Salva Kiir Mayardit, the Southern Sudan presidential candidate for the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) visited Maiwut County of Upper Nile state, on Wednesday, during his last days of campaign as the polling day is only 72 hours away.

Kiir urged the population of Gaajaak-Nuer inhabiting the County to vote for SPLM, which he said was born in their area in 1983, as he was referring to Itang where the SPLM/A was formed and historical Bilpam, which was the SPLM/A GHQrs and territory of Gaajaak-Nuer.

Bilpam, which is on the Ethiopian side of the border, is currently inhabited by the Ethiopian Gaajaak-Nuer under the administration of Gambella region in Ethiopia.

According to Biel Thich, one of the President's campaign team in Upper Nile state, over five thousand people gathered in the town to listen to the President.

Kiir promised the County citizens that his re-elected administration would construct a road connecting the state capital, Malakal to Pagak, a Payam headquarters under Maiwut County and less than one (1) kilometer away from the Ethiopian border.

The President was accompanied by the Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar Teny and members of Campaign Management Team (CMT) chaired by Dr. Samson Kwaje.

Kiir also talked about other activities related to development, especially the education of females, and opening of healthcare centers. (ST)

EU to observe Ethiopian election

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:06:00 +0000

EU to observe Ethiopian election
From Sudan Tribune, Saturday, 03 April 2010:

April 1, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) — After been mulling whether to observe polls in Ethiopia, the European Union has hinted sending a team of observers to monitor Ethiopia’s election.

The decision was announced by the European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs, to African and European parliamentarians meeting in Tenerife on Monday.

The Union’s decision comes after an EU exploratory mission concluded assessment of the electoral environment in the country. The European Union is expected to send an official letter to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi any time now to notify its decision.

Ethiopia last polls, in 2005, drew a record number of voters, with 90% of the electorate turning out to cast their vote however the election was deemed by the European Union election observer team which alleged irregularities and the whole election process lacking international standards for fair and free election.

The EU monitor team claims then created deep divisions between the Ethiopian government and the EU.

Over 29 million Ethiopians will go to polls to cast their vote in May, the first parliamentary elections in Ethiopia since 2005, when the post-election period was marred by controversy and bloodshed

The horn of Africa’s country has drawn up a code of conduct for international election observers so irresponsible comments or possible bias won’t lead to violence.

Recently, The Carter center announced that it will not be sending an observer mission to monitor Ethiopia’s national election.

The decision comes after the Ethiopian government postponed carter center’s request of sending an exploratory team in December to February.

Carter center argued that the arrival of its exploratory team in February will be too late to study whether to accept or reject the invitation.

Despite growing accusations of harassment by some opposition groups, Ethiopian officials have repeatedly gave their words to conduct fair, free, democratic, peaceful and credible elections. (ST)

Ethiopia admits jamming VOA radio broadcasts in Amharic

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:30:00 +0000

Ethiopia's Prime Minister said Ethiopia had been testing jamming equipment.

Ethiopia admits jamming VOA radio broadcasts in Amharic
From BBC News Online at 08:32 GMT, Friday, 19 March 2010:

Ethiopia has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America's (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in "destabilising propaganda".

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station.

The Amharic Service has experienced interference since late February.

Mr Meles also compared the VOA's transmissions to broadcasts in Rwanda in the mid-1990s that incited genocide.

'Unfortunate' comments

"We have for some time now been trying to beef up our capacity to deal with this, including... jamming," Mr Meles said on Thursday.

In a statement, VOA director Danforth Austin said that any comparison of VOA programming to Rwandan broadcasts inciting genocide in the 1990s was "incorrect and unfortunate".

"The VOA deplores jamming as a form of media censorship wherever it may occur," he said, adding that the station's Amharic Service was required by law to provide accurate and objective information.

The VOA and other foreign media organisations say broadcasts in Amharic - the country's most widely spoken language - have been jammed around elections in the past.

The next polls in Ethiopia are in May and human rights groups say there has been a crackdown on the press.

The last elections saw opposition accusations of widespread rigging.

Thousands of opposition supporters were arrested after protests and some western countries reduced aid to Ethiopia.

Separately, Mr Meles again denied claims in a recent BBC report that he had ordered the diversion of food aid money to buy arms to fight the government in the 1980s.

"We did not need to [do it]. We were not short of ammunition or arms. That was never our problem. Our main problem was that we were operating in an environmentally very fragile area unable to feed itself," he said.

