Duguma Hundie, the owner of DH Gheda Industries and one of the richest businessmen in Ethiopia, has died today.
Ato Duguma is the third prominent businessman to die within the past 30 days in Ethiopia, Awramba Times reported.
Two weeks ago Yohannes Getaneh and Asfaw Yirga, owners of Ase Marbel and Getaneh Trading reportedly committed suicide.
Some family members of Ato Duguma said that chocking is the cause of his death, but business associates suspect that it is related to politics and bank loan.
The Meles regime is currently persecuting and confiscating the properties of several high profile businessman who are not members of the ruling party. In December last month, it has frozen the bank accounts of 23 business owners.
Duguma Hundie is said to be the 3rd richest businessman in Ethiopia next to Al Amoudi and Samuel Tafesse.
Meles Zenawi’s family and top members of the Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne) are in fact the richest people in Ethiopia, but it is difficult to estimate their wealth.
NEW YORK – On January 6, 2009, Ethiopia’s parliament enacted a new law on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that criminalizes most human rights work in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch said that the law is a direct rebuke to governments that assist Ethiopia and that had expressed concerns about the law’s restrictions on freedom of association and expression.
The action comes just a week after the government reversed an earlier pardon and rearrested one of the country’s leading opposition politicians on flimsy grounds and said she will serve out a life sentence, highlighting a growing trend of political repression.
“In the space of just eight days, the Ethiopian regime has outlawed independent human rights work and jailed one of the country’s most prominent opposition leaders for life,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government is conducting an all-out assault on any kind of independent criticism.”
The Ethiopian government claims that the new law, known as the Charities and Societies Proclamation (NGO law), is mainly intended to ensure greater openness and financial probity on the part of nongovernmental organizations. But instead it places such severe restrictions on all human rights and governance-related work as to make most such work impossible, violating fundamental rights to freedom of association and expression provided for in the Ethiopian constitution and international human rights law.
The law considers any civil society group that receives more than 10 percent of its funding from abroad – even from Ethiopian citizens living outside of the country – to be “foreign.” These groups are forbidden from doing any work that touches on human rights, governance, or a host of other issues. Because Ethiopia is one of the world’s poorest countries, with few opportunities for domestic fundraising, such constraints are even more damaging than they would be elsewhere. Under the law, groups based outside the country, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are barred from doing human rights-related work in Ethiopia.
The law also creates a new government entity, the Charities and Societies Agency, with sweeping powers and an arsenal of onerous and byzantine requirements that will enable it to choke off independent civil society activity with red tape. The right to appeal is severely limited and is not extended to so-called “foreign” groups at all. Human Rights Watch has produced a detailed analysis of a recent draft of this law. The enacted law is not substantially different from that draft.
“The NGO law is repression, not regulation,” said Gagnon. “If enforced, this law will make Ethiopia one of the most inhospitable places in the world for both Ethiopian and international human rights groups.”
Human Rights Watch said the law is especially alarming because the government already permits very little independent civil society activity or peaceful dissent. The country’s preeminent human rights group, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), is almost alone in producing extensive reporting inside Ethiopia on human rights abuses. In response to its reporting of government repression following Ethiopia’s 2005 national elections, many of its staff were forced to leave the country or spent time in prison. Under the new law, the group will be considered a foreign human rights group because it receives most of its funding from international donors such as the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC. It will either have to abandon its work or do without the funding it needs to meet its costs and pay its staff.
Countries that provide assistance to Ethiopia, including funds that keep the government afloat, have generally turned a blind eye to government abuses. However, many expressed private criticism of the NGO law, viewing it as a major step toward institutionalizing repression and creating impediments to development, which many support through Ethiopian NGOs. Human Rights Watch urged donor states to press for significant amendments to the new law or for its repeal. In the short term, they should urge the Ethiopian government not to enforce its most damaging provisions.
“Countries supporting Ethiopia should insist that the NGO law be substantially amended or repealed,” Gagnon said. “Anything less would be a green light for even more egregious acts of repression in the coming year.”
The new law is part of a broader trend toward political repression. Even though the country’s political opposition has fractured since the 2005 elections and poses little real threat to government control, the authorities have continued to subject opposition leaders and activists to harassment and abuse. Within the past two months, the government has detained without charge two prominent opposition leaders. Bekele Jirata, the secretary general of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, was arrested in November and accused of plotting terrorist attacks. He has been in prison for more than a month even though the government has failed to produce any evidence against him or file formal charges. On December 28, Birtukan Midekssa, chairperson of the opposition Unity for Justice and Democracy party, was arrested in the street and imprisoned on old charges that Human Rights Watch believes are politically motivated.
Birtukan had been arrested in November 2005 along with dozens of other opposition leaders who encouraged public protests after losing the controversial 2005 elections. Government security forces put down those protests by force, killing hundreds of unarmed demonstrators. Birtukan was convicted of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and sentenced to life in prison. She was pardoned after lengthy negotiations and after she spent 18 months in prison. The government claims that her pardon was conditional on an apology for her crimes. It says it ordered her re-arrest over reports that she had publicly denied having apologized for her actions or asking for a pardon, and that she will now be imprisoned for life.
Ethiopia’s already-dire human rights record has worsened in recent years. Ethiopian military forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in two conflicts in Ethiopia and in neighboring Somalia, with no meaningful effort to hold those responsible to account. Federal, regional and local officials have regularly harassed, arbitrarily detained, and subjected to torture critics of the government, and have denounced human rights groups that expose these problems. As a result, there is little independent criticism and political opposition in most of the country. In local elections in April 2008, the ruling party and its allies won more than 99 percent of more than 4 million elected positions, most in uncontested races.
