Ethiopian community leaders and social action groups will step up their fight this week against a government decision to wind down Ethiopian aliya in the coming months, as arguments for bringing thousands more Falash Mura immigrants currently unrecognized by Israel are presented to the Knesset’s State Control Committee on Wednesday morning.
According to representatives from the newly-formed Public Council for Ethiopian Jews, which includes such public figures as former Supreme Court Judge Meir Shamgar, Prof. Irwin Kotler, Ethiopian Chief Rabbi Yosef Adaneh, Geulah Cohen, Naomi Hazan and Hanan Porat, the government is reneging on its original promise to bring in all remaining Falash Mura – Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity under duress a century ago.
They claim that sources inside the Interior Ministry have indicated that the process of checking eligibility of those still in Ethiopia will be stopped by the end of this year. This past summer, Jewish Agency for Israel officials based in Addis Ababa told The Jerusalem Post that aliya from the African nation would be over by the end of 2008, a sentiment reiterated by the Interior Ministry.
“We are not stopping our activities in Ethiopia; we are simply winding down an operation that has reached a natural conclusion,” Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabene Hadad said Tuesday. She confirmed that Interior Ministry operations in Gondar, where most of the Falash Mura are currently waiting to be processed for aliya, would be over sometime in the near future.
“What is important to highlight here is that the government is going back on its original commitment and is refusing entry to roughly 8,000 people who are eligible to make aliya according to criteria outlined in the past,” Avraham Neguise, director of Ethiopian advocacy group South Wing to Zion, told the Post. He was referring to a government decision from February 2003 permitting those Falash Mura willing to undergo an Orthodox Jewish conversion process to come to Israel under the Law of Entry.
“The government’s original decision did not talk about stopping the aliya on a certain date or at a certain point, but said rather that all those with a maternal link to Judaism were eligible to immigrate,” continued Neguise, adding that many of those who either were denied entry to Israel or had not yet been checked for eligibility had close family members already living here.
One such family is that of 24-year-old Telahun Tzegah, who made aliya with his mother seven years ago but left behind family members in Gondar, including half-siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.
“Their bags are packed and they are ready to come, but they [the Interior Ministry] refuse to process them,” he said Tuesday, adding, “They were originally told that they could make aliya, so they left their villages and moved to Gondar. Now they are stuck there with no help. They can’t go back to their villages, and they aren’t allowed to move here.”
Tzegah said that he was regularly forced to send the family a portion of the meager salary he earns as a security guard, “just so they can afford to eat.”
The Interior Ministry explained previously that it was simply working in compliance with the specifications of the 1999 Efrati census, which lists those Falash Mura with familial ties to Jews and hence eligible to come here.
However, Neguise pointed out that the Efrati list originally included three volumes – Falash Mura in Addis Ababa, in Gondar and in the outlying villages.
“The ministry has decided to ignore those people from the villages,” he said. “How can the government make the decision to split up families like this?”
Rabbi Menahem Waldman, director of the Shvut Am Institute and an expert on the Falash Mura conversion process, has joined forces with Neguise and also sits on the Public Council for Ethiopian Jews.
“These people are recognized as Jews according to Halacha and the State of Israel,” said Waldman, who helped to compile the Efrati census. “It is our responsibility as a Zionist state to bring these people here and welcome them with an open heart.”
He said that along with the hearing in the Knesset on Wednesday, the forum was also supporting a legal petition to force the government to honor its original commitment, and added that it would not give up until those 8,000 people were brought to Israel.
She was going to a world where there was said to be a pile of gold at every corner and a stash of money at every turn. She had heard rumors that the place was not much short of heaven. But that fantasy disappeared as soon as she got off the plane and took her first steps in the United States. America is nothing like what others in Ethiopia described it to be for junior Engidawork Kita.
Engidawork Kita and Selam Kabtiymer
[Photo by Gili Perl]
The lottery to another world
In 2000 Kita’s family won the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery that enabled them to make the move to the United States from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program annually makes 50,000 permanent visas available to a random selection of people who “meet strict eligibility requirements [and come] from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States,” according to the U.S. State Department web site.
