ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – In the first visit of an Israeli minister to Ethiopia in five years, Regional Cooperation Minister Silvan Shalom blocked an anti-Israel decision from being passed at a the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which met Monday in Addis Ababa.
Shalom arrived in the Ethiopian capital as head of a Knesset delegation to the event, accompanied by MK Shlomo Mula (Kadima) and Cabinet Secretary Eyal Yinon.
He told Ynet that the delegation succeeded in blocking an Iran-led effort to add to the agenda at the last minute a discussion on Israel’s recent operation in Gaza.
According to Shalom, the objective of this discussion was to pass an anti-Israel statement and his meetings with the president of the IPU and other representatives put an end to the effort to change the agenda in this way.
However, the possibility of adding the issue to the agenda will be reassessed at the IPU’s next meeting, scheduled in six months in Geneva.
Shalom met Tuesday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, as well as with Ethiopian Foreign Minister. He told them that Israel’s government “seeks peace” and emphasized the importance of strengthening ties between Israel and Ethiopia.
“Israel sees an ally in Ethiopia, in the struggle against radical Islam and the Iranian threat,” he said.
Zenawi wished the new government well and said he was committed to improving ties between the two countries, saying that ending the conflict with the Arab world, it would be much easier to transfer the focus to the fight with extremists.
It was agreed at the meeting that Israel would transfer medical aid package of $100,000 to Ethiopia.
Following the meeting, Ethiopian representatives joined the delegation in a visit to Addis Ababa’s synagogue, where they met members of the local Jewish community. Shalom brought them matzot.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, Azeb Mesfin, and the whole Woyanne mafia will no doubt face similar justice, sooner or later.
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday for death squad killings and kidnappings during his 1990s struggle against Shining Path insurgents.
Outside court, pro- and anti-Fujimori activists fought with fists, sticks and rocks. About 50 people chanted “Fujimori killer!” while several hundred chanted “Fujimori innocent!” before riot police separated them.
The court convicted the 70-year-old former leader, who was widely credited for rescuing Peru from the brink of economic and political collapse, of “crimes against humanity” including two operations by the military hit squad that claimed 25 lives. None of the victims, the three-judge court found, were connected to any insurgency.
Presiding judge Cesar San Martin said there was no question Fujimori authorized the creation of the Colina unit, which the court said killed at least 50 people as the government battled Shining Path terror with a “parallel terror apparatus” of its own. He sentenced Fujimori to 25 years in prison, only five fewer than the maximum.
Victims’ family members nodded with satisfaction and shed tears in the courtroom as the verdict was read.
“For the first time, the memory of our relatives is dignified in a ruling that says none of the victims was linked to any terrorist group,” said Gisela Ortiz, whose brother was killed.
Fujimori, who proclaimed his innocence in a roar when the 15-month televised trial began, barely looked up, uttering only four words _ “I move to nullify” _ before turning, waving to his children, and walking out of the courtroom at the Lima police base where he has been held and tried since his 2007 extradition from Chile.
His supporters in the courtroom shook their heads in disgust and groaned in exasperation. Fujimori’s congresswoman daughter, Keiko, called the conviction foreordained and “full of hate and vengeance.” She said it would only strengthen her candidacy for the 2011 presidential race.
“Fujimorism will continue to advance. Today we’re first in the polls and will continue to be so,” she said outside the courtroom. She has vowed to pardon her father if elected.
But some political analysts think Keiko Fujimori, 33, is more likely weakened by the verdict and would become a one-issue candidate. Her party has, after all, just 13 seats in Peru’s 120-member congress.
“It’s one thing to capitalize on the romantic image of the daughter defending a presumably innocent father, another defending a sentenced criminal,” said Nelson Manrique, a Catholic University professor.
Human rights activists heralded the case as the first in which a democratically elected former president was extradited and tried in his home country for rights violations.
Although none of the trial’s 80 witnesses directly accused Fujimori of ordering killings, kidnappings or disappearances, the court said the former mathematics professor and son of Japanese immigrants bore responsibility by allowing the Colina group to be formed.
It said Fujimori’s disgraced intelligence chief and close confidant, Vladimiro Montesinos, was in direct control of the unit.
And it noted that Fujimori freed jailed Colina members with a blanket 1995 amnesty for soldiers while state security agencies engaged in a “very complete and extensive” cover-up of the group’s deeds.
