EDITOR’S NOTE: The only reason the vampire regime in Ethiopia will not liberalize the telecom industry is that it wants to limit the people’s access to information.
By Jason McLure | Bloomberg
Ethiopia’s tribalist dictatorship will pursue membership of the World Trade Organization, though it has no plans to liberalize its telecommunications and financial-services industries to gain access, Trade Minister Girma Birru said.
Ethiopia is currently fielding questions about its trade policies from countries including the U.S. and Canada, as it attempts to negotiate entry into the global trade regime, Birru said in an interview on Feb. 17 in the capital, Addis Ababa.
The Horn of Africa nation, twice the size of Texas and with a population of 82.5 million, applied for membership of the Geneva-based trade arbiter in 2003. The country is counting on membership to open new markets to boost its $25.1 billion economy.
“Primarily we will join the WTO not to make others happy, but to make our economy work,” Birru said. “So to the extent it helps our economy we will liberalize things, but if it’s not going to assist our goals in trade and development we will not liberalize. Why do we have to?”
The country’s protected telecom and financial industries will be points of contention in the talks with WTO-member countries including the United States and United Kingdom, Tewodros Mekonnen, a researcher with the Ethiopian Economic Association, said in a phone interview on Feb. 19.
“I don’t see any plan” to break up or sell Ethiopian Telecommunications Corp. to private investors, Birru said. “If there are some problems it has nothing to do with ownership. It has only to do with management. Management and ownership don’t necessarily go together.”
Private Investors
Ethiopia has resisted pressure from the World Bank and trade partners like the U.S. to sell the telecommunications company to private investors.
Ethiopian Telecommunication’s monopoly enables it to charge $35 for a mobile-phone SIM card, which is required to obtain a mobile-phone number. In neighboring Somalia and Kenya, which have private mobile services, cards cost less than $5.
A 1-megabyte per second Internet connection costs more than $2,000 a month in Ethiopia. In South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, a similar service costs between 600 rand ($59) and 760 rand, according to the http://www.mybroadband.co.za Web site.
“In Ethiopia, if there is any problem I don’t think it’s the price,” said Birru. “It’s the quality of the service. This has to be improved. And to improve this I don’t think it would be wise to privatize it.”
Ethiopia’s government is reluctant to sell the company because it is profitable and is expanding services to rural areas, Newai Gebre-Ab, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s top economic adviser, said yesterday in an interview.
Cash Generator
The company is “generating a lot of money and that money is being put to good use for development of infrastructure,” Gebre- Ab said.
Birru also said the Ethiopian central bank lacks the capacity to regulate large foreign financial institutions. The country is also unsure whether foreign banks would play a positive economic role in the country. As a result, the country is unlikely to liberalize the financial-services industry.
“At this stage, given the capacity that we have in terms of managing things and supervising them at the National Bank level, I don’t see why we’d allow that,” he said.
Ethiopia’s three state-run retail banks control about two- thirds of the capital in the country’s banking industry, according to the National Bank of Ethiopia. Until last year, no bank in Ethiopia could process MasterCard transactions. Banks in the country are also reluctant to lend to businesses that cannot provide real estate as collateral.
Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provision of international law be enforced.” – World War II Nuremberg Tribunal
Darfur is not the only case of international intervention in an African human rights dilemma. During the last two decades, Africa had several crises that needed international attention. The conflicts in Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, and Liberia devastated entire communities. Of particular concern to the international community was the widening conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which spilled over into the neighboring countries of the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia—several of which were already experiencing humanitarian emergencies of their own. Even after a shaky peace accord was signed in the DRC, humanitarian conditions did not improve significantly, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) had to deal with known human rights abusers.
While humanitarian emergencies continue to proliferate in Africa, a question with far-reaching implications arises: what is to be done regarding Darfur? Are there justifications for the Sudanese government’s position that no international organization can interfere in its own internal affairs? And if intercession is contemplated, what constitutes a sufficiently just cause to warrant intervention? All these depend on several factors: the intentions of the interveners, whether interventions are a last resort, who and what might be a legitimate target of intervention, reasonable prospects for success, and proper authorization.
