EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a warning to those who do business with Ethiopia’s tribalist dictatorship that is terrorizing the people of Ethiopia.
(BBC) — A United States judge has ruled that lawsuits can go ahead against several companies accused of helping South Africa’s apartheid-era government.
IBM, Ford and General Motors are among those corporations now expected to face demands for damages from thousands of apartheid’s victims.
They argue that the firms supplied equipment used by the South African security forces to suppress dissent.
The companies affected have not yet responded to the judge’s ruling.
‘Wilful blindness’
US District Judge Shira Scheindlin in New York dismissed complaints against several companies but said plaintiffs could proceed with lawsuits against IBM, Daimler, Ford, General Motors and Rheinmetall Group, the German parent of an armaments maker.
“Corporate defendants accused of merely doing business with the apartheid government of South Africa have been dismissed,” she said.
The plaintiffs argue that the car manufacturers knew their vehicles would be used by South African forces to suppress dissent. They also say that computer companies knew their products were being used to help strip black South Africans of their rights.
The judge disagreed with IBM’s argument that it was not the company’s place to tell clients how to use its products.
“That level of wilful blindness in the face of crimes in violation of the law of nations cannot defeat an otherwise clear showing of knowledge that the assistance IBM provided would directly and substantially support apartheid,” she said.
More than 50 companies were initially sued, but after a court demanded more specific details, the plaintiffs decided to target fewer companies.
The US and South African governments supported the companies’ efforts to get the complaints dismissed.
They argue that the legal action is damaging to international relations and may threaten South Africa’s economic development.
An Ethiopian man has pleaded guilty to the murder of 2007 alumnus Brian Adkins, a Foreign Service officer found dead in his Ethiopia home this February, according to Adkins’ family.
State Department officials told family members that a man named “Sammy” had admitted to beating Adkins to death with a baseball bat in the Ohio native’s African home. Sammy, a local man whose full name was not available, had met Adkins through mutual friends who frequently played video games at the house.
At a preliminary hearing on March 27, Sammy pleaded guilty to second degree murder and stealing Adkins’ possessions, said Dan Adkins, Brian’s father, in an interview. Dan Adkins added that prosecutors are seeking to convict the man of first degree murder, which could result in the death penalty.
Court proceedings are happening in the African country’s capital city, Addis Ababa, because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Ethiopia. State Department officials did not return requests for comment.
Family members wrote in an e-mail to Brian’s friends and acquaintances that Sammy stayed overnight at the house after he and Adkins played video games late into the night. The house was adjacent to a series of Foreign Service Officers’ homes, and the compound was watched over by a guard and surrounded by concrete walls and razor wire, Dan Adkins said.
Sammy and Adkins began arguing the next morning and Sammy later told investigators he was afraid that the loud noises would alert the guard. He said he tried to quiet Adkins using a baseball bat, which was usually kept by the door for protection, and repeatedly hit him in the head and face as Adkins fell to the ground. The cause of the argument is unknown.
“I really need some closure on what caused the argument,” Dan Adkins said.
A funeral director in Cleveland later told Dan Adkins that the body was so damaged it could not possibly be restored for an open-casket funeral.
Upon fleeing Adkins’ house, Sammy took some of the 25-year-old’s belongings, which included a cell phone, a laptop computer and a camera. He left his own cell phone at the house, which investigators used as their primary lead in the case. Sammy was later apprehended in a village six hours from Adkins’ home with the belongings.
“So, in all, our son was killed for a few lousy bucks for his belongings on the street of Addis Ababa,” the family’s e-mail said. “What a terrible waste of a man, son, brother and a true friend to many.”
The family learned about the details of the case after State Department officials visited them at their home in late February. They have also been communicating with the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Donald Yamamoto. The State Department told them they did not consider the murder to be connected with terrorism or political opposition to the Ethiopian government.
Adkins earned two degrees from GW – a bachelor’s degree from in 2005 and a master’s degree in 2007. While in Foggy Bottom he was active in the GW Knights of Columbus and the Newman Catholic Center.
On Friday, May 1, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to preside over a ceremony honoring Adkins and three other Foreign Service officers who have died on duty. The four officers’ names will be inscribed on a memorial plaque in the State Department’s main lobby at their building adjacent to campus.