Individuals who receive visas through the program are permitted to bring spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21 to the United States and are authorized to permanently live and work in the country, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services web site. “Since everyone wants to come to America, it’s a way of randomly picking people,” Kita’s friend, senior Selam Kabtiymer, says. Although Kabtiymer’s family had also won the DV lottery, she and her family were able to come to the United States without the lottery’s help. Kabtiymer’s mother was already residing in the United States and so the rest of her family was able to get visas through her. Kabtiymer’s father had applied for the DV lottery in the case they were not able to obtain visas this way.
Junior Engidawork Kita and Senior Selam Kabtiymer Photo by Gili Perl.
For Kita’s parents, as for most others in Ethiopia, the chance to move to the United States was a dream come true. A war had been raging between Ethiopia and Eritrea since 1998 over a border conflict. Even Kita was afraid when she heard news warning the country that Eritrea threatened to attack. “I used to get scared because I don’t want to die of course,” Kita says.
Still, Kita’s feelings towards the move were lukewarm – she wanted to experience America, but not at the expense of leaving her relatives, friends and culture behind. “You want to see what it’s like to be in America,” she says, but at the same time she did not want to leave.
Making the transition
The difficulties of the move were only compounded by Kita’s limited knowledge of English. “It was hard,” she says. But making Ethiopian friends in school and receiving support from teachers helped Kita adjust to the new environment. “[The teachers] were really helpful,” Kita says. In addition, Kita took ESOL from fourth to ninth grade to help her get past the language barrier.
Although there was no pile of gold waiting for her in the United States, Kita sees some clear benefits of living in the country. She finds that there are more opportunities to succeed in school because there is so much support available from the education system. Even though Kita went to a free public school in Ethiopia, students still needed to purchase books and other materials on their own. It was tough luck if you could not afford them; here, public schools provide the books as well as financial help.
Kita also feels that there are more facilities available in the United States, such as easy access to computers. “There [were] no such things as computers in my school [in Ethiopia],” she says.
Kita adds that American schools are more laid back. “School is easier here…compared to Ethiopia,” Kita says. She offers that this is not so much because the subjects are easier but more so because the teachers are comparatively lenient in this country.
Kabtiymer agrees that education is stricter in Ethiopia and there is much more pressure from teachers and parents. School rankings are taken very seriously and so students constantly compare themselves with others, according to her.
School here has helped Kita adapt to the American culture. But at the same time, she tries to maintain certain aspects of her Ethiopian heritage. She celebrates some of the Ethiopian festivals and eats Ethiopian food daily. Kita is also a member of the Ethiopian club at Blair and hopes to participate in the club’s big show in early June, which features traditional dances, a fashion show and a drama.
Kita still misses her country at times and though she realizes that money does not come easy no matter where you are, she does not want to move back permanently. “I want to stay here now that I am used to it,” Kita says. “I like it here.”
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia on Tuesday called for a quick deployment of peacekeepers in war-ravaged Somalia, an African nation increasingly running adrift in the face on an escalating insurgency.
Of the 8,000 peacekeepers the African Union pledged to send to bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s weak government, only 1,500 Ugandan troops are actually on the round.
“The plan designed to deploy peacekeeping forces to Somalia should be materialised as soon as possible,” the Ethiopian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Ethiopian troops helped sweep aside Islamist militants from much of the country they had briefly governed in January, but have been embroiled in a deadly insurgency mainly in Mogadishu.
Rebels recently dragged through the streets, stumped and spat on the bodies of Ethiopian troops, a grisly reminder of a similar treatment of US special forces in 1993.
Burundi and Nigeria had given firm pledges to contribute soldiers, but are yet to make good their word.
The Ethiopian foreign ministry called on the international community to facilitate efforts to restore durable peace in Somalia, where the last functional government collapsed in 1991 after the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The escalating insurgency has seen UN chief Ban Ki-moon rule out sending any peacekeepers to the Horn of African nation, except for a “coalition of the willing.”
But on Monday, the UN Security Council said there was need to pursue contingency planning for the possible deployment of UN troops, side-stepping Ban, but giving no promises.
Previous peacekeeping forays by the United Nations and the United States ended disastrously in the mid-1990s and the world turned its back, abandoning the country at the mercy of armed gangs.
In a historic meeting, representatives from diverse regions of Ethiopia came together to share their concern for the dismal state of human rights in the country.
