(DW) — Named after the German Nobel Prize winner for Literature, the Heinrich Böll Foundation is an NGO promoting democracy and human rights. It is leaving Ethiopia in protest against restrictions on its activities.
“The closure of the office in Ethiopia is a sign of protest by the foundation against the ongoing restrictions on civil rights and freedom of speech” said a statement released by the Heinrich Böll Foundation explaining why they had closed their office in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The organization’s chairwoman Barbara Unmüßig and the country director Patrick Berg said it had become impossible for the organization to work for democracy, gender equality and sustainable development under existing circumstances. They were referring to the law on NGOs passed in 2009 which is known as the “Charities and Societies Proclamation” and restricts freedom of press, expression and assembly.
The law that worsens human rights
This “NGO law” severely curtails the activities of non governmental organizations and human rights groups. It is targets not just foreign groups, but also Ethiopia’s two largest human rights organizations.
According to the rights group Amnesty international, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (HRCO), which has been active since 1991, had its bank account frozen under this law. Nine of its twelve offices have been closed and 85 percent of its staff laid off.
The women’s rights organization Ethiopian Women Lawyers Organization (EWLA) was forced to lay off 75 percent of its staff and assets worth $595,000 (468,000 euros) were frozen. Previously, the organization was able to give free legal assistance to some 20,000 women, nowadays it is barely able to function, says Amnesty international.
Germany’s Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is affiliated to the Greens Party, had been trying for three years to get a bilateral agreement signed with the Ethiopian government which have would granted it more room for manoeuvre than it would have been accorded under the NGO law. But such efforts were in vain.
Appeal at ministerial level in vain
They even tried to raise the issue with the Ethiopian government through the offices of German Development minister Dirk Niebel while he was on a visit to Addis Ababa, but that also yielded no results.
“We realized that we cannot pursue our mission and we can no longer support our local partners of several years,” Patrick Berg told DW.
Berg said “NGO law” was part of a system of repression and symbolic of a deterioration in human rights that had spread through the country since the elections in 2005. 200 people were killed in demonstrations against ballot-rigging in that poll.
Official Ethiopian government spokesman Bereket Simon was quoted by German’s news agency DPA as saying the government would be “delighted if the Heinrich Böll Foundation would continue its work in Ethiopia.”
The departure of the Heinrich Böll Foundation leaves the Friedrich Ebert Foundation as the only remaining German think tank in Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA (IRIN) – Tensions have been simmering over several months between Muslims and the government, with thousands holding demonstrations in protest at the government’s alleged interference in religious affairs; the government has blamed the protests on a small group of extremists.
Around 60 percent of Ethiopia’s 84 million people are Christians; Muslims make up about one-third of the population, according to official figures. Religion-related clashes have been rare in the country, but unrest over the past several months has led to several deaths and dozens of arrests. IRIN looks at the causes of, and fallout from, the protests.
What sparked the protests?
The leaders of the protests, which began in December 2011, accuse the Ethiopian government of trying to impose the al-Ahbash Islamic sect on the country’s Muslim community, which traditionally practices the Sufi form of Islam. Al-Ahbash beliefs are an interpretation of Islam combining elements of Sunni Islam and Sufism; its teachings are popular in Lebanon. Said to be first taught by Ethiopian scholar Abdullah al-Harari, the Ethiopian Al-Ahbash teachings are moderate, advocating Islamic pluralism, while opposing political activism.
In December 2011, the state moved to dismiss the administration of the Awoliya religious school in Addis Ababa. In July, police dispersed an overnight meeting at the school on the eve of an African Union heads of state summit, and arrested several protesters and organizers of the meeting, which police officials said did not have a permit.
Those behind the meeting, an “Arbitration Committee” of 17 led by prominent religious scholars, said they wanted to dialogue with the government but insisted they would continue legitimate protests to oppose its continued interference in the administration of the religious school and the election of members of the country’s supreme Islamic Council.
They accuse the government of dictating elections to the council, which concluded on 5 November, and favour the Al-Ahbash Muslim sect.
Temam Ababulga, a lawyer representing activists who led the protests – some of them are currently behind bars – says they are appealing to a federal court to cancel the election and its outcome, on the grounds that the elections were not conducted in accordance with the council’s by-laws.
“The opposition to Ahbash at this time is not theological… the protesters oppose… that the regime is sponsoring the movement, providing finance, logistical support and allowing it to use both the Islamic Council and the state institution in its proselytization,” said Jawar Mohammed, an Ethiopian analyst now studying at Columbia University in the USA.
“Ahbash has been in Ethiopia since the 1990s and has peacefully coexisted with the rest of Islamic revival movements,” he added. “The confrontation came only after the government invited the leading figures from Lebanon and started aggressive re-indoctrination campaign.”
