ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – A consortium of Saudi businesses have invested $629 million in 85 different projects from agriculture to mining in Ethiopia, the investment authority said on Monday.
The Horn of Africa nation attracted $10 billion in local and foreign investment in 2007/08 in agriculture, flowers, textiles and tourism, according to the government.
“Of the total 85 projects, 65 have started production while the remaining 20 are in the implementation phase,” said Aklilu Woldemariam, spokesman for the Ethiopian Investment Authority.
Aklilu told Reuters that projects that have already begun in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, real estate, hotels, mining, health and education.
The projects are expected to employ 17,000 people, he said.
Government officials say Saudi Arabia buys Ethiopian agricultural commodities worth about $1 billion annually. Addis Ababa imports oil and other petroleum products from the Gulf state worth some $1.5 billion a year.
President Obama made a historic speech to Turkish lawmakers last week, but his message was global in scope and contained nuggets of his foreign policy yet to unfold. The first chords of Pax Obama (Obama’s offer of peace to the world) restore not only much needed sanity to U.S. foreign policy, but also erect new pillars that will support America’s future engagement with the rest of the world: Respect for American democratic values, respect for Muslims and the Islamic faith, respect for human rights and the rule of law, mutually shared respect among friends, and even respectful agreement to disagree with foes.
The speech was vintage Obama– sincere, uplifting, full of symbolism, hope and promise. It was particularly inspiring to defenders of freedom, democracy and human rights. The President charted the general course of U.S. foreign policy and framed the contemporary global challenges and humankind’s options in stark terms: “The choices that we make in the coming years will determine whether the future will be shaped by fear or by freedom; by poverty or by prosperity; by strife or by a just, secure and lasting peace.” The Turks, he said, have made the right choices because they have “pursued difficult political reforms” which have resulted in the “abolition of state-security courts and expanded the right to counsel, reformed the penal code, and strengthened laws that govern the freedom of the press and assembly.” He urged them to maintain their momentum: “For democracies cannot be static – they must move forward. Freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant civil society…. An enduring commitment to the rule of law is the only way to achieve the security that comes from justice for all people.”
The President Against “All Genocides” and For Human Rights
Obama could not have made his stand on human rights more clear. He said there is no justification for human rights violations. He declared it is un-American to engage in torture, denial of fundamental due process to those accused of crimes, or to engage in arbitrary actions that defy international law and human rights conventions. “Every challenge that we face is more easily met if we tend to our own democratic foundation. This work is never over. That is why, in the United States, we recently ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed, and prohibited – without exception or equivocation – any use of torture.” He openly acknowledged America’s own burdensome legacy of slavery and injustice: “The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods… And our country still struggles with the legacy of our past treatment of Native Americans [and slavery]”. Earlier in his campaign, he had promised to be a steadfast voice against genocide: “The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”
Obama’s vision — his dream — of the future is based on giving a higher priority to human need than slavishly promoting corporate greed: “We want to help more children get the education that they need to succeed. We want to promote health care in places where people are vulnerable. We want to expand the trade and investment that can bring prosperity for all people.” He said, “In the months ahead, I will present specific programs to advance these goals. Our focus will be on what we can do, in partnership with people across the Muslim world, to advance our common hopes, and our common dreams. And when people look back on this time, let it be said of America that we extended the hand of friendship.”
Clenched Fist of Dictatorship and the Open Hand of Friendship
Last Summer, we announced the imminent arrival of a new “sheriff” in town[1]. We offered the following admonition:
Petty Dictators: America Stands for the Ideals of Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights! When Barack talks about ‘where and what America stands for’, he is talking about the American ideals of democracy, freedom and human rights guiding American foreign policy in a world menaced by a motley crew of nasty tin-pot dictators, petty tyrants and bloodthirsty thugs.
It seems we read the tea leaves just right.
The days of “If you’re not with us, you’re our enemy; if you’re with us, even if you have blood on your hands, you’re our friend” are gone. Obama’s message is: “We will offer you a hand of friendship; but if you clench your fist to hide the blood that soaks your hands, you are not America’s friend.” Obama aims to put America front and center in leading a global human rights revolution. It promises to be a new day — a new era– for freedom, democracy and human rights throughout the world.