Click on labels here below to view related reports.

When feeding the hungry is political

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Food aid for Africa
When feeding the hungry is political
A United Nations agency under attack
Mar 18th 2010 (NAIROBI)
From The Economist print edition

THE World Food Programme (WFP), created by the United Nations in 1962 to save lives, has since grown into the behemoth of the aid business, envied and disliked in almost equal measure by many of its smaller peers. It says it feeds 90m people a year in 73 countries. Yet some query whether it always fulfils the high ideals of its humanitarian mandate.

The WFP has had to get used to fierce criticism, particularly of its operations in Africa. The main complaint is that food aid creates a dependency culture among the poor. The WFP employs large numbers of press officers in its headquarters in Rome and elsewhere to jump to its defence. Even so, a recent scandal over its work in Somalia has pricked it. An internal UN report accuses the WFP of abjectly failing to get food to starving Somalis. The report says that systematic collusion between local WFP staffers, Islamist militants and food transporters has led to the diversion of up to half of the food it ships to Somalia, with some of it going to jihadists. The WFP has hotly denied the allegations of corruption, but it has ceased working with three transport contractors who are alleged to have been involved in arms trading.

The truth is hard to tell. Visiting Somalia is dangerous. The WFP’s operation there is run from Nairobi, capital of neighbouring Kenya. It has to contend with pirates at sea and armed groups on land. A spat with the militant Shabab group, now allied to al-Qaeda, means WFP is no longer supplying food to 1m of the 3m Somalis who need it.

The danger for the WFP is that the row over its work in Somalia will impede its massive operations in Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Congo and beyond by prompting calls for extra scrutiny there too. Sudan alone accounted for $635m of WFP’s $2.2 billion spent in sub-Saharan Africa in 2008. Diplomats there have long suspected that food aid has been siphoned off by officials in south Sudan and by armed groups in Sudan’s western region, Darfur.

The whole business of food aid to Africa has come under additional scrutiny recently after a BBC report alleged that up to 95% of the cash provided to buy food for rebel-controlled areas during Ethiopia’s horrendous famine in 1984-85 was in fact used to buy weapons. The WFP says it had little involvement in that episode: it was feeding government-held areas. International charities have denied the story. Bob Geldof, a musician and anti-poverty campaigner, worries that the claim will be exploited by those who want to cut aid.

But the rebels in question, who hail from Tigray, a northern province, have run Ethiopia since 1991. And the country’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, a rebel leader in 1984, faces charges that he is using food aid now to buy support before elections due on May 23rd. Human-rights investigators, including those of the American government, say they have documented the withholding of food and other benefits from opposition supporters. The Ethiopian government denies it, and says that the BBC allegations come from a political opponent of Mr Zenawi.

The WFP says it will welcome any investigation into its activities in Somalia. “The integrity of our organisation is paramount,” insists Josette Sheeran, a former State Department official now heading the outfit. About $2 billion of its $5 billion global budget is provided by America, most of it in sacks of surplus American food. But the WFP—and Somalia’s Shabab rebels—would prefer the American government to give cash, as the Europeans do, which can then be used to buy local food, rewarding farmers who produce surpluses. George Bush’s administration agreed but could not persuade Congress to concur.

Quite apart from the allegations over its role in Somalia, the WFP is failing to meet its target for donations this year. So school meals and other programmes will be cut. America is unlikely to be as generous with cash as it is in kind. Europe’s contribution of $1 billion may be slashed too. This year’s WFP budget of $2.6 billion for sub-Saharan Africa is $1.1 billion short. And the outlook for Africa’s own production is grim. Its food output will fall by a fifth over the next four decades, reckons the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. Climate change, it says, will make food even scarcer in semi-arid countries such as Sudan. The question of how to feed the starving will not go away.

Voice of America news broadcasts jammed in Ethiopia

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:41:00 +0000

Voice of America news broadcasts jammed in Ethiopia
From Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 05 March 2010 /via APO:

Voice of America (VOA) reported today that its transmissions to Ethiopia are being electronic jammed. The Ethiopian government denied responsibility.

VOA cited “international shortwave radio monitors” and complaints from listeners in Ethiopia since February 22 about static the U.S. government-funded station’s daily, hour-long shortwave broadcast from Washington in Amharic—the country’s main official language. CPJ independently collected widespread local accounts of interference exclusively on the Amharic service.

