ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – A leading Ethiopian opposition politician was freed on bail on Wednesday after he was jailed last November after the government accused him of working with rebels, his party said.
Bekele Jirate, 54, a top official with the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), was accused by the authorities of working “hand-in-glove” with insurgents like the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF).
“I am very happy because not only is he important for our party, he is innocent,” OFDM leader Bulcha Demeksa told Reuters. He said no date had been set for Bekele’s trial. The OFDM said another leading opposition politician remains in solitary confinement.
The OLF is one of several rebel groups in the Horn of Africa nation and has been fighting for independence for the southern Oromo region since 1993.
Opposition groups accuse Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government of harassment, and the OFDM says the security forces have jailed hundreds of ethnic Oromos in recent months. The government denies it.
Bulcha called for the immediate release of Birtukan Mideksa, a former judge who heads the newly created Unity for Democracy and Justice party. She has been in solitary confinement since December and went on hunger strike for 13 days last month.
Regional analysts consider the 34-year-old to be the country’s foremost opposition figure.
“She has been jailed because she is a very strong and serious contender to Prime Minister Meles,” Bulcha said.
Birtukan was first jailed after elections in 2005 ended in street violence that killed 199 civilians. She was pardoned in 2007 after she agreed, along with other opposition leaders, to take responsibility for the unrest.
She was rearrested after refusing to retract a speech made in Sweden last year in which she denied she was involved in the talks that led to her release.
The OFDM accused the government of intimidation as voters went to the polls last April for the first time since the 2005 bloodshed. It said almost all its nominees for the local elections had been threatened and forced to pull out of the race. Ethiopia will hold parliamentary elections next year.
HARARE, ZIMBABE – The former Ethiopian dictator who slaughtered opponents on an industrial scale in the so-called “Red Terror” is to face justice after 17 years being sheltered by Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. [Why doesn’t Martin Fletcher describe Meles Zenawi in the same way? Meles has killed no less people in the past 17 years.]
With the country’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change due to enter a unity government with Zanu-PF next week, The Times has learnt that the extradition of Mengistu Haile Mariam is to be given priority. He faces the death penalty in his home country for his crimes.
Today, Nelson Chamisa, the MDC’s chief spokesman, told The Times that Mengistu’s case would be “high on the agenda” of the new administration. “Zimbabwe should not be a safe haven or resting place for serial human rights violators like Mr Mengistu. We can’t shelter purveyors of injustice,” he said.
Last year an Ethiopian kangaroo court sentenced the “Butcher of Addis” to be executed after convicting him of genocide in absentia, but Mr Mugabe flatly refused to extradite the man who helped to arm Zanu-PF’s guerrillas during Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war.
Instead, Mengistu continued to live in Zimbabwe as Mr Mugabe’s honored guest, dividing his time between a heavily guarded villa in a comfortable Harare suburb, a farm near the capital and a retreat on glorious Lake Kariba.
Suddenly, the future of one of Africa’s worst tyrants looks rather less assured. The MDC plans to use its Cabinet ministers, parliamentary majority and popular support to fight President Mugabe’s inevitable resistance. At stake was “the image and integrity of our country. We have to restore our glory and our dignity among the family of nations,” Mr Chamisa said. [Returning a political refugee to a regime that is accused of war crimes is not restoring one’s glory. MDC is proving to be nothing more than a puppet of the U.K. government and it’s double-tongued officials.]
Few Zimbabweans would shed tears if Mengistu, 71, was sent home to the gallows. Mr Mugabe has spent millions of dollars providing his fellow dictator with a government villa in a barricaded cul-de-sac in the suburb of Gun Hill, with round-the-clock protection by armed soldiers and any number of other benefits including the payment of substantial telephone bills — $15,000 in one instance.
In return Mengistu has advised the President on security issues and was allegedly the mastermind of Operation Murambatsvina in 2006 when security forces and Zanu-PF thugs razed the homes of 700,000 slum-dwellers regarded as MDC supporters.