For immediate release
The Ethiopian Human Rights in the Next Millennium event, sponsored by the Anuak Justice Council on Saturday, November 17, 2007, in Washington D.C. was greeted with great enthusiasm by participants and attendees. In a historic meeting, representatives from diverse regions of Ethiopia came together to share their concern for the dismal state of human rights in the country, hoping to work together for the first time for comprehensive solutions.
In the past, there was little communication between segments of the population that were divided linguistically, geographically, culturally and by widespread categorization of each group that alienated one from the other—calling others separatists, terrorists, barias, privileged and so forth. But after coming together and sharing stories, participants learned they had much in common.
Addressing the audience, a representative of the Ogaden said it well. He asked all the Ethiopians, “Do you really know me? “ Some say I am a radical. I am not. Some say I am a terrorist. I am not. Some say I am a Somalian. I say I am Ethiopian. Some say I am a separatist. I say I am not. The only reason the Ogaden people want to separate from Ethiopia is because they have never been appreciated. If we are appreciated, we have no reason to separate.”
As each representative spoke of similar repression and human rights violations, what emerged was that the human rights abuses were affecting everyone; that the oppression was widespread and the lack of development, opportunity and political representation was the same, they realized that they had more reasons to come together than to separate.
A participant from Benishangul-Gumuz summed it up, “Alone we are weak and helpless, but now I see that in creating an umbrella movement where the people on the ground come together, is the only way we can be strong.”
Participants were excited as this new dialogue between each other brought not only new friendships, but with it, a renewed hope that Ethiopia may remain as a country where humanity comes before ethnicity, country before region, and region before village. As stories were told of the suffering and oppression of the people, bridges of compassion were built between those who had never talked before.
We all know very well that most of our political organizations and civic and religious institutions who should are the ones that should be guiding us to a better future, but instead they are fighting and divided, resulting in the continued suffering of all Ethiopians at the hands of the EPDRF that is founded on hatred and division. However, the emphasis of this meeting was on establishing commonalties and feeling the pain of others so that new partnerships could begin.
Participants voiced their support of this goal and indicated that the spirit of unity had already begun by seeing their fellow Ethiopians across the table—that table being covered with the flag of Ethiopia.
Mr. Obang Metho said he was disappointed that more Ethiopians did not show their support for a more inclusive Ethiopia by attending this meeting; especially knowing that what Ethiopia needs today is unity even more than it needs democracy. This is not just the unity of the past where other Ethiopians are mentioned only when they are in the room or are otherwise visible.
The unity we need now is based on mutual respect and trust where we listen to and interact with other Ethiopians rather than just talking about them. Yet, despite the poor attendance, especially in a city where more Ethiopians live than anywhere else in North America, it did not suppress the excitement of those at the meeting who saw it as a new beginning and as the only way to restore life into a dying nation.
Mr. Metho stated that some Ethiopians might be afraid that by including these new groups it will mean others will be excluded. He said, “Don’t worry. This would be morally wrong and is “old thinking.” He said, “No one should be excluded in an Ethiopia where the people are valued as equally created in the image of God—this definitely includes Woyanne supporters.”
However, many might not yet understand how human rights is not simply stopping human rights abuses; instead, the failure to respect such rights of all people, affect every part of our society—government, law, civil society, education, health care and the economy. Even government policies regarding land ownership, laws regarding business development and the provision of credit at reasonable interest rates for small and medium sized private enterprise along with micro-enterprise are affected by how we view the human rights of our fellow Ethiopian.
Division, repression, suspicion and human rights abuses are a natural outgrowth of failing to regard one’s fellow Ethiopian as equally human and equally Ethiopian. It takes great force to repress the thirst for freedom in the human soul, yet where such humanity is embraced, all can benefit.
The participants at the meeting all embraced the concept of setting up an umbrella organization to advance the interests of human rights of all Ethiopians. Plans are underway to organize a strategic meeting to begin a movement for a new Ethiopia.
If you missed this opportunity to attend the meeting, it was filmed and recorded for the benefit of those who did not attend. Please check back for further details when they become available.
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For additional information, please contact:
The Director of International Advocacy:
Phone: (306) 933 4346
E-mail: [email protected]
AFGOOYE, Somalia — The worst humanitarian crisis in Africa may not be unfolding in Darfur, but here, along a 20-mile strip of busted-up asphalt, several top United Nations officials said.
