NAIROBI, June 17 (Reuters) – The armies of feuding Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea are “less than a football pitch” apart, risking a catastrophic new war on their border, a think-tank warned on Tuesday. The latest in a string of recent international warnings over tensions between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea — who fought a 1998-2000 war that killed at least 70,000 people — came from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).
“Neither regime wants war at present. Both prefer to keep tensions simmering, giving them an excuse to maintain authoritarian rule,” ICG senior Africa adviser Andebrhan Giorgis said in a report titled “Averting New War.”
“But a minor border incident or miscalculation could produce a disastrous return to conflict,” the report added. “The troops face each other often at less than a football pitch’s distance.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also warned in April that the withdrawal of most of the world body’s 1,700 peacekeepers on the border, following a fuel cutoff by Asmara, risked new hostilities on the 1,000-km (620 mile) frontier.
Asmara says a November 2007 “virtual demarcation” of the border by a now-defunct independent boundary commission has ended the issue, and Ethiopia Woyanne must pull its troops back from areas designated to Eritrea.
Ethiopia Woyanne says Eritrea is illegally massing troops on the border in a supposedly demilitarised zone, and it wants to discuss the border demarcation further.
“The departure of the Boundary Commission and the U.N. peacekeepers has made this conflict much more dangerous, removing the means both for dialogue between the parties and for stopping small problems from escalating,” ICG’s Giorgis said.
Some regional diplomats, however, believe that both sides may be restrained by the prospect of world condemnation, their already stretched economies, and the past cost to both nations in terms of human lives and finances.
ICG called on Ethiopia Woyanne to withdraw soldiers from territory awarded to Eritrea by the boundary commission, on Eritrea to leave the Temporary Security Zone, and on the international community to provide “carrots and sticks” for that.
Both Ethiopian Prime Minister Woyanne dictator Meles Zenawi and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki use the border as an excuse to enhance their power and stifle democracy, the report said.
“The stalemate on the border feeds and, in turn, is fed by growing authoritarianism in both states. The ruling regimes rely on military power and restrictions on civil liberties to retain their dominant positions.”
ICG said border tensions were “as high as they have ever been” since the war, with “constant shooting incidents and other tense episodes.”
Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Matthew Tostevin [email protected]
The few newspapers that are struggling to survive in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa under constant harassement from security forces of the Meles dictatorship have found a way to thrive in the past few weeks: Put Berhanu Nega’s photo on their front page.
Last week’s editions of Fitih, Awramba and Enbilta newspapers were sold out the same day they were printed. Each of them had published photos of Dr Berhanu and reports about the newly launched organization, Ginbot 7 for Movement for Justice, Freedom and Democracy.
According to ER sources, the newspapers will double their printed copies this week and all of them will have extensive coverage of Dr Berhanu’s ongoing European tour.
The newspapers’ circulation is limited to Addis Ababa. They are not allowed to distribute any copy outside of the Addis Ababa area. On top of that, every week, the reporters and editors of these few newspapers, who are carefull not to criticize the Meles dictatorship, are harassed, detained, and verbally abused by Woyanne security forces. Through all this they have found a way to survive, even thrive — that is until Woyanne decides to shut them all down again.
Prof. Alemayehu Gebremariam talks about the secret border re-demarcation agreement between Woyanne and al-Bashir that gave away tens of thousands of square kilometers of land to Sudan.
We all talk about owning a piece of Obama’s campaign. But that kind of talk didn’t hit home with me until my sister a few days after Obama’s historic nomination speech called me and left a voicemail message saying: “Congratulations!”
For a split of a second while listening to the message, I thought I won some kind of award of which I wasn’t aware of. Then, the message continued: “…Obama Selashenefe!” (…because Obama won!)
Frankly, I haven’t spent more than a couple of hours per week (except for those days I just get carried away…) volunteering for the campaign. But, that was all it took for my family to know I was invested in it.
So, whatever amount of time and energy we have put into it, we each own a piece of this campaign. Why is that important? It means we had a say in the direction of this country–a country we call home. As immigrants with a second generation of American-born Ethiopians coming of age, not only is it a privilege but it is a huge responsibility.
With Obama running for President, we have a prime opportunity to have our voice heard in unison and as one of the constituencies politicians would look to for generations to come for policy directions, be it domestic or foreign.