Adkins was in his first year of duty in the country, performing consular work including helping Americans in distress and handling visas and passports. He was scheduled to travel to Rwanda for several weeks on the day of his death to work in the U.S. Embassy there, Dan Adkins said.
It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president — a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences.
Clinton’s efforts to land a small contingent of troops in Haiti were rebuffed, for the world to see, by a few hundred gun-toting Haitians. As the USS Harlan County retreated, so did the president’s reputation.
For President Obama, last week’s confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.
But the result — a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces — left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.
Throughout the past four days, White House officials played down Obama’s role in the hostage drama. Until yesterday, he made no public statements about the pirates.
In fact, aides said yesterday, Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue.
“The president’s focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain,” one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called “the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain.” On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an “additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions.”
A top military official, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet, explained that Obama issued a standing order that the military was to act if the captain’s life was in immediate danger.
“Our authorities came directly from the president,” he said. “And the number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain’s life was in immediate danger. And that is the situation in which our sailors acted.”
After the rescue ended, White House officials immediately offered expanded information about Obama’s role, though the president simply released a statement praising the troops and expressing pride in the captain’s bravery.
The operation pales in scope and complexity to the wars underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Obama’s adversaries are unlikely to be mollified by his performance in a four-day hostage drama.
Nonetheless, it may help to quell criticism leveled at Obama that he came to office as a Democratic antiwar candidate who could prove unwilling or unable to harness military might when necessary.
And as Obama’s Democratic predecessors can attest, a victory — no matter how small — is better than a failure.
Clinton’s decision to send the USS Harlan County to Haiti loaded with troops was seen as a half-measure taken by a president spooked by the earlier downing of a Black Hawk helicopter in Somalia.
After the Harlan’s failure to get ashore, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in a column that year that the incident “makes the administration look feckless and the country look weak.”
Thirteen years earlier, Democratic President Jimmy Carter authorized a military rescue of the 52 hostages being held by Iranians in Tehran. The 1980 attempt, called Operation Eagle Claw, ended when two helicopters crashed in the desert, killing eight servicemen.
The incident was a permanent blemish on Carter’s reputation.
Had yesterday’s rescue at sea gone badly, the political damage for Obama might have been severe. But aides said the outcome should be seen as a success.
“This is the latest indication that the national security team is working well together,” a senior White House official said last night. “These folks have spent a lot of time together, including with the president, in the first couple months, and they have a good working relationship. ”
Somali pirates vow revenge on US – Al Jazeera
A Somali pirate chief has vowed to target Americans in revenge for the death of three pirates killed during a US raid to free an American hostage held by the pirates.
Abdi Garad said on Monday that the US forces had shot and killed the men, even after they had agreed to free the hostage.
“The American liars have killed our friends after they agreed to free the hostage without ransom,” Garad was reported by the AFP news agency as saying.
“But I tell you that this matter will lead to retaliation and we will hunt down particularly American citizens travelling our waters.”
The news agency reported that Garad was speaking by phone from Eyl, a pirate base on Somalia’s eastern coast.
Sniper attack
Navy snipers on the USS Bainbridge shot and killed three of the four pirates holding hostage Richard Phillips, the captain of a ship the pirates had attacked.
The pirates had attacked the US-flagged container ship the Maersk Alabama and while the crew seized back the ship, the pirates kept hold of Phillips, the ship’s captain, on a lifeboat.
He reportedly jumped from the vessel in an attempt to escape, but was quickly re-captured.
The Bainbridge was one of two US navy warships sent to the scene to monitor the situation and rescue Phillips, a plan approved by Barack Obama, the US president.
The US navy said the snipers opened fire when Phillips’ life appeared to be in danger.
“They were pointing the AK-47s at the captain,” Vice Admiral William Gortney, head of the US naval central command, said in a Pentagon briefing from Bahrain.
“The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision and he had the authorities to make that decision and he had seconds to make that decision,” he said.
Hostage situation
Before the raid, the pirates, who demanded a $2m ransom for Phillips, warned the US government not to use force.
Meanwhile, the Maersk Alabama arrived in the Kenyan port of Mobassa on Saturday.
Abdulkadir Walayo, a Somali government spokesman, hailed the operation.
“I hope this operation will be a lesson for other pirates holding the hostages on the ships they hijacked,” he said.
