Kenya (KBC) – The government has launched investigations into reports that heavily armed militias from Ethiopia have been sighted in Merti division of Isiolo district.
District Commissioner Waweru Kimani confirmed claims that some 60 members of the {www:Oromo Liberation Front} (OLF) militia from Ethiopia had pitched tent within Nyachise strategic grazing reserve for the last two days.
Kimani, however, assured residents that there was no cause for alarm because appropriate measures have been taken to ensure their safety.
Kimani who is also the chairman of the district security and intelligence committee said a security team had been dispatched to the area to join another one headed by Merti District Officer.
The presence of the suspected militias has created tension among hundreds of herders who now want the government to intervene and have the heavily armed OLF militias removed.
Residents say the militias comprising of 10 women and 50 men who are in their late twenties accessed the remote Merti area after sneaking into the country through Moyale district.
Herders are reportedly leaving Nyachise grazing fields in droves with their livestock for fear of an attack.
Local OCPD Marius Tum said investigations were on into the motive of the militias, how they made their way into the country and also arrest them and confiscate their weapons.
Last week militias from Somalia threatened to invade the country and annex the North Eastern Province, putting security personnel along the borders of Kenya and her neighbours on high alert.
ADDIS ABABA, (Reuters) – Health officials from seven African countries are discussing a response to swine flu at a conference in Ethiopia, organisers said on Wednesday.
The conference, involving Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, was planned six months ago to talk about Africa’s poor response to pandemics.
“It’s really fortuitous that this is going on in the context of an international emergency,” Gregory Pappas, pandemic coordinator for U.S. charity Interaction, told Reuters.
“Most African countries haven’t done extensive planning, and this meeting is about helping those countries.”
No cases have been reported on the continent.
Germany and Austria became the eighth and ninth countries to confirm cases of the virus on Wednesday and the United States reported the first death outside Mexico.
Health experts have expressed concern about sub-Saharan Africa’s capacity to deal with a pandemic, given the poor state of health infrastructure on the world’s neediest continent.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for assistance for poorer countries vulnerable to the crisis which may need drugs, diagnostic tools and other help.
Since 1994, South Africa underwent three national elections with remarkable success free from incidents that often mar elections in much of Africa.
In spite of the fact that the country was under a peculiar form of racialist tyrannical rule before the coming to power of the democratically elected Government in 1994, it has managed to surprise the rest of the world by the way the citizens continue to express peacefully and with strong civic engagement and expression their democratic rights by going to the polls by standing for long hours in long lines with discipline and calm decency to express their voices, make choices and to cast their secret ballots to vote with record numbers.
On April 22, 2009, for the third time, they did it again! They expressed their voices. They made their choices. Finally they cast their ballot papers and voted after hearing spirited campaign debates, discussions and even heated exchanges that would lead in other places to diversionary cantankerous personalized quarrels including possibly leading to bouts of violence… [MORE]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ethiopian Review is interested in this topic because it relates to the thousands of Ethiopian immigrants in Dubai who report of horrible abuses at the hands of their employers.
By Surat S.
A response to journalist Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi:
First thing first. I find your attitude (in the opinion piece you wrote) about Mr. Hari’s article is kind of a tit-for-tat and coming from a self-described journalist totally childish. Mr. Hari wrote about his experience in Dubai and his piece was just that. The people he interviewed and the places he visited are not made up, but that was his experience. If you can refute any part of his writing, you can do so based on facts. But if your line of argument is London is much worse than Dubai, then you miss the whole point of the article because Mr. Hari was not comparing Dubai with any other place but documenting his experience. If you feel that you have something to write about London, you can do that but you need not compare it with any other place unless you are doing a comparative piece.
You did not mention any specifics in Mr. Haris’ article that you find objectionable but condemned it in its totality because sometimes that is the best of course of action when you are short of credible argument. I can go over every example that you mentioned about London and give you a comparison with Dubai but I will give you a glimpse of what you failed to comprehend in Mr. Haris’ piece. For your information, I have lived in Dubai for more than a year and visited the place several times over the span of two decades; and I have been in London many times for a very short period of time.
