Tegbar will give 1 point for each of the Kinjit’s 8 points peace proposal that UDJ successfully accomplishes, and 0 point for those that it fails to deliver. We will publish the Score Card every month.
For the of Month June 2008 the Score is 0 out of 8
Tegbar hopes that UDJ will perform better next month. Below is the result.
Kinjit’s 8 Points Score 0 or 1
1. The Restructuring of the Election Board into an Independent body;
Score: 0
2. Freedom of and access to All Media;
Score: 0
3. Independent legal system (free from Woyanne party control);
Score: 0
4. An Independent Commission to investigate the killings of innocent Ethiopians;
Score: 0
5. Non-involvement of armed forces or police in political affairs;
Score: 0
6. Reinstatement of Parliamentary procedures and Governance of Addis Ababa in accordance with the verdict of the people;
Score: 0
7. Release of all political prisoners;
Score: 0
8. Independent commission or body to adjudicate the above.
Lundin and Range Resources in Way Over Their Heads
Among its areas of operation, Lundin Petroleum counts Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, countries whose displaced populations total some 7,200,000 persons, according to 2007 figures of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. These displaced populations face some of the greatest civilian-directed violence and food insecurity in the world (see food security maps for Darfur and Somalia). This is neither incidental nor accidental. Conflict over areas of oil discovery are a proximate cause in further fueling many conflicts in the Horn.
While Lundin Petroleum has a well-articulated code of conduct committing itself to values of human rights and to principles including “minimising disturbances that may be caused by our operations,” Lundin has directly contributed to mass displacement, whether knowingly or not, and has largely failed to consider the larger and darker military-industrial implications of their exploration and drilling.
Lundin’s plans for expansion of its operations in the 5A concession in South Sudan in 2000 were coordinated with a government offensive that year, pitting government-armed Nuer militias against SPLA Nuer forces, as villages were cleared and tens of thousands displaced. In an interview at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Diane de Guzman, who served as a UNICEF coordinator in South Sudan, spoke of the displacements from the Lundin oil concession, stating that none of the displaced ever received humanitarian assistance. During government bombing of villages, elderly and children were left behind. These persons died when their villages were bombed and then razed by troops: “What we’ve found is happening now is that the government troops are actually coming in and burning down the entire village. We heard reports of this in the northern areas of Ruweng county when Talisman Oil began their exploration, but now we’re also getting the same reports further south in Leech state in Western Upper Nile, closer to the Lundin oil exploration.”
An admission of Lundin security officer Richard Ramsey in 2000 confirmed that Lundin was in over its head, unable to assure adherence to its ethical standards or obtain information on how their operations were affecting the security situation of the local populations. In the midst of the government’s dry season offensive, Ramsey admitted that Lundin “was not allowed to talk to SSIM [government militias], for some reason I do not know. As a result we can not know exactly when they are going to attack somewhere, and most often we don’t find out the reason until afterwards.”
Today, Lundin still holds a 24.5% interest in the block 5B concession in Sudan, and moreover operates in another area suffering from repressive counter-insurgency, a Somali region of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. As if Lundin’s aggravation of the Ogaden crisis and the related Ethiopian-Mogadishu Group war weren’t enough to dissuade investors, Somali Ogaden National Liberation Front forces killed 74 people at a Chinese-run oil field in April 2007.
Lundin is now a major shareholder in Africa Oil, which bought an 80% interest in Range Resources’ exploration project in Puntland, Somalia. Africa Oil has invested $20 million in the Puntland project, and will invest another $25 more over the next six months.
In a 2006 video, a delegation from Range Resources is shown meeting with the regional Puntland government, which it presents with a $250,000 check for airport improvement. Last Friday, June 27, Executive Director of Range Resources Peter Landau attempted to assure a crowd of investors in Australia of the semi-autonomous status of Puntland, distinguishing it from southern zones now in a state of complex emergency.
But Range Resources’s own 2006 video holds a clue to why this is not exactly true: present at the meeting is the former president of Puntland, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, whose Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government is involved in a violent power struggle with the Eritrean-backed Mogadishu group of business militias, clans, and courts, a struggle that left millions presently displaced and in threat of mass starvation.
As badly as Somalia needs economic development, oil exploration at this time could worsen what is now perhaps the worst humanitarian crisis on the globe. The Australians of Range Resources are seriously misguided, and will be outmaneuvered in the Somali political landscape. Range Resources is now involved in assisting Puntland in “security programs.” By setting up their own local militia (which has only recently come under fatal attack in Puntland itself, as surveyors were on a sampling mission), Range Resources raises the stakes in an already high-stakes game of Somali Roulette, one that already is being played out to disastrous effect elsewhere.
