By Tiberah Tsehai, TsehaiNY.com

If you never thought that one person can change the world, after meeting Dr. Mehret Mandefro, you will be convinced otherwise.

Mehret is a public health physician using oral histories to teach about health, a role she describes as an honor and a privilege. “I take it seriously but most of all, its fun to teach. This is the best part about my job and I love it.”

Having left her native land of Ethiopia at just one and a half years old, Mehret grew up in Northern Virginia. Northern Virginia is part of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and is home to the largest population of Ethiopians outside of Ethiopia. “We are over 100,000 there now. So, I grew up going to Amharic school at my dad’s church in addition to regular school.”

Mehret describes her childhood as being no different than most immigrants in America.

“My parents were pretty strict about speaking Amharic inside the house and drilling in that I was Ethiopian first.” She cited both her parents as important sources of inspiration. “My mother is the best definition of love that I have. The kind of love that leaves you changed forever, and my father is a constant reminder that there are some things worth fighting for that are much greater than you. Ethiopia is his first love and always will be.”…Read More

BBC NEWS

A Human Rights Watch report says that at least 10 foreign nationals detained more than a year ago on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities in Somalia are still being held. The BBC’s Robert Walker investigates their fate.

Salim Awadh is talking to me from inside a cell somewhere in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

There are seven other prisoners kept in the same small, dark room, he starts to tell me.

Then he suddenly stops speaking. I can hear frantic whispering in the background. Then he says it is safe to carry on.

“The conditions are really bad: we don’t have enough food, we don’t have enough access to medicine. The cell is wet,” he says.

“We sleep on the floor rather than the sodden mattresses. One of the other prisoners was beaten so badly he’s had his leg broken.”

Salim is able to speak to me because he has bribed a guard and got access to a mobile phone.

For weeks I have been trying to find out information about him and other detainees in what has been called “Africa’s Guantanamo”. It is a story the governments involved do not want to talk about: The first mass rendition of terrorist suspects in Africa.

In January 2007, Ethiopian troops TPLF had taken control of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, ousting the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), an Islamist movement which had controlled much of southern Somalia for the previous six months.

Members of the UIC, militia fighters and civilians were all fleeing towards Kenya. Among them were Salim Awadh, a Kenyan, and his Tanzanian wife, Fatma Chande. Both of them were arrested as they crossed the border.

“I was kept in a cell with other women. Then the Kenyan anti-terrorist police questioned me – they asked me why we went to Somalia,” Fatma says.

I meet Fatma in her small two-room house in Moshi, northern Tanzania. She is quietly spoken and her voice falters as she explains what happened next.

“I told them my husband got a job repairing mobile phones in Somalia. But they tried to force me to admit that my husband was a terrorist. They said I had to tell them the truth or they would strangle me.”

Border worries

Kenya’s government – and its Western allies – had long seen Somalia as a haven for terrorists linked to al-Qaeda, including those responsible for 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

With the UIC in retreat, they feared that extremists might try to slip across the border.

In the first weeks of early 2007, news began to filter out that several hundred people – including children – had been arrested trying to enter Kenya.

Al Amin Kimathi, the head of Kenya’s Muslim Human Rights Forum, sent volunteers to police stations across the capital, Nairobi, trying to collect information.

“Some very frustrated senior police officers told us point blank: it’s not our operation, go and ask the Americans, just call the American embassy. We even saw the Americans bring in detainees and take them out of certain police stations in Nairobi,” he said.

Before Kenyan lawyers’ applications for their release could be considered, the authorities took an extraordinary step.

“It was a Saturday, the police called us in the middle of the night. We were taken to the airport. My husband was made to kneel down on the tarmac,” says Fatima.

“We had our hands tied behind our backs with plastic cuffs. There were men, women, children. We were blindfolded. People were crying. The police were telling them to keep quiet.”

Two hours later, Fatma and Salim found themselves on the tarmac of Mogadishu airport.

The Kenyan government sent two other planeloads of prisoners to Somalia. According to the passenger manifests at least 85 prisoners were on board. Most of them were soon picked from Somali prison cells and taken to Ethiopia.

“A week after we arrived we were interrogated by whites – Americans, British, I was interrogated for weeks,” Salim says.

“They had a file which was said to implicate me in the Kenyan bombings. So I was taken away and was placed in isolation for two months – both my hands and legs were shackled.

“The interrogations went on for five months. Always the same questions about the Nairobi bombings.”

Threats

Former detainees have also told the BBC they were questioned by US agents. One said he was beaten by Americans.

Two others said they were threatened and told that if they did not co-operate they could face ill treatment at the hands of Ethiopian guards Woyane Thughs.

All said they believed it was the Americans and not the Ethiopians TPLF controlling their detention and interrogation.

Human rights groups in the region say this was a new form of extraordinary rendition.

The US did not play an overt role in the transportation or detention of suspects as it has in the rendition of other suspected terrorists, but it nevertheless controlled their interrogation and treatment.

Al Amin Kimathi believes Ethiopia was seen as the ideal destination.

“It was the most natural place to take anyone looking for a site to go and torture and to extract confessions. Ethiopia Woyane allows torture of detainees. And that is the modus operandi in renditions.”

In April last year, Ethiopia TPLF acknowledged that it was holding 41 people from 17 countries, describing them as “suspected terrorists”.

Most of the detainees were released after a few months, among them Fatma Chande, apparently as their interrogations were completed or under pressure from their home governments.