Your first negative example about London is the number of homeless people and let me take the figure at its face value because it is not even relevant. I live in America and I know first hand that almost every major city has a problem with homeless people. And among the homeless, a good percentage of them are mentally sick and need immediate care. The government and welfare agencies are constantly trying to address the problem so far with little success. But the point I am trying to make is you don’t even have the right to be homeless in a city such as Dubai or all of the Gulf States because they will ship anyone who is staying in the land if they are unemployed. This is not like comparing apples to oranges; this is something like comparing apples to a rotten, insect infested orange. The sad fact of the matter is human rights violations are rampant across the region and if you really need to write about anything, do not be offended because someone find the will to write about the land of your ancestors, but try to tell us about a great deal of injustice that Mr. Hari did not find the time to document.
And then you mentioned about the awful nature of women prisoners in Britain (I thought we were talking about London) and by implication you tried to tell us that any journalist who comes from a nation of such atrocity should have no business writing about other places. Again, it all comes down to the issue of human rights and the places where it is respected. Not only in London or England, but almost all industrialized countries have their share of social problems be it in the form of drug and alcohol problems, ethnic issues, gender issues, economic hardship, gang problems, homelessness, lack of medical care, etc. But unlike any of the Gulf States or Middle Eastern countries, these and many others societal problems are constantly debated among the population and the lawmakers to find a solution. Some countries are getting better in managing the problems and others are having a difficult time dealing with them. But the point is, unlike much of the Arab states, the problems are not shunned or ignored but are discussed openly in an effort to find a solution. Because of the system of governance, sometimes governments are changed because of these issues. I wish I could say the same about the city you tried to defend needlessly.
In your zeal to defend the honor of your region, you dug deeper to find examples of injustices that Britain did against other than its own people and you brought us the example of the millions of Indians who served the Queen during World War II. I agree with you that we should learn a great deal from the history of injustices and suffering that Britain, America or the western world had brought against the third world countries. Thousandths of books have been written about the unjust nature of colonialism and its aftermath. And I am quite confident that many more will be written by future historians to enlighten us and guide us not to repeat those mistakes. But Mr. Qassemi, I am sure that you will be the first one to admit that Britain of today is not the place you knew a decade or two ago. And I have to admit that America of today is the not the nation that I saw when I landed the first time more than two decades ago. America is not proud of the way it treated the native Indians, African Americans and many other ethnic groups throughout the centuries. We have also to admit that nothing is static; we are all witnesses to the dynamic changes that is taking places all around us which is also changing us as result. No one is immune and everything is changing. We are living in an interesting time that let us see changes immediately. But unfortunately, all of the Gulf States are intentionally missing this dynamic human revolution. They are good at importing and adopting the western technology while at the same time ignoring the suffering of the immigrant population who are doing all the work to bring material modernity to the region.
The point is human rights group can raise the issue of the suffering of army conscript of Indian origin and demand just compensation for their suffering; I have seen first hand America discussed and addressed, thought not adequately, the issue of Japanese-American prisoners during World War II after a number of decades. The same could happen in Britain and all the colonial powers. Can we say the same thing about millions of slave labor conscripts who are suffering in the desert heat of Gulf States right at this moment? Most of the Arab states have forgotten that these are human being after all, with the same blood running through their veins as those who employ them. Mr. Qassemi, it is not only Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Pilipino, etc, but many of my fellow Ethiopians are suffering because of slave labor conditions throughout the Gulf States. I personally heard numerous examples of abuse of domestic workers who work from the time they wake up early in the morning until they go to bed late at night without any rest in between. Sometimes, the wages of these “slaves” are held for months and at times it is totally forfeited when the employer gets rid of them or if and when they escape from their captivity.
Mr. Qassemi, we are all thankful that we are living in a democracy and have the right to address any wrong that is done to us. Sometimes, we get the short end of the law and we do not get everything that should be ours by right. But no one can doubt that we live in a much better condition that our immigrant brothers and sisters in the Gulf States. Granted, we have so many social issues that we need to address to become a fair and just community, but don’t you dare to compare us with the unfortunate human beings in the deserts of Arabia who have no way out. I think you should be ashamed of yourself in trying to defend the indefensible just because someone wrote not so nice things about your region. You are no better than the people who are putting these people under such terrible conditions because you are trying to tell the world that it is no worse than Britain. You know that is not true and that is a shame.
