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Ethiopia

14 victims of massacre in Kofele, Ethiopia identified

By Getahun Bekele | goolgule.com
August 25, 2013
Totolamo-Kofele-620x310

“Wolahi, Wolahi…” swears 85 year old Totolamo village barley farmer and cattle herder Hajji Abdinur Shifa when a reporter asked him if he know  any terrorist hiding in his village. His face looks like a paint of sorrow and grief. His wife affectionately called by the villagers, Adiyo, was too fragile to talk about the August 3 2013 blood bath that turned their agriculture and livestock rich village into an inferno.

“My son took three bullets and died a day later at Sashemene general hospital. The body that was weakening by fasting could not respond well to treatment and he succumbed to his wounds without saying goodbye. His killers (federal police commandos) did not allow us entry to the hospital. My son Abdulkarim is dead but he will live in my heart until I join him in paradise…,” the respected elder said wiping his tears with a piece of garment.

On that fateful day, 3 August 2013, Abdulkarim Abdinur Shifa, 39, was at Erob Gebeya mosque loading onto his van sacks of barley, corn, and potato donated by farmers to be distributed among the needy in the city of Sashemene for Eid celebration.

When he was about to leave, bullets started raining down and the scream of women and children filled the salubrious air of Totolamo. Tigre people Liberation Front gunmen in police uniform massacred eleven people including an elderly imam and an infant.

The tragedy touched every household from Totolamo to Kofele in southwest oromyya.

In the land famed for its sylvan beauty, despite the aroma of ripe corn, the stench of death still hangs in the air. The approach of the delightful month of September did not lift the gloom of the August blood bath. According to our sources from Sashemene general hospital, currently the death toll stands at sixteen- all Muslims and close relatives.

The Horn Times manage to obtain the names of 14 victims of the August 3 slaughter…
1.   Adam Jamal
2.   Lenco Jilcha
3.   Habib Wabe
4.   Gachano Tuse
5.   Muhammad Debel Ouse
6.   Jamal Arsho Arsi
7.   Muhammad Eidao
8.   Amman Buli
9.   Muhamud Hassan
10. Rashid Burka
11. Abush Ebrahim
12. Mamush Ebrahim
13. Tuke Besso
14. Abdulkarim Abdinur Shifa

Furthermore, two hundred young men arrested on 3 August 2013 are still languishing in Kofele town police prison without any charges.

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Corruption in the Ethiopian JUST US Sector

For the past several months, I have been commenting on the findings of the World Bank’s “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”, a 448-page report covering eight sectors (health, education, rural water supply, justice, construction, land, telecommunications and mining). In this my sixth commentary, I focus on “corruption in the justice sector”. The other five commentaries are available at my blog site.

Injustice minsitry 3Talking about corruption in the Ethiopian “justice sector” is like talking about truth in Orwell’s 1984 Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”).  The purpose of Minitrue is to create and maintain the illusion that the Party is absolute, all knowing, all-powerful and infallible. The purpose of the Ministry of Justice in Ethiopia is to create the illusion that the ruling regime under the command and control of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) masquerading as the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (EPDRF) is absolute, all knowing, all-powerful and infallible.

I have long caricatured the “justice sector” of the TPLF/EPDRF as a kangaroo justice system founded on a sham, corrupt and whimsical legal process. What passes off as a “justice system” in Ethiopia is little more than a marketplace where “justice” is bought and sold in a monopoly controlled by one man supported by a few nameless, faceless and clueless men who skulk in the shadows of power. It is a justice system in which universal principles of law and justice are disregarded, subverted, perverted and mocked. It is a system where the poor, the marginalized, the audacious journalists, dissidents, opposition and civic society leaders are legally lynched despite the criticism and bootless cries of the international community. It is a system in which regime leaders, their families, friends and cronies are above the law and spell justice “JUST US”.

