As protests continue across the Arab world, rumblings of political discontent have sounded in sub-Saharan Africa as well. These rumblings range from serious protests in Gabon and Sudan to pro-revolution newspaper columns in countries like Nigeria. Revolution will likely not spread through sub-Saharan Africa, but leaders in Ethiopia and Uganda moved this week to block even the possibility of uprisings. These moves show that the Arab protests are making some African leaders quite nervous, particularly as their countries navigate political transitions.
In Ethiopia, journalist Eskinder Nega has compared his country to Egypt and speculated about the possibility of an Egypt-style mobilization in Ethiopia. Eskinder’s remarks online and on the radio drew the attention, he says, of the Ethiopian government:
Eskinder Nega says six heavily-armed policemen jumped from a truck on a busy central Addis Ababa street last week, grabbed him and whisked him away to federal police headquarters. He says during a two-hour detention, he was brought before a deputy police commissioner who did not identify himself, but who warned him his activities were considered seditious.
“He said, ‘You’ve been trying to incite Egyptian and Tunisian-like protests in Ethiopia through writings you do on the Internet,” Eskinder recounted. “And the interviews you give to various news outlets. And he said, ‘Nothing similar is going to happen in this country.’”
Eskinder was jailed during the 2005 government crackdown in Ethiopia, which followed fiercely contested elections. Last year’s elections in Ethiopia did not produce the same levels of dissent – or violence – that 2005′s elections did, but Eskinder’s latest detention suggests that Ethiopian authorities are keen to shut down any voices who say that the government lacks legitimacy and is vulnerable to the wave of uprisings.
In Uganda, which holds presidential elections today, there seems to be little chance that President Yoweri Museveni will lose, and little chance that mass demonstrations could drive him from power. Still, Ugandan opposition leaders have talked about launching protests if Museveni wins. This threat was enough to worry the government, which “ordered phone companies to intercept text messages with words or phrases including ‘Egypt’, ‘bullet,’ and ‘people power’ ahead of [today]‘s elections that some fear may turn violent.” This preemptive maneuver seems to presage a greater crackdown to come, if the opposition does indeed take to the streets.
Government crackdowns could end up being the decisive factor in stopping sub-Saharan African protest movements before they really get off the ground. Northern Sudan’s repression appears to have stymied protesters there for the most part. And the words of an Ethiopian opposition member that Eskinder interviewed are revealing as to the political realities there:
Could the legal Ethiopian opposition leaders try to replicate what the legal opposition triggered in Egypt? “No,” firmly answered an opposition official I queried. “There will be a massacre, and it will also be the end of us,” he said. I could have been mistaken, but I thought I had sensed alarm in his tone.
There is another important issue also: If government repression did occur, would media outlets cover it? Given how little coverage Gabon has received in comparison with Arab countries, I think it unlikely that international media would devote substantial attention to a short – but merciless – crackdown in a country like Ethiopia. Some people paid attention in 2005, of course, but not on the scale that we’re seeing with Egypt and elsewhere.
In some places, then, African activists’ realistic fears of death and failure are already discouraging potential protesters. Nevertheless, as I said Wednesday, everyone is well aware of the events in Egypt – including governments who are taking steps to signal policies of zero tolerance for dissent.
(Alex Thurston is a PhD student studying Islam in Africa at Northwestern University and blogs at Sahel Blog.)
Tens of thousands of people held a massive protest rally in Djibouti against the regime of President Ismail Guelleh. Opposition leaders say that the police fired live bullets at peaceful protesters yesterday.
(Bloomberg) — Djibouti opposition groups will meet today to decide what step to take next after police allegedly fired on demonstrators yesterday, injuring at least two of them, an opposition leader said.
“The situation is very bad,” Ismail Guedi Hared, president of the Union for a Democratic Alternative, said by phone late yesterday. The police “used tear gas and they shot in every direction. I know two people are in hospital.”
In Djibouti, the Horn of Africa nation that hosts the only U.S. military base on the continent, President Ismail Guelleh’s People’s Rally for Progress party has ruled since independence in 1977. The 63- year-old leader, who was first elected in 1999, amended the constitution in March to allow him to extend his rule by two more six-year terms.
