At the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly meeting this week in Tenerife (Canary Island, Spain), MEP Ana Gomes (S&D, Portugal) questioned the European Commission on the credibility of the coming elections in Ethiopia if, apart from the lack of media freedom and other crucial conditions, the leader of the main opposition party could not run for the elections for having been thrown in jail, for life, by the regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Commissioner Piebalgs, responsible for Development, stated that the imprisonment of “popular” Ms. Birtukan Medeksa “can undermine the credibility of elections” and that that view had been conveyed by the EU Commission to the Ethiopian authorities. Nevertheless, he informed, High Representative Ashton had just made the decision to send a EU Election Observation Mission to Ethiopia.
For Ana Gomes this is “disturbing news”.
“I fear the EU will embark in legitimising a farse. As Head of the EU Election Observation Mission in 2005 I know that Meles Zenawi regime, despite all the rethoric on transition to democracy and development, only seeks international endorsement to continue its oppressive and repressive rule in Ethiopia”, Ana Gomes said.
Ana Gomes noted that Ms. Birtukan Medeksa, a 36 years old African woman politician and a young mother, was jailed for a pretext which cannot be a crime in any democratic country She was sentenced for life in 2008 for having publicly stated that she was forced to sign a pardon request, upon which in 2007 she was released from jail, where she had been since the massive opposition arrests in the aftermath of the 2005 elections.
MEP Gomes also alerted to reports that Ms. Birtukan Medeksa is now being denied medical assistance in Kaliti prison.
There is no one-size-fits-all global reconciliation program
The end goal of the various reconciliation programs is the promotion of national unity and transformation, and the healing of a traumatized, divided, wounded and polarized people by searching the truth, accountability, justice, forgiveness and healing.
However. the implementation strategy, tactic and process is not a one-size-fits-all that is easily understood across cultures, identities, nations and societies. Hence, different people, from different parts of the globe, having been affected in distinct ways, by different conflicts, have a different and peculiar understanding of the concept of reconciliation and how the process should be engaged to influence the outcome.
This is aptly captured by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who noted that: “As our experience has taught us, each society must discover its own route to reconciliation. Reconciliation cannot be imposed from outside, nor can someone else’s map get us to our destination: it must be our own solution. This involves a very long and painful journey, addressing the pain and suffering of the victims, understanding the motivation of the offenders, bringing together estranged communities, trying to find a path to justice, truth and ultimately peace. Faced with each new instance of violent conflict, new solutions must be devised that are appropriate to the particular context, history and culture in question.”
Reconciliation is, therefore, always a dynamic and adaptive process aimed at building and healing interpersonal and community lives and relationships.
While the overall theoretical overview shown below is similar to the reconciliation programs of the victims of the genocide in Rwanda; persistent violent conflict in Darfur, Sudan; of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; of apartheid in South Africa; of the civil wars in Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nepal, Chad, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, The Balkans… the implementation strategies, tactics, processes and action plans need to be specific to local conditions.
The slideshow below show the Overview – Understanding and Reconciliation: (Click on slide below and full screen icon on the page.)
Key U.S. lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, have expressed concern for political conditions in Ethiopia, citing authoritarian tendencies by its government as well as human rights abuses such as the continued detention of a prominent opposition leader.
Leading off a March 24 hearing on U.S. policy toward Africa, Representative Donald Payne (Democrat, New Jersey), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, said of the ruling party, “I am deeply concerned and troubled about the deteriorating [political] conditions in Ethiopia. The EPRDF [Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front] is becoming increasingly totalitarian.”
The chairman said he was particularly bothered by the Ethiopian government’s recent jamming of Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts after the government unjustly compared the official U.S. broadcasting agency to the Rwandan hate radio station Milles Collines. Payne said the Rwandan station was “used by those who committed the Rwandan genocide” in 1994.
The panel’s highest-ranking Republican, Representative Chris Smith (New Jersey), added, “Unfortunately, Prime Minister Meles [Zenawi] shows deteriorating signs of human rights practices.”
Payne expressed special concern for Birtukan Mideksa, a former Ethiopian judge and opposition leader convicted in 2005 of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and sentenced to life in prison. She was pardoned in 2007, but rearrested and her sentence reinstated in December 2008.
According to the recently released State Department 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Birtukan, who led the opposition UDJ (Unity for Democracy and Justice) party, was “held in solitary confinement until June, despite a court ruling that indicated it was a violation of her constitutional rights. She was also denied access to visitors except for a few close family members, despite a court order granting visitor access without restrictions.”
The report added, “There were credible reports that Birtukan’s mental health deteriorated significantly during the year.” While critical of the Ethiopian government’s treatment of dissidents and the conditions of their imprisonment, the State Department report acknowledged that “the government continued efforts to train police and army recruits in human rights.”
Asked to comment by Payne, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said: “Ethiopia’s human rights record could be far better than it is right now. There are a number of allegations made that have been documented in the State Department’s Human Rights Report that indicate shortcomings in the government’s treatment of individuals that come under arrest. We encourage the government to treat everyone in a humane fashion.”
On Birtukan, Carson told the panel, “We have asked the Ethiopian authorities why she was rearrested after having been paroled and whether, in fact, we can expect her release anytime soon.”
During an official visit to Ethiopia three weeks ago, Carson said, he met with Prime Minister Meles and raised the case of Birtukan as well as a number of other individuals who are being held by the Ethiopian authorities. “I encouraged the government to act in a responsible fashion in dealing with these cases and noted very clearly that the continued imprisonment of people like Ms. Birtukan undermined the credibility and image of the Ethiopian government.”
Carson said he also spent more than an hour going over a range of issues related to democracy and good governance and “the need to have free and fair elections” during his discussion with the prime minister.
“We are watching with great interest … and encouraging the government of Ethiopia, as well as the opposition parties, to act responsibly during the election campaign and during the [May] election itself,” Carson said. “We think it is incumbent on the [Ethiopian] government to do everything it possibly can to ensure that the playing field is level in the run-up to the election, that there are opportunities for the opposition parties to participate prior to the elections in their campaigns and that they be allowed to vote freely and fairly on election day.
“We do not want to see a repetition of the violence that followed the flawed election of 2005,” Carson told the lawmakers.
Earl Gast, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa, also cited the importance of elections to the democratic process in Africa, telling the House panel, “We believe that leaders who manipulate elections are living on borrowed time.”
“As African societies and political systems continue to develop, the expectations of people toward their governments will continue to rise,” he said. Political processes that don’t meet these expectations can trigger instability and even violent conflict, which can set a country’s development progress back a generation.”
And with more than 20 elections scheduled for Africa in 2010, the official said USAID in 2008-2009 devoted about $89 million for political competition and consensus building in Africa — a third of the development agency’s budget for democracy and governance on the continent. “Our goal is to support the creation of fair and credible election systems, not to determine electoral winners,” he said.
It is a staple of the criminal defense bar to represent thieves, robbers, burglars, muggers, pickpockets, shoplifters, embezzlers, con men, fraudsters and swindlers. It is also the ineluctable lot of the defense lawyer to learn about the M.O. (modus operandi, techniques) of the criminal classes with professional detachment. But few defense lawyers could claim the dubious honor of representing criminals that specialize in election heists. So, when the Carter Center issued its post-mortem “Ethiopia National Elections Observation Mission 2005 Final Report”[1] recently, a unique academic opportunity became available to learn about how an election is actually stolen.
First, a detailed discussion of the specific findings of that Report is unnecessary. Anyone who has followed the May 2005 electoral process and observed the post-election period even with marginal interest is familiar with the facts presented and reviewed in the Report. Second, the diplomatically finessed conclusion of the Report tells the whole story. The 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen in broad daylight:
In spite of the positive pre election developments, the Center’s observation mission concludes that the 2005 electoral process did not fulfill Ethiopia’s obligations to ensure the exercise of political rights and freedoms necessary for genuinely democratic elections.
The real value of the Report lies in its plain depiction of how the 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen. One could say the Report is a sort of manual on the anatomy of election theft. To be sure, the Report effectively shows the “dos and don’ts” of a successful election heist and the specific things one must do in the “pre-election”, “election day” and “post-election” period. Carrying out the perfect election theft, however, is not for the faint of heart. One must have the cunning of a smiling villain, the audacity of a desperado outlaw and the brutality of a back alley thug to successfully steal an election in broad daylight. Above all, the accomplished election thief understands, masters and applies five basic principles.
Principle #1 (The Setup): Pander to your Western donors who bankroll you.
Elections in dictatorships are all about pleasing and trying to hoodwink Western donors, who are themselves all too willing to oblige with a wink and smile. They know elections in dictatorships are always stolen, but need an “election” charade to make plausible denials that they knew the election is stolen. In other words, they need a convenient cover story to shroud their hypocrisy in a garb of moral and intellectual virtue while concealing their criminal complicity in the theft. They pretend to maintain the appearance of neutrality and mediation in public while doing business as usual with the election thieves after dark. The smart election thief understands these basic facts and will do everything to make the donors happy, give them all the diplomatic cover they need and eventually squeeze more cash out of them.
The smart election thief will do just the right symbolic things to please the donors such as opening up “political space” for “competition and dialogue”, making grand pronouncements of “reforms”, giving lip service to open and vigorous electoral campaigns, not overtly interfering with civil society groups and the independent press and so on. It is a big deal for Western donors to see that “international election observers” are on the ground “watching” the “election” (from being stolen?!), and hopefully giving their blessings at the end. Western donors are kind of funny though: They want the local people to believe that an election could be stolen just a little and still be “free and fair.” But the people know that just as there is no such thing as a woman who is a little bit pregnant, there is also no such thing as an election that is a little bit stolen that is “free and fair”.
The Carter Center Report describing the 2005 pre-election period in Ethiopia stated:
The early pre-election period saw indications of growing space for political competition and dialogue. Government leaders, and opposition leaders met face-to-face to discuss the electoral process and needed reforms, with government agreeing to implement some of the key reforms called for by the opposition. International observers were invited and freedom of movement was assured. The Carter Center assessment team found the country’s political conditions conducive for an improved election. Government representatives exhibited openness to constructive criticism, and a willingness to consider recommendations for reforms. The opposition appeared ready to participate in the elections, and civil society was positioned to conduct voter and civic education and to observe the process…
Oh! What about democracy, free and fair elections, the people’s voice and all that good stuff? Not a problem. Western donors know the Ethiopian people are too poor, too hungry and too ignorant to understand or appreciate democracy. It is actually a simple problem of mind over matter: Western donors don’t mind (a stolen election) and the Ethiopian people don’t matter.
Principle #2 (Setting up the Heist): Use lots of smoke and mirrors.
Razzle-dazzle and theatricality are critical props before an election takedown. This requires keeping “the people” and the opposition distracted with all sorts of cute election games and amusements. One of the best election games is called “election code of conduct”. It is similar to a children’s game of marbles in which one player owns all the marbles. The game has only one rule: The guy who writes the “code” always wins the elections. As the election date nears, it is necessary to create hoopla and hype. The Carter Center Report describes:
The pre-election period witnessed unprecedented participation by opposition parties and independent candidates, and an unmatched level of political debate in the state-dominated electronic and print media and at public forums held across the country. Political parties agreed to a Party Code of Conduct, committing themselves to compliance with provisions calling for fair play and supporting peaceful political competition. Ethiopian civil society organizations were active in the pre-election period, observing election preparations and sponsoring a series of televised debates on public policy issues between government officials and opposition leaders.
Principle #3: (The Takedown) Snatch the election, faster than a New York pickpocket.
The smart election thief is lightening fast when it comes to the takedown. He does not wait for election returns, results or tabulations. He does not wait for verification reports and analysis of international observers or resolutions of vote challenges. On election day, he moves swiftly and declares victory before the votes are counted, imposes martial law and runs away with the prize in broad daylight in view of millions of stunned voters who look on in total disbelief. The Carter Center Report describes:
The May 15 voting process progressed relatively smoothly with Carter Center observers reporting that polling was calm and peaceful in the polling stations visited, with only limited incidents of disturbances reported. However, problems began to emerge during the counting and tabulation phases, with significant irregularities and delays in vote tabulation and a large number of electoral complaints. Preliminary but unconfirmed reports of election results from the political parties began to circulate on election night suggesting that the opposition parties had scored significant electoral gains, especially in Addis Ababa and other urban areas. On the night of the election, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared a one-month ban on public demonstrations in the capital and brought the Addis Ababa security forces (soon to be under the command of the opposition that won Addis Ababa) under the control of the office of the Prime Minister.
Principle #4 (The Getaway): Run them down if they get in your way!
As in any daylight crime, there may be witnesses. The smart election thief will use “shock and awe” to make a successful getaway. He will use extreme violence to deal with anyone standing in the way of his getaway. He will destroy any evidence of the theft and make it impossible to determine the full magnitude of the crime. He will boldly declare that it is necessary to kill unarmed demonstrators and jail nearly all of the opposition leaders to save democracy!
It’s very obvious now that the opposition tried to change the outcome of the election by unconstitutional means. We felt we had to clamp down. We detained them and we took them to court. In the process, many people died, including policemen. Many of our friends feel that we overreacted. We feel we did not. There is room for criticism nevertheless it does not change the fact that this process was a forward move towards democracy and not a reversal. Recent developments have simply reinforced that. The leaders of the opposition have realized they made a mistake. And they asked for a pardon, and the government has pardoned them all.[2]
The official Inquiry Commission set up to investigate the post-2005 election violence reported[3]:
There was no property destroyed. There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs. The shots fired by government forces were not to disperse the crowd of protesters but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protesters.
Principle #5: Deny, deny, then lie.
The smoothest criminals always deny, deny and lie that they have done anything wrong. It is no different for the smart election thief. In other words, once you get away with the heist, follow the wisdom of the Amharic saying “Ye leba ayne derek meles o leb adrik.” (A boldface thief will tax your patience by persistent denial.) Deny having stolen the election. Distract attention from oneself by pointing an accusatory finger at others and make ridiculous claims about “interhamwe” conspiracies, “blind hatred” and so on. Follow the teachings of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
As any criminal defense lawyer knows, the criminal perpetrator gains special psychological advantages by following a strategy of denial. The act of denial enables the criminal to shield himself from the shocking reality of his wrongdoing. It also offers him an opportunity to admit a fact but deny the seriousness of the crime (rationalization). In many cases, denial enables the criminal to admit a wrongdoing and its seriousness while avoiding moral responsibility altogether.
Everyone, including the most ardent critics of the government, agrees that right up to election day the democratic elections in Ethiopia were exemplary, by any standard. The issue arises as to whether the counting of the vote was done in a fair and transparent fashion. Here, there are varied assessments. We argue that while there may have been mistakes here and there, on the whole it was a credible and fair count. The opposition did not agree. So we said: ‘Let’s check. Let’s review the counting in the presence of foreign observers.’ We did that. After we did that, two groups of observers the African Union and the Carter Center said that while there had been some mistakes, the outcome of the election was credible.[4]
Principle # 5.5: Go back to Principle #1.
If at first you succeed in stealing an election, steal and steal again! Welcome to Ethiopia Election May 2010!
Whoever said “crime does not pay” has not tried stealing an election! Steal an election and you can steal everything in sight (or out of sight) with impunity, indefinitely!
“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” Joseph Stalin
[1] http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/carter_center_final_report.pdf
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659420,00.html
[3] http://www.ethiomedia.com/addfile/ethiopian_inquiry_commission_briefs_congress.html
[4] See footnote 2.
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
The foreign-aid industry has had a bad news cycle. First, British newspapers were consumed with a spat between the British Broadcasting Corp. and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof over a BBC report that tens of millions of dollars of aid to Ethiopia during the 1984–1985 famine were used for arms. Now a more current and equally egregious scandal involving the world’s largest humanitarian agency has spun out of Ethiopia’s neighbor Somalia. A U.N. report released last week paints a damning portrait of the World Food Programme’s operations there: an estimated 50 percent of food delivered by the U.N. agency is essentially being stolen—not only by the WFP’s own personnel and contractors, but also Somalia’s armed militias, some of whom are radical Islamists.
Somalia is not the first crisis for the agency. These new allegations join a series of recent missteps there that have brought its contracting and operations under scrutiny for its role in aid missions around the world, from North Korea to the Horn of Africa. And the report sent the U.N. backpedaling in its war of words with Washington over the Obama administration’s decision to cut aid to Somali operations last year. What is going on at the WFP?
The ugliest revelations are in the report’s details. Three Somali businessmen won about 80 percent of the agency’s $200 million in transport contracts last year, in what is described as a 12-year-old “de facto cartel.” One of them, Abdulqadir Nur “Enow,” apparently staged a hijacking of his own trucks in order to sell the food. In another case, the report cites witnesses saying Enow’s company sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of food aid in local markets, an outcome made possible by the fact that WFP depended on a local agency run by Enow’s wife to verify his deliveries. Meanwhile, a second WFP trucking contractor, Abukar Omar Adaani, used his wealth to finance a rebel militia that launched an offensive in Mogadishu last year against Somalia’s U.N.-backed transitional government and African Union peacekeepers. Adaani also persuaded the WFP to fund a road officials said was designed to give Islamist insurgents access to an airstrip, according to the report.
In response, the WFP has suspended contracts with the three businessmen and accused U.N. investigators of overstating the amounts of its trucking payments. (In January it suspended operations in some areas controlled by Islamist rebels.) The agency didn’t respond to a question from NEWSWEEK about its knowledge of Somali trucking magnate Adaani’s links to Somali insurgents, and it said that the Adaani-built road it had funded was meant for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Except these aren’t isolated problems. Next door, in Ethiopia (one of the largest recipients of food aid in the world), the WFP has spent millions on contracts with transport companies controlled by the country’s increasingly authoritarian ruling party, NEWSWEEK has learned. In the country’s eastern, Somali-speaking region, where nearly 2 million people receive food aid overseen by the WFP (along with other aid agencies) and where insurgents have long claimed the Ethiopian government uses food as a weapon, a mere 12 percent of food reached the people for which it was intended in 2008, according to figures from the U.S. State Department.
Meanwhile, for its $1.2 billion, three-year food-relief program in Afghanistan, the WFP’s trucking and shipping costs for food were two to three times above commercial rates, according to an analysis by Fox News’s George Russell published last month, which noted that less than 40 percent of the mission’s budget was actually for food. Likewise an investigation by Russell last year also found WFP’s planned shipping costs to send more than a half billion dollars of food aid to North Korea were inflated—prompting the agency to admit that some of its shipping budget went to companies owned by dictator Kim Jong Il’s government.
As for the WFP, it says it doesn’t know how the United States arrived at its calculations about aid deliveries in Ethiopia. In Afghanistan, it said the need to construct warehouses and replace trucks helped account for its high transit costs, and it notes that donor governments and agencies have funded less than a fifth of its North Korea operations. North Korea’s remote location and lack of competition in shipping routes to the country also account for the high costs, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, a WFP spokesman said in an e-mail.
Admittedly, places like Afghanistan and Somalia are some of the most difficult countries in the world for aid agencies to work. Some leakage of aid is inevitable. But the U.N.’s agencies are notorious for their high administrative costs and the opacity of their spending. A 2008 Brookings paper coauthored by William Easterly, a well-known aid researcher, ranked 39 large aid donors on criteria including transparency, overhead costs, and selectivity of aid spending. The WFP, which received $4 billion in donations last year—including $1.8 billion from the United States—tied for last place (though the study noted that data from some agencies was unavailable).
The problem in part may be that U.N. aid agencies see themselves as accountable to the world’s governments, which provide 92 percent of the WFP’s funding, rather than to the public. Asked for data on its contracts with ruling-party trucking companies in Ethiopia—including one owned by a conglomerate whose No. 2 official is the Ethiopian prime minister’s wife—the WFP said disclosing such information to the public would jeopardize “its ability to negotiate the best possible rates and delivery conditions.” A spokesman did not respond to a request for how much it pays Kim Jong Il’s government to ship food to North Korea.