AWASSA, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA –“She is seven years old”, said Matiwos Kambata to this reporter. Incredulity would be the most apt response, were it not for the fact that his little sister Regisa, who looks no more than three years of age, is among the hundreds of thousands whose lives are in jeopardy as Ethiopia suffers another life-destroying drought.
The darkening clouds – the wrong ones – of drought and hunger again stalk the countryside, while the much-needed rainbearers remain elusive, aloof as some capricious deity in the sky and oblivious to Regisa and the hundreds of thousands of severely-malnourished children below. When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most.
The stabilisation clinic at Galla Wacho, about 40 kilometers from the regional capital Awassa, where Matiwos and Regisa have stayed for a week, to allow the medics there carefully oversee what all hope to be the first step in her recovery, usually caters for under-fives, rather than older children.
A crisis spreading? Perhaps. Sitting alongside Regisa is Benetu: listless, emaciated, unable to walk due to a combination of hunger and illness, but at twelve years old a fearful indication that as the drought takes its toll, the crisis threatens to spread to older and stronger age groups. In this southwestern Sidama region, one of a number of zones hardest-hit, maize and enset (also known as false banana) crops have failed, or are in the death-throes, as the rains around which the planting seasons are arranged fail to fall, one after another, leading one aidworker, requesting anonymity, to suggest that “with this next harvest almost certain to fail, the food shortages will run into late this year or even early 2009.
The people here have no food. Even if it rains now, it could be too late, and of the rain is too heavy, it could spoil any maize that has only been planted in the past few weeks”
This is a vast and ancient land, where Christianity prevailed at least century before St. Patrick faced down the Irish druids, and where in 1896, the Ethiopians inflicted the first military loss on a European power by an African army, when the invading Italians were rebuffed at Adwa. But now Ethiopia’s history is, at first glance, repeating itself. Historian Richard Pankhurst once wrote that famine hit this country at least every decade between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It is now almost a cliché to remind readers of Michael Buerk’s quasi-iconic seven minute BBC voiceover from the dying fields at Korem, in the north of Ethiopia, at the height of the 1984v famine, which triggered an unparalleled outpouring of western sympathy and Live Aid. For those unable to digest yet another skeletal child and “give what you can” story from Ethiopia, it is worth noting that there is more to these latest woes than just localised drought and crop failures. To paraphrase, its partly the economy, stupid.
Rising world food and energy prices mean that not only people across the country being squeezed, aid agencies are struggling to meet needs. All in all 73 million people across 78 countries need food assistance, while traditional food-exporter countries such as Zimbabwe and Burma [and Ethiopia] have been turned into economic basket-cases by their tyrant rulers, narrowing the global food supply.
In Ethiopia itself, food prices have risen by 40 percent in the past year, according to the country’s Central Statistical Agency, but some staples have risen much faster. A kilogramme of wheat that cost 2.25 birr ($0.23) has reached 6.50 birr ($0.68). The urban poor in Addis Ababa and elsewhere are feeling the pinch, reflecting what World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters back in March: “In some countries, hard-won gains in overcoming poverty may now be reversed.”
All told, this drought has affected 4.6 million people, in various regions across Ethiopia, and also means that aid agencies cannot buy food on local markets, while rocketing global food prices have stretched and pinched budgets.
Paulette Jones is the Public Information Officer at the UN World Food Programme in Addis Ababa. She told this newspaper that “we cannot procure food locally anymore as in-country food stocks are low, as are UN emergency stocks” Policy options are further narrowed by the falling dollar and rising oil prices “we can procure abroad, but we get much less bang for our buck given hat oil is so expensive, making shipping costs a greater part of our overheads.”
Looming in the background are some thorny regional politics. A recent Eritrea-Djibouti border skirmish raised hairs on the back of local necks, as an all-out conflict between the two would almost close the door on imports into Ethiopia, which relies on Djibouti for access to the sea.
Given that Ethiopia’s other neighbours are conflict — wracked Somalia and Sudan — with Ethiopian Woyanne (the Ethiopian ruling party) troops in Mogadishu, aiming to keep Islamist militants Somali freedom fighters from retaking control of that city -– it is clear that the regional political context is as unfavourable as the global economic squeeze.
But it is Regisa, Benetu and the hundreds of thousands of other young children whose lives are most at risk. “Benetu needs food, but she is so sick now that she cannot take any”, says her distraught father, Cheru. Time is so short for so many, the WFP might not be able to get sufficient replacement foodstocks in before August, and as spokeswoman Jones says, appealing to donor nations, “this problem needs resources, and now.”
Tegbar (Ethiopian Democratic Action League) was formed in 1997 with a simple mission: To give voice to the thousands of political prisoners who languish in jail. Since that time we have created international awareness for the plight of political prisoners by staging protest rallies, peaceful civil disobedience, vigils, town hall meetings, and family events in several cities around the world. On the 25th anniversary of the Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA) in Washington DC, we ask you all to join us and give your voice to the millions of Ethiopians who are languishing under Meles Zenawi’s brutal dictatorship by boycotting all events sponsored by ESFNA.