Press Statement
Robert Wood, Deputy Spokesman
U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC
The United States is concerned that the Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO law) passed this week by the Ethiopian Parliament appears to restrict civil society activities and international partners’ ability to support Ethiopia’s own development efforts.
We recognize the importance of effective oversight of civil society organizations to ensure accountability, efficiency, transparency, and a clear set of operating procedures for NGOs. However, we are concerned this law may restrict U.S. government assistance to Ethiopia, particularly on promoting democracy and good governance, civic and human rights, conflict resolution, and advocacy for society’s most vulnerable groups — areas the Ethiopian government has defined as critical for development.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a perfect example of lip service
PASADENA, California (UPI) — A U.S. researcher has made great strides recently in the field of fuel cell research.
Sossina M. Haile, a fuel cell researcher at the California Institute of Technology and a founding member of the company Superprotonic Inc., is working to make fuel cell technology more practical.
The most efficient fuel cells need a large space and large amounts of heat, and the ones small enough for practical applications need more platinum than the earth holds.
But Haile, a native of {www:Ethiopia}, said she has made small breakthroughs that strike a balance, Fuel Cell Works reported. She has reduced the amount of platinum needed in smaller cells. She and her team also have reduced the amount of hydrogen needed to fuel the cells.
Haile and her team have focused on developing fuel cells that run on ethanol or biomass.
U.S. marshals continue to hunt for a college student accused of abducting a Prince George’s County family in a failed bank robbery scheme last month.
Authorities are asking for the public’s help in capturing Beruk Ayalneh, 24, a native of Ethiopia. Ayalneh was one of three men who allegedly broke into the home of an assistant bank manager last month and held the woman, her husband and two boys at gunpoint overnight. The other two suspects, Yosef Tadele, 23, of Silver Spring and Yohannes T. Surafel, 24, of the District remain behind bars on kidnapping, armed robbery and assault charges.
Police say the trio’s plan was to keep the children, ages 8 and 11, as hostages and force the woman to take money from the SunTrust branch where she worked in Silver Spring. The father convinced the robbers to allow them to bring the children with them to the bank.
But on the way, the father, James Spruill, foiled the plot after he saw a Maryland state trooper. Spruill began driving erratically until the trooper flashed on his cruiser’s emergency lights. Only one of the kidnappers, Surafel, was in the vehicle, but his gun was trained on the 11-year-old boy.
When the trooper asked Spruill for his license, the father jumped at the gunman and pinned him down.
U.S. marshals hope Ayalneh, who is a student at Howard University and has no criminal history, will surrender. Surafel has already tried to kill himself in a holding cell in the College Park barracks, police said.
“[Ayalneh] is not a sophisticated criminal mastermind who’s well-schooled in running and hiding,” said Matthew Burke, supervisory inspector with the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force. “We hope his inexperience will help us.”
Ayalneh, who is a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian descent, is from the Northern Virginia area and has ties to D.C. and the Maryland suburbs. He is 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds.
Anyone with information on Ayalneh’s whereabouts can call the U.S. Marshals Service at 301-489-1717 or 800-336-0102. Law enforcement authorities are offering a reward for information leading to Lee’s arrest.
The Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, run by the U.S. Marshals Service, is composed of 28 federal, state and local agencies from Baltimore to Norfolk. The unit has captured 19,000 wanted fugitives since its creation in 2004.
An early morning fire rips through a home in the Lakes Subdivision near Grand Canyon and Lake South.
The good news is, that all seven people sleeping inside, including five children managed to escape the flames.
Action News Anchor, Tiffani Sargent spoke with the family and has more about how they got out with their lives.
One neighbor says it’s a miracle everyone survived and that it’s another reminder of how smoke alarms can save lives.
The renter of the home, Mulu Chekol told her sister to grab the children and run downstairs.
When the fire started, all seven extended family members, immigrants from Ethiopia, were sleeping upstairs, but amazingly they all managed to get out the front door alive.
One of the children says he was very scared, but managed to help make sure that his twin sister, who’s disabled made it out first.
Omega Tsegaye says he’s sad because his cat died but he says he got something back from God. He says he managed to save not only his own life, but also all of his toys.
Meantime, Omega’s younger cousin says he was even more scared and can just remember running as fast as he could down the stairs.
Still, despite losing everything she owns, Mulu Chekol says someone was looking out for them.
While the cause of the fire is still unknown, firefighters say the fire may have started with some electrical wires.
Meantime, a neighbor says a small investment literally saved this family.
Karen Smith says everyone needs to make sure they have working smoke alarms inside their home.
Right now, many generous neighbors like Karen Smith and the American Red Cross are helping the family with food, shelter and clothing.
Unfortunately, the family did not have renter’s insurance.
Sossina M. Haile, a fuel cell researcher at the California Institute of Technology and a founding member of the company Superprotonic Inc., is working to make fuel cell technology more practical.
Authorities are asking for the public’s help in capturing Beruk Ayalneh, 24, a native of Ethiopia. Ayalneh was one of three men who allegedly broke into the home of an assistant bank manager last month and held the woman, her husband and two boys at gunpoint overnight. The other two suspects, Yosef Tadele, 23, of Silver Spring and Yohannes T. Surafel, 24, of the District remain behind bars on kidnapping, armed robbery and assault charges.
An early morning fire rips through a home in the Lakes Subdivision near Grand Canyon and Lake South.