The raid occurred only two days after French commandos stormed a yacht to rescue two French couples and a child being held by Somali pirates in a separate incident.
Hijackings are an ongoing problem in the busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.
At least a dozen ships have been seized in the Indian Ocean and more than 200 crew members are being held hostage.
How Captain Phillips was rescued – BBC
US Navy snipers made a split-second decision to shoot dead three Somali pirates holding a cargo ship captain hostage on a lifeboat, officials say.
US Navy spokesman Vice-Adm William Gortney said the pirates were shot because Capt Richard Phillips’ life appeared in “imminent danger”.
Snipers on a US warship towing the lifeboat fired after seeing a pirate pointing a gun at him, the navy said.
Capt Phillips was not hurt, and a fourth pirate surrendered.
The US Navy had had contact with the pirates as the stand-off continued, attaching a tow rope and taking one pirate on board for medical help.
Negotiations involving Somali elders had been going on throughout Sunday to secure the captain’s release, with the fourth pirate still on board the USS Bainbridge.
He was taken into military custody.
The lifeboat, which had no power, was attached on a tow line about 100 ft (27 metres) behind the warship after the pirates had accepted an offer to be moved out of rough seas.
One pirate was seen through a window pointing an AK-47 at the back of Capt Phillips, who was tied up.
The commander ordered the shooting, with snipers aiming at the pirates’ heads and shoulders when two of them appeared at the rear hatch, Vice Admiral Gortney said.
It was unclear how long the shooting lasted, with some reports saying it was several minutes, while the New York Times reported that three single shots were all that were needed.
Navy sailors then sailed to the lifeboat in a small inflatable craft and rescued Capt Philips.
He was unhurt despite being just a few metres away from his captors during the shooting.
He was then taken on board the Bainbridge, and later moved to the USS Boxer where he underwent a medical examination.
Tied up
Capt Phillips had been held hostage in the lifeboat since Wednesday, when pirates attacked his ship, the Maersk Alabama.
He had agreed to become a hostage so that his crew could go free, the crew said.
Vice-Adm Gortney said the pirates were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and small-calibre pistols.
US President Barack Obama had given clear orders to shoot if Capt Phillips’ life was in danger, he said.
An internal feud between Ethiopian private exporters and the government caught the media spotlight recently but, as usual, limited journalism coverage derailed the attention off the fundamental issues.
On March 25, 2009, the government seized 17,000 tons of coffee beans from six exporters, and revoked their licenses. The government is now considering selling the seized stocks itself on the international market. The licenses of additional 88 independent traders had also been cancelled for failing to heed the authorities.
This happened after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused some coffee exporters in January of having been reluctant to sell stocks through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). He warned them of conspiring and disturbing the integrity of the ECX system by supplying and then buying back their own coffees to sell coffee meant for export on the domestic market, threatening to “cut off one of their hands” if they did not behave.
The exporters deny these accusations.
When the media picked and wagged a thread, the news spilled over to global markets and sent a shockwave across the specialty coffee community. Some importers of specialty coffees got worried that the new coffee law may put an end to direct sourcing of beans and severely impacted the already scant traceability of Ethiopia’s coffee beans.
In all this, the farmers’ voice is drowned out and their concerns left unnoticed.
As it happens, the recent development in Ethiopia’s coffee sector has more ramifications to the national economy than on the specialty coffee industry. Importers and roasters interviewed for this report confirmed that their sourcing is unaffected while the feud continues.
To understand the underlying reasons for the private exporters’ frustrations and the government’s heavy-handed actions, one needs to look at the history of coffee in Ethiopia and what changed in recent years.
Political Crop
Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, is the sixth largest coffee producer and the seventh largest exporter worldwide. It is the largest coffee producer and exporter in Africa. Exports between March 2008 and February 2009 were 2,679,155 bags of coffee beans, a share of 2.73 percent in global coffee trade.
The fine quality of its coffees and the distinctive features of the sector, including its genetic resources, abundance of wild coffee trees, and the organic coffee production, earned Ethiopia a unique place in the global coffee marketplace.
Coffee is the backbone of Ethiopia’s economy. In the 2007/2008, coffee export fetched more than 525 million dollars, accounting for about 60 percent of the country’s hard currency earnings. Moreover, coffee provides an important source of income for a large portion of the population and is an important source of tax revenue to the government.
