HURUTA, ETHIOPIA – IT’S just not the same Ethiopia. Despite the recent predictions that famine in the south of the country will see five million people face starvation in the coming months, despite the impact of rocketing world food prices and inflation here soaring, despite the pleas on its behalf to foreign countries not to cut aid to Africa in light of the global recession, it is not the same old Ethiopia.
Slowly, but increasingly, the begging bowl is being seen as part of the problem.
Dr Awole Mela, who works for an Irish-based self-help agency in the country, says that more than 20 years after Bob Geldof brought the plight of starving Ethiopians to the world stage, it is time the handouts ended, to be replaced by hand ups.
“This country cannot survive by continually going to Europe and asking for grain,” the Africa director of Self Help Africa maintained. “That has created for us a dependency culture and it is not what is needed.
“Bringing in ‘relief food’ cannot keep you more than three or four months, but for how long are we going to continue getting it from Europe when there is a drought? In Ethiopia you have to expect drought every time and any time. The most important thing is to teach people to produce a variety of their own crops, teach them how to deal with the droughts when they come. Give them the right type of support to get started and they won’t need any support from anybody in the future.”
That may sound somewhat Utopian to an Irish audience. Whenever we think of Ethiopia, by and large, our stomachs rumble. We see little black babies with distended bellies from a lack of food and fly-covered faces from a lack of energy to swat them away. We hum the song about snow in Africa this Christmas, and our hands very probably move towards our pockets, re-tracing a journey made countless times before.
In Ethiopia itself, we imagine a scorched, dead countryside, akin to the surface of the moon, and with just as little water.
But the reality this week in the Huruta region, about 165km (100 miles) south east of Addis Ababa, could hardly provide a starker contrast.
Lush green fields, abundant with the local staple crop “teff” — as well as wheat and maize, onions, tomatoes and cabbage, banana and papaya, coffee trees and sunflowers, cattle and goats — surround the remote area for miles, despite a relatively dry rainy season, which has just ended. Self Help Africa has been running one of its nine Ethiopian programmes here for a number of years, taking in an area of 100,000 acres and about 110,000 people. To the naked eye, it is a success. More so, to the ear.
Ato Shita Woldesadik, a 55-year-old father of 10, had spent more than 20 years farming his six acres in Kakarssa village, with little success because of the notoriously erratic rainfall.
Dependent on the government for food to keep his family from starving for an average of three or four months each year, he decided to change his farming methods in 2006, despite his advancing years.
Self Help, which only employs Ethiopian natives and has been active here since 1987, provided him with the knowledge of a number of agricultural technologies — including how to build a rudimentary holding sump for water, dug into the ground, lined with cement and covered with thatch to prevent evaporation — through “contact” farmers in the locality it had already helped.
It also gave him access to, and knowledge about, seeds for various drought-resistant crops and crops that produce early. “With the surplus wheat and teff I produced, I was able to send some of my children to Arabian country to work,” Ato Shita told the Irish Independent through an interpreter. “And with the money they sent back I am able to send my seven youngest children to school.”
He calculates that he made approximately €1,750 extra last year, which is a heady sum in a country where huge numbers of casual construction workers on the sites in Addis Ababa take home less than €1 per day.
His success has been imitated by many others, with some of his neighbours telling how they can now pay up to €4,000 to build “modern” houses, with corrugated iron roofs.
In a country where up to 80pc of the people are reliant on agriculture for their livelihood, the figures are noteworthy. But they should also be noteworthy a little closer to home.
Last year, the Irish Government — through the taxpayer — gave €35m in aid to Ethiopia, with millions pumped into the country through non-government organisations like Goal and Self Help.
The notable aspect of the Self Help programme, however, is that the beneficiaries get nothing for free. The seeds for the new varieties of crops, for example, have to be paid for — 25pc up front with the remainder paid at the end of the help programme.
The farmers are given advice and encouragement to set up saving and credit cooperatives. There is an emphasis on social services and on health, especially HIV/AIDS prevention in a country where over five million are estimated to have the disease. After five years, any input from Self Help ends.
“These projects give people their dignity,” Mr Awole said. “They want to work, and they want to be a success, and they want their family and neighbours to work and be a success.”
Self Help, which, after its recent amalgamation with UK agency Harvest Help, now operates in nine countries across the continent, believes that Ethiopia can become an example to others of how it is possible to turn things around.
And Ireland may yet have more of a role in helping Ethiopia than the obvious markers of Sir Bob and donations for the starving.