Yesterday’s protest turned violent near the Hassan Guled stadium in the capital, Djibouti, Hared said. Live ammunition was used by both sides and a crowd of about 100 demonstrators threw stones at the police after leaders of the protest were escorted away, according to the Djibouti-based website Djibouti24.
“The police are confronting demonstrators,” Mohamed Daoud Chehem, head of the Djibouti Party for Development, said by phone from the protest yesterday. “They have opened fire,” he said, without being able to specify if anyone was injured or what type of ammunition was used.
Chehem said that as many as 20,000 people had joined the protest against Guelleh. The country has a population of about 860,000.
Exiled Djiboutian opposition leader Abdourahman Boreh, who is currently in London, said the demonstrations may continue.
“We will see how it goes,” Boreh said yesterday. “This is the first day. We will see how the government reacts.”
Last month, Boreh called for elections scheduled for April to be delayed by as much as a year and for international monitors to oversee an electoral roll that includes 130,000 to 140,000 of the population of about 865,000.
Djibouti ranks 148th out of 169 countries in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, education and living standards.
U.S. Concerns
“We’re closely monitoring, keeping an eye on developments, especially as they relate to any forces we may have in the region,” Pentagon spokesman, Marine Corps Colonel David Lapin, told reporters yesterday.
The U.S has had a base in Djibouti since 2001, while former colonial power France also has 3,000 troops stationed in the country, which is smaller than the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The republic borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and is seen as a strategic location in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism and piracy.
Libya, one of the most repressive regimes in Africa, is unable to stop the wave of popular uprisings against dictators that is sweeping through northern Africa and the Middle East. The Libya pro-democracy protesters are taking their activities outside of the capital city to avoid direct clashes with the security forces that have been firing live bullets on unarmed civilians causing 23 deaths. BBC reports that the protesters today have taken control of an airport in the eastern Libyan town of Benghazi. Protesters also set fire to police stations and government buildings. Ghadafi’s brutal measures that are intended to instill fear seem to be having a reverse effect.
(BBC) — Libya’s dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi has taken a series of measures, including blocking internet sites and shutting off electricity to protest areas, to try to quell rising unrest.
Gaddafi’s regime has also reportedly offered to replace some top officials in a conciliatory move.
Media outlets loyal to Col Gaddafi have threatened retaliation against protesters who criticize the leader.
Emerging reports suggest a mounting death toll from days of clashes between security forces and protesters.
The mainstay of the unrest is in regional towns and cities, where many people live in poverty.
Foreign journalists operate under restrictions in Libya, so it has been impossible to independently verify much of the information coming out of the country.
But the BBC has confirmed that several websites – including Facebook and al-Jazeera Arabic – have been blocked.
And the airport in Benghazi, the country’s second largest city, has been closed, amid reports that protesters have taken it over.
Unrest spreads
Residents in Benghazi told the BBC that electricity has been cut off, and tanks are posted outside the court building.
Benghazi protesters have told international media they have learnt from Tunisia and Egypt, and are determined to depose Col Gaddafi.
Media outlets loyal to Col Gaddafi had earlier conceded that security forces had killed 14 protesters in Benghazi on Thursday, though other accounts put the death toll much higher.
Gamal Bandour, a judge in the city, told AP news agency that the mourners set fire to government buildings and police stations on the way back from the funerals on Friday.
Witnesses said 15 people had been killed during Friday’s clashes.
Meanwhile, dissidents based outside Libya claimed that protesters were now battling security forces for control of another eastern city, al-Bayda.
Video footage from al-Bayda showed bloodstained bodies in a mortuary, and protesters torching a municipal building and demolishing a statue of the so-called “green book” – the collection of principles by which Col Gaddafi rules.
The Oea newspaper, owned by one of Col Gaddafi’s sons, earlier reported that demonstrators had lynched two policemen in al-Bayda.
Oea also reported outbreaks of violence in Darnah, east of Benghazi, where it described residents as living in fear.
It said all police stations in Darnah had been evacuated after protesters were killed on Thursday, and rumors were circulating that elite military units were closing in on the city.