ESFNA has recently announced that it has received a donation of USD$300,000 from Woyanne businessman Sheik Al Amoudi. By accepting the donation from the Woyanne sheik, ESFNA has made a clear choice to align itself with an individual who is a key supporter of Meles Zenawi’s brutal dictatorship.
The connection between Meles Zenawi’s terrorist regime and the Sheik includes, among many things, that they are being represented in the U.S. by the law firm DLA Piper. This is the same law firm that had represented Woyanne in a recent European Union parliamentary hearing on the political crisis in Ethiopia. Al Amoudi is a major business partner of the Meles crime family. Ethiopian resources, such as gold, are being mined and smuggled out of the country by Al Amoudi’s private planes without the knowledge of even the Meles regime’s own Ministry of Mines. Al Amoudi has also a corrupting influence on the Ethiopian society, particularly the youth, through his public drunkenness, having sexual relationships with multiple partners other than his wives, turning thousands of desperately poor Ethiopian teenage girls into sex toys for his business partners, friends, and bodyguards, using his ill-gotten money to buy Ethiopian artists, athletes and prominent citizens NOT to speak out against the fascist regime, etc. Al Amoudi is a lowlife corrupt businessman, on top of the fact that he is a key financier of Meles Zenawi’s killing machine. He is not a role model for young Ethiopians by any standard.
It is not secret to ESFNA officials that Meles Zenawi’s regime is currently increasing its military budget, spending millions on lobbyists, giving away Ethiopia’s land to Sudan, committing gross human rights violations in and outside Ethiopia, while subjugating, brutalizing, terrorizing and starving millions of Ethiopians and Somalis. Acceptance of Al Amoudi’s donation is an endorsement of Woyanne’s crime on the people of Ethiopia and Somalia by ESFNA. As clear as ESFNA’s choice to stand with the Woyanne terrorist regime, so must our choice be in standing with the millions of our oppressed people.
Taking a stand takes courage. It’s not always the easiest choice, but one that speaks volumes about what is most important to a person/organization. ESFNA could have accepted the donation and made a contribution for the exact amount to the Red Cross or other NGOs working to feed millions of our people who are currently facing starvation. They could have declined and encouraged the Sheik to contribute the money to address the famine in Ethiopia that is caused by the mismanagement of Ethiopia’s resources by the Meles regime. But that would have taken courage. The decision to accept the money shows the presence of obscene greed within ESFNA.
In the 2005 elections, millions of Ethiopians took a stand. Months leading up to that historical day, they came out in large numbers to show a desire for new leadership. When the time to vote came, they came out 26 million strong to stand up and vote for change. Their voices would, however, be muzzled. When they stood up after the election and protested vote stealing, Woyane’s special forces showered them with bullets killing and injuring thousands. Let us take this opportunity to stand for them.
A few years back, Teddy Afro took a stand. In a sold out event at the Sheraton Hotel in Addis Ababa, he was told by Al Amoudi’s henchmen not to perform one of his songs criticizing Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship. The Sheik was not going to allow Teddy to criticize his friend and partner that night, no, not in his house. As his fans waited in suspense, Teddy Afro had to make a decision — he chose not to compromise his principle. As he currently languishes in prison, let us stand for him.
Tegbar is calling for the boycott of all events organized by the ESFNA. What we are NOT, however, calling for is the boycott of independent activities, such as concerts and conferences. A good number of hardworking merchants have paid money to ESFNA to provide goods and services and they should be supported. There are also many events including concerts and parties that are not sponsored by ESFNA that we can attend and enjoy.
Don’t embrace ESFNA’s choice by purchasing tickets to attend a concert or a soccer match it has organized. Instead, let us all stand up and be a voice to the voiceless.
(CityNews.ca) ONTARIO, CANADA — A 24-year-old resident of Brampton (Ontario) is charged in a terrible case of aggravated sexual assault. But it’s what police say Yonatan Gezahegne Mekonnen didn’t tell his alleged 21-year-old victim that has cops worried.
Police contend the couple engaged in consensual sex back in January and February of this year, and that the accused was well aware that he was HIV positive at the time of the encounters – but never told the woman.
They accuse him of exposing her to the disease despite knowing he could easily pass it on to her — and by extension anyone else she may have been seeing.
Yonatan, an Ethiopian native, was arrested on Thursday on two counts of aggravated sexual assault and made a court appearance last Friday.
But now cops are worried that other young women may have fallen under his spell and been exposed to the dangerous virus. They’re looking to speak to anyone who has had contact with Mekonnen in more than a casual way.
If you think you may have crossed his path, call the Peel Police Special Victims Unit at (905) 453-2121 ext. 3460 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
