(GNA) – Africa Welfare and Care Foundation (AWCF), a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) that assist the needy in society, is organising a 10-day health and peace walk to raise funds for the victims of war and other unfortunate crisis in Africa.
The walk, which started from Tamale on Tuesday, would end in Accra under the theme: “Africa Millennium Health and Peace Walk.” It aimed at raising one million dollars in support of peace, good health, infrastructure and the provision of potable water for war victims.
The AWCF on Tuesday also embarked on a clean-up exercise in the Tamale West Hospital with a fundraising function at the Jubilee Park. Mr Richard Mosiah Ababba Allen, 41 year-old Master of Civil Law, told the media that he would walk from Tamale to Accra and then proceed to Ethiopia.
He said he had undertaken similar walks over the past 20 years soliciting for funds to support education and peace. Mr Mosiah dedicated his walk to President Kufour for his contribution to the Ghanaian economy nearly eight years in office and his role when he was the President of the African Union. He also dedicated his walk to Mr Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General.
Mr Mosiah called on Ghanaians not to dampen the adventurous spirit of the youth but rather encourage them to come up with innovative ideas that would contribute to the nation’s development. “It is time Ghanaians realized their wealth and excellence, which should go beyond the borders of Africa,” He said. Mr Mosiah said his walk would take him from Ghana through Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Sudan then to Ethiopia to present a White Flag to the AU President at the AU summit.
ROCHESTER, MN—“Why the hell are you messing with my country’s political affairs?” goes a typical e-mail from the dozens I’ve received this summer from readers living in Ethiopia, from immigrants living in Minnesota, and from throughout the Ethiopian diaspora.
And this was among the milder messages to ping my inbox.
To a degree I’ve never before experienced as a journalist, articles I’m publishing about human rights abuses in Ethiopia—based on interviews with Ethiopian immigrants living here in Minnesota—have triggered profusely grateful e-mails, and yet also a torrent of messages scorching me with bitter denunciations, extremely pungent abuse and amorphous threats.
“You are only spreading hate,” an Ethiopian reader snapped after reading an article about the Ethiopian army wiping out entire villages in the country’s Ogaden region. On Ethiopian web sites around the Internet, my articles are bashed as often as they’re lauded.
To admirers, my writings make me a “hero,” a “journalist of integrity” and “a voice for the voiceless.” But to others I’m a “very sad,” “naïve” and “mediocre” journalist who is “fed by propaganda” churned out by bitter Ethiopian refugees. To detractors my pieces are “nonsense,” “rubbish” and “eye-gouging lies.”
Sometimes, it’s scary to scan my inbox.
“I was shocked when I read your article,” one e-mailer wrote. “You will be held accountable for your lies.” And I’ve read Web site comments in which readers from various Ethiopian ethnic groups, responding to my articles, attack each other using language so violent that I won’t repeat it here.
How to respond to all this? On the one hand, I completely reject the notes that use language simply to slash, bash or stab another person as if with machetes, clubs and spears. These aren’t conversations, but armed assaults.
On the other hand, behind the frustrated tone in many of the notes, I discern eminently sensible and fair questions. These come from people who’ve grown cynical after decades of manipulation by their governments and by both the U.S. and Ethiopian media, and they deserve sincere answers.
Answers to questions such as: All right, why the hell do I mess with Ethiopia’s domestic affairs, anyway?
After all, I am not Ethiopian. I don’t speak any of Ethiopia’s six or seven major languages, or its several dozen smaller ones. I’m fascinated by the country’s complex history, politics and culture, but I’ve only travelled there once, in 2004, on a reporting trip, and stayed for less than a week.
Plus, as my aggrieved readers take pains to tell me, my own country is hardly a shining paragon when it comes to human rights.
So what gives me—a citizen of the nation that brought us the Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other atrocities—the slightest right to parade Ethiopia’s human rights crimes before the world?
To those who’ve written to me in the spirit of a mutually respectful conversation, as opposed to a broken-bottle brawl, I’ll try to explain.
All right, why the hell do I mess with Ethiopia’s domestic affairs, anyway?
Basically, I believe that writing about human rights in Ethiopia, even while I remain living in Minnesota, is potentially useful and journalistically defensible for three main reasons.
First, Minnesota and Ethiopia are intricately linked by our cultures, histories, economics and politics. I don’t accept that they are distant or unrelated in any significant way. For example, take the simple fact that for the past several decades, Ethiopians have been immigrating to Minnesota to escape persecution by their own government. What is that if not a profound relationship?
Some 20,000 Ethiopian immigrants now live in the state, which has one of the largest and most politically active Ethiopian diasporas in the world.
So my articles, in a sense, simply report on what I see and hear right here in my home state of Minnesota. I talk to Ethiopian immigrants about what they are hearing from their friends and loved ones back home. Honestly, I not only hear stories about human rights abuses in Ethiopia in these interviews, but I feel the deep trauma that has followed immigrants all the way to Minnesota, as they rebuild their lives.
As for accounts of Ethiopian government oppression that I gather, I try to verify them through multiple interviews, through global e-mails and telephone calls, Internet research, and so on.
At the national level, too, America and Ethiopia are profoundly linked. For example, many of the same emailers who lecture me to “mind my own country’s business,” also take pains to remind me, correctly, that America is a major foreign aid donor to Ethiopia—including military aid to help build, support and train an army that enforces violent policies against Ethiopian citizens. This implicates every American citizen, I would argue, very directly in Ethiopian government policies that increase suffering.
Our two countries are also closely connected economically. Many U.S. corporations—including Mobil, Starbucks, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Hilton Hotels, Eveready Batteries, and Ernst & Young—do business in Ethiopia. Ethiopian tourism benefits from American visitors, and the country’s main export, coffee, rests largely on sales to the gigantic U.S. coffee market.
I am a human rights journalist. By this I simply mean that I subscribe to the idea of human rights, that all human beings have the right to live free from abuse, cruelty and oppression.
With our two countries interdependent in so many ways, how could anyone sustain the argument for journalistic quarantine to my home state?
Second, I am a human rights journalist. By this I simply mean that I subscribe to the idea of human rights, that all human beings have the right to live free from abuse, cruelty and oppression. I try to create journalism that contributes to the support and expansion of global human rights.
I believe the development of human rights is one of the rare bright spots in recent human history. It offers precious evidence of mankind’s moral progress, against a great deal of evidence supporting the opposite view.
One way that journalists can help sustain human rights progress, I believe, is by morally engaging with people who live in countries at great distances from their own. Theoretically, this should be more possible than ever today, with so many new technological means to communicate across borders.
To a large degree, I view my journalism about Ethiopia as an effort to define, develop and refine the skills of global moral engagement.
But all that sounds very abstract.
The most important reason that I write stories about human rights abuses in Ethiopia isn’t about theories of interdependence or human rights.
As a journalist, I just feel it’s my job.
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Douglas McGill has reported for the New York Times and Bloomberg News—and now the Daily Planet. To reach Douglas McGill: [email protected]
ADDIS ABABA — Emami Biotech Ltd, a member of India’s Emami Group Company, which is engaged in various investment areas, on Friday, began covering 10, 000 hectares of land in Ethiopia with jatropha for production of bio-fuel.
The company in planning to cover a total of 40,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia with jatropha and castor bean with in the next three years. This will be converted into 100,000 tons of bio fuel every year after five years, Vinthal R. Karoshi the General Manager of Emami Biotech Ltd Ethiopian Branch, told Addis Admass, a local weekly Amharic language newspaper.
As a result after five years, the country will be able to save some 600 million USD every year that it used to spend for importing fuel or it at least gets that much hard currency from the export of Emami’s bio-fuel in addition to the taxes it collects from the company. The general manager also stated that in the coming years, the company plans to cover 15,000 hectares of land every year with jatropha and castor bean.
The company is currently producing 100,000 tons of bio-fuel from jatropha evry year in Kolkata, India. According to the Mr. Karoshi, the company will create tens of thousands of jobs since covering one hectare of land with jatropha requires 170 employees. Appreciating the Oromia Regional government authorities for providing the company the required land within less than one month, he expressed his hope that the country will soon liberate its citizens from poverty.
Emami Limited specializes in manufacturing health, beauty and personal care products with over 25 years experience.
The seed will be ready to be processed and converted into bio-fuel after three years and it gives the same amount of yield every year for 45 years afterwards.
The government has made available 24 million hectares of land for bio-fuel generating companies like Global energy one of the biggest bio-fuel producer in the world and 20 other foreign companies registered to invest in the sector. Out of this, six are already on the ground and are planting or completed planting jantropha and other non food item plants for generation of bio-fuel.
BAIDOA (Garowe Online) — Fierce fighting erupted in parts of southern Somalia on Tuesday, as Ethiopian Woyanne occupation forces traveling along a key road were ambushed different times by Islamist guerrillas, Radio Garowe reported.
The fighting was concentrated in Lower Shabelle region, with locals near the Baledogle airstrip reporting of “heavy bombardment” and “many casualties.”
At least 10 people – including civilian bystanders, Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers and insurgents – have been reported dead so far and many more wounded.
Ethiopian Woyanne troop reinforcements were dispatched from Baidoa and Afgoye towns, with emerging reports indicating that an Ethiopian Woyanne convoy was ambushed separately in Burhakaba district, in Bay region where Baidoa is located.
An Ethiopian Woyanne occupation army truck hit a landmine and exploded in Burhakaba, according to local sources.
The ambushed force was traveling on the road that links the capital Mogadishu to Baidoa, where the country’s federal parliament is based.
The Jewish Agency has left a skeleton infrastructure in Ethiopia, even though the mass immigration of Falashmura has been halted – which means it could start bringing in large groups again.