The Colina group was formed in 1991. In its first raid, using silencer-equipped machine guns, the group killed 15 people at a barbecue, including an 8-year-old boy. The intended victims, it turned out, lived on a different floor. The following year, the group “disappeared” nine students and a leftist professor at La Cantuta University.
In both cases, the killers targeted alleged sympathizers of the Shining Path, which was killing Peruvians with nearly daily car bombings. The group was devastated by the September 1992 arrest of its charismatic leader, Abimael Guzman, but some 500 Shining Path remnants remain active in Peru’s jungle, financed by the cocaine trade. Fujimori also was convicted of two 1992 kidnappings: the 10-day abduction of opposition businessman Samuel Dyer and the one-day kidnapping of Gustavo Gorriti, a journalist who had criticized the president’s shuttering of the opposition-led Congress and courts.
In the trial, prosecutors presented declassified cables showing that U.S. diplomats including then-Ambassador Anthony Quainton repeatedly questioned Fujimori and his aides about reports of extrajudicial killings by his military.
“He never wanted to talk about it very much. He always, of course, said that human rights abuses were not tolerated by his government,” Quainton, now an American University professor, told The Associated Press by phone from Washington.
Fujimori has already been sentenced to six years in prison for abuse of power and faces two corruption trials, the first set to begin in May, on charges including bribing lawmakers and paying off a TV station.
His 10-year presidency ended in disgrace in 2000, when videotapes showed Montesinos, now serving a 20-year term for corruption and gunrunning, bribing lawmakers and businessmen. Fujimori fled to Japan, then attempted a return five years later via Chile.
“We understand Mr. Fujimori will appeal the ruling,” said a Japanese foreign ministry official who declined to be named in line with department policy.
“The Japanese government will watch legal procedures for Mr. Fujimori,” the official said.
Fujimori remains remarkably popular and his successors have maintained his market-friendly policies. Peru had Latin America’s strongest economic growth from 2002-2008, averaging 6.7 percent. A November poll found two-thirds of Peruvians approve of Fujimori’s rule.
In his final appeal Friday, Fujimori cast himself as a victim of political persecution, saying the charges against him reflect a double standard. Why, he asked, isn’t current President Alan Garcia also being prosecuted, since it was from Garcia, who also preceded him in office, that Fujimori inherited the messy conflict that would claim 70,000 lives.
Garcia denies responsibility for human rights abuses during his 1985-90 administration — and has the power to pardon Fujimori.
Human rights advocates called the verdict historic.
“What this verdict says is that these crimes did in fact happen and that Fujimori was in fact responsible for them, and that’s something Peruvians needed to hear,” said Maria McFarland, senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch, who was in the courtroom.
“For so many years, certain sectors in Peru have said that you have to look the other way and refused to acknowledge what happened.”
(Associated Press writers Carla Salazar and Andrew Whalen contributed to this report.)
(CNN) — Pirates off Somalia’s coast on Wednesday attacked a cargo ship with a crew of at least 20 U.S. nationals, according to the company that owns the vessel.
It is believed that the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama was subsequently hijacked, according to a statement from Maersk Line Ltd.
The vessel was en route to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was attacked about 500 kilometers (310 miles) off Somalia’s coast, the statement said.
U.S. government sources said the incident happened at about 7:30 a.m. local time. The nearest U.S. Navy warship was about 300 nautical miles away at the time of the hijacking, they said. On Tuesday, the U.S. Navy issued another notice warning mariners that the Somali piracy activity was extending hundreds of miles offshore.
The cargo ship is Danish-owned. No action has been taken so far, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain said.
“There is a task force present in the region to deter any type of piracy, but the challenge remains that the area is so big and it is hard to monitor all the time,” 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said.
The attacks, which took place south of the area patrolled by U.S. and coalition ships, shows pirates are changing their tactics and taking advantage of tens of thousands of square miles of open water where fewer military ships patrol, according to U.S. military officials.
“They [pirates] are going where we are not, they are looking for targets where there is limited coalition presence,” according to a U.S. military briefing document shown to CNN.
Coalition ships mainly patrol in the busy sea lanes of the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and northern Somalia as ships come out of and head toward the mouth of the Red Sea.
“Despite increased naval presence in the region, ships and aircraft are unlikely to be close enough to provide support to vessels under attack. The scope and magnitude of the problem cannot be understated,” according to a news release from the U.S. Navy.
Between January and February, only two pirate attacks were reported off the east coast of Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy attacks worldwide.
In March, attacks in the same area spiked to 15, according to the bureau, and the attacks have continued into April.