Amid the crackdown, the semi-independent Quryna newspaper reported that the government would replace many state executives and decentralize and restructure the government.
It was unclear whether the political move was in response to growing unrest.
Earlier, the pro-government Al-Zahf Al-Akhdar newspaper threatened to “violently and thunderously respond” to the protests.
“The people’s power, the Jamahiriya [system of rule], the revolution, and Colonel Gaddafi are all red lines and those who try to cross or come near these lines are suicidal and playing with fire.”
Col Gaddafi is the Arab world’s longest-serving leader, having ruled oil-rich Libya since a coup in 1969.
Middle Eastern correspondent for CSM, Dan Murphy, reports that Bahrain’s small military is made up of foreign mercenary recruits. No wonder they are willing to gun down unarmed civilians. in Ethiopia we face the same situation. The regime in power rules and behaves like a foreign entity. The ruling junta hates the people of Ethiopia. For Meles and gang Ethiopia is a country to loot and plunder. It’s therefore necessary for opposition groups to adjust their strategy accordingly.
(CSM) — Bahrain, where a US-backed Sunni monarchy rules over a populace that’s about 70 percent Shiite, massive force has been unleashed on peaceful democracy protesters both today and yesterday as well. The Western-looking kingdom plays host to America’s Fifth Fleet, leaving President Barack Obama with even fewer levers of influence in Bahrain than he had in the case of Egypt.
It’s one thing to threaten withholding military aid from Egypt, a card the Obama administration probably played during the height of Egypt’s uprising. It’s quite another to say, “Stop shooting your people, or we’ll remove our naval base.”
Some foreign observers like the influential New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof appear to be shocked that a “moderate” regime (his word) like Bahrain’s would kill its own people. They shouldn’t be. The ruling Khalifa family, like Qaddafi, is engaged in the sort of existential struggle that Egypt and Tunisia’s power brokers didn’t face; while Egypt’s Mubarak and Tunisia’s Ben Ali may be out of power, the officers and political architecture that support their rules remain intact, at least for now.
But the odds that the Khalifas will preserve a powerful role for themselves in Bahrain in the face of true democracy are small. They appear to be acting accordingly. In the early morning Thursday, riot police stormed a democracy encampment at Pearl Square in Manama, Bahrain’s capital – an encampment set up in emulation of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The police fired shot guns and rubber bullets, killing five and dispersing protesters.
Today, it was the Bahrain Defense Force’s turn to get in on the action. The kingdom’s tiny military, largely made up of foreign mercenary recruits, they assaulted groups of mourners who were burying the previous day’s dead and trying to push protests forward. Reports from Manama said gunfire lashed crowds from helicopters and that dozens, at least, were injured. Al Jazeera quoted a doctor in a Manama hospital as saying the emergency room was “overwhelmed” with casualties. The death toll, if any, is still unclear.
Bahrain’s population is about 1.2 million. While the five confirmed killed on Thursday seems small relative to the 300 or so who died in Egypt’s uprising, it’s already a greater percentage of the population than in Egypt, and that number seems likely to have grown today.
Will force work? Or will it spur on Bahrain’s Shiites to greater cycles of mourning and protest?
The Bahrain military has open fired on thousands of protesters on Friday, according to AP. The number of dead and injured is unknown yet. The international community must not tolerate this atrocity. The Bahrain leaders and military commanders must face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. If such barbaric act goes unpunished, dictators in other countries, including in Ethiopia, will continue to commit similar atrocities. Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi must be smiling today.
MANAMA, Bahrain (Associated Press) — Soldiers opened fire Friday on thousands of protesters defying a government ban and streaming toward the landmark square that had been the symbolic center of the uprising to break the political grip of the Gulf nation’s leaders.
Officials at the main Salmaniya hospital said at least 50 people were injured, some with gunshot wounds. Some doctors and medics on emergency medical teams were in tears as they tended to the wounded. X-rays showed bullets still lodged inside victims.
“This is a war,” said Dr. Bassem Deif, an orthopedic surgeon examining people with bullet-shattered bones.
