Interview with Abaynesh Asrat as episode 19 of the monthly podcast LIFE Voices. She was born in Ethiopia to a family that stressed four kinds of well-being: physical, emotional, spiritual and the well-being of one’s community. She brought these values with her when she left home to come to the United States for high school. The values nurtured by her family have never left her, and today inform the community work that has become the center of her life. In 2004, Abaynesh founded Nation-to-Nation Networking, Ltd (NNN), a non-profit organization that provides health, education and economic development programs for adolescent girls and their families in rural Ethiopia. I had to chance to interview Abaynesh in New York, where she revealed me her passion for Ethiopia and her relationship with spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy who met and lifted her in 2006. (Source: Vimeo)
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MBABANE, SWAZILAND (AFP) – Police have arrested a Swaziland opposition leader as part of a crackdown under the country’s anti-terrorism laws, his family said on Sunday.
People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) leader Mario Masuku was arrested on Saturday and was being held in eastern Swaziland 180km from the capital, his son Mzwandile told AFP.
Police raided their home just outside Mbabane on the pretext that their father was a {www:terrorist}, he said.
“My father is expected to appear in court on Monday morning,” he said.
Swaziland is Africa’s last {www:monarchy}. Political organizations in Swaziland have been banned since 1973, and the king makes all key government appointments.
Held on terrorism charges
Police spokesperson Vusi Masuku confirmed the arrest of Masuku, but said he could not specify the charges.
However, Masuku’s family and lawyer were told that he was being held on terrorism charges.
Masuku, a vocal campaigner for multi-party democracy, was arrested in the mid-1980s for treason, a case he later won on appeal.
King Mswati III, who ascended the throne at age 18, has the power to appoint the prime minister, the legislature and the judiciary.
His country is one of Africa’s poorest, with one of the world’s highest HIV rates, and some have blamed the king’s state-sponsored extravagant lifestyle for draining Swaziland’s finances.
The banned Umbane People’s Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for several bomb blasts in the country in recent months.
ZIMBABWE, HARARE (IRIN) – President Robert Mugabe’s government is launching another wave of attacks against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a spokesman for the party told IRIN, as a much vaunted power-sharing deal appeared to be on the verge of {www:collapse}.
The September 15 deal, brokered by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, never really made it out of the starting blocks, as Mugabe maintained his stance that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was “a stooge of the West” and refused to concede any of Zimbabwe’s security ministries to MDC control.
The wrangling over the implementation of the power-sharing deal – specifically over the home affairs ministry, which controls the police – continued against an upsurge in political violence.
Zimbabwe’s Lawyers for Human Rights reported recently that in September, the month the deal was signed, there were 1 300 cases of political {www:violence} against MDC supporters, a 39 percent increase over August. The acts of political violence included the destruction of property, rape and killings.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told IRIN that Zanu-PF militias, in collaboration with state security operatives, were re-establishing torture camps and using them as bases from which to launch their attacks on MDC supporters.
“ZANU-PF is behaving like a party that has declared war on the people,” he said.
Torture camps were first set up in the wake of Mugabe’s defeat in the general election on March 29, when Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe and Zanu-PF lost control of Parliament for the first time since independence in 1980.
Tsvangirai withdrew from the presidential run-off because of the high level of political violence. Mugabe won the June 27 election in which he was the sole candidate.
Chamisa said, “On October 27, more than 30 MDC supporters were brutally attacked at Epworth, east of Harare, and several were hospitalised after sustaining serious injuries. Several torture camps have been set up throughout the country, where known or suspected MDC supporters are tortured by Zanu-PF militia,” he said.
Many rural districts are now under the {www:control} of army personnel, who are running local government and are responsible for food and seed distribution.
“On 30 October, state security agents in Mashonaland West Province raided the homes of the MDC leadership in Banket [about 100km northwest of Harare] and arrested nine MDC officials. The officials have not been brought before the courts,” Chamisa said.
He said that Zanu-PF militia was preventing MDC councillors from carrying out their duties throughout the country.
An officer in the Zimbabwe National Army, who spoke on condition he was not identified, told IRIN that since the March elections senior army officials had been deployed to rural districts, where they had virtually taken charge of all operations previously handled by local government officials.