Jailed repeatedly for his political views, Ethiopian immigrant Sharew paid smugglers around $10,000 to move him through a dozen countries and leave him a year later in the grubby southern Mexican city of Tapachula.
Once on Mexico’s southern border, which has grown into a major stepping-stone for hundreds of migrants fleeing conflicts in the Horn of Africa, he was still 2,000 miles away from his destination: the United States.
The immigrants, mainly from Ethiopia and Somalia are increasingly following a new, epic route down the continent to South Africa, across the Atlantic by boat or plane and then a trek overland though South and Central America… [MORE]
By Maru Gubena Some of my readers may think that my tribute upon the untimely death of the phenomenal, the irreplaceable asset of Ethiopia, the unchallenged cultural and musical symbol and the undisputed role model for Ethiopian musicians of my generation, Tilahun Gessese, whom I, as a political economist and organization strategist have characterized not as a “King of Ethiopian Music,” but as “Edilegnaw Niguse,” is too late and perhaps too little as well. But I know it is neither too late nor too little. Because in our Ethiopian culture, families who have lost a loved one and who are grieving and weeping uncontrollably over the sudden loss of their family member, or someone well loved and highly respected by Ethiopians of all ages and sexes, can be extremely happy to receive any condolence at any time, whether written or in person. Yes, all Ethiopian families experiencing such sorrow, always feel tremendously comfortable and happy with the presence of those who come to share their grief and those who come while shading their tears. This is a part of our Ethiopian culture – a culture implanted deep inside our minds and our bodies.
Also, I know I did not write this text early this morning or yesterday evening but last Friday, the 24th of April 2009, intending to present it in person in my own personal capacity and in my own way, to express my grief and deep sadness at the abrupt disappearance – the death of the Edilegnaw Niguse, Tilahun Gessese, who unquestionably will remain in the hearts and minds of all Ethiopians of all generations. Yes, I wrote this text with the full intention of presenting it in the form of a memorial speech at the memorial service organized for artist Tilahun Gessese by the Association of Ethiopians in the Netherlands, held on Saturday, the 25th of April 2009. But due to the organizational style, the objectives, and the atmosphere of the event itself, which seemed, at least to me, not to correspond with my objective in presenting my talk, I thought it would be wiser to find other means to express and share my grieve with my Ethiopian compatriots in other ways.
Yes, the highly loved, highly respected icon and cultural asset of our country – Ethiopia – was and is indeed Edilegna Niguse, the Lucky King, and the Extraordinary King of the land of Ethiopia. Artist Tilahun is also Edilegna, because, completely different from our previous Kings and Emperors, Princes and Princesses, he was and is a Niguse of every Ethiopian, with no a single social or political enemy. Not even a single person. Artist Tilahun himself and his images will therefore live and sleep so comfortably and so widely in the hearts and minds of all Ethiopians, including the coming generations. Yes, indeed, he is absolutely different from Ethiopians who have had the highest socio-cultural and political positions within Ethiopian society.
It is also undeniably true that, at least as far as my recollections are concerned, in the past fifty or more years there has never been such an extensive, well organized and most memorable state and people’s funeral service as the one we all saw and witnessed last Thursday, the 23rd of April 2009 in Addis Ababa. Again, as far as I can recall, Ethiopians have never witnessed such a hugely attended, unforgettable funeral service for any member of Ethiopian society, not for Emperor Haile Selassie, or for his ministers, who had had the highest political positions in the country. Artist Tilahun is just an extraordinary, very special and unique social animal and far more. Not just a musician or singer, but a son, a patriot, a brother, a husband, a father and above all, a loving friend to everyone, all Ethiopians, not just those who live in cities, towns, or villages, but also those who reside deep inside the most complicated Ethiopian forests or its low and high mountains.