The issue of just cause requires that severe suffering warranting help has arisen. These include such threats to vital interests as indiscriminate killings, torture, rape, and displacement of people. These would count as significant threats to human dignity and normal life. When such activities are widespread, and the state either perpetrates the injustices or does nothing appropriate to end the suffering of people, it would be reasonable to suggest the just cause threshold has been attained. These were undoubtedly present in ICC’s Darfur case.
Sudan has vehemently opposed what it considers intervention in its domestic affairs by the ICC. The Sudanese government has rejected the ICC’s request that war crimes suspects Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb be arrested and handed over to them. They consider the action an intrusion into their national affairs and have dubbed the ICC “a tool for [imposing] the culture of superiority.” But they could not stop the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) from publishing a notice for the arrest of Harun. Sudan’s Justice Minister Ali al-Mardi said that any attempts to arrest Harun and Kushayb through INTERPOL would be treated as “kidnapping and international piracy.”
This opposition to the ICC’s adjudication represents both practical and fundamental hurdles. On one level, there is no possibility for an international tribunal to operate without a state’s cooperation in turning over defendants and evidence and permitting investigation within its own territorial boundary. If the government of President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir shields its citizens from the ICC, the court would be hard pressed to carry out its prosecution.
On another level, criminal proceedings by international tribunals have rarely fulfilled victims’ expectations of universal justice. The international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia were both severely criticized as being too remote, too sluggish, and biased in their choice of defendants. The prosecutions were accused of sparing the most senior defendants from the local courts where they might be tried in accordance with local standards and within view of the local population that had witnessed the atrocities, and where, just like their subordinates, they could face the death penalty if convicted. This of course could not be expected in the Sudan, where the chain of command in the crime stretches up to President Bashir himself whom the ICC is now seeking to prosecute.
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, after a through study of international law and conventions, determined that it may be appropriate for supranational bodies to intervene in what are normally considered the domestic affairs of a state for the purpose of protecting people who are at risk. The commission’s report pinpointed principles on which its prominent jurists reached consensus and which it believes to be “politically achievable in the world as we know it today.” The cardinal principles the commission considered legitimate were stated in the following words:
State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself… However, where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression, or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of nonintervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.
The report does not deny that sovereignty is important, but it calls attention to what sovereignty entails. For the jurists, sovereignty is not best conceived of in terms of control but rather in terms of responsibility. Government officials are responsible for assuring the safety of citizens and for advancing their welfare. The commission did not find genuine support for a view that sovereignty necessitates unlimited state power over its own citizens, but instead acknowledged that “sovereignty implies a dual responsibility: externally—to respect the sovereignty of other states—and internally—to respect the dignity and basic rights of all the people within the state.” The report noted in its conclusion that “sovereignty as responsibility has become the minimum content of good international citizenship.”
The general responsibility to safeguard peoples’ welfare requires the implementation of three specific tasks. In the first instance, it entails a responsibility to prevent or to contend with the root causes of conflict that puts people at risk of requiring humanitarian intervention. Contending with the root causes can mean putting to an end political repression. In the second instance, it entails a responsibility to respond aptly when there is a pressing human need. A fitting response may call for sanctions, international prosecutions, or military interventions. And last but not least, the responsibility to protect people in distress demands a responsibility to rebuild by providing the right kind of help with recovering, reconstructing, and setting in motion a process of national reconciliation.
Regarding the issue of proper type of authorization for interventions, there is no better or more appropriate body than the United Nations Security Council that charged the ICC to take up the Darfur crisis. By its very design, the Security Council bears a primary obligation to deal with all requests for emergency authorizations and it has to do that within an appropriate time period, particularly when they entail urgent, large-scale crises like Darfur. There is clear tension between the goals of nations shielding themselves from outside interference and international goals of responding to victims who suffer in humanitarian crises; but when it comes to respecting sovereignty and respecting the welfare of individuals who are in distress, the matter should definitely be resolved in favor of protecting the vulnerable individuals who suffer in humanitarian crises.
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Paulos Milkias, Ph.D., is a former Canada Council Doctoral Fellow, is Professor of Humanities and Political Science at Marianopolis College/Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Specializing in political science, he earned his MA and PhD from McGill University in Montreal and his BA from Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is currently co-editor of North-East-African Studies and associate editor of the journals Horn of Africa and the International Journal of Ethiopian Development Studies.