“Many rural districts are under the control of colonels or lieutenant-colonels, who are running the local governments and are responsible for food and seed distribution, and there is no way soldiers can work together with MDC officials,” he said.
In October the commander of Zimbabwe’s defence forces, General Constantine Chiwenga was given the responsibility of identifying the beneficiaries of agricultural inputs, such as maize seed and fertiliser. There are allegations that the distribution of agricultural inputs now depends on loyalty to Zanu-PF.
In recent weeks Zimbabwe’s state-controlled media have cast Tsvangirai in the same mould as former Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, whose alliance with apartheid South Africa made him one of the most abhorred figures on the African continent. Tsvangirai has been referred to as Zimbabwe’s Laurent Nkunda, a rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Botswana, the region’s fiercest Mugabe critic, has been accused of providing training camps for MDC militias seeking to destabilise Zimbabwe. The Botswana government denies the allegations.
In a recent article on the opinion page of the state-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, assistant editor Caesar Zvayi stated: “The militias are supposed to embark on acts of banditry to force the state to respond militarily, after which the lionesses in Washington and London would rush to defend their cubs, claiming Zimbabwe threatens regional {www:peace} and security.
“From there, he (Tsvangirai) will claim the AU has failed and should refer the matter to the UN, where he hopes his handlers (Britain and the US) would call the shots to effect the illegal regime change they failed to achieve over the last eight years.”
Zvayi, who was deported from Botswana this year warned ominously: “Tsvangirai would do well to learn from the fate that befell Jonas Savimbi after he withdrew from the presidential run-off that pitted him against the incumbent president, José Eduardo dos Santos, in 1992.”
Savimbi was killed in 2002 during a skirmish with Angolan soldiers. “History, they say, repeats itself,” Zvayi said. “Morgan (Tsvangirai) should be wary of the curse of history.”
LAGOS (http://ethiopianreview.com/worldmedia/category/nigeria/) — Nigeria’s anti-drugs agency seized 30,000 kilogrammes of cannabis contained in 5,923 bags in southern Edo state, a senior official said Sunday.
“The seizures were made early this {www:week} in Auchi and Okada. The illicit drug was loaded in a truck and two buses before our men intercepted them,” the official from the NDLEA agency told AFP, requesting anonymity.
He did not {www:disclose} the value of the haul but industry sources it could run into several millions of dollars.
In June, the agency seized 80 tonnes of cannabis in its largest ever single haul, in the southwestern city of Ibadan.
BANGUI (AFP) — At least 13 soldiers were killed in an ambush by rebels at Kabo, near the Central African Republic‘s border with Chad, 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Bangui, their families told AFP Wednesday.
The defence ministry confirmed the attack in a statement without giving the number of victims or indicating whether any soldiers had survived.
According to the families, the soldiers were on their way back to Kabo on Tuesday after an {www:operation} near the Chad border when they were ambushed.
The troops did not have time to return fire, the families said they had been told by the military in the area.
The soldiers’ bodies had not arrived back in Bangui on Wednesday, where a large number of people were milling around in the hospital morgue.
In a communique, defence ministry spokesman General Guillaume Lapo said the military unit based in Kabo had been to Moyenne Sido on a routine mission.
On their way back, the soldiers were ambushed by rebels from the Democratic Front (FDPC) led by Abdoulaye Misaine in the village of Nobandja, around 18 kilometres (11 miles) from Moyenne Sido.
“Soldiers were killed and one vehicle was put out of action,” he added.
The country’s principal rebel group, the Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD), said its forces were not involved in the {www:attack}.
“They were not APRD men. We don’t know who did it,” APRD leader Jean-Jacques Demafouth told AFP.
“It’s serious but I don’t think that it will threaten the “‘inclusive political dialogue'” forum, due to be held in Bangui next month.
The forum, initially set for last June and repeatedly postponed, is due to bring together a wide range of groups including the government and rebels from December 5 to 22.
One of the world’s poorest nations, the Central African Republic is plagued by insecurity in its northern territories, where rebels and bandits have been battling government troops since President Francois Bozize’s {www:election} victory in 2005.