My first critique of the TPLF/EPDRF “justice system” appeared in 2006 when I wrote a 32-page analysis titled, “Keystone Cops, Prosecutors and Judges in a Police State.” It was written in the first year of what has become my long day’s journey into the dark night of advocacy against human rights violations in Ethiopia and Africa. The piece was intended to be a critical analysis of the trial of the so-called Kality defendants consisting of some 130 or so major opposition leaders, human rights advocates, civic society activists, journalists and others in the aftermath of the 2005 election. I tried to demonstrate that the show trial of those defendants was little more than a third-rate theatrical production staged to dupe the international community. I also tried to show how a dysfunctional and bankrupt judicial system was used to destroy political opposition and dissent. I described the “judicial proceedings” of the Kality defendants as “an elaborate hoax, a make-believe tribunal complete with hand-picked judges, trumped up charges, witless prosecutors, no procedures and predetermined outcomes set up to produce only one thing: a  monumental miscarriage of justice.”

A glossy “diagnosis” of corruption in the Ethiopian justice sector

The WB’s “diagnosis” of corruption in “Ethiopia’s justice sector” is based on “interviews of 60 individuals” including “federal judges and prosecutors”, police, private attorneys, etc. in the capital and at another location. No ordinary citizens were included in the interview panel or the smaller focus groups. The study is intended to “explore the incidence of corruption in Ethiopia’s justice sector (including not only the courts but also several other organizations).” The “justice sector” includes, among others, “courts, police, prosecutors, administrative agencies with quasi-judicial powers, and public and private attorneys, prisons, and those in the executive and legislative branches responsible for enacting the laws and regulations governing their operations”.

The report begins with unusual disclaimers and apologia. The author proclaims that “this report begins from an agnostic standpoint—attempting only to document reality in Ethiopia’s justice sector and to compare it… with the situation elsewhere in African and other countries…” It is not clear what she means by “an agnostic standpoint”, but her analysis is frontloaded with servilely apologetic language manifestly intended not to offend or appear to point an accusatory finger at the ruling regime in Ethiopia. The report appears to have been written with some trepidation; perhaps the author was afraid of a backlash (tongue-lash) from the regime. The author timorously tiptoes around well-established and notorious facts about corruption in the regime’s justice sector. In light of the many disclaimers, reservations and contingencies in the report, it is obvious that the author does not want to call a spade a spade, so she calls the spade a bucket. But corruption by any disclaimer is still corruption; and Ethiopia’s justice sectors reeks of corruption.

The author claims an examination of  “corruption in the justice sector is important because it undermines the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the control of corruption in other sectors, the strengthening of the normative framework underlying private and public actions (the rule of law), and the creation of a predictable environment for public and private transactions.” According to the study, corruption in the Ethiopian justice sector “takes one of two forms: (a) political interference with the independent actions of courts or other sector agencies, or (b) payment or solicitation of bribes or other considerations to alter a decision or action.” The study claims the “most common form of corruption involves bribes solicited by or offered to police to ignore a criminal offense, not make an arrest, or not bring witnesses or suspects to court (which can cause a provisional adjournment of the case). Traffic police are the worst offenders.” Another “common form of corruption” involves “payment of court staff to misplace case files or evidence” (a practice that has nearly disappeared because of new judicial policies on archive management introduced under a Canadian International Development Agency program”.

The author provides a catalogue of corrupt practices which she claims are disputed by various respondents in her study but include “(a) sales of judgments or other judicial actions in civil disputes; (b) lawyers’ solicitation of “bribes” that never reached the bench; (c) prosecutors’ misuse of their own powers, in response to bribes or political directives, to advance or paralyze a case; and (d) the corrupt actions of various officials entrusted with enforcement of judgments, especially in civil cases.” She attributes the divergence in viewpoints to a “likely gap between perceptions and reality [which] are partly a function of the persistent lack of transparency in personnel policies.”