A year ago, the road between the market town of Afgooye and the capital of Mogadishu was just another typical Somali byway, lined with overgrown cactuses and the occasional bullet-riddled building. Now it is a corridor teeming with misery, with 200,000 recently displaced people crammed into swelling camps that are rapidly running out of food.
Natheefa Ali, who trudged up this road a week ago to escape the bloodbath that Mogadishu has turned into, said Monday that her 10-month-old baby was so malnourished she could not swallow.
“Look,” Ms. Natheefa said, pointing to her daughter’s splotchy legs, “her skin is falling off, too.”
Top United Nations officials who specialize in Somalia said the country had higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur, which is often publicized as the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis and has taken clear priority in terms of getting peacekeepers and aid money.
The relentless urban combat in Mogadishu, between an unpopular transitional government — installed partially with American help — and a determined Islamist insurgency, has driven waves of desperate people up the Afgooye road, where more than 70 camps of twigs and plastic have popped up seemingly overnight.
The people here are hungry, exposed, sick and dying. And the few aid organizations willing to brave a lawless, notoriously dangerous environment cannot keep up with their needs, like providing milk to the thousands of babies with fading heartbeats and bulging eyes. “Many of these kids are going to die,” said Eric Laroche, the head of United Nations humanitarian operations in Somalia. “We don’t have the capacity to reach them.”
He added: “If this were happening in Darfur, there would be a big fuss. But Somalia has been a forgotten emergency for years.”
The officials working on Somalia are trying to draw more attention to the country’s plight, which they feel has fallen into Darfur’s shadow. They have recently organized several trips, including one on Monday, for journalists to see for themselves.
“The situation in Somalia is the worst on the continent,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top United Nations official for Somalia.
That situation has included floods, droughts, locusts, suicide bombers, roadside bombs and near-daily assassinations.
United Nations officials said the recent round of plagues, natural and man-made, coupled with the residual chaos that has consumed Somalia for more than a decade, have put the country on the brink of famine. In the worst-hit areas, like Afgooye, recent surveys indicate the malnutrition rate is 19 percent, compared with about 13 percent in Darfur; 15 percent is considered the emergency threshold.
The officials, in making the comparison, were not trying to diminish the problems in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died from violence and disease since 2003. But they said they were concerned that the crisis here was increasingly urgent.
Unlike Darfur, where the suffering is being eased by a billion-dollar aid operation and more than 10,000 aid workers, Somalia is still considered mostly a no-go zone. Just last week, a Somali aid worker and a guard were shot to death at an aid distribution center in Afgooye. United Nations officials estimate that total emergency aid is under $200 million, partly because it is so difficult just getting food into the country.
Pirates lurking off the coast of Somalia have attacked more than 20 ships this year, including two carrying United Nations food. The militias that rule the streets — typically teenage gunmen in wraparound sunglasses and flip-flops — have jacked up roadblock taxes to $400 per truck. The transitional government last month jailed a senior official of the United Nations food program in Somalia, accusing him of helping terrorists, though he was eventually released.
United Nations officials now concede that the country was in better shape during the brief reign of Somalia’s Islamist movement last year. “It was more peaceful, and much easier for us to work,” Mr. Laroche said. “The Islamists didn’t cause us any problems.”
Mr. Ould-Abdallah called those six months, which were essentially the only epoch of peace most Somalis have tasted for years, Somalia’s “golden era.”
Somalia’s ills have always come in waves, starting in 1991 when clan-based militias overthrew the central government and the country plunged into anarchy. That fighting, like the fighting today, disrupted markets, kept out aid shipments and led to rapid inflation of food prices. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people starved.
The United States tried to come to the rescue in 1992, sending thousands of soldiers to Somalia to assist with humanitarian operations.
But American troops abruptly pulled out after Somali militiamen shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu in October 1993.
After that, the United States — and much of the rest of the world — basically turned its back on Somalia. But in the summer of 2006, the world started paying attention again after a grass-roots Islamist movement emerged from the clan chaos and seized control of much of the country.
The United States and Ethiopia, Somalia’s neighbor and rival, quickly labeled the Islamists a threat and accused them of harboring terrorists from Al Qaeda.
