ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia’s [puppet] president announced Monday that a document providing a legal framework for the fight against terrorism would be submitted to parliament.
“At a time when terrorism threatens countries across the world, there is a need for sustaining security and protecting citizens,” President Girma Woldegiorgis said at the opening of the new parliamentary session.
“It is of the utmost importance that a legal framework exist in the fight against terror. As such, a text will be introduced to parliament regarding the issue,” he added.
He gave no further details on the bill nor did he say when it would be tabled but added: “Our country has been a victim on many occasions.”
The Ethiopian regime generally describes as terrorist a secessionist insurgency in the Somali-ethnic Ogaden region, where fighting continues to claim many lives.
On September 28, four people were killed and 22 wounded in a bomb explosion in Jijiga, the capital of Ethiopia’s Somali province, which was attributed to an Islamist rebel group called Al-Itiihad Al-Islamiya.
Several other bomb attacks have been carried out in the capital Addis Ababa.
The Ethiopian army invaded neighbouring Somalia in late 2006 to rescue the embattled Western-backed transitional government there and oust the Islamic Courts Union which had taken control of the country.
Addis Ababa had justified its intervention as a means of countering the threat it said Islamist movement posed in Ethiopia.
In most states, the deadline to register for voting in the U.S. presidential election is next Monday, October 6.
In some states such as Virginia, where the race between Obama and McCain is tight, the estimated 10,000 Ethiopian-American voters have the potential to decide the very outcome of the election.
Please do not fail to register on or before Monday, October 6, and to vote on election day, Tuesday, November 4, 2008. Be part of history.
Registering to vote is simple. Simply click on this link and follow the instructions: Rock the Vote
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIIOPIA (APA) – Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship in Ethiopia has sacked the president of the Somali regional state, which is one of the country’s nine regional states bordering Somalia, APA learns here Sunday.
Abdulahi Hassen was fired by the regional governing party (Somali People’s Democratic Party) after it held an evaluation forum on regional good governance and development activities.
The sacking of the president comes on the heels of the recent explosion in the regional state capital of Jijiga where four people were killed while another ten sustained serious injuries.
According to Ethiopian state television, the regional president was fired from his post for failing to undertake what the people of the region needed in terms of good governance, development and fighting insurgents in the region.
President Hassen himself was injured in an explosion two years ago by insurgents, which the government claims to have been carried out by the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
Since the ONLF killed 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese oil workers last year April, the government has undertaken a crack down against the movement, which claims to be fighting for the secession of the Somali region of Ethiopia.
The Somali region, one of the nine regional states of Ethiopia, is inhabited mainly by ethnic Somalis, which is also bordering Somalia.
The regional president was on his post for the past four years, so far no one has been appointed to replace him.
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya – With a Russian frigate closing in and a half-dozen U.S. warships within shouting distance, the pirates holding a tanker off Somalia’s coast might appear to have no other choice than to wave the white flag.
ADVERTISEMENT
But that’s not how it works in Somalia, a failed state where a quarter of children die before they turn 5, where anybody with a gun controls the streets and where every public institution has crumbled.
The 11-day standoff aboard the Ukrainian MV Faina begs the question: How can a bunch of criminals from one of the poorest and most wretched countries on Earth face off with some of the world’s richest and well-armed superpowers?
“They have enough guns to fight for another 20 years,” Ted Dagne, a Somalia analyst in Washington, told The Associated Press. “And there is no way to win a battle when the other side is in a suicidal mind set.”
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized and better-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades. They have the support of their communities and rogue members of the government — some pirates even promise to put ransom money toward building roads and schools.
With most attacks ending with million-dollar payouts, piracy is considered the biggest economy in Somalia. Pirates rarely hurt their hostages, instead holding out for a huge payday.
The strategy works well: A report Thursday by a London-based think tank said pirates have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this year alone.
“If we are attacked we will defend ourselves until every last one of us dies,” Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the pirates aboard the Faina, said in an interview over satellite telephone from the ship, which is carrying 33 battle tanks, military weapons and 21 Ukrainian and Latvian and Russian hostages. One Russian has reportedly died, apparently of illness.
The pirates are demanding $20 million ransom, and say they will not lower the price.
“We only need money and if we are paid, then everything will be OK,” he said. “No one can tell us what to do.”
Ali’s bold words come even though his dozens of fighters are surrounded by U.S. warships and American helicopters buzz overhead. Moscow has sent a frigate, which should arrive within days.
Jennifer Cooke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said hostage-taking is the key to the pirates’ success against any military muscle looming from the U.S. and Russia.