Mengistu has plenty of experience in that field. He seized power after a military coup in 1974 that ended Emperor Haile Selassie’s 44-year rule and ushered in one of the bloodiest regimes Africa has known. In 1976 he mounted the “Red Terror” campaign against opponents of his Derg regime by standing in the centre of Addis Ababa, shouting: “Death to the counter-revolutionaries”, and smashing bottles filled with pigs’ blood to demonstrate the fate that awaited them.
Over the next few years more than half a million people are thought to have been killed in what Human Rights Watch called “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder ever witnessed in Africa”. Hit squads carried out summary executions. Militias strung opponents up from lampposts. Relatives had to pay a tax called “the wasted bullet” to retrieve the bodies of the dead. The victims included the former Emperor and numerous members of the Royal Family and Mengistu is said to have executed some of them himself.
He turned Ethiopia into a Marxist state, backed by the Soviet Union, and earned the sobriquet the “Black Stalin”. He created giant collective farms that had the same ruinous effect on agricultural production as Mr Mugabe’s land seizures in Zimbabwe and that helped to cause terrible famine.
His Soviet-armed military sought to crush an independence war in Eritrea and an uprising in Tigray province, but when the Soviet Union collapsed Mengistu lost his sponsors. In 1991 he fled to Zimbabwe as the Tigre People’s Liberation Front and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front surrounded Addis.
Washington asked Mr Mugabe to accept him to end the bloodshed.
In 1995 Mengistu narrowly survived an assassination attempt by two Eritreans as he took an afternoon stroll with his wife near Garvin Close, his Harare home. In court the men showed the scars of their torture by Mengistu’s henchmen, but both were imprisoned.
Otherwise Mengistu has maintained a low profile. Early on he was occasionally spotted in a shopping centre or restaurant, surrounded by guards and armed with a pistol. In 1998 he told a reporter who reached him by telephone that he was a “political refugee” who spent his time reading, writing and watching television.
In 1999, using a Zimbabwean diplomatic passport, he flew to Johannesburg for medical treatment and gave a rare interview to a South African newspaper in which he claimed that his socialist revolution had been necessary to remove Selassie’s “backward, archaic and feudalist system” and that millions of peasants had benefitted. More recently he has vanished from sight.
Mengistu’s armed guards were nowhere to be seen in Garvin Close today and The Times was able to drive past the barrier and right up the cul-de-sac before the soldiers suddenly appeared from behind a wall and ordered the intruder to leave. The half-dozen villas all looked abandoned.
As Mr Mugabe’s popularity has plunged in recent years, Mengistu was rumoured to have made contingency plans to move to North Korea. Now might be the time to dust them off — if he has not done so already.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Meles Zenawi is a prime minister, so his wife cannot be ‘first lady.’ Only the wife of the ‘head of state’ (President Girma Woldegiorgis), and not the head of government (prime minister) can be ‘first lady.’ She is unconstitutionally attributing the name ‘first lady’ to herself. Regarding her reported role in the fight against HIV, she and her blood thirsty husband are the cause of more death and suffering in Ethiopia than any other disease.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Afrique en ligne) — Ethiopia’s First Lady Azeb Mesfin called for greater political power for women to prop their influence in the war against the triple threat of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis on the continent.
In her inaugural address as the newly-elected president of the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA), Mesfin said here that marginalisation of women in mainstream politics denied them the clout they needed to influence important decisions on social and economic development of African women.
“Women must have access to power. If we want to win the war against the poverty, we must empower them also to fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” she said.
The Ethiopian first Lady takes over from Mrs Maureen Mwanawasa, wife of the late former Zambia President Levy Mwanawasa, who collapsed during the last African Union’s summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, and died in a French hospital two months later.
“African women must be free to make choices to reduce HIV/AIDS. We deserve to be in a world free of violence, where safety is real and where opportunities are boundless,” she said, in reference to rising incidence of sexual violence against women, including rape.