On Monday, pirates seized a British-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden. Also on Monday, a fishing trawler was hijacked and used to hijack other fishing vessels in the area, the bureau said.
Pirates typically use small boats with a limited range to attack ships just a few miles off the coastline.
The new warning says recent attacks have occurred hundreds of miles off the coast, suggesting that pirates are using more “mother ships” — a practice of using bigger boats with longer range to launch smaller pirate ships from farther out to sea, according to Pentagon officials.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Liaison Office also issued a warning to mariners April 1.
“Recent activity suggests that pirate activity off the east coast of Somalia has increased. Attacks have occurred more than 400 nautical miles offshore,” according to the warning.
The warning suggests ships traveling along the coast of Somalia and Kenya move to the east side of the Seychelles Islands and Madagascar, hundreds of miles east of those coastlines.
Pentagon officials say pirates are holding 15 ships off the Somali coast. And according to U.S. Navy statistics, pirates attacked four ships between Saturday and Monday.
The area involved — off the coast of Somalia and Kenya as well as the Gulf of Aden — equals more than 1.1 million square miles, roughly four times the size of Texas, or the size of the Mediterranean and Red Sea combined. The length of the Somali coastline is roughly the same length as the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States, according to U.S. Navy statistics.
“We continue to highlight the importance of preparation by the merchant mariners and the maritime industry in this message,” Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of the Combined Maritime Forces, said in a statement.
“International naval forces alone will not be able to solve the problem of piracy at sea. Piracy is a problem that starts ashore,” he said.
This year, the U.S. Navy started Combined Task Force 151, a multinational coalition that uses naval ships to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden region. Navy officials say about 12 to 15 coalition ships are patrolling in the Gulf of Aden and the off the coast of Somalia.
Negotiations targeting to reach a code sharing agreement is underway between the flag carrier Ethiopian Airlines and Europe’s emerging giant Turkish Airlines (THY), Capital has learnt.
Boosting its presence in Africa THY has split its route from Addis Ababa to Istanbul via the Sudanese capital Khartoum into two independent routes mid last year. The four times a week THY direct flights from and to Addis Ababa Istanbul were first upgraded to five times a week and has just become daily on regular schedules as of last Monday March 30. Ethiopian is not currently flying direct to Istanbul, Turkey’s business capital.
THY is aggressively promoting this 109th route as part of a bigger plan in an effort to make Istanbul Europe’s new hub for passengers fleeing to the continent.
Temel Kotil (PhD), President and CEO of THY had first hinted in November last year interest in partnering with Ethiopian.
If inked, the agreement will enable both carriers to jointly market and benefit from routes they will agree on. According to industry experts, most major airlines today have code sharing partnerships with other airlines and the arrangement is a key feature of the major airline alliances. Previously Ethiopian too had sealed such agreements. Signed a year ago, one is with the German Lufthansa Airlines to instigate a daily code share services between Addis Ababa and Frankfurt.
Another is with Brussels Airlines for the daily Brussels – Addis Ababa flights which is operated by Ethiopian. This agreement was signed by the two carriers in May last year. “Such partnerships and growing interest from Europe’s big carriers is due to Ethiopian’s decades of reputable operations in Africa particularly in West African profitable routes,” the expert explained to Capital.
Staying strong in the face of economic downturn that hard hit the aviation industry as well, Ethiopian recently announced a strong mid year profits and late last week it announced new flights to be commenced.
Effective from June 2, the flag carrier will have three weekly flights to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea’s capital. The three weekly flights will be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and will provide fast and easy connections between Malabo and most major cities in the Middle East and Asia including Dubai, Kuwait, Beirut, Bombay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Beijing.
Another three weekly flights to be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays with return flights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, is also announced to commence by June.
Claims by the Ethiopian regime’s Communication Minister, Bereket Simon, that the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) is “now in a state of crisis and very weak” can only be described as wishful thinking which is far from reality and bordering on fantasy.
The fact of the matter is that the ONLF’s operational capacity is now higher than at any point since the start of the organizations armed struggle. It is precisely because the Ethiopian Woyanne regime seeks to conceal from the international community the widespread support the people of Ogaden have for the ONLF and the exponential growth of the ONLF’s military strength that members of the international media are denied unfettered access to Ogaden.
The ONLF has defeated every major military campaign launched by the Woyanne regime in Ogaden over the last two years and is on the offensive in all operational theaters in the Ogaden. Defections of the regimes troops are on the rise and, in some areas, Woyanne troops are selling their weapons to ONLF military commanders.