The Ethiopian government TPLF acknowledges up to 10 foreign suspects are still being detained.

“I’m not sure whether they have appeared before a court. The investigation continues,” Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Tekede Alemu told the BBC.

“These are people who were engaged in causing harm to the national interest, the security interest… These are not innocent people.”

The minister A Woyane official rejected claims the detainees have been mistreated. He also denied US agents had been allowed to control the interrogations of foreign prisoners.

More than a year and a half after the renditions, the US government still refuses to respond to questions on the alleged US role.

“I have no knowledge of it nor as official policy can I comment on such matters,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer told the BBC.

The Kenyan police say no Kenyans were amongs those flown by the Kenyan government to Somalia.

Meanwhile Fatma is still waiting anxiously for news of her husband.

After Salim got access to a mobile phone, he was able to speak to her from his cell for the first time in more than a year.

Now the phone has stopped working, Salim has disappeared once again.

Reuters

ADDIS ABABA, – Ethiopia’s Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels denied on Monday they were behind a weekend explosion that killed four people at a hotel.

“ONLF firmly believes that the Ethiopian Woyane security forces or its cronies in the region are behind such an act which is intended to tarnish the legitimate national liberation struggle of the Ogaden people,” the rebels said in a statement.

Police blamed Sunday’s blast on “terrorists” and said they suspected the ONLF. An injured victim had died in hospital, police said, taking the death toll to four after the blast in Ethiopia’s southeastern Somali region.

The explosion was the latest violence in Ethiopia’s restive, outlying regions where various groups are fighting against the government TPLF Thugs. The government Woyane says they are sponsored by its enemies, principally Eritrea.

Since the middle of last year, the Ethiopian Woyane military has been waging an offensive against the separatist ONLF in the Somali region of the Horn of Africa nation.

Sunday’s explosion took place in Jijiga, capital of the arid region that borders lawless Somalia.

The ONLF was formed in 1984. Its aims have varied between full scale independence to joining a “Greater Somalia” to more autonomy within Ethiopia. (Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; editing by Keith Weir)

By Chinedu Eze: Thisdayonline.com

About 185 passengers scheduled to travel on Ethiopian Airline flight ET900 to Addis Ababa from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport , Lagos with connecting flights to Dubai and New Delhi  were abandoned at the weekend.

There was no indication, as at yesterday evening,  that the passengers would be departing Lagos to the Ethiopian capital. One of the passengers, Linda, who spoke to THISDAY, said that the passengers boarded the flight billed to depart by 1.45 pm Nigerian time on Saturday, but when the aircraft took off it was discovered that the cooling system was faulty which prompted the pilot to abort the flight and return to base. 

“When we took off,  we discovered that there was no air in the aircraft (it was not pressurized). The pilot announced to us that he was returning to the airport and assured that they would repair the aircraft and we would depart but when he landed we spent another two hours in the aircraft before we disembarked, ” she said.

According to her, Saturday ended with the aircraft still on the ground without any hope that  the passengers would be departing, adding that  later that evening “the Ethiopian Airlines officials took the passengers to a cheap hotel called Mel Hotels where we were quartered three and four each in one room.”

THISDAY gathered that by 8.00 am on Sunday morning,  the passengers who were now dissipated and frustrated with the attitude of the airline, were returned to the airport for another long wait and by 6.00 pm the airline was yet to notify the passengers when they would be departing to Addis Ababa. 
“Since that Saturday, they have been repairing the aircraft and as at this moment (5.00 pm ) they are yet to complete maintenance work. We are so disappointed and frustrated with the airline whose attitude is unfriendly and even hostile because we demanded that we won’t travel in that aircraft but they insisted they won’t get us another aircraft, ” Linda disclosed further.

Lamenting further, Linda stated: “They provided us biscuits and Coke shortly after our arrival from the hotel and that was what we have taken since morning. Everybody is sad. Many of us are wearing the same clothes since yesterday. I am going to New Delhi in India and there are those who are going to Dubai , so this delay has shattered our travel schedule. This is a very bad experience for us.”

A drama  however ensued when THISDAY called at the Ethiopian Airline’s office at the airport  for further enquiries . An official of the airline  who was at the door rushed in and quickly locked the door on sighting this reporter and not even several knocks would  make them open the door.Customers who were also being attended to were also locked in and two expatriates customers  were only allowed to go out after  several minutes  while a tall, huge looking man who looked like bouncer stood at the door and shut  it thereafter.Spokesman of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) that operates the Consumer Protection Unit (CPU) told THISDAY that he would notify concerned authorities about the incident.

By Nadine Elsibai, Bloomberg

Viewers of the first presidential debate said Barack Obama did the better job during the event two nights ago, with 48 percent choosing the Democratic candidate compared with 34 percent for his Republican rival John McCain, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll.

The nationwide telephone poll, conducted Sept. 27, showed results similar to surveys by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. and CBS News/Knowledge Networks. The USA Today poll included 701 adults who said they watched the debate. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The CNN telephone poll of 524 adults who watched the debate found 51 percent said Obama did the best job, while 38 percent said McCain did. The CBS online poll of 483 uncommitted voters found 39 percent said Obama won, 24 percent said McCain did, and 37 percent said it was a tie.

The CNN poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, while the CBS survey’s margin of error is 4 percentage points.

(To contact the reporter on this story: Nadine Elsibai in Washington at [email protected].)