“We’re unique in terms of where we are from because of our relatively recent famine and the conflict in the North,” group CEO Ray Jordan said. “We have effectively gone the full circle to end up as one of the most-developed and successful countries in the world.
“It was the Irish people themselves that turned around the country. Okay, we got assistance from the European Union, foreign direct investment and so on, but it was the people who worked their way from being incredibly poor to being well-educated and world beaters.
“It has to be exactly the same in the developing world. The local people know exactly what their daily struggles are, and who are we to come in from a top-down approach? We can support them though so that they can start taking the small steps needed for change.”
For more information, visit www.selfhelpafrica.com
Kenya will be the first destination for Tanzania’s natural gas exports. The Artumas Group Incorporation, a Mtwara-based gas exploring company, has been given the go ahead by the government to export to Kenya.
A source at the Ministry of Energy and Minerals told The EastAfrican that gas exports to Kenya will depend on whether they can satisfy local demand. The plant has a capacity for 300MW.
The company recently finalised plans to use compressed natural gas for motor vehicles and domestic purposes.
When contacted for comment by The EastAfrican, president and chief executive officer of Artumas Stephen W. Mason, said that he was not in a position to comment on the company’s gas export plans to Kenya.
The Norwegian-listed oil and gas firm discovered a gas deposit at Mnazi Bay in Mtwara Region, which has about two trillion cubic feet of proven gas deposit.
Early last year, the Tanzania government effectively licensed Artumas, which is involved in the exploration of gas to generate electricity to be supplied to Lindi and Mtwara, two of the country’s underdeveloped regions.
According to a statement from Artumas, the Tanzania government has given approval to the firm to finalise negotiations with the relevant parties for the export of compressed natural gas to off-take clients in Mombasa, Kenya.
It further said that the approval allows Artumas to move forward to conclude the relevant Project Agreements, including long term gas sales agreements with the off-take customers and transportation services agreements with the compressed natural gas shipper.
In the statement, Mr Mason said that conclusion of these commercial agreements would underpin the current planning activity in support of commencements of the drilling programme in the fourth quarter of 2008.
He said: “During the past year, Artumas has worked in close co-operation and collaboration with its working interest partner, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation and the government of Tanzania to determine the optimal use of the large gas resource base located in the Tanzania part of the Ruvuma Basin.
The commercialisation strategy involves balancing Tanzania domestic requirements with high-value export opportunities. The approval for export of compressed natural gas reflects the vision and foresight of the government of Tanzania and is further evidence of the confidence held by the government in the abilities of Artumas to execute on its recommendations.”
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s president will travel to Ghana in October, officials said on Tuesday, even though a ruling on an international arrest warrant for Darfur war crimes is pending.
The Ghana trip, if it goes ahead, will be President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s first visit to a country that ratified the treaty setting up the International Criminal Court since its chief prosecutor moved to indict him.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor asked judges to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir in July, accusing him of genocide and other crimes in the remote western region.
Ghana, as a “state party” of the ICC, would have to arrest the president if the judges issued the warrant during his visit, court officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Sudanese presidential spokesman Mahjoub Fadul told Reuters Bashir would face no real risk of arrest when he attends the 6th Summit conference of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group in Accra from Oct. 1-3.
“His Excellency will be there in Accra. But there is no risk,” he said.
“The judges have not made a decision about the warrant and we are now in negotiations with the African Union over the issue,” he added referring to ongoing efforts by the African Union and other bodies to defer the court’s action.
The global court’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo this month said he thought it was unlikely the judges would reach a decision by October.
But the three judges have not given any indication about when they might make the ruling and commentators have said it could come any time between September and the end of the year.
LOBBYING
A top level delegation led by Sudan’s vice president Ali Osman Mohamed Taha travelled to New York this week to build up support and lobby for members of the U.N. Security Council to defer the court action.
The African Union, Arab League and other alliances have already urged the Security Council to use its powers under Article 16 of the ICC statute to freeze any proceedings against Bashir to avoid shattering the fragile peace process in Darfur.
A spokeswoman for the ICC confirmed that Ghana was listed as a “state party” of the global court.
“Because we don’t have a police force of our own, we rely on state parties,” she said.
More than five years of fighting in Darfur has killed 200,000 and driven more than 2.5 million from their homes, say international experts. Khartoum puts the death count at 10,000. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
The authorities have located a group of kidnappers and the 19 hostages they seized in Egypt on Friday, but no rescue attempt that could endanger the hostages is planned, a Sudanese official said Tuesday.