The cabinet is expected to meet and decide soon on the Falashmura immigration. Sources predict the cabinet will agree to allow in 1,400 additional immigrants, thus reaching the quota it originally set.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian immigrants continue trickling into Israel. Despite the reports in Tuesday’s newspapers, the 61 Falashmura who arrived Tuesday from Addis Ababa were not the last immigrants from Ethiopia, but merely the last large group to arrive in Israel under the 2003 cabinet resolution setting immigration criteria for the Falashmura.
The Falashmura are descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Falashmura advocacy organizations Tuesday accused senior Jewish Agency officials of being behind the headlines, in an effort to create facts on the ground before the cabinet makes a final decision. The Jewish Agency does not have an official position on the matter it implements government policy - but for some time now, agency leaders have not hid their belief that the Falashmura immigration must stop.
The misleading headlines may also stem from the anticipated report by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss; parties may be interested in establishing that the immigration has ended before the report is released, fearing it will boost the Falashmura supporters.
Tuesday, Lindenstrauss asked the agency and the government not to make any final decisions before the report is released.
The Jewish Agency rejected claims that it was trying to set the agenda: “There is nothing behind the Ethiopian immigrant organizations’ claim, and we regret such statements; the Jewish Agency brought over all the Ethiopian immigrants and it will continue to stand at the forefront in doing so,” a Jewish Agency spokeswoman said Tuesday.
“The Jewish Agency acts in accordance with resolutions of the Israeli cabinet and [the agency’s] Ethiopian representation will continue bringing to Israel everyone approved by the interior minister,” the spokeswoman said.
In addition to the Jewish Agency, most of the ministries that are involved finance, interior and immigrant absorption also object to continuing the Falashmura immigration. Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai, of Shas, is a notable exception.
However, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said another 1,400 Falashmura should be screened for eligibility in order to reach the quota of 17,188 Falashmura immigrants the cabinet set in 2003.
The agency’s emissary to Ethiopia, Uri Conforti, who directed the aliya program for the past four years, will return to Israel next week, thus ending his term. The agency will keep a skeleton staff of local employees in Ethiopia.
Next week, the agency will hold a high-level meeting on the future of its involvement with Ethiopian immigration. If the cabinet decides to bring over 1,400 more immigrants, the agency will have to dispatch a new emissary, and it will take at least a few months in order to post Interior Ministry officials to check potential immigrants’ eligibility.
Jewish organizations acting on behalf of the Falashmura say there are at least 8,700 Falashmura in Gondar, northern Ethiopia, who meet the criteria the cabinet set for immigration. They are convinced that once again, political pressure will reverse the decision to end the immigration. They are counting on support from Shas, which could
make the issue part of its future coalition negotiations, as well as Kadima chair candidate Shaul Mofaz, who is considered close to the Ethiopian immigrant community.
In the meantime, local activists are planning to hold a pro-immigration demonstration in Jerusalem on August 17.
NAIROBI — As fortunes in the coffee sub-sector continue to dwindle, an international charity organisation has moved to assist farmers.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has embarked on a multi-million shilling East African Coffee Initiative Project that will see thousands of farmers acquire modern skills aimed at increasing their production and income.
Select farmers from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia have been incorporated in the project which will among other things train them on modern coffee husbandry and link them with international coffee dealers who are going for specialty coffee.
Specific standards
Some dealers have been insisting on coffee that has met specific standards. Among the requirements is non-use of certain chemicals and production under supervision of recognised and specially trained officers.
Some coffee societies have signed up with dealers who supervise their operations and buy the parchment coffee directly, thereby enabling the producers earn more.
The Gates Foundation has contracted an international non-governmental organisation TechnoServe Coffee Initiative, to work with farmers so that they can meet the required international standards.
TechnoServe will provide technical assistance to the farmers and their respective societies’ management committees in agronomy and primary processing to improve coffee quality and yields.
A memorandum
Last week, TechnoServe Coffee Initiative Director, John Logan witnessed a signing of a memorandum of understanding between coffee farmers affiliated to Giakanja Coffee Co-operative Society in Tetu Division, Nyeri South District, and the NGO.
Mr Logan said the project plans on assisting at least 500,000 farmers in the next four years.
TechnoServe’s initiative aims at ensuring that coffee farmers benefit from the rapidly growing and stable specialty coffee market through training and market linkage.
“Our aim is to create a model co-operative society in Nyeri where farmers are able to sustain coffee production through improved incomes,” said Moses Ndiritu, the chairman of Giakanja society during the signing of the agreement.
At the end of the four-year project period, farmers affiliated to more than 100 societies across the country will have benefited from the programme.
Roll out
The project is mainly in Central and Eastern provinces and is expected to roll out in other regions later this year and early next year.
Giakanja, which is near Nyeri town, has been a beneficiary of other coffee quality projects, including the Hivos Project being implemented by Sustainable Management Services (SMS), a coffee management arm of the multinational Ecom Trading Company, who are offering agronomic support to farmers.