The most recent claim by the regime’s communication minister is clearly designed to {www:instill} a false sense of confidence in oil exploration companies which the regime is trying to lure back to Ogaden.
The communication minister’s claim that “The situation in Ogaden now is improving by the day” is a gross misrepresentation of the true state of affairs in Ogaden and demonstrates the regimes continuing efforts to conceal the suffering it has inflicted on the people of Ogaden. It is also a response to growing international concern over the deliberate and systematic campaign of collective punishment, war crimes and {www:genocide} against the civilian population of Ogaden.
While the ONLF has left no stone unturned in a search for a just and peaceful settlement to the Ogaden conflict and still stands ready to enter into direct talks with Ethiopia’s Woyanne regime in the presence of a neutral third party mediator of international standing, the regime continues to choose a futile military solution in a bid to suppress the legitimate desire of the people of Ogaden to self-determination, development and democracy.
The fact of the matter is that there is no “round table” in Ethiopia, as the Minister claims, to discuss peace. The Woyanne regime is, by all measures, a dictatorship with no respect for human or civil rights. It is a regime engaged in a deliberate and {www:systematic} campaign of ethnic cleansing against ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden.
The ONLF will continue to engage this regime wherever and whenever it enters Ogaden. We will also further strengthen our cooperation and coordination with other oppressed nations and members of the political opposition who respect our peoples legitimate rights to self-determination.
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
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See AFP Report Below
—————————————- Ethiopia says Ogaden rebellion on last legs
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (AFP) — A rebellion by ethnic Somali’s in Ethiopia’s southeastern Ogaden region has been significantly weakened, the government claimed Tuesday, ruling out any negotiations.
Communication Minister Bereket Simon said Addis Ababa’s military {www:riposte} and a dual approach of undermining the Ogaden National Liberation Front by boosting development initiatives and offering a rival political platform were paying off.
“Now that the development is on its way, the ONLF has lost too much ground. It is now in a state of crisis and very weak, very divided with many splinter groups,” he told a press conference.
“The situation in Ogaden now is improving by the day. That is the government assessment: that the ONLF will find itself in a difficult position,” Bereket said.
[Bereket also says his regime was victorious in Somalia and Ethiopia has a 12% economic growth.]
He said the rebels, whom Ethiopia Woyanne alleges are supported by arch-foe Eritrea, were also buckling under the pressure of the military offensive launched in the aftermath of a deadly attack against a Chinese-run oil venture in the Ogaden.
“The last two years’ experience demonstrates that the ONLF has not been successful in military operations. On the contrary, the counter-insurgency operations by the government have been effective,” Bereket said.
Bereket added that the government had no intention to negotiating with the rebels, who have been fighting since 1984 and claim their oil-rich territory is systematically marginalised by the Christian-dominated regime.
“We have given them a chance to come to the round table and they have refused so far and preferred the military option. So now the government is not in a position to invite them to the round table,” he said.
“Whenever there is a possibility to get ONLF fighters, we’ll get them, as we have done with success in the past.”
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia’s dictatorial regime said Tuesday it did not intend to nationalize the coffee sector after revoking licenses of six exporters for hoarding the beans.
Communications Minister Bereket Simon said the government will now market the product after the move last month which saw the closure of the exporters’ warehouses.
“There is no intent to nationalize this sector. No programme of nationalization,” Bereket told a press conference, insisting the state would act a market regulator.
“The marketing is now done by the government… and whatever money is received will be given back to the owners of the coffee,” he added.
Coffee accounts for more than 60 percent of the Horn of Africa nation’s export revenues and provides income for more than five million Ethiopians.
“An unregulated market can bring chaos. The government is in a position to identify the proper size of its intervention (and) will not intervene in the disadvantage of the market,” Bereket said.
Prime Minister Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi had warned the exporters against hoarding coffee, accusing them of speculation in the world markets.
In 2007-2008, the country exported 171,000 tonnes of arabica coffee, almost 15 percent of the world production, and earned more than 500 million dollars (380 million euros).
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – In the first visit of an Israeli minister to Ethiopia in five years, Regional Cooperation Minister Silvan Shalom blocked an anti-Israel decision from being passed at a the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which met Monday in Addis Ababa.
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday for death squad killings and kidnappings during his 1990s struggle against Shining Path insurgents.
Negotiations targeting to reach a code sharing agreement is underway between the flag carrier Ethiopian Airlines and Europe’s emerging giant Turkish Airlines (THY), Capital has learnt.