Indeed, what’s so unusual about the report on Somalia aid isn’t just its conclusions, it’s the mere fact that an independent body conducted a thorough probe into U.N. contracting and published its findings. As the Brookings paper notes, “it is a sad reflection on the aid establishment that knowing where the money goes is still so difficult and that the picture available from partial knowledge remains so disturbing.”
ADDIS ABABA (IRIN) – Human traffickers and smugglers in Ethiopia have taken advantage of the upcoming World Cup, duping victims into believing that South Africa has created huge employment opportunities, says a government report, Illegal Migration: Causes, Consequences and Solutions to human trafficking and smuggling in Ethiopia.
Some 20,000 to 25,000 Ethiopians are trafficked to various countries annually, the January report notes. Together with smuggling from Somalia, the business is worth up to US$40 million a year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Traffickers operate in organized groups of eight to 25 in big towns.
“Human traffickers use various tricks, including the deception that South Africa has created employment opportunities,” Zenebu Tadesse, State Minister for Labour and Social Affairs, said.
Speaking at a national conference on human trafficking and smuggling, she said the government would implement measures to tackle the problem, including repatriating thousands of Ethiopians who had been trafficked out of their country and protecting the rights of those living in various countries.
So far, she added, 2,000 Ethiopians had been repatriated from Tanzania, Yemen, Libya and other Gulf countries, with the support of the IOM, the UN Refugee Agency and other stakeholders.
Some traffickers and smugglers have also been arraigned in court. “Ethiopian police have recently found some eight human traffickers and smugglers and sentenced them to five to 12 years,” said Moni Mengesha, head of the human trafficking and illegal drugs department at the Ethiopian federal police.
Going south
Alemu (not his real name), a 27-year-old businessman, left for South Africa in 2009 but ended up in a migrants’ camp in Malawi.
“I went to one of the secret evening presentations given by brokers in Hosaina town [400km south of the capital, Addis Ababa],” he said. “I decided that night to sell everything, close my small shop and travel to South Africa.”
They travelled in a group of eight. “The broker told us the journey from Ethiopia to South Africa would be very easy,” he added. “[But] one died from hunger as we travelled four days without food, another was shot dead [allegedly] by police around the border between Kenya and Tanzania.”
The group was caught around Songwe River by Malawi police in August 2009 and taken to Dazleka refugee camp in Dowa, some 25km north of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe.
The camp is one of the biggest for refugees from Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. There were about 400 Ethiopians when IRIN visited in September 2009.
“It took me almost a year to reach Malawi,” Alemu told IRIN at Songwe. “The broker in Addis told us we would easily reach South Africa, [but] we were jailed in Tanzania for three months. Each of us had paid them US$1,200. We were duped.
“I cannot reach South Africa now. I have nothing… nothing! I want to go back home. We are treated as terrorists as we steal maize and sugar cane from Malawian farmers.”
“Creating havoc”
“We are worried about Ethiopians and Somali refugees here,” a local resident told IRIN. “They are engaged in theft and robbery. We want the government to stop them from stealing our property and creating havoc here.”
Internal Affairs and Public Security Minister Aaron Sangala told Malawi’s daily newspaper, The Nation, on 6 August 2009: “I have been told they [Ethiopians] go to people’s homes in gangs of 50 terrorizing Malawians. These, to us, are economic refugees who are using Malawi as a transit centre. We cannot tolerate that abuse of our hospitality.”
“Bringing them back cannot be the only solution,” Temesgen Zewde, an opposition parliamentarian in Ethiopia, said.
Another opposition leader, Wondimu Idsa, told parliament: “It is also for political reasons that many people, including MPs, journalists and doctors, are leaving Ethiopia.” The government denied the claims.
Teshome Tadese, special adviser to the president of Southern region, from which many immigrants hail, said: “There is no political problem at all in our region. Our region is very stable; it’s totally in search of better jobs and employment that these citizens are leaving the country.”
That view was echoed by the IOM head of mission in Ethiopia, Josiah Ogina. He urged Ethiopia to ratify and apply UN protocols to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
“We conducted research on youth who live in the Amhara region and are potential migrants to the Middle East and South Africa,” he told IRIN. “They told us that their main problem is unemployment not politics.”