At a time when global economy is in recession, she said, the role of the African First Ladies had become more critical in championing the rights and privileges of their gender.
“OAFLA’s role becomes more urgent in the face of global recession because women are the most vulnerable segment of society. OAFLA therefore wants to play a greater role in the fight against HIV/AIDS inn Africa,” she said.
The conference was also addressed by Dr Meskerem Gunitzy Bekele, UNAIDS Ethiopia country director.
Dr Meskerem painted a gloomy outlook of the pandemic’s spread on the continent, saying 60 per cent of the infected and affected are women and children.
Although the epi-centre of the disease is sub-Saharan Africa, she put the number of patients who had access to anti-retroviral drugs at two million, calling the number ‘paltry’ considering that Africa’s population of people living with HIV is about 40 million.
“As high profile advocates, OAFLA must contribute to effective response to the pandemic,” she said.
Rome, Italy – An Ethiopian Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing today in Rome due to engine failure.
The Rome fire department said that nine rescue teams have rushed to Fiumicino’s airport this morning due to a call regarding an emergency landing made by the pilot of a B-757 Ethiopian Airlines plane with 147 passengers and nine crew members on board.
The airplane’s pilot said that shortly after taking off from Rome-Fiumicino airport a damage to an engine has occurred forcing emergency landing.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) — Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was elected chairman of the African Union on Monday and made clear he would pursue his vision of a United States of Africa despite reluctance from many members.
Resplendent in golden robes and cap and hailed as “king of kings” by traditional African leaders who accompanied him, Mr. Gaddafi accepted a gavel from the outgoing chairman, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, at a summit in Ethiopia.
He told fellow summit leaders that his project to create a united continental government would be approved at the next meeting in July unless there was a majority against it.
The AU normally relies on consensus in reaching decisions.
“If we don’t have a quorum for rejection, that means we have accepted it,” Mr. Gaddafi said.
“There is a rule in Islam. It is that silence is approval. If you say something to somebody and he is silent then it means that he has accepted.”
Mr. Gaddafi’s election was treated almost like a coronation by a group of customary African leaders dressed in colourful robes and headgear who accompanied him to the conference hall.
“On behalf of the traditional kings, on behalf of all the sultans, on behalf of all the princes, on behalf of all the customary rulers, I want to say thank you to the King of Kings who we have now crowned,” declared one of them, King Tossoh Gbaguidi of Benin.
The group, said to represent all Africa’s customary rulers, attended a conference sponsored by Mr. Gaddafi in Libya last September and he flew them to Addis Ababa for the summit.
Mr. Gaddafi, supported by some AU members like Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, has been pushing for a unity government for years, saying it is the only way to meet the challenges of globalization, fighting poverty and resolving conflicts without Western interference.
But others, led by regional economic powerhouse South Africa, see the idea as a distant and impractical prospect that would infringe the sovereignty of member states, although all 53 members of the AU say they agree with the idea in principle.
Mr. Gaddafi spent three decades preaching Arab unity before turning most of his attention to the African project, saying the continent was closer to him than Middle Eastern countries who had rebuffed his attempts to forge union.
One delegate, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters: “African countries should work closer together, yes. But a United States of Africa is not something that could happen overnight. Many countries have reservations.”
He said Mr. Gaddafi’s election would not change the situation.
An often heated three-day summit devoted to Mr. Gaddafi’s project in Ghana in 2007 did not reach a deal despite the participants being berated by the fiery Libyan leader.
The first day of this summit on Sunday again pulled back from accelerating the process.
Mr. Kikwete told reporters the meeting had agreed to replace the African Union Commission with an “authority” rather than an immediate pan-regional government as it had proposed. This would be launched at the next summit in July.
He said this would move it closer to a federal government but he was vague on how much real new power the authority would have.
The IMF approved a $50 million loan for Ethiopia to help its economy adjust to the steep increases in international prices of fuel, fertilizer, and cereals in 2008.
The price increases considerably weakened Ethiopia’s international reserves position and contributed to inflationary pressure.
The IMF Executive Board’s approval of the loan, based on sound policy commitments from the authorities, will help the East African country rebuild international reserves and catalyze financing from other international partners.
Recent reversal of some international commodity price hikes suggests that the exogenous shocks to Ethiopia’s economy may prove temporary. Nevertheless, the authorities, while pursuing macroeconomic adjustment, intend to take advantage of this opportunity to rebuild foreign exchange reserves to levels covering 1.8 months of imports by the end of the current fiscal year, in line with their medium-term objective.
Ethiopia’s loan was approved under the rapid-access component of the Exogenous Shocks Facility. “Together with stepped-up assistance from Ethiopia’s other international partners, the IMF’s financial support under the Exogenous Shocks Facility will help to mitigate the risk of an erosion of Ethiopia’s gains in poverty reduction in recent years.” said IMF Deputy Managing Director Takatoshi Kato.
Policy commitment
To mitigate the impact of exogenous shocks on the balance of payments, address domestic economic imbalances, and protect Ethiopia’s most vulnerable people, the authorities have taken or intend to take key policy measures including
• Eliminate domestic fuel subsidies. The fuel subsidy was abolished in October 2008 by adjusting regulated domestic prices to import parity. From now on the authorities will review domestic fuel prices monthly, adjusting them as needed but keeping a margin above world prices in order to repay the debt of the Oil Stabilization Fund.
• Mitigate the impact of high food prices. In late 2008 the government imported wheat equal to more than 3 percent of domestic crop production and distributed it to low-income families and flour mills at import cost—well below domestic prices. It is prepared to do so again if necessary.
• Significantly tighten fiscal policy and eliminate domestic borrowing. In the revised 2008/09 budget, general government domestic borrowing is targeted at zero —down from 2.7 percent of GDP in 2007/08—by containing expenditures and enhancing revenue mobilization through administrative measures such as integrating the three revenue agencies.
• Reduce domestic borrowing by public enterprises. Such borrowing will be kept to 4-8 billion birr, 1.1-2.2 percent of GDP, in 2008/09, down from 4.4 percent in 2007/08, by limiting investment activities and also by repaying the debt of the Oil Stabilization Fund. The authorities have established an inter-agency committee to monitor key public enterprises and public institutions.
• Tighten monetary policy. The National Bank of Ethiopia plans to reduce broad money growth to less than 20 percent in 2008/09 from about 23 percent at the end of the previous fiscal year. It also intends to closely monitor and control money creation arising from its net lending to the government.
• Increase exchange rate flexibility. Reflecting this commitment, the official exchange rate against the U.S. dollar depreciated by 5 percent on January 15, 2009. This, together with a similar-size depreciation on January 2, brings the cumulative depreciation since end-2008 to over 10 percent.
Partners to raise support
Tighter economic policies to adjust to the shocks and domestic imbalances are expected to significantly slow Ethiopia’s economic growth in 2008/09. Given the intensifying global economic downturn, the planned adjustment path is also subject to considerable risks and uncertainties, particularly because Ethiopia is highly dependent on external resource flows from remittances, aid, and foreign direct investment.
Stepped-up donor assistance will help to soften the impact by providing financing for capital projects and foreign exchange for essential imports. This, along with lower import prices, should make it possible to rebuild foreign exchange reserves over the medium term. Ethiopia’s international partners have recognized the country’s difficult situation and plan to substantially raise concessional project financing and budget support.
Implementation key to success
Kato stressed that forceful implementation of Ethiopia’s adjustment policies is essential. This would not only ease the pressures on the balance of payments and domestic prices, but also lay the basis for sustainable economic growth.
“In the current global economic environment, there are significant risks that exports, remittances, and foreign direct investment may fall short of expectations. If this proves to be the case, additional policy tightening will be needed to preserve the viability of the balance of payments.” Kato stated.
Rome, Italy – An Ethiopian Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing today in Rome due to engine failure.