The estranged Kinijit chairman, Ato Hailu Shawel, has told the Washington Post reporter Nora Boustany that he was in Washington DC on Oct. 2 to and met with Congressman Chris Smith one day before the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2003.
Read the following email exchanges with Ms. Nora Boustany of the Washington Post:
How could a sick man sitting on a hospital bed in Minneapolis at the same time be in Congress up in the gallery watching the vote? Why don’t you call Mr Shawel himself and hear it from his own mouth? Why are you sticking to a false story?
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from Nora Boustany [email protected]
to Elias Kifle
date Oct 10, 2007 1:05 PM
subject Re: article on HR 2003
Dear Mr. Kifle, if Mr. Shawel was able to meet with Congressman Smith, was he too ill to go to the gallery? Why is this such an issue? What has become very clear now is that there is a big problem between Mr. Mekonnen and a another group of Ethiopian Americans and that you do not work together, for reasons I am sure are very legitimate. It would have been great if all of you had been eager to inform me of your progress as the vote was shaping up, rather than of your differences after the vote. If there will be such a fuss everytime we write about Ethiopia, we can easily focus on other problems in the world. Please move on and let me focus on my work. Thank you for your interest. Nora
Mr. Kifle, just to put your mind at rest, I will share the following with you. I called Mr. Hailyu Shawel’s wife in their hotel in Rochester, Minnesota and finally reached them after many attempts since your campaign began last week. She told me they were both in Washington last week for a couple of days and that her husband had made visits to the hill in a wheelchair. Mr. Shawel himself confirmed that he had met with Representative Chris Smith, as did Patrick Creamer on Smith’s staff, early last week. Mr. Shawel said though he wanted to attend the vote, he left a couple of hours before to make a doctor’s appointment that afternoon. Of Mefsin Mekonnen, he said: “He is our man,” confirming that his group was not defunct. Thank you for your interest. best regards.
Ms. Shawel is lying to you — I am sorry to say — to cover up for Mesfin Mekonnen who is in hot waters now because of this incident and another misinformation he may have provided to The Hill newspaper a few weeks ago. Mr Shawel met with Congressman Smith on Sept. 20 (see this report). The next day (on Friday) he went to Minneapolis for medical treatment. He was scheduled to return to DC on Sept. 29 to attend a public meeting. The doctors would not allow him to do so. The meeting was rescheduled for Oct. 6. Again, the doctors refused to let him travel to DC for the Oct. 6 meeting. The meeting is rescheduled again for Sunday, Oct. 14. Any time Hailu Shawel is in town for personal visit — let alone for an official meeting with a congressman — every body knows about it. Meeting with a congressman would have been a big news, particularly in an occasion like that. So Nora, I am happy that you have tried to get in touch with Hailu Shawel, and at least you got some response from his wife. But I think Mr Shawel and friends — now even family members — are compounding the problem by lying to a major media like the WP to cover up for their friend. As American journalists say, in politics it is not the mistake or the crime itself that get you in trouble, it is the cover up (I am rephrasing it). In this case what angered a lot of people is not that Mr Shawel did not come (because every one knows that he is getting medical treatment), or that Mesfin Mekonnen misinformed you, but what he and his friend did to cover up their mistake — i.e, attacking me and other individuals in the media as liars. More importantly, misinforming the Western media by a member of our community could be too costly to us. We are afraid that we would lose the little media coverage our cause is getting if those who are assigned to speak on our behalf engage in blatant lies. I accept your suggestion and I am moving on. But if you really want to get to the bottom of this matter, there are two ways: 1) insist on speaking with Hailu Shawel himself on the record (ask him if he was in Washington DC on Tuesday, Oct. 3); and/or 2) speak with Congressman Smith’s office on the record (which I did — I asked his staff if Mr Smith met with Mr Shawel any time on Tuesday, Oct. 3. They said NO). I am 100 per cent certain that you will find out the truth.