The official, Ali Youssef Ahmed of the Foreign Ministry, said the group was about 15 miles inside Sudanese territory, near Jebel Uweinat, a mountain near Sudan’s borders with Egypt and Libya. The hostages — five Italians, five Germans, a Romanian and eight Egyptians — were taken in a remote desert area of Egypt. The kidnappers demanded $8.8 million. Sudanese forces surrounded the area and an Egyptian team was negotiating with the kidnappers, Mr. Ahmed said, according to Sudan’s state news agency, SUNA.
————————- Conflicting statements on identities of tourists hijackers in Sudan
CAIRO (ST) – The Sudanese and Egyptian government exchanged conflicting information today on the identity of people who kidnapped 11 Europeans tourists near the borders.
New tourists arrive at a resort in Dakhla oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert, some 850 km (528 miles) southwest of Cairo, September 23, 2008 (Reuters)
Ali Youssef head of protocol division at the Sudanese Foreign ministry told Sudan official News Agency (SUNA) that “all the kidnappers are Egyptians”.
However the daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoting unidentified Egyptian officials said that the kidnappers consist of 3 Sudanese and a Chadian national.
The Sudanese official confirmed earlier reports that the kidnappers have been surrounded but emphasized that there is no intention of engaging with them “to preserve the lives of the hostages”.
The tourists were taken at gunpoint last Friday while they were camping near the Sudanese border, Egyptian officials said.
five Italians, five Germans, a Romanian and eight Egyptians were among those kidnapped.
The Egyptian state news agency (MENA) said that the kidnappers are demanding $15 million to release the tourists. The top tourism official in Egypt Zuhair Jarana said that the captives “are in good health”.
One of the relatives of the drivers who were with the tourists said that it is likely that they have strayed 20 kilometers inside Sudanese borders.
Another tour guide by the name of Imam Fawzi revealed that Chadian highwaymen have recently become active in the area.
“I used to hear there were Chadians moving every now & then with arms. I didn’t believe that until I witnessed hijacking of two SUV’s last year at the hands of armed Chadians” he told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
NEW YORK (ST)) – The French government appeared to be taking a softer stance on the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Darfur after president Nicolas Sarkozy dropped the demand for extraditing two Sudanese suspects to the Hague.
France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy addresses the 63rd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York September 23, 2008 (Reuters)
France had previously stressed that Sudan must turn over Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb who are wanted by the ICC in connection with Darfur war crimes.
Then later the French Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters that Sudan may try Haroun and Kushayb internally with the consent of the ICC.
But Sarkozy speaking to reporters today at the UN headquarters in New York further watered down France’s demands with regards to the two suspects.
“We want those accused of genocide not to stay as ministers in a government in Sudan” Sarkozy said referring to Haroun.
Paris has been making conflicting statements over the last few weeks on their position with regards to invoking Article 16 of the Rome Statute which the UN Security Council (UNSC) to defer ICC investigations.
In mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.
The ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. It was only last week that judges have started reviewing the case in a process that could possibly drag on to next year.
Sudan and a number of regional organizations including the African Union (AU), Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned Ocampo’s request and called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution deferring Al-Bashir’s indictment.
But the UNSC has been divided on the issue particularly the Western countries on the council hesitant to support such a move.
The French president today made it clear that his country will not support a deferral resolution unless certain conditions are met.
“France wants the Sudanese authorities to radically change their policies. It is now up to Mr. Al-Bashir to determine what exactly he wants” Sarkozy said.
“We want to deploy the international force in Darfur to stop the scandalous situation in which tens of thousands are dying in this part of Africa. We want peace in Sudan as well as peace and the territorial integrity of Chad… people in Darfur have the right to live and we cannot accept the situation as it is currently” he added.
Sarkozy warned Sudan that France wants to see concrete steps taken before it would support a suspension of ICC move.
“There would be no recourse to invoking Article 16 unless there is radical and immediate change in Sudanese policies” he said.
“If Sudanese authorities do change; totally change their policies then France would not be opposed to using Article 16” the French president added.
But Amnesty International lambasted efforts at the UNSC to block ICC charges against Al-Bashir.
“If attempts to block the ICC’s investigation of President Bashir succeed, it would set a dangerous precedent for others to try to undermine international law. It would send a message that the international community is not serious about ending impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes” said Amnesty International Executive Director Larry Cox.