What is Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander!
Will a president who emphatically opposes torture, arbitrary denial of due process and reaches back in history to criticize the injustices inflicted on the slaves and Native Americans lend a hand of friendship to support torture, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ethiopia?
Will a president who zealously condemned genocide committed nearly a century ago in Armenia condone the genocide committed in Gambella, the Ogaden and Amhara regions in Ethiopia just a few years ago?
Will a president who shutdown Guantanamo and a network of CIA “security” prisons supply hard-earned American tax dollars to keep open the stinking dungeons (which the U.S. State Department in 2008 described as “harsh, life-threatening and overcrowded”) that warehouse hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in Ethiopia?
Will a president who benchmarks democratic progress in terms of the “abolition of state-security courts and expanded the right to counsel, reformation of the penal code, and strengthening laws that govern the freedom of the press and assembly” coddle outlaws who have managed to criminalize civic society institutions and NGO’s, and jail, persecute and exile journalists?
Will a president – a former civil rights lawyer and constitutional scholar – who declares his “enduring commitment to the rule of law” embrace a malignant dictatorship that uses “courts” and the “law” as weapons of persecution and oppression? We say, “HELL, NO!”
It all boils down to a simple proposition: What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If the rule of law and protection of human rights are good for America, Turkey and the rest of the world, we say they are good for Ethiopia too. If genocide, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, secret security courts and prisons are bad for America, Turkey and the rest of the world, we say they are bad for Ethiopia too. We ask for nothing more or less than what all civilized societies are entitled to have: A government that is freely elected by the people (and elections are not stolen) and governs by respecting the human rights and liberties of its citizens; a government that is accountable to the people for all of its official actions and omissions; a government free of corruption and jealously guards the public treasury from fraud, abuse and waste; a government that respects the sovereignty of its neighbors and refrains from naked aggression, displacement of the civilian population and commission of war crimes; a society that is founded on the rule of law where no man or woman has the right or opportunity to seize the law for political and/or private economic advantage; a society where courts serve the interests of justice and not the interests of crooked and corrupt official profiteers; a justice system that relentlessly pursues known and suspected human rights violators, war criminals and others who have committed crimes against humanity, and leaves no stones unturned to free innocent individuals, opposition leaders and dissidents who have been locked up for years because they oppose dictatorship.
Putting Out Fires With Flames
President Obama hearkened to an old Turkish proverb in his speech: “You cannot put out fire with flames.” Of course, the President knows only too well that you can put out the fire when you let “justice rush down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”. But when your house is on fire, you don’t need flames to put it out. You need firefighters. In Ethiopia we need strong firemen and firewomen to put out the wildfires of ethnic divisions, and now stoked-up and smoldering religious antagonisms. President Obama is right. These fires can not be put out with flames of anger, hatred, and revenge. But they can be put out by flames of justice that sear the consciences of good men and women; they can be doused by the righteous indignation of patriotic men and women who commit to the defense of their motherland against mercenary soldiers of fortune. To paraphrase the lyrics of Billy Joel: “We didn’t start the fire/ No we didn’t light it/ But we got to fight it.” That is exactly what we said two years ago[2]:
There are fire brigades rising up all over the Diaspora. Everyday we see courageous firefighters coming to the frontlines. They no longer want to be frightened spectators jabbering about what somebody else should do, could do or needs to do. They have decided to act, and you see them flying around carrying their droplets of water to put out the fire. These Diaspora firefighters do not fight fire with fire; no, they fight fire with water. Like water on fire, these firefighters spray hope and optimism over the despair and misery inflicted upon our brothers and sisters; they sweep the wreckage of repression and tyranny with the broom of democracy and human rights; they plant the seeds of freedom and liberty on a land charred and ravaged by political violence, corruption, savagery and lawlessness.