Ethiopians for Obama seized this opportunity like no other that I have known, at least not at a multi-state level. It is the first movement in my opinion that strives on ensuring that we count, primarily through our votes. And the best part about it is that we don’t even have to be “politicians” or political-savvy people or even that much interested in politics, really. We are just exercising our rights and our duties as citizens by voting and ensuring our families, community members and more also vote.
Every time I hear pundits talk about “record number of new voters,” I smile to myself thinking “…and we represent a chunk of that!” Not only do we represent a good number of first-time voters, but we had something to do with it as volunteers, whether it is reaching out to Ethiopian-Americans or other Americans.
To some, the idea of a nation-wide unified Ethiopian political force may seem too ambitious and remote, but great things start with great vision! I am sure I heard or read this great wisdom somewhere, but I certainly also saw it happen in the past few months culminating towards the nomination a couple of weeks ago.
A man, who against, absolutely, all odds, became the first black Democratic nominee for President in the history of this country. Now, that’s a big deal!
But his vision didn’t end there and neither has ours! Our success, as Ethiopians, who seek visibility, and as Americans, who are not immune to the day-to-day struggles we experience in this country, is closely related to Obama’s success. And, even though at this point even a failure would be translated into success for both him and the entire country, we still owe it to Obama and, frankly, to ourselves to see this through!
We owe to him because he led us on an inclusive, irreplaceable and irreversible journey which we took and will continue to take along side all our fellow Americans. We owe it to him for allowing us to forge within our Ethiopian community a movement which will highlight our unified potential in this great nation. We owe it to him for validating our own hopes and dreams for our future and the future of our children and their children, simply by living his hope and achieving his dream.
All this should be reason enough to support him. If not, keep tuning in! Better yet, I challenge all the 80+ members in this group to give me the reasons we should continue or start to support Obama. Let us inspire one another with our stories, our visions and our wisdom! As I always tell even my Ethiopian brothers and sisters who are not U.S. citizens, don’t undermine what you have to offer.
Yes, we can! Yes, we did!
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Hanna Tamrat is a dedicated Ethiopians for Obama member and a brillian author.
Join Ethiopians for Obama at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group /ethiopiansforobama/
Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) has received permission yesterday to hold its general meeting this week, probably Wednesday, according to ER sources. They are also told that they are restricted to their office. They cannot hold a meeting in a hotel or any other place outside of their office.
Woyanne has allowed UDJ to hold its meeting after Professor Ephraim Isaac, along with the U.S. and U.K. diplomats in Ethiopia, had called Addisu Legesse and Meles Zenawi on UDJ’s behalf.
… and they call this peaceful struggle.
Next time they need to sneeze, they may call Prof. Ephraim to get permission for them.
Meanwhile, yesterday security forces had briefly detained Dr Yacob Hailemariam, a senior leader of Kinijit/UDJ, after Ayele Chamiso complained to Woyanne that Dr Yacob insulted him.
About two weeks ago, in a newspaper interview, Dr Yacob referred to Ayele Chamiso as “yemanim mengedegna (የማንም መንገደኛ).”
EPRP web sites have reported today that the discredited former chairman of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit), Ato Hailu Shawel, held a meeting with Addis Ababa’s youth and women. It is reported that some 200 people attended the meeting on Sunday, June 15.
Where are the youth? Where are the women?
As the photo below shows, there were only one person under 60 years old and only three women in the meeting. [Photo is provided by mahder.com, an EPRP web site.]
More revealing as to how much of a joke Ato Hailu made out of himself is that while Woyanne police was dispersing UDJ meeting a short distance away on the same weekend, no body bothered to even notice that he was holding a public meeting. It is too obvious now that even the paranoid Woyanne is not taking Hailu Shawel seriously any more.
Meanwhile, some of those who are partly responsible for Ato Hailu’s downfall, including Ato Moges Brook of Los Angeles, have now turned their back on him. They find him useless, too, after he aligned himself with the EPRP reactionaries. The web site that was hijacked by Ato Moges, Kinijit.org, has stopped reporting any thing about him for several weeks. Currently, Hailu Shawel relies on trashy web sites that are run by retired communists (EPRP) to get his message out. Even among those repeat losers, many are abandoning him after observing that he has no more use to them.
The rise and sudden fall of Hailu Shawel must be carefully studied by all Ethiopian political leaders, so that they do not repeat the same mistake. It is a self-caused down-fall by a person whom we all once held in high esteem.
We all talk about owning a piece of Obama’s campaign. But that kind of talk didn’t hit home with me until my sister a few days after Obama’s historic nomination speech called me and left a voicemail message saying: “Congratulations!”