The Calgary Ethiopian Community Association, in collaboration with the Calgary EthioStar Soccer team, is organizing the 12th Annual North-Western USA and Canada Ethiopian Soccer Tournament.
The name of the event is Ethiopian Millennium Cup in Calgary.
Yohannes Getachew
Executive Director
email [email protected]
WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. State Department said Monday it had ordered Eritrea to close its consulate in Oakland, California, the latest salvo in an escalating diplomatic conflict with the impoverished Red Sea state.
The department informed Eritrea last week that the consulate must be shut down by Nov. 8, citing restrictions imposed on diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Asmara, including travel curbs, the refusal to grant visas to U.S. officials, and the non-delivery of diplomatic pouches, which is in violation of international protocols.
«Together, these actions by Eritrea significantly interfere with the ability of the U.S. Embassy to provide consular services to U.S. citizens and others in Eritrea,» said Karl Duckworth, a State Department spokesman.
Under the terms of the order, which was delivered on August 8, Eritrea has 90 days «to close the consulate and terminate the functions of all consulate personnel working there,» he said.
Officials with Eritrea’s Embassy in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment.
Eritrea, which fought a bloody 1998-2000 border war with its arch-rival neighbor and key U.S. ally Ethiopia that is still unresolved, has been a source of growing concern for the United States in recent years.
Tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea remain high and Washington has accused Asmara of playing a negative role in Somalia, where U.N. experts have said Eritrean authorities of supplying weapons to Islamic militants.
At the same time, Eritrea’s increasingly authoritarian leadership is accused of clamping down on internal dissent and hindering the work of aid workers, including those affiliated with foreign governments.
The U.S. Agency for International Development was forced to close its Eritrea operations in December 2005 because the government objected to its presence.
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ASMARA, Aug 13 (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday it had ordered closed an Eritrean consulate, which Asmara called the latest “unjust and unfriendly” U.S. action in a worsening diplomatic relationship.
Eritrea routinely denounces the United States for its support of Ethiopia, with whom Asmara is locked in a bitter dispute over the Horn of African nations’ shared border.
The United States and the United Nations accuse Eritrea of funnelling weapons to Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu fighting the Ethiopian-backed Somali interim government.
A U.S. embassy official in Asmara who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Eritrean consulate in Oakland, California, last week was given 90 days to close down, in response to restrictions placed on the embassy in Eritrea.
“For the past year the U.S. has been trying to work with the government of Eritrea to address these restrictions that have impeded our ability to operate,” the official said.
“Since they have been unwilling to engage with us, we have taken these actions in response to these restrictions.”
The U.S. official said the constraints included interference with diplomatic pouches, travel restrictions for embassy personnel and the refusal to grant visas.
Already, the U.S. embassy in Asmara closed its visa section in February for what it said were similar difficulties.
But Eritrea dismissed the U.S. allegations and said it had respected its diplomatic treaty obligations.
“I have no explanation for this. If you look at U.S. policy in the last two years, we have seen a pattern of unfriendly and unjust acts against Eritrea,” Yemane Ghebremeskel, a senior government official, told Reuters.
He did not say whether Asmara would take reciprocal action.
Eritrea’s diaspora community is an important source of revenue for the cash-strapped Red Sea state. Economists estimate remittances total from 30 percent to 70 percent of the nation’s annual gross domestic product.
Eritrean government editorials routinely decry the United States for supporting Ethiopia, calling Washington “despicable.”
Somalia: War Crimes in Mogadishu
UN Should Address Civilian Protection
(Human Rights Watch – Nairobi, August 13, 2007) – Ethiopian [Woyanne], Somali and insurgent forces are all responsible for rampant violations of the laws of war in Mogadishu, causing massive suffering for the civilian population, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch urged the UN Security Council during its current deliberations on Somalia to include a strong civilian protection mandate in any peacekeeping mission.
The 113-page report, “Shell-Shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu,” is the first independent, on-the-ground investigation of the fighting that wracked Mogadishu in March and April 2007, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and the displacement of 400,000 people.