Last week the French-Libyan born counsel Dr. Hadi Shalluf called Paris’s position as a “blatant interference in the judicial process”.
Shalluf, who is also a member of Sarkozy’s ruling party, said that “This is a serious violation of the European Union (EU) laws for a government to try and influence a court of law”.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UNSC triggered the provisions under the Statute that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.
——————-
Paris May Support a Freeze of ICC Indictment of Sudan President Bashir
A possible International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir took another turn after French President Nicholas Sarkozy reportedly said Paris might support freezing the indictment. President Sarkozy reportedly told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday (Tuesday) that his country would support freezing the possible ICC indictment if Khartoum radically changes its policies over the troubled Darfur region. This comes after the ICC chief prosecutor Louis Moreno Ocampo seeks support from the United Nations and the African Union to put Sudan’s President on trial for war crimes.
There is, however, a growing debate at the United Nations over whether the Security Council should defer the Sudan probe. Fouead Hikmat is the project director for the Horn of Africa of the International Crisis group. He tells reporter Peter Clottey from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum that it was about time that Sudan’s government changes its approach on the Darfur crisis.
“I think starting with a working assumption here in response to what President Sarkozy said today, I think the assumption is that the government of Sudan and in particular the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) that it needs radical change by first of all to agree to engage with the International Criminal Court, which is very, very important, otherwise if they do refuse to engage the International Criminal Court then there is no foundation for a radical change as far as the policies regarding the settlement in Darfur,” Hikmat noted.
He said Paris’ announcement should be a catalyst for the ruling party to change its stance on the Darfur crisis.
“I could understand that if we unpack the question of President Sarkozy, it means that first of all the NCP should accept and engage the International Criminal Court, that is to respond legally to it and in other words to try to create the conditions for a sustainable settlement of the conflict of Darfur, which then creates an argument to invoke article 16,” he said.
Article 16 of the International Criminal Court’s statute permits the United Nations Security Council to freeze ICC indictments for up to one year.
Hikmat said the Darfur crisis and its ensuing controversy about a possible indictment of Sudan’s President Bashir is a complicated issue to deal with.
“I don’t think it is a very straight forward issue like that because the issues are complex. And I always do believe that when problems are complex you can’t solve them by simple solutions. By definition, I think the solutions have to be complex so that they can address the multiple layers and the multiple factors make that problem,” Hikmat pointed out.
He said there was a need for enthusiasm and confidence building measures among all the stakeholders in the Darfur crisis.
“At the moment if the two parties are to negotiate and find a settlement to the problem of Darfur, this means that there has to be genuine willingness from the government and the rebel groups to sit round the table and to start to negotiate. Now, what constitutes that willingness because I don’t think the situation now in Sudan is about the simple willingness just to express your willingness to say that I would like to sit with others and I’m willing to. Unfortunately, the deep mistrust that is there among all the parties… that would first have to be operationalized through positive mechanisms,” he said.
Hikmat said if Khartoum is able to avoid possible ICC indictment it would bode well for the entire Horn of African region.
“I wish the government would be able to succeed in doing so because that would avert serious consequences to Sudan and also to the region because the issue at hand is stability within Sudan and also the regional stability,” Hikmat noted.
ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) — The African Union (AU) and a Chinese firm signed a contract agreement on Wednesday for the construction of the AU Conference Center.
The signing ceremony at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa took place in the presence of some AU officials and a thirteen-man Chinese delegation, led by Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia Gu Xiaojie, who came to witness the event.
The Chinese firm, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, in July won a bid to build the Chinese government-aided AU Conference Center.
The conference center comprises a 99.9-meter-high office building and a 30-meter-high conference hall with a vault totally covering 11.3 hectares.
At a signing ceremony, Erastus Mwencha, deputy chairperson of the AU Commission, said the signing ceremony of the construction of the new AU Conference Center is an exciting moment and a time to reflect on the existing friendship between China and the AU.
“It is a significant step to realize the project,” said Mwencha, while thanking the Chinese government for their commitment to ensuring the effective implementation of the project.
He further expressed, on behalf of Chairperson of the AU Commission Jean Ping, the satisfaction and commitment of the AU to work hand in hand with the Chinese delegation in facilitating and ensuring the realization of the project within the three-year deadline.
Meanwhile, Mwencha announced that a high-level Chinese delegation will arrive at the AU headquarters on Nov. 7 for the actual groundbreaking ceremony of the construction of the conference center.
