They call it the green huger. Four-foot cornstalks sprout from rain-soaked earth, and wind billows fields of teff, the staple Ethiopian grain, goats and cattle are getting fat on lush grasses — but the children are still dying. – Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times, (August 5, 2008)
I have come across many references to the current widespread hunger in Ethiopia as a “green famine.” The term appears to be used to make a distinction between famine caused by the shortage of food due to drought and the kind of famine that occurs side by side with periods of good rains, harvest and grain production. But this is a misnomer that arises from either willful ignorance or a shallow understanding of the famine situation in Ethiopia and only plays into strengthening the narrative that famine in Ethiopia is a function of fluctuations in weather conditions. Some “experts” and members of the aid industry who want to put color on the Ethiopian famine have either limited or colored knowledge of the underlying causes of famine in Ethiopia. I hardly remember a case of famine in Ethiopia where there was no plenty of food at the same time, at least in some parts of the country, even under flawed land tenure policies. Both during the 1974 and 1984/85 epic famines that killed millions, many parts of the country were food surplus regions. In fact, some of the people affected by the famine situation were able to whether the disaster by mass migrating to some of these regions.
The so called green famine that is eating Ethiopia now in some of the greenest parts of the country is in many respects a clear exposure of the canard that famine in Ethiopia is caused by the failure of seasonal rains. Rain or no rain, the Ethiopia people have always teetered on the precipice as it relates to their food security. Professor Mesfin Woldemariam and others who studied famine in Ethiopia have shown that there are always famines of smaller regional scale at any one time in Ethiopia before the larger million killer famines worthy of global attention show up in about a ten year cycle. These small scale famines that often hit Awraja level regions and pockets of areas in the country take their toll every year and are not even covered by the media (local or international) and pass unnoticed by people outside of the area. In many places I know in Ethiopia these small famines are given local names. Some are actually used as references to time and history by the local people. I have, for example, heard people relate the birth and death of people to the time of such famines as “Dubalech” or “kifu qen” etc. Drought and rainfall fluctuation have always been immediate triggers of large scale mass death due to starvation but not the fundamental causes of it. People who tend to consider the occurrence of the current famine in green areas as a surprise and anomaly can now learn that they have been eluded all along into thinking that the Ethiopian famine is caused by the failure of the rains.
The most important danger of this narrative, that the Ethiopian famine has to do with the curse of nature of some color, is that it glosses over the underlying structural problems of famine in Ethiopia and the need for devising appropriate strategies to combat it. The strategy that follows this flawed narrative continues to be one of trying to weather the current famine while leaving the solution for the next ones to chances. Rulers in position of power and government policy makers are not asked to make hard choices and fundamental reforms that help eliminate famine once and for all. In extreme cases, as in the case of the ruling TPLF, you can even grow into taking foreign aid and assistance as an entitlement. In some instances as we saw this year in the Ogaden, relief agencies had to plead with the regime to be allowed to help dying citizens. The only merit of the current TPLF government in Addis Ababa as it relates to hunger and famine, if you can call it that, is that unlike its predecessors, it has refined beggary into an art form and has succeeded in averting some famines over the last several years by begging on time. I don’t know how many of you know that there are no less than four million Ethiopian peasants, about 6% of the population, that live on handouts perennially.
Most so called experts and members of the aid industry and donors including the lords of poverty, the World Bank and the IMF, know the problem well but seem unwilling to look into the politically driven socioeconomic structures in the country where the more potent factors of famine in Ethiopia are imbedded. Hence they resort to simplistic and superficial explanations and solutions. The whole shebang and silly debate between aid agencies and Meles Zenawi last month about the number of children under threat of malnutrition is a clear exhibitions of how they are dealing with the problem so superficially and how the argument over this serious tragedy is dragged down to the level of none sense.
The other lame excuse now forwarded for the widespread hunger in Ethiopia is the global rise in the price of food. Now this is another shallow excuse that Meles Zenawi and his accomplices dish out to cover a disaster of their own making. In the first place, Ethiopia’s agriculture is primarily subsistence to be so seriously affected by the demand elasticity in global markets or even be affected significantly by the price of oil. The excuse that Meles Zenawi gave in his rubber stamp parliament saying that the Ethiopian food problem is caused because some countries in Asia have started eating more is very disingenuous.