Regards,
Elias
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from Nora Boustany [email protected]
to Elias Kifle
date Oct 11, 2007 1:50 PM
subject Re: article on HR 2003
Mr. Kifle, I did speak to him in person by telephone after having reached his wife. I talked to them separately. He met with Smith on October 2 and left the next morning, a couple of hours before the vote on October 3. This is exactly what he said. So thank you again for your interest. Nora
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Ato Hailu Shawel, you have disgraced yourself once again, this time by telling an egregious lie to a major U.S. newspaper. Why?
GENEVA – The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on Thursday condemned the recent deportation by Sudan of at least 15 Ethiopian refugees.
The deportation took place on September 27, but UNHCR only learned of it this week. The refugees were handed over by Sudanese officials to Ethiopian authorities at the border crossing of Metema, about 500 kms south-east of Khartoum.
This refoulement is a breach of Sudan’s obligations as a contracting party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention. One of the key principles of all these conventions is the prohibition against refoulement, or forcibly returning individuals to their country of origin where they could face persecution.
UNHCR urges the government to abide by this important principle of international law, which is also an integral part of Sudan’s National Interim Constitution. UNHCR also urges authorities to abstain from any further deportations.
Preliminary information suggests that the 15 deportees are part of a group of over 30 Ethiopian refugees who were arrested by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service on July 2 and 3 in Khartoum and in Damazine, the capital of Blue Nile Province. The Sudanese government has not yet responded to repeated appeals by UNHCR to receive information on these refugees and to prevent their refoulement. UNHCR believes that up to 20 refugees in the remaining group are still in jail and fears that they could also face deportation.
After a separate and unrelated instance of refoulement to Ethiopia on August 7, the Sudanese government had assured UNHCR that it would not repeat such violations of international and national law. UNHCR was alarmed to discover that this commitment was not respected.
The refugee agency is asking Sudanese authorities to urgently provide details on the refoulement that took place on September 27, as well as information on the current whereabouts and well-being of the remaining Ethiopian refugees in detention.
GENEVA – The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on Thursday condemned the recent deportation by Sudan of at least 15 Ethiopian refugees.
The deportation took place on September 27, but UNHCR only learned of it this week. The refugees were handed over by Sudanese officials to Ethiopian authorities at the border crossing of Metema, about 500 kms south-east of Khartoum.
This refoulement is a breach of Sudan’s obligations as a contracting party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention. One of the key principles of all these conventions is the prohibition against refoulement, or forcibly returning individuals to their country of origin where they could face persecution.
UNHCR urges the government to abide by this important principle of international law, which is also an integral part of Sudan’s National Interim Constitution. UNHCR also urges authorities to abstain from any further deportations.
Preliminary information suggests that the 15 deportees are part of a group of over 30 Ethiopian refugees who were arrested by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service on July 2 and 3 in Khartoum and in Damazine, the capital of Blue Nile Province. The Sudanese government has not yet responded to repeated appeals by UNHCR to receive information on these refugees and to prevent their refoulement. UNHCR believes that up to 20 refugees in the remaining group are still in jail and fears that they could also face deportation.
After a separate and unrelated instance of refoulement to Ethiopia on August 7, the Sudanese government had assured UNHCR that it would not repeat such violations of international and national law. UNHCR was alarmed to discover that this commitment was not respected.
The refugee agency is asking Sudanese authorities to urgently provide details on the refoulement that took place on September 27, as well as information on the current whereabouts and well-being of the remaining Ethiopian refugees in detention.
Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister dictator, sat stiffly at a table as the frontman of the Black Eyed Peas strutted to the tip of the stage with the standard swagger of a Los Angeles hip-hop star.
Below the prime minister’s dictator’s balcony, several hundred young Ethiopians surged towards the dreadlocked American, who told them: “Y’know, we celebrated the millennium seven years ago.”
Ethiopia did not. The country stuck with a form of the Julian calendar when the west switched to the Gregorian version four centuries ago, so its year 2000 rolled around only last month.
“Is this the real millennium?” the rapper asked, receiving an uproarious “Yes” from the crowd. “So, basically, when I go home, I can tell America to shut up?” he asked. The affirmative answer almost lifted off the roof.
The moustachioed Mr Meles did not flinch. But the exchange – a playful introduction to a song called “Shut Up” – captured something of the US’s increasingly testy relationship with Ethiopia: despite a six-year alliance with Washington, Mr Meles appears not at all inclined to move to America’s music.
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush forged an anti-terror pact with Addis Ababa. It was predicated on Ethiopia’s formidable military and intelligence capabilities and its position as a Christian-led country surrounded by Muslim and Arab states.
But the relationship has begun to resemble many of Washington’s alliances with troublesome client regimes, based mostly on geopolitical interest. Ethiopia, which received $283m (£139m, €200m) of military and humanitarian aid from Washington this year, looks increasingly like Pakistan or Egypt: an awkward bedfellow that the US has to support for security goals but one that pursues its own, sometimes brutal, agenda regardless of American pressure.
When the US objects to Ethiopian policies – such as a crackdown on political opponents that killed scores of people in 2005 and a scorched-earth campaign against separatist insurgents this year – it is ignored. When America gives implicit acquiescence – as it did over the Christmas invasion of Somalia and Ethiopia’s bitter border dispute with Eritrea – the US goes through the motions of diplomatic pressure and claims to have been rebuffed.
But the wisdom of the alliance is now under scrutiny, particularly since the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would force Ethiopia to improve democracy and human rights or risk losing substantial aid.
In public, Jendayi Frazer, the US State department’s top Africa diplomat, remains staunchly pro-Ethiopian and the White House is known to be unhappy with this month’s congressional bill. But one US official says Washington has “titanic arguments” on many subjects with Mr Meles, whose star has fallen since he was hailed in the 1990s as one of a new generation of African leaders. “The Ethiopians are very proud and very independent,” the official adds. “On security, they have supported us strongly, but they also take positions which are not in line with ours.”
In consequence, Washington has become tied to Ethiopia’s local agenda and entangled in a web of mutually reinforcing conflicts, which run from Eritrea to Somalia and cut through Ethiopia’s own ethnically Somali Ogaden region.
The alliance with Ethiopia, the regional powerhouse with a population of 77m, was supposed to achieve the opposite. The US wanted to hunt terrorists, including those suspected of blowing up US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, to monitor links between al-Qaeda and local Islamists and to prevent the region disintegrating into a lawless incubator for extremism.
But the compromises Washington would have to make became evident after a disputed 2005 election, which revealed the Ethiopian regime’s authoritarian leanings. A total of 193 protesters accusing the government of rigging the election were killed in clashes with police. The violence was condemned by the US, which suspended aid temporarily, but Addis Ababa did not flinch.
The US quandary is also illustrated by Ethiopia’s invasion last year of neighbouring Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts Union, a group containing extremist elements that it saw as a threat. The US role in this invasion is still controversial, though American officials deny they encouraged the Ethiopians to act: “We specifically spoke with the government, [advising it] not to go into Somalia, because we didn’t know what the consequences would be,” says the US official.
But European diplomats dispute this account, saying the American attitude was ambiguous and was influenced heavily by those parts of the Bush administration charged with prosecuting the war on terror. The US embassy in Addis Ababa declined to comment on press reports that the US provided intelligence, military targeting and logistical support to Ethiopian forces during the invasion.
US Navy ships have since launched at least three precision air strikes inside Somalia, presumed to be targeting suspected al-Qaeda associates. But the invasion and its aftermath has done nothing to put an end to 16 years of violent chaos in Somalia.
Also going from bad to worse are Ethiopia’s relations with Eritrea. The neighbours fought a war in 1998-2000 that killed 70,000 people. Last month, Ethiopia threatened to terminate the pact that ended it, after years of intransigence over the demarcation of the two countries’ border.
The US failed – or did not try – to persuade Ethiopia to comply with the 2002 ruling of an independent boundary commission. “I think that’s when we let it slip away, when we let Ethiopia break its pledge to agree to the outcome,” says Donald Payne, a Democratic congressman who co-sponsored last week’s Ethiopia bill. “I think we could fight the war on terror and still have respectful policies from our allies if we chose to. However, taking the policy of least resistance may be easier for the Bush administration.”