What is remarkable about the WB “justice sector” study is the fact that the author, by focusing on the “most common form of corruption” (i.e. petty police, particularly traffic police, corruption), fails to critically probe grand corruption involving party officials and regime leaders and their cronies who routinely subvert the justice system through political interference and pressure to protect their political and economic interests. She circumvents serious inquiry into grand corruption in the “justice sector” by providing catalogues of “potential forms of criminal and civil corruption” and “corruption risks”. She appears averse to investigating high-level corruption that occurs in the process of judicial appointment of handpicked party loyalists and hacks, laws written to aid certain elites in society, or in the debasement and corruption of the integrity and independence of the judiciary. She ignores the type of justice corruption that occurs in “state capture” where economic elites develop cozy relationships with political and judicial officials through whom they obtain favorable judicial decisions to advance their own advantage. For instance, on the issue of political interference in the judicial process, the author demonstrates her “agnosticism” by reporting that “the one who came closest eventually admitted that ‘there was some [political interference], but it was very rare.’” Other responses ranged from ‘a moderate amount’ (limited to the bad apples) to the extreme of holding that ‘every civil judgment is sold.’”

Curiously, the author points an accusatory finger at petty corruption as the “most common form of corruption” distracting attention from the systemic and structural corruption in the justice sector. The importance of petty corruption must not be understated because of the serious impact it has on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary citizens interacting with police, prosecutorial and other petty judicial officials. There is ample anecdotal evidence of petty corruption in which ordinary Ethiopian citizens and businesspersons are “shaken down” by traffic cops or minor functionaries in the judicial or state bureaucracy seeking small bribes. However, though petty corruption may be easier to detect, the real focus should be on grand corruption which is systemic, structural and difficult to detect and nearly impossible to punish. Structural and systemic corruption in the legal institutions, rules, and norms and those who are practitioners in the system create, maintain and sustain a culture of corruption in the justice sector, which the author appears to overlook.

Justice corruption is primarily a systemic failure of judicial institutions, lack of political will and capacity to manage judicial resources, maintain integrity of institutions. The author makes abstract references to the usual catalogue of corruption variables but does not seek to gather data to illuminate the scope, breadth and gravity of the problem of political interference and lack of accountability in the justice system. Grand corruption in the justice sector stems from the fact that political officials have wide authority over judicial officials (from appointment to management of judicial functions); and political officials have little accountability and incentive to maintain the integrity of the justice sector. There are few functional formal systems of control in the relationship between the judicial and political processes in Ethiopia. If there ever were control systems, they have been broken for a long time making it nearly impossible to administer fairly the laws while maintaining accountability in the form of a robust reporting system and transparency in the form of robust management practices. Such institutional decay has promoted the growth of a culture of corruption in the justice sector and continues to undermine not only the broad adjudicatory role of justice sector institutions but also public confidence in the integrity of the justice system itself.

Justice sector in a police state?

Justice in a dictatorship is to justice as military music is to music. No reasonable person would consider martial law (military rule) to produce justice.  By definition dictatorship — a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in the hands of a dictator or a small clique — is the quintessential definition of injustice. Any form of government that operates in flagrant disregard of the rule of law is inherently corrupt.

I have on previous occasions tried to expose such corruption in Ethiopia’s “justice sector” with anecdotal evidence of arbitrary administration of justice or denial of fair trial to those accused of  “terrorism”, “treason” and even “corruption”, opposition leaders, human rights advocates, journalists, etc. In the kinder and gentler police state that Ethiopia has become, any petty “law enforcement” official of the regime has the power to arrest and jail an innocent citizen. As I argued in my February 2012 commentary, “The Prototype African Police State”, a local police chief in Addis Ababa felt so arrogantly secure in his arbitrary powers that he threatened to arrest a Voice of America reporter stationed in Washington, D.C. simply because that reporter asked him for his full name during a telephone interview.  “I don’t care if you live in Washington or in Heaven. I don’t give a damn! But I will arrest you and take you. You should know that!!”, barked the impudent police chief Zemedkun. If a flaky policeman can exercise such absolute power, is it unreasonable to imagine those at the apex of power have the power to do anything they want with impunity. The regime in Ethiopia is the petri dish of corruption and living proof  that power corrupts and an absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In my view, denial of due process (fair trial) is the highest form of corruption imaginable in the “justice sector” because it results in the arbitrary deprivation of a person’s life, liberty and property. Could anyone (other than those politically connected) really expect to get a fair trial in the regime’s kangaroo courts or fair treatment in the pre-trial process?