The dictators in Ethiopia know the GAME IS OVER! They are out of lies, out of cash, out of gas, out of ideas, out of hope, out of order, out of control, out of the shadows, out of luck and out of time! They are out of their freaking minds because they are OUT OF BUSINESS! A verse of advice:
Saddle up tin-pot dictators,
‘Tis time to ride out before the big roundup.
The new sheriff and posse are in town,
You better scram before sundown!
SANAA (Reuters) – Seven African migrants drowned and a further seven are missing and presumed dead after smugglers forced passengers off a boat in deep sea off Yemen, the U.N. refugee agency said.
Survivors told the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees that the boat, carrying 72 Somalis and Ethiopians, was far from the Yemeni coast when smugglers started to force them off, the agency said in a statement dated Saturday.
“I owe my life to my brother who helped me swim ashore,” one of the 58 survivors told UNHCR staff at a transit camp.
Last year 50,000 people, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, took rickety smugglers’ ships across the Gulf of Aden, which is on the sea route from Europe to the Middle East and Asia via the Suez Canal.
Most are thought to be seeking jobs in the Middle East, or fleeing political turmoil in Somalia or drought and food shortages in Ethiopia.
UNHCR said 350 boats and 17,936 people have arrived in Yemen this year after crossing the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa. To date, 116 people have been reported dead and 66 are missing at sea.
Survivors of the latest incident said their boat had left on Wednesday from near the Somali town of Bossasso.
A Yemeni partner of the refugee agency buried the 7 bodies which were washed ashore and gave survivors food and water on arrival before transporting them to Ahwar reception camp, where they would be registered.
(Reporting by Mohammed Sudam, writing by Sam Cage; editing by Thomas Atkins)
An Ethiopian man has pleaded guilty to the murder of 2007 alumnus Brian Adkins, a Foreign Service officer found dead in his Ethiopia home this February, according to Adkins’ family.
State Department officials told family members that a man named “Sammy” had admitted to beating Adkins to death with a baseball bat in the Ohio native’s African home. Sammy, a local man whose full name was not available, had met Adkins through mutual friends who frequently played video games at the house.
At a preliminary hearing on March 27, Sammy pleaded guilty to second degree murder and stealing Adkins’ possessions, said Dan Adkins, Brian’s father, in an interview. Dan Adkins added that prosecutors are seeking to convict the man of first degree murder, which could result in the death penalty.
Court proceedings are happening in the African country’s capital city, Addis Ababa, because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Ethiopia. State Department officials did not return requests for comment.
Family members wrote in an e-mail to Brian’s friends and acquaintances that Sammy stayed overnight at the house after he and Adkins played video games late into the night. The house was adjacent to a series of Foreign Service Officers’ homes, and the compound was watched over by a guard and surrounded by concrete walls and razor wire, Dan Adkins said.
Sammy and Adkins began arguing the next morning and Sammy later told investigators he was afraid that the loud noises would alert the guard. He said he tried to quiet Adkins using a baseball bat, which was usually kept by the door for protection, and repeatedly hit him in the head and face as Adkins fell to the ground. The cause of the argument is unknown.
“I really need some closure on what caused the argument,” Dan Adkins said.
A funeral director in Cleveland later told Dan Adkins that the body was so damaged it could not possibly be restored for an open-casket funeral.
Upon fleeing Adkins’ house, Sammy took some of the 25-year-old’s belongings, which included a cell phone, a laptop computer and a camera. He left his own cell phone at the house, which investigators used as their primary lead in the case. Sammy was later apprehended in a village six hours from Adkins’ home with the belongings.
“So, in all, our son was killed for a few lousy bucks for his belongings on the street of Addis Ababa,” the family’s e-mail said. “What a terrible waste of a man, son, brother and a true friend to many.”
The family learned about the details of the case after State Department officials visited them at their home in late February. They have also been communicating with the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Donald Yamamoto. The State Department told them they did not consider the murder to be connected with terrorism or political opposition to the Ethiopian government.
Adkins earned two degrees from GW – a bachelor’s degree from in 2005 and a master’s degree in 2007. While in Foggy Bottom he was active in the GW Knights of Columbus and the Newman Catholic Center.