An embittered Eritrea reacted by launching proxy wars to undermine the Ethiopian government inside the country, where a growing number of armed groups oppose the Meles regime. The most formidable is the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which this year escalated a campaign for self-determination.
Ethiopia responded with a crackdown, which is a source of growing concern to the US. Ethiopian armed forces have been accused of extra-judicial killings, rape, torture and the burning of villages – charges that Ethiopia denies – and a United Nations fact-finding mission to the region said last month it had heard direct accounts of “serious violations of human rights”.
Suspicions have been stoked by the expulsion of the International Committee of the Red Cross from Ogaden and a decision to exclude Médecins Sans Frontières, another aid group. Washington has refused to place the ONLF on its terrorist list or describe the crackdown in Ogaden as counter-terrorism.
This puts it increasingly at odds with Ethiopia. An alliance of convenience is becoming less convenient for both countries by the day.
The Committee to Protect Journalists examines the adversity facing journalists in the volatile Horn of Africa through the stories of two newsmen who tried to flee the region. In a two-part special report released today, CPJ recounts editor Befekadu Moreda’s remarkable journey out of Ethiopia and sportscaster Paulos Kidane’s fateful effort to flee Eritrean government oppression.
Jailed for his work nine separate times in his native country, Moreda is among 34 Ethiopian journalists who have been forced into exile. He tells CPJ’s Karen Phillips that he decided to flee after a 2005 government crackdown shuttered most of the independent press. Moreda and his family have resettled in Houston, Texas—but like many other exiled journalists, he is struggling to adjust professionally in the United States.
CPJ’s Mohamed Hassim Keita tells the story of Kidane, an Eritrean sports reporter who was forced into state media service. After years of harassment, Kidane joined a small group of refugees who tried to cross into Sudan on foot. Kidane did not survive the journey. A French version of this story is available.
The report is available online and will appear in the coming edition of CPJ’s magazine Dangerous Assignments.
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.
The secretive leadership of the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Party (EPRP) is currently in turmoil over the active role being played by some of its top leaders in fanning disagreements inside Kinijit.
Ethiopian Review’s Research Department (ERD), formerly known as ER’s Intelligence Unit, has learned that the leadership is currently split into two camps — one led by President Girma’s son-in-law, Ato Iyassu Alemayehu, and the other faction led by Ato Mersha Yoseph.
The Mersha faction is deeply concerned that Ato Iyassu (a.k.a. Hama Tuma, among his multiple other names) is meddling in the internal affairs of another organization, unnecessarily creating enemies for EPRP. According to ERD sources, Ato Mersha and friends are concerned that the backlash from the Iyassu faction’s involvement in the Kinijit internal affairs on the side of Shaleqa Yoseph will have a long-term negative impact on EPRP. Ato Mersha also believes that it is against EPRP’s ideology and strategic interest to side with the Shaleqa’s backward feudalist faction.
On the other hand, the Iyassu faction believes that the decaying Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is a lesser threat, and that feudalists like the Shaleqa group can easily be managed or manipulated. But the popular Kinijit poses a long-term threat to EPRP. The strategy adopted by Ato Iyassu and friends is that Kinijit’s popularity must be brought a few notches down in order to minimize its threat. Iyassu is looking at the popularity of Kinijit leaders with a great deal of trepidation, if not envy.
It is normal to have a clash of ideas within a political party, but on this particular issue every body — and the first daughter (Ghenet) — are digging their heels, causing a leadership crisis in the normally cohesive EPRP leadership.
A central committee meeting is being considered to settle the dispute one way or another.
Meanwhile, ERD has started looking into EPRP’s questionable financial activities. So far it has been discovered that EPRP owns several properties, including apartments and restaurants in many countries. This should raise concern among democratic forces who believe that a political party should not own or get involved in operating businesses.
There will be more updates on this as more evidences are uncovered.