The systemic corruption in the “justice sector” is that the law of the land is ignored, disregarded and perverted at the whim and fancy of those in power. For instance, the presumption of innocence (Eth. Const. Art. 20(3)) is openly flouted. The late leader of the regime used to routinely and publicly talk about the guilt of opposition leaders, journalists and others standing trial without so much of an awareness of the suspects’ right to a presumption of innocence or appreciation of the risk of prejudicial pretrial publicity emanating from such inflammatory statements which are prohibited under the Constitution and other international human rights regimes (e.g. Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 7(b) of the  African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR)). In 2011, the late leader of the regime proclaimed the guilt of freelance Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye on charges of “terrorism” while they were being tried and he was visiting Norway. He emphatically declared the duo “are, at the very least, messenger boys of a terrorist organization. They are not journalists.” Persson and Schibbye were “convicted” and sentenced to long prison terms.

Show trials by publicity and demonization are another hallmark of the regime’s justice system. Following the 2005 election, the late leader of the regime publicly declared that “The CUD (Kinijit) opposition leaders are engaged in insurrection — that is an act of treason under Ethiopian law. They will be charged and they will appear in court.” They were charged, appeared in “court” and were convicted. In December 2008, the late leader railroaded Birtukan Midekssa, the first female political party leader in Ethiopian history, without so much as a hearing let alone a trial. He sent her straight from the street into solitary confinement and later declared: “There will never be an agreement with anybody to release Birtukan. Ever. Full stop. That’s a dead issue.” In making this statement, the late leader proclaimed to the world that he is the law and the ultimate source of justice in Ethiopia. His words trump the country’s Constitution!

In 2009, one of the top leaders of the regime labeled 40 defendants awaiting trial as “desperadoes” who planned to “assassinate high ranking government officials and destroying telecommunication services and electricity utilities and create conducive conditions for large scale chaos and havoc.” They were all “convicted” and given long prison sentences.

Violations of the constitutional rights of those accused of crimes by the regime are rampant. Article 20 (2) provides, “Any person in custody or a convicted prisoner shall have the right to communicate with and be visited by spouse(s), close relatives and friends, medical attendants, religious and legal counselors.” Internationally celebrated Ethiopian journalists including Reeyot Alemu, Woubshet Taye and many others were denied access to legal counsel for months. Ethiopian Muslim activists who demanded an end to religious interference were jailed on “terrorism” charges were also denied access to counsel.  They were mistreated and abused in pretrial detention. Scores of journalists, opposition members and activists arrested and prosecuted (persecuted) under the so-called anti-terrorism proclamation were also denied counsel and speedy trials and have languished in prison for long periods. Suspects are interrogated without the presence of counsel and coerced confessions extracted. Yet, Article 19 (5) provides, “Everyone shall have the right not to be forced to make any confessions or admissions of any evidence that may be brought against him during the trial.”

Article 19 (1) provides, “Anyone arrested on criminal charges shall have the right to be informed promptly and in detail… the nature and cause of the charge against him… Article 20 (2) provides, “Everyone charged with an offence shall be adequately informed in writing of the charges brought against him. Recently, the regime arrested members of its officialdom and their cronies on suspicion of corruption and kept the suspects in detention for months without informing them “promptly and in detail the charges against them”. Although the regime’s “top anti-corruption official” claimed that the corruption “suspects have been under surveillance for two years”, on their first court appearance, the prosecutors requested a 14-day continuance to gather more evidence! There is no judicial system in the world where suspects are arrested of committing crimes after being investigated for 2 years and then the prosecution asks for endless continuances to gather additional evidence.