On Friday, May 1, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to preside over a ceremony honoring Adkins and three other Foreign Service officers who have died on duty. The four officers’ names will be inscribed on a memorial plaque in the State Department’s main lobby at their building adjacent to campus.
Adkins was in his first year of duty in the country, performing consular work including helping Americans in distress and handling visas and passports. He was scheduled to travel to Rwanda for several weeks on the day of his death to work in the U.S. Embassy there, Dan Adkins said.
It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president — a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences.
Clinton’s efforts to land a small contingent of troops in Haiti were rebuffed, for the world to see, by a few hundred gun-toting Haitians. As the USS Harlan County retreated, so did the president’s reputation.
For President Obama, last week’s confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.
But the result — a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces — left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.
Throughout the past four days, White House officials played down Obama’s role in the hostage drama. Until yesterday, he made no public statements about the pirates.
In fact, aides said yesterday, Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue.
“The president’s focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain,” one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called “the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain.” On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an “additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions.”
A top military official, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet, explained that Obama issued a standing order that the military was to act if the captain’s life was in immediate danger.
“Our authorities came directly from the president,” he said. “And the number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain’s life was in immediate danger. And that is the situation in which our sailors acted.”
After the rescue ended, White House officials immediately offered expanded information about Obama’s role, though the president simply released a statement praising the troops and expressing pride in the captain’s bravery.
The operation pales in scope and complexity to the wars underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Obama’s adversaries are unlikely to be mollified by his performance in a four-day hostage drama.
Nonetheless, it may help to quell criticism leveled at Obama that he came to office as a Democratic antiwar candidate who could prove unwilling or unable to harness military might when necessary.
And as Obama’s Democratic predecessors can attest, a victory — no matter how small — is better than a failure.
Clinton’s decision to send the USS Harlan County to Haiti loaded with troops was seen as a half-measure taken by a president spooked by the earlier downing of a Black Hawk helicopter in Somalia.
After the Harlan’s failure to get ashore, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in a column that year that the incident “makes the administration look feckless and the country look weak.”
Thirteen years earlier, Democratic President Jimmy Carter authorized a military rescue of the 52 hostages being held by Iranians in Tehran. The 1980 attempt, called Operation Eagle Claw, ended when two helicopters crashed in the desert, killing eight servicemen.
The incident was a permanent blemish on Carter’s reputation.
Had yesterday’s rescue at sea gone badly, the political damage for Obama might have been severe. But aides said the outcome should be seen as a success.
“This is the latest indication that the national security team is working well together,” a senior White House official said last night. “These folks have spent a lot of time together, including with the president, in the first couple months, and they have a good working relationship. ”
Somali pirates vow revenge on US – Al Jazeera
A Somali pirate chief has vowed to target Americans in revenge for the death of three pirates killed during a US raid to free an American hostage held by the pirates.
Abdi Garad said on Monday that the US forces had shot and killed the men, even after they had agreed to free the hostage.
“The American liars have killed our friends after they agreed to free the hostage without ransom,” Garad was reported by the AFP news agency as saying.
“But I tell you that this matter will lead to retaliation and we will hunt down particularly American citizens travelling our waters.”
The news agency reported that Garad was speaking by phone from Eyl, a pirate base on Somalia’s eastern coast.
Sniper attack
Navy snipers on the USS Bainbridge shot and killed three of the four pirates holding hostage Richard Phillips, the captain of a ship the pirates had attacked.
The pirates had attacked the US-flagged container ship the Maersk Alabama and while the crew seized back the ship, the pirates kept hold of Phillips, the ship’s captain, on a lifeboat.
He reportedly jumped from the vessel in an attempt to escape, but was quickly re-captured.
The Bainbridge was one of two US navy warships sent to the scene to monitor the situation and rescue Phillips, a plan approved by Barack Obama, the US president.
The US navy said the snipers opened fire when Phillips’ life appeared to be in danger.
“They were pointing the AK-47s at the captain,” Vice Admiral William Gortney, head of the US naval central command, said in a Pentagon briefing from Bahrain.