SEATTLE (AP) – Who loves Lucy? Far fewer people than a Seattle science center hoped when officials paid millions to show the fossil remains of one of the earliest known human ancestors.
Halfway through the five-month {www:exhibit}, the Pacific Science Center faces a half-million-dollar loss resulting in layoffs of 8 percent of the staff, furloughs and a wage freeze, President Bryce Seidl said Friday.
Lucy is a 3.2 million-year-old fossilized partial skeleton of a species with chimplike features that walked upright. The discovery in 1974 in Ethiopia forced a major revision of theories about the evolution of Homo sapiens.
The fossil exhibit was {www:successful} at the first stop on the tour, Houston in 2007, but the expenses have other museums reconsidering the planned six-year, 10-city tour.
The Seattle center’s staff redesigned the Lucy exhibit, adding a large section on Ethiopian history and artifacts, an audio tour and interactive displays in which visitors can put themselves in the shoes of a fossil hunter.
“It’s a powerful {www:story} of evolution and culture and history … but we’re not getting the attendance we need for an exhibit of this scale,” Seidl said.
The center had hoped to draw 250,000 visitors during the exhibit that ends March 8, but only 60,000 have come. Seidl blamed the recession, which has cut into arts and museum {www:revenue} nationwide, as well as December snowstorms that curtailed travel within and around Seattle.
The Lucy show cost the center about $2.25 million, Seidl estimated. That includes a $500,000 fee to Ethiopia, which plans to use the money for cultural and scientific programs.
The Field Museum in Chicago withdrew from the tour because of the {www:cost}. Debate over whether the irreplaceable fossil should be shipped around the globe led the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to drop the idea after early consideration.
“Lucy may not be anywhere other than Ethiopia after Seattle,” Seidl said.
But Donald Johanson, the American anthropologist who discovered Lucy, said fascination with the skeleton remained strong.
“As I {www:travel} around the country lecturing, people seem to have a deep interest in their origins, in their roots,” Johanson said.
BOSTON – Designated pacesetter Haron Lagat pulled the nine-man 3,000-meter field through a 1:01.7 opening 800, a 2:01.7 800, and a 2:34.3 kilometer with Rupp tucked back safely in fourth. Another “rabbit,” Solomon Kandie, soon followed Lagat on the sideline.
With two 200-meter circuits left, it was a Bekana Daba-Rupp two-man battle.
And soon it became {www:clear} that the Ethiopian was too {www:strong} for the Oregon collegian.
As coach Alberto Salazar shouted “change your frequency” instructions from the sidelines, Rupp tried to make stride adjustments, but nothing worked.
Daba went on to a convincing 7:41.88 {www:victory} with Rupp a not-close second in 7:44.69 with another Ethiopian, Markos Geneti, third in 7:46.74.
“I heard Alberto and I was trying to loosen up, to relax, anything,” said Rupp. “But Daba was just out there, too far, there was no reeling him in.”
Next up for Rupp is the 5,000 meters in Fayetteville, Arkansas, next weekend.
Ethiopia’s superstar distance runner Meseret Defar, who lost her 5000m world record to Tirunesh Dibaba last summer, evened the score tonight (Feb. 18, 2009) at the GE Galan meeting at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, clocking a new world indoor record of 14:24.37. That eclipsed Dibaba’s 14:27.42 from the Reebok Boston Indoor Games in January, 2007.
Meseret Defar, 25, the reigning world 5000m champion, now holds both the world 3000m (8:23.72) and 5000m indoor records, and has also run the world’s best ever time for two miles indoors (9:10.50). The two-mile mark is not recognized by the IAAF as a world record distance.
Ethiopian women have now held the 5000m indoor record since Berhane Adere broke Romanian Gabriela Szabo’s 1999 mark of 14:47.35 in January, 2004, in Stuttgart (14:39.29). Tirunesh Dibaba first broke Berhane Adere’s mark in January, 2005, at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games, clocking 14:32.93, then broke her own record two years ago in January.
The EU should have condemned one of world’s worst laws on NGOs. Instead, it gave Ethiopia €250 million.