Injustice impersonating justice

The 2012  U.S. State Department Human Rights report concluded, “The law provides for an independent judiciary. Although the civil courts operated with a large degree of independence, the criminal courts remained weak, overburdened, and subject to political influence.”  The WB could have done a much better job of “diagnosing corruption” in Ethiopia’s “justice sector”. Candidly speaking, any deficiency in the report should not reflect exclusively on the World Bank or its consultants but on Ethiopians, particularly the Ethiopian intelligentsia, who do not seem find it worth their time or effort to read, challenge and supplement such reports. It seems few, very few, Ethiopian scholars and analysts take the time and effort to locate, study and critically analyze such important studies done by international institutions and other private research institutions.

I doubt the WB justice sector study will be of much value to policy makers, scholars or the casual reader. Having said that, the burden is on Ethiopian scholars in Ethiopia and abroad to work collaboratively and carefully document corruption in Ethiopia’s justice and other sectors. No study of Ethiopia’s justice sector is worthy of the title if it does not rigorously evaluate the factors that are at the core of corruption in the “justice sector” – absence of the rule of law, lack of independence of the judiciary,  absence of due process, lack of impartiality and neutrality in the judicial process, the culture of corruption and impunity and the lack of accountability, transparency and confidence in the legal system. Such a study is the principal responsibility of Ethiopians, not the World Bank or its consultants. On the other hand, when the sword of justice is beaten into a sledgehammer of injustice, it is the supreme duty of ordinary citizens to expose it!

Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.

Previous commentaries by the author are available at:

http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/

www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/

Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:

http://www.ecadforum.com/Amharic/archives/category/al-mariam-amharic

http://ethioforum.org/?cat=24

TPLF spies stage a drama in Addis

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Ethiopia: Police “Discover” Bombs at Busy Market Place

By  Getahun Bekle | tesfanews.net

August 24, 2013

It was business as usual for the people while police removes “dangerous explosives” in Addis Ababa on 22 August 2013. (Pic by Minilik Salsawi)
It was business as usual for the people while police removes “dangerous explosives” in Addis Ababa on 22 August 2013. (Pic by Minilik Salsawi)

 

According to eye witnesses whom the Horn Times spoke to, this pictured police officer first picked the two harmless bombs but a colleague shouted at him to place them back under an Isuzu van reg. number, code 3-73189.

And there began the live show of shame after ETV cameras and TPLF journalists rushed to the scene along with anti-terror squad members and federal police bomb disposal unit members.

Amid laughter and mockery by hundreds of onlookers at one of Addis Ababa’s busiest terminals known as American Gibi, near Ras Seyoum hotel, on Wednesday morning 22 August 2013, two police bomb disposal unit members crawled to the “dangerous explosives” and removed them while a camera man film their every move from very close range. However, the drama did not end there.

As the ETV camera zoomed, four police officers dragged a well-dressed and bearded young man who looks like a traditional Ethiopian Muslim from a nearby grain store and pulled out two detonators out of his hip pocket before horridly driving off the way they came. It was mission accomplished-planting evidence to persecute the innocent; in this case the Ethiopian Muslims.

Some already labeled the drama a strategic deception by the ruling minority junta to secure conviction by planting evidence that will lead to wrongful incarceration, torture, or even extrajudicial execution.

“It is ridiculous. How could police remove bombs with hundreds of people standing less than two meters away and ETV cinematographers filming the whole episode from less than a meter away? In addition, what kind of stupid terrorist is placing hand grenades without detonators under a car only to be caught with them moments later? I think everything is stage managed.” A shop owner who watched the whole drama from his balcony told the Horn Times reporters.

A well-known legal expert who chooses to remain anonymous said planting evidence has become part of the junta’s plan to stifle the opposition after the 2005 mass uprising against the minority rule.

“Police and intelligence officers who are employed by the Tigre People Liberation Front/TPLF cannot comply with the requirements of oaths and perform their jobs in an honorable and honest manner due to their ties to the regime.

“Under pressure from their superiors; officers plant evidence instead of gathering and analyzing evidence. Since they are hired to serve the ruling party, they think every opposition politician deserves to be incarcerated whether or not the suspects committed the particular crime in question.

“In my more than fifteen years of practice, I have seen dozens of wrongful convictions of respected opposition figures and journalists due to police planted evidence. Few days ago the Ethiopian government seized bombs at the airport and today another two bombs tomorrow a weapons cache…all these will be used in the ongoing propaganda war against Ethiopian Muslims.”

He explained warning that opposition politicians, journalists, and religious leaders will never get fair trial in a police state like Ethiopia.

Ethiopian-Americans grateful on 50th Anniversary of March on Washington

 

The 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington is an important occasion for all those fighting for freedom.  Ethiopian-Americans have been among the beneficiaries of the struggles waged by Dr. King and the civil rights movement.

The ebony kinship that binds Ethiopian-Americans and African-Americans have deep roots.  His Imperial Majesty Haile Sellassie I was among the first African leaders to lay a wreath on Dr. King’s grave.

“I found it quite necessary to lay a wreath on Dr. King’s grave so that we may remember his deeds and contributions to history, and his triumphs – and to honor his father and his wife.” the Emperor said.

 

Emperor Haile Sellassie laying wreath at Dr. King's grave.  July 11, 1969.  AP Photo courtesy of private collector in New York.
Emperor Haile Sellassie laying wreath at Dr. King’s grave. July 11, 1969. AP Photo courtesy of private collector in New York.

 

News coverage of the Emperor honoring Dr. King.  July 11, 1969.
News coverage of the Emperor honoring Dr. King. July 11, 1969.

 

Ethiopia tightens telecom grip: Economist

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The government expands the mobile-phone network but tightens its grip

It's China calling
It’s China calling

It’s China calling

ETHIOPIA has Africa’s last big telecoms monopoly. The absence of competition has seen a country of more than 80m lag badly behind the rest of the continent in an industry that has generally burgeoned alongside economic growth. Mobile-phone penetration, which averages 70% of the population elsewhere in Africa, is closer to 25% in Ethiopia. A paltry 2.5% of Ethiopians have access to the internet, compared with 40% in neighbouring Kenya.

Ethiopia’s authoritarian leaders are as keen as any on the economic benefits of modern telecoms but fear the political ramifications; pesky dissidents become even more irritating when wired. That explains a $1.6 billion agreement with China’s two leading telecoms-equipment companies to upgrade its network. The deal with Huawei and ZTE will preserve Ethiopia’s state dominance and further put off the opening up of one of Africa’s largest economies.

What the government wants from China are cheap loans and more control over its citizens. The new deal will provide soft loans to buy a Chinese-built 4G broadband network for the capital, Addis Ababa, and an expanded 3G network for the rest of the country. A similar deal with the same companies in 2007 expanded Ethiopia’s mobile-phone subscriber base but did little to shorten its digital lag.

Hopes that other companies might get a look in were always optimistic. The prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, has dubbed the telecoms industry a “cash cow” needed to pay for a rail link to neighbouring Djibouti. Ethio Telecom delivers more than $300m a year to the state coffers. Customers grumble that its slogan should be “Disconnecting Ethiopia from the future”.

The country is one of the world’s last big untouched telecoms markets. The government could earn as much as $3 billion from auctioning licences. But the powerful security services have routinely objected. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based free-speech lobby, accuses the government of conducting a “systematic effort to control all forms of communications” after it passed laws imposing prison sentences of up to 15 years on anyone caught bypassing online censors. Yidnek Haile, a student in Addis Ababa, was arrested two years ago for showing customers at an internet café how to make online calls.