Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Addis Journal) — The popular Ethiopian singer Teddy Afro has appeared before Court of Cassation this morning to hear a decision on an appeal filed by the prosecutor protesting the reduction of his prison terms from six to two years.
But Teddy left the courtroom without hearing a final word and his case was adjourned for July 16, 2009. The presiding judge said the document was presented to them only today and they need extra days to examine.
The singer who was convicted on charges of hit and run incident began serving a six-year prison term on December 5, 2008, but the term was later cut to two years.
Prosecutors filed an appeal saying the review resulting in the sentence imposed by the judge was inappropriate and the two-year term was too lenient for the offense.
If the two year term decision is upended, Teddy is expected to leave the Kaliti jail on September 2009.
Addis Ababa (Addis Journal) – Head of the Dessie Ethiopian Orthodox Church Diocese, Aba GebreSelassie, was arrested on charges of ‘inciting violence’ that caused the death of three people in the town last week, according to Addis Neger.
Police in Dessie town have shot and killed two young people who were among the crowd demonstrating to demand authorization to rebuild St. Arsema church, five kms away from the town. Another elderly woman reportedly fell off from a cliff.
Around ten thousand Orthodox Christian followers have been walking to the mayor’s office when the police started firing.Several other people were hurt in the violence.
Los Angeles (AP) — The more than 1.6 million fans who registered for tickets to Michael Jackson’s memorial service will wait until Monday to learn if they received one of the 11,000 tickets for Tuesday’s ceremony.
The two-day registration period for the service at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles ended Saturday. Another 6,500 tickets will be given away for the Nokia Theater overflow section next door.
Fans had to register for free at between 10 a.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday for the random drawing of 8,750 names.
Each person selected will receive two tickets and will be notified by e-mail after 11 a.m. Sunday.
Before the drawing, officials at AEG, the owner and operator of the Staples Center, will “scrub” the entries to eliminate duplicates and any suspected of being made by automated systems or “go-bots,” said Jackson family spokesman Ken Sunshine in a statement.
Winners will receive a unique code and instructions on how to pick up their tickets at an off-site distribution center on Monday.
At the distribution center, they will receive the ticket and a wristband that will be placed on their wrists at that time.
Fans must have both the ticket and the wristband to enter Staples Center on Tuesday.
Wristbands that have been ripped, taped or tampered with will be voided.
Sunshine said those steps are being taken to prevent ticket-scalping.
City officials are preparing for massive crowds. Assistant Police Chief Earl Paysinger says anywhere from a quarter-million to 700,000 people may try to reach the arena, even though a wide area around Staples Center will be sealed off to those without tickets.
City Councilwoman Jan Perry strongly urged people to stay home and watch the memorial on TV.
The ceremony will not be shown on Staples’ giant outdoor TV screen and there will be no funeral procession through the city.
No details were given about the actual memorial events, which come as the nation’s second-largest city struggles with a $530 million budget deficit. Perry said the cost of police protection for “extraordinary” events like the memorial is built into the Police Department’s budget, but she still solicited help for “incremental costs.”
Last month, donations covered about $850,000 of the city’s $1 million cost for the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA championship parade.
Critics had blasted the idea of using city money when it is considering layoffs to close its budget gap.
Addis Ababa (AFP) – Ethiopia’s tribal junta has criticized the Human Rights Watch (HRW) over its report that the country’s draft anti-terrorism law would violate human rights.
“HRW’s so-called analysis is replete with harsh generalisations,” Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said in a statement Friday.
“It cannot be considered a credible commentary on compatibility of the draft law with Ethiopia’s human rights obligations.”
The US-based watchdog on Tuesday said the law, currently before parliament, broadly defined terrorism, risked muzzling political speech and encouraging unfair trials.
The law presented by the government of [warlord] Meles Zenawi is to counter the activities of some separatist groups.
In recent months, Ethiopia’s [rubber stamp] parliament has passed a series of laws tightening up on the activities of non-governmental organizations, associations and the local media, while most political opponents are in prison or living in exile.
NAIROBI, July 4 (Reuters) – The United States will encourage [the Woyanne tribal junta in] Ethiopia not to return to Somalia as it would be against the interests of both Horn of African nations, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said on Saturday.
Ethiopia Woyanne invaded Somalia in late 2006 to topple an Islamist movement in the capital Mogadishu. The intervention sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the fact Ethiopian troops pulled out in January.
“The Ethiopian government continues to look very closely at developments in Somalia,” Carson told Reuters in Kenya ahead of a visit to Ethiopia on Monday.
“Given the long-standing enmity between Somalis and Ethiopians Woyannes I will encourage the Ethiopians not to re-engage in Somalia. It is not in their interest to do so and their efforts might in fact prove counterproductive to the government,” he said in an interview.
Neighbours and Western governments fear that if the Somali administration is overthrown, the lawless nation will become a safe haven for al Qaeda to train militants to destabilise the region and attack developed nations.
Residents in several regions of Somalia have reported seeing Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers in the past two months. Addis Ababa initially denied this but later acknowledged it had made “reconnaissance” missions. It still insists no combat troops are in Somalia.
“Ethiopia has a right to defend its borders, should do so vigorously if individuals cross into their territory, and their efforts should be directed at defense of their territory and not necessarily involvement inside of Somalia,” Carson said.
NO DECISION ON TOUGHER MANDATE
Carson held talks with senior officials from all Horn of Africa countries, including the Eritrean foreign minister, during an African Union summit in Libya this week.
Washington has accused Eritrea of supporting the hardline al Shabaab insurgents who are fighting to oust Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. It says Eritrea has aided the movement of weapons and foreign fighters into Somalia.
Carson said Eritrea strongly denied the accusations.
The rebels, who have links to al Qaeda and want to impose their own harsh version of sharia law throughout the country, control much of southern Somalia and parts of the capital Mogadishu close to the president’s palace.
A 4,300-strong African Union peacekeeping force (AMISOM) from Uganda and Burundi is protecting key sites in Mogadishu but appeals for more troops and a stronger mandate allowing them to go on the offensive have yet to bear fruit.
Carson said a battalion of soldiers from Burundi, about 800 troops, was ready to deploy as soon as an airlift is provided and that Djibouti had pledged to help with military force.
“They are a small country with a small military but they have indicated that they believe the situation is serious enough to warrant their support,” Carson told Reuters.
“They believe that it is important to support Sheikh Sharif and to prevent his government from falling and they are prepared to provide more support than they have in the past, including manpower,” he said.
Carson said Washington had yet to decide whether the AMISOM mandate should be beefed up. There had been hopes African leaders would agree to this in Libya but wording to that effect in a draft resolution was dropped.
“We will study it closely in Washington and make a determination as to whether it is in our interests to encourage an expanded mandate as this goes forward,” he said.
Washington helps fund the AMISOM force and has sent weapons to the Somali government to support its fight against the rebels. Carson told reporters it would send more.
“The United States will continue to look for ways to provide support,” he said. “This will include military support in terms of arms and munitions and material resources, but not manpower.”
PRESS CONFERENCE: Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and former US Ambassador to Kenya Johnnie Carson
Mr Carson: We have actively sought to engage the Eritreans to encourage them not to support al-Shabaab, not to send money or ammunition to al-Shabaab, not to allow their country to be a conduit for resources to al-Shabaab. We have encouraged them not to allow foreign fighters to pass through their country. All of these things are on the diplomatic side. We have provided arms and munitions to allow the TFG to push back al-Shabaab in order to gain the stability which is absolutely essential for that country to be able to begin to deliver services to people. I would love nothing better than to be able to say to you that the situation on the ground in southern Somalia is such that we have been able to put money into schools, into educational material, into the re-establishment of clinics and hospitals and to the training of nurses and to the re-establishment of electricity and water services. This is what the goal is. Our goal is to find a way to stabilize the situation and then encourage the TFG to begin that process of state building and delivery of services to its population.
Q: Corruption is an issue closely tied to the effectiveness of development assistance. What can the United States do to help eradicate corruption and promote transparency?
A: Corruption undermines the ability of governments to deliver services, and it siphons off resources into private pockets. We have to make it a topic of conversation with government officials. We have to work with civil society to give them the courage to speak out about it. We have to work with the local media so that they will expose it. We have to work with prosecutors so that they have the courage to prosecute and with judges to have the conviction to convict.
And if we see mega-corruption going on and individuals who are profiting from it, and we have evidence that they are not being prosecuted, we should look at new methods to identify and to stigmatise and to punish, to the extent that we can, those individuals who are engaged in corruption.
Q: Where do you see governments tackling corruption in a serious way?
I think that there are some countries that are exemplars and will remain exemplars. The government of Botswana does an excellent job. Mauritius does an excellent job. The Tanzania government does an excellent job. I recall that within the last year, a senior government official in Tanzania was removed from office because of serious allegations of corruption.
Q: Let’s talk about Somalia. Why has the administration decided to engage in a new way with the Transitional Federal Government, including the supply of arms and ammunition?
A: The instability that has prevailed in Somalia for the last 20 years has become a cancer. We now have a war-torn society where probably 60 to 70 per cent of the people are dependent upon food aid from the outside. We see the population of Mogadishu having declined by some two-thirds as a result of the fighting in and around the city, and we see unemployment among youth at astronomical levels. Southern Somalia is a humanitarian problem of enormous proportions.
But it’s not just Somalia itself. The cancer has started to metastasise, spreading across the border into Kenya. Today the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya has some 270,000 refugees. That camp, which was established about a decade and a half ago, was built to handle 90,000.
It is estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that some six to seven thousand Somalis are crossing the border into northeast Kenya every day. Eastleigh, a suburb in the northern part of Nairobi, [has become] the largest Somali city. There is enormous pressure on the Kenyan government to handle the refugees and provide the infrastructure needed to cater to them.
Moreover, the problem of Somalia has contributed to the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is clear that the Eritrean government is supporting the al-Shabaab militia. It is not because they are in support of Islamist or extremist [elements]. They are doing this largely as a way to undermine and to pressure the Ethiopian government.
Q: How effective are arms going to be in addressing that issue? Why military as opposed to development aid?
A: We have tried to make it very, very clear that diplomacy is primary and that support for stability inside of Somalia is what we are doing. We support the ‘Djibouti process’, which helped to create the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and we support the TFG, the government of Sheikh Sharif. The Djibouti process has been endorsed by Kenya, and by the AU.
We have actively sought to engage the Eritreans to encourage them not to support al-Shabaab, not to send money or ammunition to al-Shabaab, not to allow their country to be a conduit for resources to al-Shabaab. We have encouraged them not to allow foreign fighters to pass through their country. All of these things are on the diplomatic side.
We have provided arms and munitions to allow the TFG to push back al-Shabaab in order to gain the stability which is absolutely essential for that country to be able to begin to deliver services to people. I would love nothing better than to be able to say to you that the situation on the ground in southern Somalia is such that we have been able to put money into schools, into educational material, into the re-establishment of clinics and hospitals and to the training of nurses and to the re-establishment of electricity and water services. This is what the goal is. Our goal is to find a way to stabilise the situation and then encourage the TFG to begin that process of state building and delivery of services to its population.
Q: You have said that you are willing to engage Eritrea in a dialogue. Is that happening?
A: Absolutely. After I took over as the assistant secretary, the Eritrean ambassador came to my office and indicated to me that it was the first time he had been into the office of the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs since he had come to Washington.
I told him that the United States clearly wanted to see if we could return to a more normal relationship and that I was prepared to go out to speak with [Eritrean] President Isaias to begin such a dialogue. But I also made it very clear that, in order to move forward, there would have to be some understanding and some cooperation on key issues that affect the Horn of Africa today.
Q: On Sudan, following the multi-party talks in Washington, convened by President Obama’s special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, how has the administration decided to engage with the government headed by President Omar al-Bashir, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) – but also is key to resolving the crisis in Darfur and the north-south conflict?
A: I look at it as engaging with the government broadly to achieve important objectives that we share with many in Sudan, both north and south, and with many across Africa and the international community. We think that it is absolutely critical that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in January 2005, be fully implemented, and that the people of southern Sudan have a right, in 2011, to hold a referendum which will determine their future.
We think it is also important that the issues of the boundary between the north and south be resolved. One of the more positive things to come out of this very successful conference is a commitment on both sides to accept the arbitration ruling on the border of Abyei.
Gen. Gration has been trying to stop the humanitarian nightmare that has existed in Darfur for far too long and to help to bring about a long-term political settlement in the Darfur crisis. We should use our diplomatic power as effectively as we can to help bring a solution to each of these problems.
Notwithstanding all of this, an arrest warrant has been issued for Bashir by the ICC for war crimes in Darfur. He should do the right thing and face those charges.