“The warring parties have all shown criminal disregard for the well-being of the civilian population of Mogadishu,” said Ken Roth, executive director for Human Rights Watch. “The UN Security Council’s indifference to this crisis has only added to the tragedy.”
Human Rights Watch documented numerous war crimes among many other violations of the laws of war by all parties to the armed conflict in Mogadishu.
Violations by the insurgency, a loose coalition of Somali armed groups, include: the indiscriminate firing of mortar rounds into civilian areas; deployment of forces in densely populated neighborhoods; targeted killings of civilian officials of the transitional Somali government; and summary executions and mutilation of the bodies of captured combatants.
Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces backing the Somali transitional government violated the laws of war by widely and indiscriminately bombarding highly populated areas of Mogadishu with rockets, mortars and artillery. Its troops on several occasions specifically targeted hospitals and looted them of desperately needed medical equipment. Human Rights Watch also documented cases of Ethiopian forces deliberately shooting and summarily executing civilians.
Somali transitional government forces played a secondary role to the Ethiopian [Woyanne] military, but failed to provide effective warnings to civilians in combat zones, looted property, impeded relief efforts for displaced people, and mistreated dozens of people detained in mass arrests.
“The insurgency placed civilians at grave risk by deploying among them,” said Roth. “But that is no justification for Ethiopia’s calculated shelling and rocketing of whole neighborhoods.”
The launch of the report coincides with today’s UN Security Council deliberations on Somalia. The Security Council is due to discuss the 1,500-member African Union mission in Somalia and proposals to turn the mission into a UN force.
The armed conflict in Mogadishu has steadily escalated since the Ethiopian [Woyanne]-backed Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) established itself in Mogadishu in January 2007. In December 2006, Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces with US support ousted the coalition of Islamic Courts from Mogadishu and other areas of south-central Somalia in a lightning offensive.
Since January 2007, a coalition of insurgent groups, including the Islamic Courts’ militant Al-Shabaab militia, has waged almost daily attacks on Ethiopian [Woyanne] and TFG forces, including several suicide attacks, and killed TFG civilian officials. The insurgency repeatedly launched mortar attacks from densely populated neighborhoods of Mogadishu, jeopardizing civilian security, in violation of the laws of war.
On March 29, Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces launched the first of two major counterinsurgency offensives in the city. Ethiopian troops indiscriminately bombarded insurgent strongholds with barrages of “Katyusha” rockets, mortars and artillery, making no apparent effort to distinguish between civilians and insurgent targets.
A second Ethiopian [Woyanne] offensive from April 18 – 26 targeted and destroyed additional areas of the city and added several hundred more civilians to the total death toll. While the precise number of civilian casualties is not yet known, estimates range from 400 to more than 1,300 deaths resulting from both rounds of fighting.
Ethiopia’s [Woyanne] intervention in Somalia is closely linked to regional security concerns, including a proxy war with Eritrea and the presence of two Ethiopian rebel movements in Somalia.
In January 2007, the United States launched several air strikes in southern Somalia, and again in June in Puntland, in the northeast. These attacks were the first US military interventions in the country since its forces departed in 1994. The US alleged that militants within the Islamic courts were sheltering individuals connected to international terrorism networks, including people wanted in connection with the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
“Since the major fighting ended in April, Ethiopian [Woyanne] and Somali government forces have routinely violated the rights of civilians on the streets of Mogadishu,” said Roth. “Effective counterterrorism can only be built on respect for basic rights and an end to impunity for serious crimes.”
Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council and key international actors to use their leverage with Ethiopian [Woyanne] and Somali government forces to end abuses and encourage respect for international law.
Concerned countries should also request and support an increased UN human rights monitoring and reporting mission in Somalia.
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The Ethiopian Teachers Assocation (ETA) has dismissed its long-time chairman, Dr Taye Woldesemayat last week, according to Addis Dimts Radio reporter in Addis Ababa.
ETA’s 7-member executive committee reportedly made the decision to fire Dr Taye after he failed to communicate with the association’s officials in Addis Ababa for the past several months.
The executive committee also said that Dr Taye has failed to heed the association’s rule that prevents its officials from aligning themselves with any political party.