Ethiopia is a beautiful country endowed with every resource that God has given man so generously and is capable of feeding multiples of its current population size easily. It is a crime for any child to go hungry for a day let alone die of hunger in this country. It is disastrous governments and land tenure policies that lead to disastrous management of land and other resources for the primary objective of absolute political control of people that made famine synonymous with Ethiopia.
To open your eye to the nature of the problem, listen to this simple question by farmer Mohamed Kedir somewhere in Ethiopia to journalist Edmund Sanders of the Los Angeles Times: “But if the government can take my land at any time, what’s the point of trying so hard?” Read here. Now tell me Mohamed and millions of farmers like him are irrational and fool people who cannot feed their children or that their land is unproductive. Meles Zenawi knows that if Ethiopians own their own land and make decisions on their land the way they want, which definitely will be the most rational and economic decision than his government, he knows he cannot control them and his cadres cannot intimidate them into submission any time they so want.
The tyrants ruling Ethiopia have made a choice to better have a starving people than have a people that could possibly feel free and threaten their control. And it is a shame that the millions of us who know better are allowing this tragedy to continue. Any sane people would rebel against such a system and make an end to it than burry its children in mass every famine cycle and beg other hard working people to spare it as another one looms.
This tragedy is going to go on unless we address the underlying causes and make fundamental changes in the nature of governance and the way we do business in Ethiopia. The donors who pump money into the bottomless pockets of Meles Zenawi should also understand that we are not grateful as a people and tell them that they are a party to perpetuating our misery.
The promise by Meles Zenawi that his so called “developmentalist state” would feed us like pigs if we lose all our freedoms, stop asking questions and behave like cattle and accept his one party rule, is only as good as him trying to put lipstick on the pig. It will only worsen the problem. This is only a theoretical cover for absolute dictatorship and, I might add, not a new idea. It is hard to impossible to think Ethiopian farmers can produce enough to avert another hunger and famine as long as the government anoints itself as their baby sitter. This never worked anywhere in the world and it will never work in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is not going to be food self-sufficient unless it decreases the agrarian population in absolute number over time by moving the population to different economic and industrial sectors. This obviously cannot happen under current policies. The TPLF has nearly tied the farmers and their children to the land to an extent that land fragmentation has made holdings economically meaningless. Because of land scarcity people are farming marginal lands that should be left for forests and vegetation cover and endangering the land for more disaster. The ethnic bantustanization of the country has shut out free movement of people and resources from depressed areas to more productive areas. The government with its inflated army, its mass of spies and bureaucracy, is an entire army of locust destroying agriculture and starving children to death.
The truth of the matter is that the Ethiopian famine has no color. Where anybody wants to see a color on this famine, I see the face of Meles Zenawi and misguided policies and greed for power killing people like flies. I also see the shameless face of the do-nothing Ethiopian elite – which in my view is a disgrace to humanity.
– – – – – – – –
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
The catch-word for this epoch-making transition period should be: Preserving independence through Unity! The idea is to create a union within union – the union of the Horn of Africa in the Africa union.
Presidential hopeful Barak Obama, in his moving speech to Berliners last month, called, among others, for strong unity and solidarity of the world people across ethnic, religious and cultural differences. He said the world people in unison should tear apart the walls that became barrier to unity. It sends a clear message to Africa where Barak Obama’s father came from, especially to the Horn of Africa, one of the current trouble spots in world politics. This is the main reason behind the writing of this article.
In another development, the EU under the current French chairmanship is bracing itself up to bring the Mediterranean countries within its fold, with the sole objective of expanding its economic territory. At this critical period of international relations when the battle against terrorism hasn’t yet subsided, nuclear proliferation unabated, and most of all, democracy is under assault or is being compromised in a number of third world countries, the recent move made by the EU leadership is a welcoming development.
The move not only helps to diffuse political and military tensions in the Middle East, the most volatile region in world politics, but also broadens the horizons of globalization. This kind of a move should also include Africa, the least developed continent which didn’t receive the necessary focus of attention of development by Western countries.