Coffee holds a strong political significance in Ethiopia because of its tremendous importance in the economy and its political purposes for the regime. The ruling party ensures the centralized collection and controlling of foreign currency in order to stay in power.
Currently, the government is strapped; its foreign currency reserve is at its lowest level of $850 million, enough to cover only a month’s imports. The foreign exchange shortage was exacerbated by declines in global coffee prices, poor harvest, and contraction of sales following the loss of Japan’s market due to the ban imposed in May 2008 by Japan after finding “abnormally high” pesticide residues in a shipment of the beans.
Under these circumstances, coffee can be extremely appealing to the government.
The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), a government owned central trading system, meant primarily for grains, began trading coffee in December 2008. Launched in May 2008, the trading platform was set up to replace the murky auction system often abused by market participants.
During the ECX rollout, which happened to coincide with the global economic turmoil where domestic and global prices were sharply rising, there was severe shortage of grains flowing through the exchange.
Although it is authorized to trade in both spot and futures contracts, ECX announced in April 2008 that it intends to start off with only spot contracts for immediate delivery (as a strategic driver of the ultimate futures trading) and impose compulsory delivery of grains.
In August 2008, the government swiftly enacted a new coffee law in order to provide ECX with the necessary legal framework that would enable it, among others, to impose compulsory delivery of coffees. This law requires all coffees to be traded through the ECX – the only outlet to international markets.
The New Coffee Law
The new coffee law, as some call it, is believed to be what sparked the outcry among private exporters in Ethiopia and the specialty coffee community. Outside Ethiopia, there is confusion on whether or not the law prohibits direct sourcing of single origin coffees.
The law, formally known as the Coffee Quality Control and Marketing Proclamation (No. 602/2008*, declares all coffee trade “shall take place in lawful coffee transaction centers.”
More specifically, Article 10(1) reads:
“Any person involved in the roasting and grinding of coffee for selling shall purchase the coffee for such purpose only from auction centers, the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange or wholesalers.”
But Article 11 appears to be leaving room for direct sourcing:
“Any coffee producer shall: 1/ without prejudice to Article 6(1) of this Proclamation, have the right to directly export coffee from his own farm, only after submitting the same to the coffee quality liquoring and inspection center for grading before and after processing for export; and 2/ sell coffee by product in auction centers or the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange only upon examination and approval of the coffee quality liquoring and inspection center.”
This provision makes it easier for coffee farmers’ cooperatives and marketing unions to transact with importers directly. Some of the cooperatives and unions that are reasonably equipped and well positioned to handle export orders will hopefully reap the benefits of direct marketing.
Meanwhile, farmers that are not organized in cooperatives, which constitute the majority of the farming community, are disadvantaged, as dealing with importers from thousands of miles away would be challenging, if not impossible. However, importers do have the option and abilities to initiate and enter into contracts with all producers and access their favorite coffee origins by establishing direct relationships with producers. This approach helps the poor farmers dig themselves out of the traps of poverty and eternal exploitation.
The law abolishes the old practices by some exporters of handholding coffee bags from farm gate to export. Now, they will have to compete with other exporters if they need to buy specific bag of cherries supplied by suppliers or “akrabis.”
In this respect, the Coffee Quality Control and Marketing Proclamation and ECX call for segregation of duty at all levels of the value chain. It appears, though, the government is now in violation of this noble code of ethics.
Conflict of Interest
The present-day domestic marketing chain in Ethiopia is as old as the export trade itself. The bean passes through numerous market participants before arriving at the central auction centers: collectors or “sebsabis” collect the beans at local stations from rural merchants or farmers and sell it to suppliers or “akrabis”; akrabis deliver the coffee en masse to the auction centers; private exporters or local distributors buy from auction centers. Suppliers and exporters are not allowed to bypass the auctions and exchange directly.
With the introduction of the new exchange system the auction centers are replaced by the ECX, while all other participants continue to function as is, but with one fundamental change: transparency. The previous auction system was marred with loopholes that seem to have allowed some exporters holding dual licenses to purchase back their own coffee in the auctions, thereby enjoying too much control over coffee prices. Supposedly, ECX’ introduction of rules of trading, warehousing, payments and delivery, and business conduct principles will seal off those loopholes. This seems to have upset a few exporters and fired back at by the government accusing them of engaging in conflict of interest.