Inside Somalia, the Islamists were very popular, at least initially. But then they overplayed their hand and declared a holy war against Ethiopia in December 2006, which provoked a crushing Ethiopian response. American military commanders funneled key satellite imagery to Ethiopian Woyanne troops as they rolled across the Somali border; American planes bombed fleeing Islamists. One American official said the operation was considered an antiterrorism success.
The transitional government arrived in Mogadishu at the end of December. It has struggled ever since against an insurgency that is a mix of Islamist fighters, rival clans and profiteers who have made a fortune as a result of the anarchy, whether by importing expired baby formula or renting out former government land.
“Those criminals are our biggest problem,” said Abdi Awaleh Jama, an ambassador at large for the transitional government.
The African Union promised to send 8,000 peacekeepers to help. But because of the focus on building a 26,000-strong force for Darfur, only 1,600 Ugandans have arrived. Clearly, some of Somalia’s problems are not the government’s fault. Neither is the drought-flood-drought cycle that has left an impenetrable crust of rock-hard silt over Somalia’s fields, causing the worst cereal harvest in 13 years.
But most Western diplomats agree that unless the transitional government reaches out to Islamist elements and becomes more inclusive, it will fail — like the 13 transitional governments that came before it.
“This government doesn’t control one inch of territory from the Kenyan border up to Mogadishu,” said a Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing diplomatic protocol.
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the warlord turned transitional president, recently forced out the prime minister and is looking to replace him with a leader who can bridge clan divides.
“This is basically the last chance,” the Western diplomat said.
But the people in Afgooye’s squatter camps do not have a lot of faith. “We want the Islamists back,” said Mohammed Ahmed, a shriveled 80-year-old retired taxi driver.
Mr. Mohammed said he was not especially religious. “But,” he said, “at least we had food.”
Personal observation on the Annuak Justice Council meeting in Washington DC
By Emebet S. Bekele
On Saturday, Nov. 17, I attended a human rights meeting organized by the Annuak Justice Council. My knowledge of the Annuak people was very limited until I started following the movement of Kinijit through the Ethiopian Web sites. I learned of Ato Obang Metho through different media outlets and the fate of the Annuak people and their struggle for human right. On every platform I heard him speak about being an Ethiopian, about how to uplift each other from the madness that is engulfing us. I have heard him proclaim his Ethiopian nationality not only amongst those who claim to be unionist, but also amongst those who support and believe in the separatist movements. Obang’s message is a message of peace, love, mutual respect for all of us. His message does not have any hidden agenda. It does not exclude anyone or accuse any ethnic group. His mission is to introduce all the children of Ethiopia to each other so that brothers and sisters can stand shoulder to shoulder to love, respect and protect each other. This is the message I heard him introduce on every platform. So on that Saturday afternoon, I expected to see a lot of my fellow Ethiopians to support this man with a beautiful message.
What happened to Kinijit? Where were their supporters? I remember hearing the announcement of this meeting at the last Kinijit meeting. I clearly remember hearing the delegation saying that Kinijit will stand shoulder to shoulder with any organization that is working on the empowerment of the Ethiopian People. I listened to the leaders saying that the protection of human rights is one of the fundamental principles of democracy. So why were there no representative of this organization at the Annuak meeting? Wzt. Bertukan has assured us that her organization will work with all Ethiopian organizations to find a lasting solution for all our people. If Kinijit cannot take initiative to lead it’s supporters in laying the foundation for a grass root movement on human rights, it should at least lend support to organizations like the Annuak Justice Council who are trying to do the job. Unfortunately, on Nov. 17, Kinijit not only failed to lead by example. The big question is, if Kinijit cannot lend its ears to civic movements that are trying to help build a democratic system, how is it going to respond to political organizations that are vying to share power?
Where were you my brothers and sisters on the day that our Annuak brother rose up from the ashes of his people and stretched his hand to us? Where were you when Ato Obang Metho proclaimed himself the true son of Ethiopia despite the atrocities committed on him and his people by the central government? Why weren’t you there to hear his message of peace, love and mutual respect? Why didn’t you answer his call to stand with him and to make a reality his vision of creating a human right movement?
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The writer can be reached at [email protected]