The late former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, in her marvelous book “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West,” underscored the importance of economic integration among rival and culturally differing states. She said, “We understand that the more interaction that takes place among peoples, states, companies, and universities in South Asia – and specifically Pakistan and India- the less likely it will be for these traditional enemies, now both nuclear-armed, to engage each other in potentially disastrous conflicts in the future. Just as democracy promotes peace, trade promotes peace.” It is an apt expression.
The African Union (AU) which replaced the Organization of African Unity some years ago has been modeled after the European Union. The AU which is the brain -child of the immortal son of Africa, Dr Kuwami Nkrumah, has a long way to go to implement its over all integration and unification plan. The continent is still mired in inter- and-intra-state conflicts and wars due to border conflicts, ideological differences, competition over scarce resources and the like.
In this article an effort is made to highlight some of the common factors that bind the peoples of the Horn of Africa together and underscore the necessity of establishing a unified sub-regional union sooner than later., in the coming few years if not decades.
I prepared this article a few days ago and kept it for a further contemplation. Incidentally I saw news under the heading “integrating the Nile Basin countries,” carried by the Uganda’s Vision newspaper and posted on Ethiopian Review, July 23, 2008.My ideas concurred with the academician from Addis Ababa University and made to send this article to Ethiopian Review.
Common Factors
1. Blood relationship.
The peoples of the Horn are interrelated by blood. Just to cite some examples, Somalis live in three neighboring countries, namely, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia. Likewise, various ethnic groups that live specially in the border areas of Ethiopia, Somalia Sudan, Eritrea and Kenya are interconnected with marriage, economic, social and cultural ties. The blood relationship can be nurtured well so much so as to enable the peoples of the Horn to realize their objective of unity.
2. Border trade. Border trade among the Horn of African countries can serve well for the unification process. The existing border trades are rife with contraband trade activities which are often the source of conflict among states and tribes. This state of affairs can be straightened up when the desired objective is met.
3. Ports. Eritrea has two ports, namely, Massawa and Assab.Ethiopia has been using these ports, specially the strategic Assab port until the 1998-2000 border war between the two countries. During and after the war, the government of Ethiopia has resorted to using mainly the port of Djibouti, and occasionally Port Sudan and the Somalian ports of Berbera and Hargessa (?), In terms of geographic proximity and economic advantages, Port Sudan, Hargessa and Berbera are not economical to Ethiopia. Hence, the need for resuming the Eritrean ports, specially the port of Assab, the nearest to the hinterland of Ethiopia, is a matter of urgent priority to be done by Eritrea and Ethiopia. Of course, this requires a prior task of cessation of hostilities and the disengagement of the huge military forces of the two countries deployed along Badme and other locations since 1998.
Because of the border war between the two countries, Eritrea and Ethiopia have suffered huge economic losses and missed a lot of social and cultural opportunities. It is also not difficult to assume that the impact of the war and its attendant factors have contributed to the prevailing poverty in the two countries, despite the denial of the necessity of food aid to Eritrea by its president.
In a similar vein, Kenya has the port of Mombassa which is a lifeline to both Kenya and Uganda. United Somalia has two ports, Hargesa and Berbera with great strategic location. Somalia’s ports can render great service to Ethiopia, specially to the Eastern regions of the country provided that peace prevails in the Ogaden region where currently war is raging between the military forces of the Ethiopian government and the militia of the separatist force, the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
4. Rivers. Ethiopia is the source of the Blue Nile which contributes 85% of the water to the Nile River which is formed at Khartoum. At Khartoum the Blue Nile joins the White Nile and continues its long march to the Nubian deserts and the Aswan dam in Egypt. Although Ethiopia is the source of the Blue Nile which contributes the major share of the water to the Nile River, it benefits little from the water resource. The main beneficiaries of the international river are Sudan and Egypt which harnessed it for hydroelectric and irrigation developments.
The Nile has always been a source of conflict between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt because of the controversy that arises due to the inequitable share of distribution of the water resource among them. Ethiopia has always been the underdog, for it has never been given due respect and equal status by past and present Sudanese and Egyptian leaders.