But the government’s reactions were even more troubling. It not only confiscated coffee beans from the exporters but also tasked the state owned Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE) with exporting of coffee.
This measure throws privatization and domestic market liberalization out in the window.
Ethiopia’s coffee market has always been a relatively private business, with the exception of limited government interventions to enforce quality standards, etc. This was true even during the days of the communist regime that “nationalized” almost every sector in the nation.
EGTE’s slated assignment marks a detrimental precedence in the nation’s history. The government’s engagement in exporting beans produced by smallholder families while it controls almost all means of production in the country, including the distribution of farm inputs, capital, and the land, is inconsistent with principles of a free market system.
Drowned Out Voices
As usual, when those up in the value chain fight, in this case the government and private exporters, it is the farmers that suffer most. In Ethiopia, smallholder farmers produce about 95 per cent of the nation’s total coffee production and these farmers rely on the sale of their cherries for their families’ mere survival.
For generations, Ethiopian coffee farmers have been at the mercy of their marauders. In the long and inefficient marketing chain, each participant marks up their prices weighing down the burden on the farmers’ shoulders. Ethiopian farmers receive barely a small fraction of the value their produce is worth, currently around 40 percent of export prices, much less than the 70 percent that their counterparts in Central and South America receive.
A transparent and efficient exchange market system nurtures competition and benefits everyone in the value chain, from bean to cup. Farmers producing the finest quality coffee can get rewarded for their hard work as well as suppliers and exporters whose innovation and smart marketing skills pay off.
But, if given the choice, farmers in Ethiopia would choose direct marketing over a chain of licensees that add little value to the product. To that effect, ECX would be more beneficial to the farmers if its processes support and facilitate for more farmer-importer relationships.
Looking Ahead
The role of a centralized modern commodity exchange is indispensable for developing economies, such as Ethiopia.
The country’s coffee sector is highly dependent on international prices and the export is affected by the structure and workings of the world coffee market. The market participants need to understand that Ethiopia is competing with countries that have the abilities and the will to easily adopt innovative low-cost production and marketing systems.
The current bickering and prejudice will only affect coffee quality, weaken the country’s brands, deter potential importers, and put the sector at risk. The government needs to exercise restraint, listen to and address the concerns of all participants, from farmers to importers. Its obligation to protect the farmers from exploitation includes itself as well. Replacing private exporters by EGTE won’t lessen the burden on poor farmers.
The interests of all participants can be better served if the market functions, in the words from ECX’ mission statement, “based on continuous learning, fairness, and commitment to excellence.”
Loran Zemedu Araya is one of the three suspects in the killing of Ethiopian businessman Tedla Lemma in a suburb of Atlanta
LAWRENCEVILLE (GDP) – A Riverdale man is to stand trial this week in the killing of a disabled Lilburn business owner last year.
Quincy Marcel Jackson joins three co-defendants implicated in the killing of Tedla Lemma, 51, in his upscale Kenion Forest Drive home March 25, 2008.
Police believe Jackson and his accomplices first pillaged Lemma’s home in November 2007 for cash and valuables. On the return trip, Lemma was reportedly hog-tied, beaten and gagged so tightly he suffocated.
A grand jury indicted Jackson in September on 18 counts, including murder and kidnapping. He has remained in jail since his July arrest.
Jackson’s former roommate in Riverdale, Marshae Brooks, was arrested and charged with murder in February after the third suspect, Loran Araya, told prosecutors of his involvement. Cell phone records helped tie all three to the scene, police said.
Police believe the crew perpetrated four home-invasion robberies in the months prior to Lemma’s death, including the kidnapping of two Buckhead jewelry store owners living in Stone Mountain.
Police say Araya, a former Lilburn resident, knew most of the victims. Her parents once sold a package store to Lemma’s family.
At the time of his death, Lemma, an affluent convenience store owner from Ethiopia, was paralyzed from a robbery when he was shot in the head several years ago. Detectives have testified the suspects never intended to kill Lemma and only learned of his death via broadcast news reports hours later.
Detectives are searching for a fourth suspect in the murder known on the streets as “Money Mark,” an investigator testified last month.