VOA’s half-hour broadcasts in the other two local languages, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna, were broadcasting normally, the sources said. David Borgida, a VOA spokesman told Bloomberg News the station had not identified the source of the interference.

“The Ethiopian government has long had a hostile relationship with VOA and that is why we view their denial of responsibility with some skepticism,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “We note that the Ethiopian government has neither offered to investigate nor fix the problem.”

In media interviews today, government spokesman Shimelis Kemal denied any government involvement. “This is absolutely a sham,” he told CPJ, adding that “the Ethiopian government does not support the policy of restricting foreign broadcasting services in the country. Such practices are prohibited in our constitution.”

Kemal was the government prosecutor who charged 21 journalists, including five Washington-based VOA journalists, with anti-state crimes over their coverage of the aftermath of disputed elections in May 2005. Under his leadership, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority, the governmental authority responsible for issuing print and broadcast licenses, in 2009 ordered private station Radio Sheger to drop VOA newscasts and briefly revoked the accreditations of two VOA stringers, according to CPJ research.

Kemal told CPJ the allegations were part of a “smear campaign” by “opposition Web sites in the diaspora” ahead of general elections in May.

VOA is one of a handful of foreign-based independent stations, including Deutsche Welle and Addis Dimts Radio, a station operated by the banned opposition movement Ginbot 7, that have reported ongoing or recurring interference of their broadcasts, according to CPJ research. Also in 2009, Meleskachew Amaha, a VOA stringer, was thrown into prison for three weeks on false tax charges that were later dismissed.

Geldof Slams BBC Over Ethiopia Weapons Claims

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid J. Jones) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:10:00 +0000

Geldof Slams BBC Over Ethiopia Weapons Claims
From Sky News.com at 5:05pm UK, Saturday March 06, 2010
Julia Reid, Sky News Online

Bob Geldof and the Band Aid trust are set to make an official complaint to the BBC over its claims that millions of pounds in donated aid for Ethiopia was spent on weapons.

The complaint will be made jointly with agencies including Christian Aid, and will denounce the "false and dangerously misleading impression" created by the BBC World Service's Africa editor, Martin Plaut.

His report claimed that 95% of the aid which went to Ethiopia's northern province of Tigray during the famine of 1985 was diverted for military use by rebel forces.

Paul Brannen, Head of Advocacy and Influence at Christian Aid, confirmed that the charity would be signing up to the complaint to BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons.

"This affair is a good example of the old adage that a lie can be halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on," he said.

"In these days of rapid and international communications it is more important than ever that the BBC independently verifies every single fact that it intends to broadcast."

Oxfam says it will decide next week whether to sign up to the letter.

But campaigns and policy director Phil Bloomer said: "The British public, who in good faith donated money to help distressed, starving people, need to know that these allegations are preposterous.

"Aid distribution during this conflict held risks but it is indisputable that aid and the efforts of the humanitarian agencies saved many thousands of lives in Ethiopia.

Geldof, who raised $144m for Africa in the Live Aid concert in 1985, will also report the BBC to Ofcom.

Millions of pounds have been donated in aid to Ethiopia

"This story has gone around the world on the internet and created a totally false impression of what actually happened," he said.

"At the time of Live Aid we had journalists crawling all over everything we did trying to find something wrong - and they couldn't.

"And now, on the strength of one disgruntled soldier, the BBC has undermined the faith of ordinary people across the world in the effectiveness of giving to people in their hour of need.

"It is a disgrace."

The Independent newspaper claims a draft of the complaint to the BBC speaks of "disgracefully poor reporting" by the BBC and reliance on "dubious sources and rumour".

"There is not in fact a shred of credible evidence that this happened," it reads.

"There is overwhelming evidence that tens of thousands and even millions were saved by these efforts, which were in fact spurred by reporting by the BBC."

Mr Plaut's story was broadcast on the World Service, Radio 4 and via the BBC website.

It relies on accounts by two former senior Tigrean rebels, one of whom, Aregawi Berhe, was expelled from the guerilla movement in the summer of 1985.

Geldof said Berhe had a political axe to grind and could not have witnessed the alleged transactions.

There are fears that the BBC's report could undermine public generosity towards charity appeals for Haiti and Chile in the wake of the recent disasters.

A BBC spokesman says the corporation stands by the story and the documentary did not say that most famine relief money was used to buy weapons.