The late Egyptian President, Sadat in 1978, had even threatened to attack Ethiopia via the Sudan if the Nile is disrupted by Ethiopia. Ethiopia has never stopped complaining about the unfair treatment by the two countries, and the reciprocity from the side of the Sudanese and Egyptian presidents has never been pleasant.
Therefore, if the Sub-regional unification proposal materializes sooner than later then the tug-of-war between the three countries will find a lasting solution.
Ethiopia has often been described as the Water Tower of Africa, Other than the Nile; the country has many large rivers. The trans- national rivers, Genale and Wabisheble flow to Somalia, Dawa to Kenya, and Awash to Djibouti. Awash has been harnessed to a certain extent in the form of hydro electricity and irrigation. During Ziad Barres’ invasion of the Ogaden in 1977-78, Ethiopia has lost millions of Dollars due to the destruction caused by the fleeing soldiers of the expansionist dictator on an extensive agricultural plantation in the Wabishebelle area. There are also occasional border skirmishes along the common border between nomads who roam around in search of water and grazing lands for their cattle. Therefore, a sub- regional unified development can pave the way for integrated and fast-paced development for the poor peoples of the Horn who usually fight over scarce resources.
Ethiopia is also blessed by underground water resource but often experiences erratic rainfall which has always been the cause for cyclical famine like the current year where 4.5 ooo, ooo of our compatriots are in need of urgent food assistance. If there was peace in the region, such a disastrous calamity could have been averted.
The potential for irrigated agriculture in Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia are unfathomable, and the possible bumper crops that can be obtained from this can free the peoples of the Horn from recurrent famine and chronic hunger.
5. Intra-transportation. Ethiopia is linked to Djibouti by road, rail way and air. Sudan and Kenya are interconnected by highways. Ethiopia is interconnected with Eritrea by roads and air. Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia are connected by roads.
To sum up, it is difficult if not impossible, to enumerate all the factors that connect the people of the Horn of Africa in such a small article, and therefore, I would rather limit myself to the above mentioned common factors, and pass on to a role model-The East African Community-which can serve as a point of departure for the envisaged sub-regional unification plan.
I don’t have latest figures about the organization. The information I have about the economic community goes back to eight years back when I was back homeland. The member countries, namely, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were dividing their share of properties because of the conflict they developed over unequal benefit among the three countries. Uganda and Tanzania complained that Kenya which is relatively advanced than the two countries benefited most from the establishment. Such kind of a mistake shouldn’t be repeated by the newly proposed organization.
During the same period I mentioned above, there was a proposal made by the US government to establish “Greater Horn,” which comprises Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti. Egypt had shown great enthusiasm to join Greater Horn at the time, but many of the other countries were reluctant to accept Egypt for fear of lack of cohesive unity that may arise as a result of its membership.
To sum up, the Horn of Africa, described by some scholars as a cursed area because of ceaseless wars among neighboring countries, cyclical famine, tribal conflicts for scarce resources, needs an immediate attention by the highly developed Western Industrialized countries. Like the Middle East, the Horn of Africa is a trouble spot that can endanger regional and international peace or stability. Therefore, it needs a Marshal Plan as well as the importation of democracy to salvage the helpless millions of peoples in the sub-region by Western countries. In this regard, the financial package plan forwarded by Mr. Tony Blair to Marshal Africa as a whole also augurs well for the Horn of Africa. By giving priority to the development of this sub-region it is possible to rescue the rest of the continent form poverty and backwardness.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is reported as is by WIC, Woyanne’s own news web site. By proudly reporting about this latest land give away, Woyannes are saying to the people of Ethiopia, ‘go suck your thumb, we’ll do what we want with your land.’
(Walta Information Service) ADDIS ABABA — Saudi Arabia, which is making efforts to provide food security for its nationals, can look up to Ethiopia where huge tracts of unutilized agricultural land are available for growing cereals, according to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
A Saudi ministerial delegation, which visited Ethiopia to explore the prospects of investing in agriculture, is impressed by the country’s huge potential and as a follow up sending a team of experts to conduct specialized studies, said Zenawi who spoke in this exclusive interview with Arab News on a variety of economic issues ranging from rising oil prices and inflation to his country’s bilateral trade relations with Saudi Arabia.
Following are excerpts:
Saudi Arabia is engaged in providing food security. A Saudi ministerial delegation has visited your country in this connection. Could you throw light on this?
Saudi Arabia has evinced interest in investing in agriculture, particularly in production of cereals, and has been looking at various options. One of the countries they are looking at is Ethiopia, which has a lot of unutilized land, particularly in the lowland areas of the country where all sorts of agricultural products can be grown. The Saudi delegation studied the prospects of investing in agriculture in this country. We told them we would be very eager to provide hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land for investment, particularly for cereal production. There is a broad agreement and understanding and this will be followed by visits by Saudi experts to conduct specific studies for investment.
What are the existing Saudi investments in Ethiopia?
Most of the Saudi investments have been in manufacturing and hospitality sectors. This has been the focus so far, but we expect a sizeable increase in the Kingdom’s investment in agriculture as a result of its decision to invest in cereals.
What are the other potential areas available for Saudi investment?
The manufacturing sector is promising, especially textiles, leather, leather products and iron bars. In fact, all sectors of manufacturing are open. Investment in infrastructure is also something we are looking for. Real estate development and particularly the hospitality sector including hotels and tourist places, as well as agriculture and agro processing industries are among the other potential areas.
What is the existing level of trade and investment between the two countries?
Saudi Arabia is one of our top three trading partners. Our trade volume is $1 billion, although much of the trade balance is in favor of the Kingdom. The trade gap is about half a billion dollars. We mostly import oil and petroleum products and export coffee, meat and other agricultural products. About 240 Saudi companies have been given the investment license. These companies including those who are operational are expected to invest $2.5 billion. Saudi Arabia is our very important investment partner. Economically, we have solid and fast growing relations.
What has been the impact of rising oil prices?
The dramatic increase in oil prices has hit Ethiopia very hard. Our oil import bill over the past three years has increased by over a billion dollars. This amounts to 3 percent of our GDP. That has upset our balance of payment very significantly. It has created a huge pressure on our balance of payment and complicated the inflationary issue. We are trying to tackle this problem by increasing our exports so that we can pay for our increased import bill, and improving agricultural production so that we can dampen our food prices. We are importing some food from abroad to check the rising trend of our agricultural prices. We are importing wheat. We are no doubt growing wheat but due to an inflationary pressure we are bringing more wheat from abroad to flood the market so that the rising trend of prices in the country can be checked.
How high-level exchange of business visits has benefited your country?
We have had frequent exchanges by leaders at high levels. My assessment is that these high level visits have contributed a lot to the fast growing economic partnership and contributed a lot to the political understanding that we currently enjoy. I expect such exchanges to continue. We are expecting a high level ministerial delegation to visit us in October. I would expect a similar high-level visit from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Has Olympic and World 5000m champion Meseret Defar lost some of her spark? Is she no longer the golden girl of Ethiopian athletics?
Those and many other questions were continuously asked of the bubbly 24-year old’s performance this season after compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba sliced over three seconds off of her world 5000m mark in Oslo in June to stop the clock at 14:11.55. Such is the fickle nature of superstardom in athletics that her outstanding performances in 2007 were quickly forgotten. But to all doubts, Defar has one answer.
“Those who thought I had disappeared should watch my performance in Stockholm,” she says.
Comeback in Stockholm
In a performance that practically screamed “I am back” in the Swedish capital, Defar nearly rescued a World record attempt at the final kilometre to clock a personal best time of 14:12.86, just over one second off Dibaba’s mark.
“When I finished the race and saw the time, I was so disappointed,” she remarked. “I was very depressed and cried at the moment. It is very painful to miss a World record by just one second.”
Defar’s performance in Stockholm ensured that she would go to the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing as a favourite to defend her 5000m title and an important psychological edge over her rivals less than four weeks before the start of the athletics events.
“Of course, I would have loved to break the world record,” she says. “But it didn’t happen. I was on schedule early on, but my hopes were squashed in the ninth lap. I did 70 seconds. If I did 68 then, I could have had the record. Now thinking back, I am happy with improving my personal best and using the race to get ready for Beijing.”
Defar on 2008: ‘I just had two bad races’
Although reports of her lack of form had been hugely exaggerated, Defar admits that she has not had the best of seasons.
“At the start of the year, I was running well,” said Defar who opened the season with a World two-mile indoor best in Boston. “I was training well, but then before Valencia [World Indoor Championships], I had food poisoning problems. I missed a bit of training, but I felt I did well in Valencia.”
In Valencia, Defar won a record-equalling third world indoor 3000m title beating compatriot Meselech Melkamu and Moroccan Mariem Aloui Selsouli in the process.
Less than two months later, however, Defar suffered her first 5000m defeat since September 2006 when going down to Melkamu at the African Championships in Addis Ababa.
“I was not feeling well in the week before the race and had not training as well as I had hoped,” says Defar. “But the African Championships were very important for me because it is the first ever major championship on Ethiopian soil. I had to run in front of my people.”
On her comeback race, Defar failed to scale record-breaking heights in Eugene. “I was told that it was a record-breaking venue before I left Addis Ababa [her training base],” she says. “I had many problems in Eugene. The weather was not good and the race was held in the morning which was not something I was used to.”
“My focus this year was always going to Beijing,” she says when asked why she has raced less frequently in 2008. “To be honest, I just had two bad races this year in Addis Ababa and Eugene. It was not a bad year at all, but I am happy to go the Olympics in good form after illness earlier in the year.”
Defar on the Olympics: ‘It changed my life’
Happy with her pre-Beijing performance, Defar is now putting the final touches on her Olympic preparations in Addis Ababa with her teammates Dibaba, Melkamu, and Belaynesh. The 5000m squad, along with the rest of the Ethiopian athletics team, is camped at the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa and primarily do their track sessions at the Addis Ababa stadium, walking distance outside the hotel.
In response to expected conditions in the Chinese capital, Defar and team-mates have altered their training plans this year to include warm-weather sessions in Debrezeit, 45kms outside Addis Ababa.
But unlike many of other squad members, Defar knows the significance of an Olympic medal, not just as a sporting accomplishment, but as a life-changing event.
“Nothing I have achieved so far compares to my victory in Athens four years ago,” she says. “It has changed my career and my life. It has also inspired many girls from Addis Ababa to take up the sport.”
Four years ago, Defar was on the brink of elimination when she was named as a reserve in the 5000m squad, but she was given only a starting berth when Berhane Adere’s was dropped from the team for disciplinary reasons.
However, she will go to Beijing this year as the woman to beat. “It is as difficult to win it for the second time,” she says. “I know the world will be watching and everyone will be preparing to peak in these Games.”
Defar on Dibaba: ‘I don’t want to talk about others’
If archrival Dibaba can negotiate the 10000m without any problems, then she could face Defar in the 5000m in what will be their first match up since the World Athletics Final in September 2006.
With Defar (13 victories) ahead of Dibaba (9 victories) in the head-to-head record, many would put Defar as a slight favourite before their possible Beijing showdown. However, Defar refuses to comment on the possibilities.
“I do not want to speak about other athletes,” she says. “I only speak about myself and will only answer questions about myself.”
Even if she does not win gold in Beijing, Defar already has the perfect set of titles and World records that is the envy of any athlete. But the Ethiopian admits that she has not had enough of top level athletics just yet.
“I want to win these titles over and over again,” she says. “I want to win everything that is on offer and break every record there is to break.”
Enjoying a good laugh
Defar has talked at length before about her love for children and her commitment to women’s empowerment, but this year she has developed a new hobby – watching sitcoms and stand-up comedy videos.
“I enjoy comedy shows in my spare time,” says Defar. “I am particularly an admirer of the Ethiopian comedian Kebebew Geda. He makes me out of nothing which is quite nice.”
And with days to go before she sets out on her Olympic title defence, Defar will hope that she will have the last laugh at the end of the women’s 5000m final.
Somalia’s presidential palace was hit by four mortar shells in an assault by suspected Islamist insurgents, an army spokesman said.
The attack occurred at Baidoa, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, earlier today, Colonel Dahir Mohamed Hersi said in an interview. No casualties have been reported, he said, adding that the attack was carried out by the al-Shabaab group. Abdulahi Sheikh Jeesow, a shop owner in Baidoa, said the area around the palace had been evacuated.