Few people outside Ethiopia have ever heard of Birtukan Mideksa. And that’s just how the government wants it. Since December, Birtukan has been kept in solitary confinement, one of hundreds of political prisoners there. Her apparent crime? Organizing a democratic challenge to the increasingly iron-fisted rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
In the past year alone, Meles’s ruling party has rigged elections, effectively banned independent human-rights groups, passed a draconian press law and shrugged off calls for an investigation into alleged atrocities in the restive Ogaden region. Yet in the same period, his country has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid in sub-Saharan Africa, getting a cool $1 billion in 2008. The Bush administration claimed that Ethiopia was the linch-pin of its regional counterterrorism strategy and a vital beacon of stability. But the evidence increasingly suggests Washington isn’t getting what it pays for, and is supporting a brutal dictator in the process. Candidate Obama pledged to strengthen democracy in Africa; if he’s serious, this is a good place to start.
America’s warm relations with Ethiopia date to the days after 9/11, when the country’s Christian-dominated government came to be seen as a natural U.S. ally in a region targeted by Islamic extremists. After disputed elections in 2005, however, Meles—once hailed by President Bill Clinton as part of a promising “new generation” of African leaders—began clamping down on dissent.
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Yet Washington tolerated his lapses because it needed his help fighting Qaeda-linked Islamists in next-door Somalia. In December 2006, Ethiopia’s U.S.-trained Army duly invaded its neighbor, ousting the radical Islamic Courts Union government there. But the adventure hasn’t worked out as planned. No sooner had the ICU been toppled than an even more radical group, Al-Shabab, sprang up to fight the invaders. And although Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia’s foreign minister, recently told NEWSWEEK that the Islamists have been militarily “shattered,” they now control much of the country’s south and have tightened links with Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian troops have pulled out, and the country they left behind has been thoroughly devastated. Two years of fighting forced about 3.4 million Somalis, some 40 percent of the population, from their homes. Yet only a few high-ranking terrorists were eliminated, and Russell Howard, a retired general and senior fellow at the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations University, says the occupation only “empowered” the radicals.
Such failures—and Ethiopia’s growing repression—suggest Washington should rethink the relationship. Just what Ethiopia offers the United States today is unclear. Addis Ababa has contributed troops to U.N. peacekeeping forces in Darfur and Burundi and plays a large role in shaping the policies of the African Union. But this shouldn’t earn it unquestioning U.S. support.
To reset ties, the United States should push Ethiopia to democratize. And it must urge it to reconcile with its archnemesis, Eritrea. Resolving the conflict between the two states is key to addressing a whole range of threats to U.S. interests. Tiny Eritrea won independence from Addis Ababa in 1993, but the two countries fought a 1998–2000 border war and relations have remained hostile ever since, in part because Ethiopia, with tacit U.S. support, has ignored an international ruling that redrew their border. Too weak to challenge Ethiopia directly, Eritrea has funneled support to its enemy’s enemies—including Al-Shabab and its America-hating foreign fighters. Eritrea also recently instigated a border conflict with Djibouti, home to an important U.S. military base.
Washington should thus push Ethiopia and Eritrea to make amends; better relations would mean an end to their proxy war in Somalia, which has helped turn that state into a Qaeda haven. Should it choose to use it, the United States has plenty of leverage. Most U.S. spending on Ethiopia goes for health and food aid, which aren’t easy to cut. But the Obama administration could make military aid and weapons sales contingent on Meles’s improving his behavior. The House of Representatives passed a bill in 2007 to do just that, but the measure died in the Senate without White House support.
Much will now depend on the man Obama has nominated for the State Department’s top Africa job, Johnnie Carson. Carson’s record is promising: while ambassador to Kenya from 1999 to 2003, he helped persuade longtime President Daniel Arap Moi to step down, clearing the way for multiparty elections. Should he bring similar pressure to bear on Washington’s new African ally, Birtukan, Ethiopia’s other political prisoners, Africans throughout the Horn and America itself would all benefit.
An Ethiopian man has pleaded guilty to the murder of 2007 alumnus Brian Adkins, a Foreign Service officer found dead in his Ethiopia home this February, according to Adkins’ family.
It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president — a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences.
Few people outside Ethiopia have ever heard of Birtukan Mideksa. And that’s just how the government wants it. Since December, Birtukan has been kept in solitary confinement, one of hundreds of political prisoners there. Her apparent crime? Organizing a democratic challenge to the increasingly iron-fisted rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.