Protesters described a chaotic scene of tear gas clouds, bullets coming from many directions and people slipping in pools of blood as they sought cover. Some claimed the gunfire came from either helicopters or sniper nests, a day after riot police swept through the protest encampment in Pearl Square, killing at least five people and razing the tents and makeshift shelters that were inspired by the demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
An Associated Press cameraman saw army units shooting anti-aircraft weapons, fitted on top of armored personnel carriers, above the protesters, in apparent warning shots and attempts to drive them back from security cordons about 200 yards (200 meters) from the square.
Then the soldiers turned firearms on the crowd, one marcher said.
“People started running in all directions and bullets were flying,” said Ali al-Haji, a 27-year-old bank clerk. “I saw people getting shot in the legs, chest, and one man was bleeding from his head.”
“My eyes were full of tear gas, there was shooting and there was a lot of panic,” said Mohammed Abdullah, a 37-year-old businessman taking part in the protest.
condemns violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen
US President Barack Obama is condemning reports of violence in response to protests in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. He is calling on the governments of those countries to show restraint.
Obama said the governments of the three countries should respect the rights of citizens demonstrating peacefully in the aftermath of Egypt’s uprising. He expressed condolences to the families of those killed.
The president’s statement was read aloud by White House press secretary Jay Carney to reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One from California to Oregon.
Crown Prince Al Khalifa promises a national dialogue
(BBC) — Witnesses said the army fired live rounds and tear gas, and officials said at least 25 people had been hurt.
Many of the protesters are calling for the overthrow of the royal family.
Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa appeared on state TV on Friday to promise a national dialogue once calm has returned.
The prince, who is also deputy supreme commander of the army, called for everyone to withdraw from the streets.
The BBC’s Caroline Hawley, in Manama, says the funeral procession of one of the dead protesters turned into another anti-government demonstration.
The mourners were trying to make their way to the Salmaniya Hospital, where their injured colleagues are being treated.
But they came under fire as they passed close to Pearl Square, which has been sealed off by the army for the past day to prevent further large-scale demonstrations.
An eyewitness told al-Jazeera TV that the authorities gave no warning.
“They just started shooting us. Now there is more than 20 injured in the hospital. One guy has already passed away because he got shot in his head,” said the witness.
To hear him tell it, Joe Mamo’s move from Ethiopia to North Dakota in 1981 was accidental. Mamo’s father, Yenberber Mamo, was a public transit mogul who manufactured buses and ran the first fleet to provide service across Ethiopia. The operation made his father’s Mamo Kacha bus line a household name in the East African country. It provided a nice life for his family. But it rendered him distinctly unpopular with the Marxist junta that ruled Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991. The elder Mamo was jailed two or three times by the regime. Some of his property was confiscated. As his son approached draft age, the patriarch looked for ways to send him overseas.
That’s how Joe, at the age of 13, found himself attending Catholic boarding school in North Dakota. “He didn’t know the difference between North Dakota and New York City. We didn’t know until we got there,” says Joe Mamo, whose given name is Eyob. But he got used to the cold winters and moved to Chicago after graduation. While he attended community college there, he got a job pumping gas.
By 1987, Mamo had moved to Washington, where an old friend had settled among the region’s large Ethiopian community. This too was “an accidental move,” he says. “I didn’t know Washington that well but I liked it here because it was much more diverse than Chicago. There’s a lot of Ethiopians, a lot of different cultures.” And while Mamo remained far from home, it turned out that his entrepreneurial DNA was still intact in North America. “I always wanted to be a businessman like my father. The only business I knew was a gas station, so I decided to lease a gas station,” Mamo says. … [READ MORE]
To hear him tell it, Joe Mamo’s move from Ethiopia to North Dakota in 1981 was accidental. Mamo’s father, Yenberber Mamo, was a public transit mogul who manufactured buses and ran the first fleet to provide service across Ethiopia. The operation made his father’s Mamo Kacha bus line a household name in the East African country. It provided a nice life for his family. But it rendered him distinctly unpopular with the Marxist junta that ruled Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991. The elder Mamo was jailed two or three times by the regime. Some of his property was confiscated. As his son approached draft age, the patriarch looked for ways to send him overseas.