“Once you have a crew at gunpoint, you can hold six U.S. naval warships at bay and they don’t have a whole lot of options except to wait it out,” Cooke said.
The pirates have specifically warned against the type of raids carried out twice this year by French commandos to recover hijacked vessels. The French used night vision goggles and helicopters in operations that killed or captured several pirates, who are now standing trial in Paris.
But the hostages are not the bandits’ only card to play.
Often dressed in military fatigues, pirates travel in open skiffs with outboard engines, working with larger mother ships that tow them far out to sea. They use satellite navigational and communications equipment and an intimate knowledge of local waters, clambering aboard commercial vessels with ladders and grappling hooks.
They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades — weaponry that is readily available throughout Somalia, where a bustling arms market operates in the center of the capital.
They also have the support of their communities and some members of local administrations, particularly in Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northeast Somalia that is a hotbed for piracy, officials and pirates have told the AP.
Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf, a deputy minister of ports in Puntland, acknowledged there were widespread signs that Puntland officials, lawmakers and government officials are “involved or benefiting from piracy” and said investigations were ongoing. He would not elaborate.
Piracy has transformed the region around the town of Eyl, near where many hijacked ships are anchored brought while pirates negotiate ransoms.
“Pirates buy new luxury cars and marry two, three, or even four women,” said Mohamed, an Eyl resident who refused to give his full name for fear of reprisals from the pirates.
“They build new homes — the demand for construction material is way up.”
He said most of the well-known pirates promise to build roads and schools in addition to homes for themselves. But for now, Mohamed says he has only seen inflation skyrocket as the money pours in.
“One cup of tea is about $1,” he said. Before the piracy skyrocketed, tea cost a few cents.
Piracy in Somalia is nothing new, as bandits have stalked the seas for years. But this year’s surge in attacks — nearly 30 so far — has prompted an unprecedented international response. The Faina has been the highest-profile attack because of its dangerous cargo. The U.S. fears the arms could end up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked militants in a country seen as a key battleground on terror.
The United States has been leading international patrols to combat piracy along Somalia’s unruly 1,880-mile coast, the longest in Africa and near key shipping routes. In June, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution that would allow countries to chase and arrest pirates after attacks increased this year.
But still, the attacks continue. Dagne, an analyst in Washington, said that unless the roots of the problem are solved — poverty, disease, violence — piracy will only flourish.
“You have a population that is frustrated, alienated, angry and hopeless,” Dagne said. “This generation of Somalis grew up surrounded by abject poverty and violence.”
– – – – – – – – – – –
Associated Press writers Salad Duhul and Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia, contributed to this report.
By JILLO KADIDA, Daily Nation
A group of Kenyans who were recently flown back into the country after being held in Ethiopia for several months as terrorist suspects now want to sue the state for kidnapping.
Through their lawyer Mbugua Mureithi, the eight have sent a petition to the Attorney-General notifying him that they intend to bring charges against police officers who escorted them and handed them over to foreign authorities with kidnapping and abuse of office. But before they can take the action they want the A-G to exercise his powers and instruct Police Commissioner Mohammed Ali to investigate the allegations of kidnapping and to charge police officers. In the event the AG fails to respond in the next seven days, they will have no option but go to court themselves and seek reprieve.
They want the A-G to admit liability for the violation of their fundamental rights and freedom on behalf of the police. The eight are Mr Salim Awadh Salim, Hassan Shaban Mwazume, Hussein Mohammed Sader Chirag, Said Hamisi Mohammed, Swaleh Ali Tunza, Kassim Musa Mwarusi, Ali Musa Mwarusi and Abdallah Khalfan Tondwe.
They complained about their arrest, detention and handing over to Somali and Ethiopian authorities saying it was malicious and in contravention of their rights.
Even before they were taken out of the country, the eight said, they were held in police custody for a period longer than 24 hours provided for in law.
Secondly, they said, they were held in Ethiopia and Somalia without trial in violation of their rights to personal liberty as guaranteed in the constitution.
The group also believes that their forceful removal from the country without their consent or even any lawful court order amounts to kidnapping and those behind it should be held responsible.
A person who is found guilty of kidnapping is liable to imprisonment for seven years, according to the law.
The eight who are all citizens of Kenya were arrested on diverse dates between January 7 and 11, 2007 at Kiunga in Lamu district.
Subsequently they were removed from the country and handed over to Somalia and Ethiopian authorities.
They were released last Saturday without being tried before any court of law both in Kenya and the foreign countries where they were detained.
