The cousin of a Canadian being held in an Ethiopian jail says an official from the Department of Foreign Affairs urged him yesterday to keep the case “low-key” because Canada is doing its best behind the scenes to help Bashir Makhtal.
However, following the Iacobucci report on the role of Canadian officials in the torture of three Canadians in Syria, Said Maktal said he no longer trusted what the government was telling him.
“I’m a polite person, I’ve been patient and I’ve had a lot of respect for our government,” said Mr. Maktal, whose cousin has been in an Addis Ababa prison since January 2007. “They keep saying, ‘We’re doing our best.’ But now, reading what our government did to our citizens, that gives me more doubt about what’s really going on.
“I’m not going to be low-key anymore.”
Bashir Makhtal is ethnically Somali, born in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. He came to Canada as a refugee and became a citizen in 1994. After training as a computer programmer, he worked for a Toronto bank. In 2001, he left for the Horn of Africa region to start a business trading used clothes in Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya.
Mr. Makhtal was in Mogadishu when Ethiopia invaded in late 2006, and he joined thousands of others in fleeing to Kenya to avoid the fighting. He and dozens of other foreign nationals were arrested at the border by Kenyan police, held in a Nairobi prison and eventually flown illegally to Ethiopia, where they were imprisoned.
According to Human Rights Watch, many of them were interrogated by FBI and CIA agents. There have been reports of beatings and torture by Ethiopian officials, and Bashir Makhtal has been held in solitary confinement since at least the summer of 2007.
Ethiopia at first denied Mr. Makhtal was in its custody, but finally admitted holding him in April 2007. It has variously accused the Canadian of being a financier for the Islamic Courts, a fundamentalist group in Somalia, or a liberation fighter for the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which was founded by his grandfather. The Ethiopians consider the ONLF a terrorist organization, while Canada does not.
No evidence has been presented for either charge, nor has Mr. Makhtal been allowed to see a lawyer throughout his 22-month incarceration. Canadian diplomats were allowed to visit him for the first time in July, but Ethiopian authorities have denied all subsequent requests for consular visits.
Human Rights Watch says Mr. Makhtal and a Kenyan national are the only remaining foreigners from the 2007 renditions known to be detained, though 22 others are not accounted for. The governments of 16 other countries secured the release of their citizens, some within weeks of the arrest in Kenya.
“The people at Foreign Affairs, they’re sitting in their offices, doing their paperwork and everything has a procedure,” said Said Maktal, who spells his name differently from his cousin. “But we’re dealing with a country that does not obey international law. What we’re doing is not enough.”
Mr. Maktal says his sources in Ethiopia tell him that Bashir was taken before a military court twice this week and pressured to sign a false confession of terrorist activities. He refused. Bashir managed to send a message through intermediaries, telling Mr. Maktal that the prison was “another world” and that diplomatic efforts at the level of junior officials wouldn’t get him released, or even a fair trial.
“What has to happen is the prime minister has to get involved personally,” Mr. Maktal said. “This is between countries. (Prime Minister) Stephen Harper should pick up the phone.”
Foreign Affairs spokesman Daniel Barbarie was unable to comment on the “low-key” comment by the end of the day yesterday. However, he did say that Canadian officials had made numerous high-level representations to the Ethiopian authorities, including two visits to Ethiopia by Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs. The result was one consular visit on July 18, more than 18 months after Mr. Makhtal’s arrest.
“Canadian officials were able to verify Mr Makhtal’s well-being during this visit,” Mr. Barbarie said. “Canadian officials continue to actively engage senior Ethiopian authorities on the issues of ongoing consular access, due process and respect for Mr. Makhtal’s rights.”
Pointing to Bashir’s case and those of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, Mr. Maktal said the common denominator was that “they’re all Canadians from somewhere else.”
“Are we not important enough, or Canadian enough? I’d like to know: Are there two classes of citizenship in this country?”
It’s been six months since Ginbot 7 Movement for Freedom and Democracy in Ethiopia was formed. In June 2007, EthiopianReview.com wrote (read here) that the new movement has less than 6 months to prove itself. Did it prove itself to be a viable opposition party? What did it accomplish so far and what is it currently doing?
Ethiopian Review will pose these and other questions to Ato Andargachew Tsege, a senior official of Ginbot 7, in a live interview Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008, at 2:00 PM Washington DC time.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s annual inflation rate declined to 59.6 percent in September from 61.7 percent in August, the Central Statistical Agency said.
Food prices increased by 80.9 percent, slower than the annualized rate of 85 percent in August, the Addis Ababa-based agency said in a report handed to Bloomberg News today.
Drought and the boom in global food prices have helped to fuel price increases in the Horn of Africa country. In September 2007, the annual inflation rate was 22.6 percent.
UAE (BI) – Runners from across the world have been quick to sign up for the 2009 Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon following the announcement that Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia will launch an attempt on his own world record time in the Emirate, a press release said.
Entries for the event, scheduled for 16 January 2009, continue to rise as competitors sign up for the full marathon, the popular 10km event and the 3km Fun Run through the event’s official website
Runners of all ages can only register online or visit any branch of Fitness First in Dubai. Details of all branches of Fitness First are available at www.fitnessfirst.ae.
Held under the patronage of HH Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, and staged under the aegis of the Dubai Sports Council, this year’s Dubai Marathon saw Ethiopian legend Gebrselassie set the then second fastest marathon time in history and narrowly miss out on a record US$1 million bonus.
Gebrselassie – fresh from setting a new world best of 2 hours 3 minutes and 59 seconds in Berlin last month – has already confirmed he will have another attempt at landing the biggest prize in athletics in January, a move that is already encouraging even more amateur names to sign up for the entry list.
“The 2008 event was the best in the history of the Dubai Marathon and we are looking forward to a record turnout in 2009,” said Event Director Peter Connerton.
“Thanks to the support of title sponsors Standard Chartered as well as our other supporters such as Dubai Holding, who are again offering US$1 million for a new world record, and the regular appearance of athletes such as Haile, Dubai is now well established as a leading marathon venue in world athletics.”
Despite registration opening three months before the start gun, Ahmed Al Kamali, Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon General Co-ordinator, President of the UAE Athletics Federation and Al Ahli Club Board Member, urged UAE runners not to be slow in signing up for the event. “We will close registrations on 15 December around one month before the race in order to finalise numbers and ensure we have all the necessary logistics in place to handle the exact number of runners,” he said.
While organisers continue to work behind the scenes on assembling a powerful field for next year’s marathon, event sponsors Standard Chartered are calling on the UAE public to put on their running shoes and get into training for all three race categories.
“Standard Chartered has been the title sponsor of the Dubai Marathon for the last four years and we are excited about our fifth year as sponsors in 2009. The Dubai marathon has grown into an international success story that reaches out to every member in our local UAE community,” said Shayne Nelson, Standard Chartered Regional CEO, Middle East and North Africa.
“The Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon, the 10km race and the 3km ‘Seeing is Believing’ Fun Run are great ways to get fit as well as raise money and awareness for local and international charities.
For us, the marathon is a key component of the Bank’s community strategy as we help to raise awareness about the rise of diabetes in the region, and how we can effectively combat this illness through regular exercise.
Those who take the challenge to participate in any one of the runs have the potential to make a significant difference. I look forward to welcoming thousands of athletes of all ages, nationalities and abilities to the starting line on 16 January next year.”
JAMES TOWN, NEW YORK – In only three years, John McKay and the Awassa Youth Campus have accomplished ”a good amount” for youths in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
Formed initially as simply a place for youths to go, the {www:Awassa} campus has grown into a multi-faceted organization – featuring everything from a performing theater troupe, recording studio and an Aikido dojo to the only paved basketball court in Ethiopia.
”We see ourselves as providing the rock clay and the kids kind of mold the organization,” McKay said about the growth of the organization. ”We’re simply providing the tools for the kids and then letting them provide the substance.”
Now, for the first time in its three-year history, the Awassa Youth Campus’s founders, which include Meshu Tamrat and Tesfay Tekalu as well as McKay, are touring the U.S. to raise awareness about their program.
On Thursday, the group will stop in Jamestown for a 7:30 p.m. performance at the Reg Studio Theater.
According to McKay, the current tour is to put a face on the program and does not feature the full 30 youths who participate in the One Love AIDS/HIV Awareness Theater. A first step for the program, McKay said he hopes this tour will lay the groundwork to bring the full theater to the United States in the future.
Before there was the Awassa Youth Campus and the Awassa Children’s Center orphanage, there was the Awassa AIDS Education Circus – which Arts Council and Reg Lenna Civic Center Director David Schein helped found with friends from Germany. In 2002, Schein went to Ethiopia to work with Tamrat and Tekalu on building an educational show.
”They were great gymnasts and in two weeks we had a script,” Schein said. ”These young, barefoot, hungry kids started something really, really big and they do marvelous theater. At the same time, they’re realizing themselves beyond their wildest dreams. I’ve been there six times in the last seven years and that initial circus gave way to two non-profits – the orphanage and the Awassa Youth Campus.”
The initial force behind the Awassa Youth Campus according to Schein, McKay arrived in Awassa to help with the previous projects – which is where he met Tamrat and Tekalu.
”We started talking about programs and they saw the same kinds of gaps inside programs that I had seen from traveling in Africa,” McKay said. ”So out of that, we decided to build this youth campus. We wanted to separate it from the orphanage and let the orphanage focus on providing direct care and support and we’d start to take over the outreach kind of stuff.”
Reacting to the ”business” of AIDS prevention in Africa and the industry around orphan care in Africa, he envisaged a whole different way to empower African kids – and with Tamrat and Tekalu broke away and founded the Awassa Youth Campus.
”He ‘gets’ the way that the arts are a pathway to development and self-realization and has made that one of the cornerstones of the Youth Campus,” Schein said.
”We just wanted to build an organization,” McKay said of the Awassa Youth Center. ”It’s just youth-focused programming in Ethiopia. We just wanted to provide place for kids to go that basically serves the same function and works the same way as a Youth Center in the U.S. does. Through the activities that the kids participate in, they do HIV/AIDS awareness and other outreach programs – and this trip is really just to put a face on that, to show the personality of the program.”
BANGALORE, INDIA – Karuturi Global, a Bangalore-based floriculture company, has enteretd into agriculture business in Ethiopia. The company will engage in cultivation of maize, rice, vegetables and other commercial crops in 11,700 acres of land in Bako area of Ethiopia.
Import of machinary and other infrastructure into Ethiopia is underway and the entire project is expected to be completed by 2014.
“Agriculture segment of the company’s business is expected to contribute nearly 25% of the total revenues during financial year 2009-10 and by 2010, the revenues from agriculture is expected to exceed the forticulture revenues of the company,” said Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, managing director of Karuturi Global.
He also said, “This venture of entering into agriculture sector has given me more satisfaction as an human being than as a business man, as this will initiate the company`s endeavor to meet upto 5% of the global food demand. In addition to this venture, the company has also acquired additional 360 hectares of land in Wolliso, Ethiopia for cultivation of roses.”
Source: IRIS
Shares of the company declined Rs 0.5, or 5.78%, to settle at Rs 8. The total volume of shares traded was 2,084,824 at the BSE (Wednesday).