Dr Taye has also failed to report to the executive committee any material and other kinds of assistance he was getting for the ETA from sister organizations around the world, Addis Dimts reporters said.
Addis Dimts radio’s host Abebe Belew had invited Dr Taye to respond, but he refused complaining that the media in Washington DC are biased.
The Woyanne dictatorship has warned Human Rights Watch to stop reporting abuses in Ethiopia and Somalia, including war crimes. The following is a report by the Woyanne-controlled ‘Ethiopian News Agency.’
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(ENA) Ethiopia has urged on Human Rights Watch the need to take upon itself to refrain from being catalyst, wittingly or otherwise, to forces that prove themselves unheeding to human rights.
In a statement it issued on Saturday, the Ministry of Information said Human Rights Watch has launched persistent campaigns against Ethiopia and other African countries in the disguise of human rights violations. “It has been preparing as part of this campaign to issue a statement with an aim of victimizing Ethiopia.”
The latest campaign by Human Rights Watch revolves around the usual fabrication of a claim that Ethiopia has committed a war crime in Somalia, and that the world showed indifference, the statement said.
It goes without saying that Somalia has suffered from anarchy for nearly two decades, during which time and in the absence of any functional government, Somalis paid dearly in the face of turmoil and in the hands of gangs and those who could muster some muscle to exercise local power, the statement noted.
The wounds left in Somalia by the anarchy and civil strife is still fresh to remind how the international community failed the state of Somalia all through those years of civil ordeals, the statement said.
It said, during those long years when Somalis were suffering untold suffering and paying sacrifices with their lives, Human Rights Watch had never raised its voice calling for an end to the injustices Somalis had been burdened with. “What was Human Rights Watch doing then,” it asks, “during those decades when the hopes of Somalis for good governance and development had very much been eroded and they had been made to suffer at the hands of the benefiting warlords.”
Human Rights Watch did not seem to have eyes to see and ears to hear when, to add insult on injury, the extremist forces came with their coercive and tyrannical rule whereby they persecute Somalis for watching movie, the statement said.
Human Rights Watch has now come out of the blue with recriminations and finger pointing at Ethiopia and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia at this time when Somalia has come back on the road to peace and stability.
The statement recalled also that those extremist forces had gone farther than exercising their tyranny in Somalia to have expressed time and again their resolve and determination to bring all the Somali speaking peoples in Eastern Africa under their hegemony.
Human Rights Watch turned a blind eye also to the unprovoked aggressions of the extremist forces against Ethiopia, the country which they see their prime enemy.
Ethiopia strongly held that the people in Somalia shouldered the brunt of the anarchy that had prevailed in their country, the statement said. But, it would surely have spread to other societies in the Horn of Africa, it indicated.
Ethiopia has been firm on its stance that any international effort aimed at supporting Somalia should take off from an honest bid to extricate Somalis from the turmoil and warlordism, it said. “Ethiopia has also been unequivocal on its natural right to defend itself from aggressions it was beginning to suffer at the hands of the extremists in Somalia and stooges harbored there.”
Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia, which only followed a request by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, was grounded on these two basic matters, the statement noted. “And it paid off now that Somalia is well on the road to sustainable peace and security.”
The recent peace and reconciliation conference ongoing in Somalia, but shows this trend, it added. This being the fact, however, Human Rights Watch has been busy as of late to incriminate Ethiopia and the TFG as has been catalyzed by groups and organizations linked directly to the deposed UIC (Union of Islamic Courts), it said.
These groups and organizations operate under orders from UIC leaders now in their hideouts, it indicated. Human Rights Watch would do better trying to get to the bottom of things before making allegations on the basis of information obtained from such sources, that cannot in any way claim impartiality, it said. Directly or indirectly, Human Rights Watch has thus been being instrument to the propaganda of the UIC, the statement said.
It would be self-defeating for Human Rights Watch trying to incriminate Ethiopia on the basis of fabrications by those groups who refuse to see through the window of hope now created in Somalia.
Therefore, Ethiopia would like to urge on the Human Rights Watch the wisdom of refraining from being a catalyst, wittingly or otherwise, to these forces that proved unheeding to human rights.