“The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision and he had the authorities to make that decision and he had seconds to make that decision,” he said.
Hostage situation
Before the raid, the pirates, who demanded a $2m ransom for Phillips, warned the US government not to use force.
Meanwhile, the Maersk Alabama arrived in the Kenyan port of Mobassa on Saturday.
Abdulkadir Walayo, a Somali government spokesman, hailed the operation.
“I hope this operation will be a lesson for other pirates holding the hostages on the ships they hijacked,” he said.
The raid occurred only two days after French commandos stormed a yacht to rescue two French couples and a child being held by Somali pirates in a separate incident.
Hijackings are an ongoing problem in the busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.
At least a dozen ships have been seized in the Indian Ocean and more than 200 crew members are being held hostage.
How Captain Phillips was rescued – BBC
US Navy snipers made a split-second decision to shoot dead three Somali pirates holding a cargo ship captain hostage on a lifeboat, officials say.
US Navy spokesman Vice-Adm William Gortney said the pirates were shot because Capt Richard Phillips’ life appeared in “imminent danger”.
Snipers on a US warship towing the lifeboat fired after seeing a pirate pointing a gun at him, the navy said.
Capt Phillips was not hurt, and a fourth pirate surrendered.
The US Navy had had contact with the pirates as the stand-off continued, attaching a tow rope and taking one pirate on board for medical help.
Negotiations involving Somali elders had been going on throughout Sunday to secure the captain’s release, with the fourth pirate still on board the USS Bainbridge.
He was taken into military custody.
The lifeboat, which had no power, was attached on a tow line about 100 ft (27 metres) behind the warship after the pirates had accepted an offer to be moved out of rough seas.
One pirate was seen through a window pointing an AK-47 at the back of Capt Phillips, who was tied up.
The commander ordered the shooting, with snipers aiming at the pirates’ heads and shoulders when two of them appeared at the rear hatch, Vice Admiral Gortney said.
It was unclear how long the shooting lasted, with some reports saying it was several minutes, while the New York Times reported that three single shots were all that were needed.
Navy sailors then sailed to the lifeboat in a small inflatable craft and rescued Capt Philips.
He was unhurt despite being just a few metres away from his captors during the shooting.
He was then taken on board the Bainbridge, and later moved to the USS Boxer where he underwent a medical examination.
Tied up
Capt Phillips had been held hostage in the lifeboat since Wednesday, when pirates attacked his ship, the Maersk Alabama.
He had agreed to become a hostage so that his crew could go free, the crew said.
Vice-Adm Gortney said the pirates were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and small-calibre pistols.
US President Barack Obama had given clear orders to shoot if Capt Phillips’ life was in danger, he said.
WASHINGTON (Seattle) — U.S. coffee importers and roasters are worried that a new auction system in Ethiopia makes it almost impossible for them to buy coffee from the particular farmers whose beans they want.
The system, overseen by the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, mixes coffee beans from different growers before selling them for export.
That’s a big deal to specialty roasters who prefer beans from certain growers and processors, and sometimes have worked with them to improve quality.
During a visit to the Ethiopian exchange in February, one Seattle coffee importer became concerned about how the new system would work.
“We spent a whole day going through the phases of grief — anger, denial and acceptance — just trying to get our arms around what’s going on,” said Craig Holt, owner of Atlas Coffee Importers.
Last month, Ethiopia closed the warehouses of six of its largest exporters, accusing them of hoarding coffee and contributing to a shortage of foreign currency.
Bloomberg reported that the government plans to start exporting beans itself.
The changes haven’t affected Starbucks, a spokeswoman said. The company buys coffee through the exchange and from cooperative unions and estates, which are allowed to sell directly.
The U.S. imports 12 to 15 million pounds of Ethiopian coffee annually, less than 5 percent of that nation’s total coffee exports. Japan is the largest importer of Ethiopian coffee, taking about 66 million pounds a year, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
An Ethiopian man has pleaded guilty to the murder of 2007 alumnus Brian Adkins, a Foreign Service officer found dead in his Ethiopia home this February, according to Adkins’ family.
It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president — a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences.