LIBYA’s quest to use the River Nile water for development in the desert country has been rejected by the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) member states, a senior official has disclosed.
The New Vision learnt that the formal request by the Libyan president, Col. Muammar Gaddafi, was rejected by the ministers from the ten countries supplied by the River Nile.
They are Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda.
The revelation came during a meeting at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel in Entebbe.
“Libya put forward an appeal to join NBI so as to benefit from the Nile waters, but the water ministers from the Nile basin saw no merit in Libya joining,” said Gordon Mumbo, the NBI programme manager.
Mumbo, who was addressing journalists at the Nile Resort Hotel, said the ministers wondered why Libya insisted on joining the Nile Basin Initiative yet it was hundreds of miles away from the River Nile.
“Their objective was not clear. But we presumed that following the drying up of Lake Chad, they wanted to make the best use of the Nile.”
Commenting on the negotiations on the sharing of the River Nile, Mumbo said 38 of the 39 articles formalising the formation of the Nile Basin Commission were signed.
“The ministers failed to resolve Article 14, which talks about the security of the Nile, and referred the matter to their respective heads of state,” he explained.
He noted that it was upon the presidents to resolve the issue.
Mumbo regretted that Egypt and Sudan had refused to adhere to the new terms stipulating the utilisation of the Nile waters.
“It will be a disaster for countries that do not ratify the articles because they will lose out and suffer dire consequences,” he warned.
The water ministers promised to resolve the contentious issues regarding the joint sharing of the River Nile by the states.
Many of the top Leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) are now out of jail and back to leading their party. Some senior members including Ato Kifle Tigneh are still in jail. It is a relief that the leaders are out of jail alive.
Back in the saddle, Kinijit leaders face monumental challenges. When they came out after 21 months in jail they found that many of the party’s young activists in the country are either dead, in jail, exiled or have joined rebel forces. Those who took over the leadership left the party in tatters. Some of those who assumed the leadership role not only grossly mismanaged and failed to lead the party, but had also embezzled and wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Kinijit’s account. Woyanne continues to play its dirty game to make sure that Kinijit is weak or dead. At the same time, some of those who stole and squandered Kinijit’s resources are now actively working to divide the top leadership by trying to turn the chairman against the other members. Their aim is to cover up their crimes, since a weak and divided Kinijit will not be able to make inquiries into their corruption.
It will require careful planning, skill, and a great deal of effort to revive Kinijit and make it a viable party. To achieve that, the top leaders who make up the 20-member executive committee must stay united. The Kinijit support groups around the world who labored hard for the past two years to keep the struggle going must stay firm in promoting democratic culture in the party against any tendency to promote particular individuals over the collective leadership.
Ethiopian Review, after consulting with several Kinijit supporters and well-wishers, recommends the following steps:
1) Reconvene the 60-member Kinijit Central Council without any delay and restructure the 20-member executive committee. Replace the absent members in both bodies.
2) Include in the executive committee and central council some of the Kinijit International Leadership (K.I.L.) members who have proven themselves to be honest, hard working and abiding by Kinijit’s democratic principles. This will help ensure the continuity of the leadership in case of another crack down by the Woyanne dictatorship.
3) Establish an inquiry commission to investigate the reported mismanagement, corruption and waste by the former chairman of the K.I.L. and his group of friends.
4) Promote democratic culture in the Kinijit Diaspora organization, including Kinijit North America, Europe and Africa. Do not appoint leaders for them any more. Allow them to elect their own leaders as the Kinijit North America did last November. This will help prevent mismanagement, corruption, nepotism and factionalism.
5) Appoint a permanent representative to represent Kinijit in the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD). Since this is a critical responsibility, the person who would be representing Kinijit in the AFD should be a highly skilled politician.
6) Through the AFD, help create a shadow government that will give the people of Ethiopia an alternative to rally around. This will also help hasten the ultimate down fall of the Woyanne dictatorship and ensure that there will not be chaos in the post-Woyanne era. Woyanne will attempt to ignite religious and ethnic conflicts — as it has been doing so far — in order to stay in power. AFD will play a critical role in preventing that.
7) Do not enter the rubber-stamp parliament. Instead, demand a new election in which AFD will participate as a ‘freedom bloc’.
8 ) Bilateral talks with Woyanne must be avoided. All negotiations must be handled through the AFD.
9) To force the Woyanne dictatorship to accept a new election, utilize all methods of struggle — including general strikes and civil disobedience.
10) In light of the concerted effort by anti-Kinijit forces to divide the party’s leadership, all major decisions of the top leadership must be agreed upon by at least the top three leaders — the chair, the vice chair and the secretary general — and when possible, by the majority of the 20-member executive committee.
11) The Kinijit executive committee needs to send a clear message to the so-called “Kinijit International Council” that it should NOT have been created in the first place, and must dissolve itself right away. This message must be sent out before the Kinijit high-level delegation comes to North America.
12) When the Kinijit high-level delegation comes to North America, its tour must be organized by the Washington DC chapter of Kinijit in collaboration with the North America committee. For the past two years, after reorganizing itself and democratically electing its officials, it had successfully rallied Ethiopians in the Washington DC Metro area, while the likes of Shaleqa Yoseph Yazew, the former chairman of K.I.L. and the North America committee, had used Kinijit as their personal cash cow, at the same time doing NOTHING to lead the organization.
Finally a message to Dr Taye Woldesemayat: For most of your admirers you have turned out to be perhaps the greatest source of disappointment and frustration since Lidetu in the anti-Woyanne struggle. First, you were engaged in an unfair criticism of the jailed leaders, going as far as proudly proclaiming at a public meeting that you did not vote for Kinijit in the 2005 elections. What made your criticism unfair was that the jailed leaders were not in a position to defend themselves. Then you came out strongly against the AFD, which is created with the help and strong participation of Kinijit. And now you have abandoned the Ethiopian Teachers Association and jumped in the middle of the Kinijit Diaspora intraparty struggle on the side of the rogue and corrupt elements. In doing so, overnight you have transformed yourself from a respected union/civic leader into an opportunist politician — or as we said previously “tiliku dabo lit hone.” Knowingly or unknowingly, what you are doing now is hurting Kinijit, and more so your own credibility.
The Washington DC-based Addis Dimts Radio conducted an interview on Saturday with Prof. Ephrem Isaac and Prof. Alemayehu Gebremariam. The discussion had focused on H.R. 2003. Prof. Ephrem has admitted that he is lobbying against H.R. 2003, but was not clear what it is about since he said he did not read it. Click here to listen.
The Honorable Congressman Richard Gephardt
Former House Democratic Leader
c/o : Richard A. Gephardt Institute for Public Service
Washington University in St. Louis
Campus Box 1196, One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
It was with a deep sense of betrayal and disbelief that we read a recent report suggesting that you might be involved in helping the Ethiopian dictator, Meles Zenawi, to derail the passage of a bill in Congress intended to protect the democratic rights of the people of Ethiopia.
If it is indeed true, your association with one of the most vicious dictators of the modern era would be inconsistent with your image as a leader who has dedicated his professional life to advancing the ideals of democracy and social justice.
Not too long ago, you declared to the world:
“One of the most important virtues of the American character is our ability to approach the complexities that life presents us with common sense and decency, … The considered judgment of the American people is not going to rise or fall on the fine distinctions of a legal argument but on straight talk and the truth.”
On May 15, 2005 the people of Ethiopia took to the polls in unprecedented record numbers, and cast a vote of no confidence in Zenawi’s minority government. Instead of accepting the people’s verdict, Zenawi proclaimed a state of emergency, and declared himself a winner, against the testimonials of credible observers, including one by the EU-EOM group.
In the aftermath of the elections that he stole, Zenawi ordered the massacre of over 193 peaceful demonstrators, and imprisoned opposition leaders and thousands of opposition party members, as was unveiled by a commission set up by his own government.
In a move reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge, he coerced the political prisoners into admitting responsibility for the crimes he had committed, and publicized to the world the confession obtained under duress.
“The long nighttime of communism and totalitarianism is not over, but we are entering a new era where ordinary citizens everywhere are speaking out freely and are no longer afraid of murderous dictators.”
Unfortunately, if the rest of the world is marching out of the “nighttime of totalitarianism,” it is still pitch dark for the people of Ethiopia. According to a recent report, Ethiopia topped the list of the worst countries for press freedom, with more jailed and exiled journalists than any other country in the world. In 2006 alone, eight newspapers were banned, two foreign reporters were expelled and several websites were blocked.
As the rest of the world enjoys the “peace dividend” from the end of the “Cold War,” the people of Ethiopia are going through extremely severe economic hardships, thanks to the rampant corruption and expensive lobbying that are characteristics of Zenawi’s regime. A recent World Economic Forum report indicated that Ethiopia had slid to the rank of 120th out of 125 countries in 2006 in the Global Competitive Index, down from the 116th place it had occupied in 2005. Economic analysts point out that the number of Ethiopians on less than a dollar a day, has nearly tripled since Zenawi took power in 1991, i.e., relative to the record of the discredited communist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.
You once made the observation:
“It’s amazing what happens when you ask yourself this question before you speak or act. ‘How would I like this said or done to me?'” So, before you venture to work for Zenawi, the people of Ethiopia would wish to remind you of the above and to ask yourself: “How would I feel if I were an Ethiopian living under a dollar a day and my leader squandered the money on expensive lobbying?”
You have also been quoted as saying: “I think the most important thing in life, …., is credibility,…” Your demonstrated position against tyranny in Ethiopia would give more credibility to the mission of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service that you so generously helped to establish, and whose purpose you so eloquently described as an institute, “… to help spread freedom, democracy, and capitalism across the globe so we can better prevent the creation of terrorists.” The stand you now take in distancing yourself from a brutal dictator will certainly be a metric by which the image of this promising institution will be judged for a long time to come.
Honorable Congressman,
In the days and weeks to come, Ethiopian Americans and other Ethiopians in the US, who unlike their compatriots back home enjoy their freedom of speech, will be contacting you in thousands to ask you to disassociate yourself from a brutal dictator, and to stand on the side of democracy and social justice. They will be doing so, not out of impertinence, but in the full knowledge and conviction that, as a man of integrity, you will listen to the voices of the 70 million oppressed Ethiopians and be a part of their struggle against tyranny and injustice.
The Atlanta chapter of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) sends a message of appreciation to members of the Kinijit International Leadership, which has dissolved itself after completing its mandate on Friday, July 27, 2007.
By Mark Turner at the United Nations and Barney Jopson in Kenya Financial Times
Ethiopia is accused of killing civilians with white phosphorus bombs, the US navy of attacking suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Puntland, and Eritrea of delivering surface-to-air missiles to Islamist militia, in a startling new report on Somalia by UN arms monitors.
Warning that the number of weapons in Somalia now exceeds that during the early 1990s, when the failed East African state was engulfed in civil war, the UN monitoring group describes persistent instability in which anti-government Islamist forces are far from a spent force, and former warlords are reasserting themselves.
From late last year to mid-June, the UN analysts – whose previous report courted significant controversy with its contested claims of weapons and personnel flows between Somalia and the Middle East – conclude that an Ethiopian invasion and African Union peacekeepers have failed to stop massive arms flows into the country.
Furthermore, the latest period has witnessed a “drastic increase” in piracy off the Somali coast, and “pirate command centres” are operating “without hindrance” at many coastal landing points.
“In brief, Somalia is awash with arms,” the report says. “There is no clearly established authority that has the capability of exercising control over a majority (of the weapons).”
Some of the most dramatic claims implicate Ethiopia and Eritrea, who are believed to be conducting a proxy war in the country, through their respective backing of the transitional government and Islamist and clan-based militia.
During a battle on April 13 between the Ethiopian military, which remains in the country, and the Shabaab, elite forces from the Islamic Courts Union, “Ethiopian military forces resorted to using white phosphorus bombs … approximately 15 Shabaab fighters and 35 civilians were killed.”
Ethiopia denies the claims, saying it does not possess such weapons. The monitoring group obtained pictures of the area of impact of the bombs, and a soil sample analysed in Nairobi was consistent with their use.
Meanwhile, despite its conventional defeat by Ethiopia in December 2006-January 2007, the Islamic Courts Union has switched to guerilla and terrorist tactics, including suicide attacks and targeted assassinations. Recent arms seizures by the government “represent only a small fraction of the total arms belonging to and hidden by the Shabaab”.
Shabaab fighters shot down a Belarussian cargo plane in late March 2007 with an SA-18 surface to air missile, “reported to be a part of a consignment of six SA-18s that had been delivered by Eritrea”. The monitoring group has a video of the firing of the missile. Eritrea has denied involvement.
The monitors also say they received reports that on June 1 this year, the US Navy “attacked by firing several times at suspected al-Qaeda operatives near the coastal village of Bargal, Puntland, Somalia.”
When questioned, the US government said it had “conducted several strikes in self-defence against al-Qaeda terrorist targets in Somalia”.
Also of concern is the panel’s finding that “warlords are now among the most important buyers of arms at the Bakaraaha arms markets”, in Mogadishu, “and are trying to regain control over their former fiefdoms (which they lost to the ICU in 2006).”
“The warlords are currently trying to reconstitute and arm their respective militias, some of which consist of as many as 500 fighters.”
Separately, a long-awaited peace conference has entered its second week in Mogadishu as organisers seek to reconcile the country’s myriad clans, political factions and former warlords. But its success is likely to be hampered by the absence of two key constituencies: representatives of the the Islamic Courts Union and the powerful Hawiye clan. They refused to attend in protest against the continued presence of Ethiopian troops in the country and the interim government’s perceived lack of willingness to engage with its opponents.