“Ethiopian Woyanne troops and government soldiers cordoned off the vicinity of the palace,” Jeesow said in a mobile-phone interview. “The roads are empty, the business centers are closed and the tension in Baidoa is high.”
Sheikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, al-Shabaab’s spokesman, didn’t answer his mobile phone when called for comment about the shelling of the palace.
Cease-Fire
Today’s attack is the latest in a series of assaults since the government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia agreed a cease-fire in June. The agreement called for Ethiopian Woyanne troops to withdraw from the country within four months and be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, in a speech to commerate the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, said world leaders need to do more to contain the conflict in neighboring Somalia.
“The world, and the United Nations Security Council in particular, must produce a durable solution to the terrible violence and suffering that has devastated the people of Somalia,” Odinga said.
– – – – – – –
To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at [email protected].
ADDIS ABABA — A legal battle in Ethiopia over what constitutes contempt of court is likely to test the boundaries of free speech in a country where the liberty of press has deteriorated over the last three years.
Abiy Teklemariam, managing editor of privately-owned weekly Addis Neger, said in an emailed statement that the paper would appeal the conviction of its editor in chief, Mesfin Negash, for contempt of court at the country’s supreme tribunal.
“The court has in its reasoning set the bar so high that it makes it virtually impossible for a journalist to report about court cases…” the newspaper said in the statement. “We hope that the process and outcome of our appeal will make the scope of liberty of speech and its limitations in the country clearer.”
If accepted by the country’s Supreme Court, the case may determine whether journalists, as the messenger, can be held liable for the message, even when comments are attributed to an identified source. Journalists here are eager for a precedent that might offer legal protection after parliament approved a penal code and press law that media watchdogs say are designed to shackle the press.
“Ethiopian journalists have hostile institutions around them — judges, the government and businessmen,” said Vincent Leonard, Africa director for Paris-based Reporters without Borders. “The law doesn’t protect press freedom but gives weapons to those who want to attack press.”
In a novel use of the contempt of court charge, Federal Judge Leul Gebremariam found Mesfin guilty and sentenced him to a suspended one-month sentence for publishing comments made by the lawyer of an imprisoned pop star. The lawyer, Million Assefa, was also found guilty of contempt of court and sent to Kaliti prison to serve a sentence of one month and 20 days.
Mesfin’s newspaper last month quoted the lawyer as saying he would appeal a decision by the judge, and perhaps file a complaint against him, on behalf of his client Tewodros Kassahun, the singer more commonly known as Teddy Afro, who stands accused of killing a man in a hit-and-run accident.
The judge found both the lawyer and the newspaper guilty, arguing that the article “displays contempt to the constitutional independence of the judiciary” and intends to influence Tewodros’s on-going trial.
The government has been particularly wary of freer media since some private newspapers rallied behind opposition protests against alleged fraud in federal elections in 2005. Thousands were arrested for treason, including 15 journalists all of whom were pardoned or acquitted last year. Thirteen newspapers and magazines were shut down during the crackdown, including three belonging to the country’s largest private publisher, Serkalem Publishing House.
This year, the government has forced two more magazines out of circulation using laws against disturbance to public order. The fashion magazine Enku was one of the two. The magazine’s deputy editor, Aleymayehu Mahtemwork, and three colleagues also spent four days in jail for covering the trial of Teddy Afro. Though Aleymayehu was released, the case against him remains pending and his magazine is yet to be revived.
Thousands of Teddy Afro’s fans have protested the trial, alleging that the charges are politically motivated. Government-controlled radio stations in Ethiopia have banned songs from Teddy Afro’s third album Yasteseryal, which criticizes the failure of governments since the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.
Currently, Ethiopia’s government controls the only no-cost TV broadcaster, Internet sites are routinely blocked by the state telecommunications monopoly, and only a few private newspapers exist. Indeed, Ethiopia has one of the most tightly-controlled presses in the world.
Government officials, however, say they are committed to a progressive opening of the private media and point to the licensing of the country’s first private radio stations last year as evidence of progress.