On 30 January, European Union policymakers sent a {www:clear} signal to Ethiopia: no matter how repressive the government becomes, vast sums of aid will continue to flow. This is emerging as a case study in bad donor policy.
In January Ethiopia’s {www:government} passed a law that is an attempt to muzzle local activists and prevent them from scrutinising the government’s human-rights record. Among other things, the new law labels local activists as “foreign” if they receive significant funding from abroad and makes it illegal for these “foreign” Ethiopians to scrutinise the government’s {www:record} on human rights, policing, conflict resolution and a range of other issues – even gender equality, children’s rights and the rights of handicapped Ethiopians. It also provides the government with bureaucratic tools to shut down groups the government dislikes.
This anti-NGO law is among the worst in the world, comparable to those in Russia and Zimbabwe. When Russia passed its own repressive NGO law the EU responded sharply that the law could “have a serious impact on the legitimate activity of civil-society organisations in Russia”. The EU responded to Zimbabwe’s law with an even stronger warning that “if the bill is implemented immediately, the EU’s ability to provide assistance to Zimbabwe will be significantly affected.”
Private disquiet, public quiet
But EU policymakers have shown considerably less backbone about Ethiopia. When the Ethiopian law was first circulated, the EU, the United States – in fact nearly all of Ethiopia’s key donors – expressed great alarm privately. It stood to reason that Ethiopia’s government would take their concerns seriously. After all, Ethiopia is one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world, receiving well over $2 billion in foreign {www:assistance} every year. But Ethiopia’s leaders passed the law anyway, cynically assuming that donors would quietly accept it. And they were right.
The EU’s only reaction was a bland declaration urging the government to implement the law “in an open-minded and constructive spirit.” It is impossible to imagine what this might mean, given that the law’s dire intent and consequences are spelled out clearly on its face. The EU did not condemn the law, demand its repeal or even ask that its worst provisions be amended, and on the same day the European Commission announced plans to give Ethiopia €250 million in new assistance.
Public agreement, private complicity
Unfortunately this refusal to speak out against Ethiopia’s abuses has become the norm for the EU and Ethiopia’s other major donors, even though Ethiopia’s human-rights record has steadily deteriorated. Ethiopia’s leaders have done a remarkable job of convincing donors that they should be grateful for the opportunity to pour huge sums of assistance into the country. Privately many donor officials express fears that speaking out against government abuses could lead the government to discontinue their programs.
The result has been a dreary list of donor failures to speak out against repression and atrocities in Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s military committed war crimes in neighbouring Somalia in 2007 and 2008, shelling whole districts of Mogadishu, and donors said nothing. When prominent opposition supporters and businesspeople were arrested last year on trumped-up charges of terrorism, donors said nothing— the victims still languish in prison without charge today. Even when Ethiopia’s government used donor-funded food aid as a weapon of war to fight an insurgency in the country’s arid Somali Region, donors said nothing. They failed even to press the government to allow independent inquiries into what was happening to the food.
Of course, donors cannot and should not dictate policy to Ethiopia’s government and there is no question that Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, needs support. But this does not mean that donors should ignore the reality that their important material {www:support} to that government carries with it a responsibility to insist on respect for Ethiopians’ basic human rights. And the EU is legally obliged to do just this. The Cotonou Agreement, signed almost ten years ago, expressly requires the European Commission to condition its aid to Ethiopia and other countries on governmental respect for basic human rights. But the EU, like Ethiopia, is choosing to behave as though the Cotonou Agreement does not exist.
The EU has real leverage to push back against repression in Ethiopia, and it should do so instead of valuing chummy relations with Ethiopia’s leaders above all else. Anything less makes donors like the EU member states and the European Commission complicit through their silence in these abuses.
(Lotte Leicht is the EU director for Human Rights Watch.)
Ethiopia’s superstar distance runner Meseret Defar, who lost her 5000m world record to Tirunesh Dibaba last summer, evened the score tonight (Feb. 18, 2009) at the GE Galan meeting at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, clocking a new world indoor record of 14:24.37. That eclipsed Dibaba’s 14:27.42 from the Reebok Boston Indoor Games in January, 2007.