What is the government’s response?
The government denies that it is violating the country’s constitution by meddling in religious affairs. Addressing parliament on 16 October, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said: “The government is not and would not interfere in the affairs of any religion in the country.”
At the height of the protests in mid-April, then Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in August, told parliament that “a few extremists are working to erode the age-old tradition of tolerance between traditional Sufi Muslims and Christians in Ethiopia,” and stressed that they would not be tolerated by the government.
“The government… has made a number of efforts to encourage engagement with the protesters and has, for example, also done all it can to support the matter of elections for the Islamic Council,” said a statement by the government in response to Amnesty International’s allegations.
“It is true that some members of a `protesters committee’ have been arrested following violent protests, but it is completely misleading to suggest that this `committee’ had been `chosen to represent the Muslim community’s grievances to the government’. This `committee’ was not chosen nor elected by anyone… It was, in sum, a small, self-appointed committee of protesters whose support in the community at large, as the recent election clearly demonstrated, was minimal.”
Increasing Islamic militancy in the region – Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania have all witnessed increased Islamist activity – is of concern to the Ethiopian authorities, who say they are facing growing threats evident from the discovery of the first Al-Qaeda cell in the country; 11 people have been in an on-going trial, suspected of being members of an Al-Qaeda cell and accused of planning terrorist attacks.
What are rights groups saying?
The USA has added its voice to accusations that Ethiopia has been interfering in the religious affairs of its Islamic population and wrongfully arresting people. Addis Ababa has on several occasions rejected these charges.
“Since July 2011, the Ethiopian government has sought to force a change in the sect of Islam practiced nationwide and has punished clergy and laity who have resisted,” an 8 November press statement by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom – a bipartisan federal government body – said. “Muslims throughout Ethiopia have been arrested during peaceful protests.”
Amnesty International has also accused the Ethiopian authorities of “committing human rights violations in response to the ongoing Muslim protest movement in the country”. The organization said the police was using “excessive force” against peaceful demonstrators.
Human Rights Watch says it is deeply concerned that Ethiopia’s government has repeatedly used terrorism-related prosecutions to clamp down on lawful freedom of speech and assembly.
“Many of these trials have been politically motivated and marred by serious due process violations,” Laetitia Bader, a Human Rights Watch researcher on Ethiopia, told IRIN via email. “The Muslim leaders and others, should be immediately released unless the government can produce credible evidence of unlawful activity. The fact that many of the detainees have been in detention for over three months without charge does raise questions about the existence of such evidence.”
Rights groups also say journalists covering the protests are being increasingly harassed. In October, police briefly detained Marthe Van Der Wolf, a reporter with the Voice of America as she was covering one of the protests at the Anwar Mosque, and according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told to erase her recorded interviews.
“Ethiopian authorities should halt their harassment of journalists covering the country’s Muslim community and their intimidation of citizens who have tried to speak to reporters about sensitive religious, ethnic, and political issues,” CPJ said in an October statement.
The government denies violently suppressing the protests, and says “one or two of the protests were extremely violent (with police killed).”
Activists and rights groups are concerned about references to “terrorism” in the charges. “The charges contain similar allegations used to prosecute dissident journalists and opposition leaders in the past few years… the leaders of the Muslim protest are just the latest victims of the regime’s war against dissenting voices,” said Jawar Mohammed.
“In fact, many of the Muslim scholars and spiritual leaders being accused of such conspiracy to create an Islamic state have written and publicly spoken advocating against any form of extremism, emphasizing that Ethiopia is a multi-faith country where secular state is indispensable for co-existence,” he added. “The irony is that these Muslim leaders, many of them, are followers of the Sufi tradition and have a proven track record of actively fighting against infiltration of the community by extremist elements.”
What is the extent of the protests and violence?
The demonstrations have continued for close to a year, and show no signs of abating. During Eid Al Adha celebrations in late October, tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets to celebrate the holiday; after the prayers, they staged protests. “We have nothing to kill for… but we have Islam to die for,” read some of the protesters’ banners.
The arrest of an Imam in the Oromia region back in April led to clashes that left four dead, while the country’s federal police clashed with protesters at Addis Ababa’s Grand Anwar mosque on 21 July.
In October, in the Amhara Region, three civilians and one police officer were killed when protesters stormed a police station where a religious leader was jailed, said Communication Affairs State Minister Shimeles Kemal. On 29 October, federal prosecutors charged the jailed activists and others with terrorism; a group of 29 people are accused of aiming to establish an Islamic state, undermining the country’s secular constitution.
How might resentments play out?
In a report released shortly after Meles’s death, the think tank International Crisis Group warned that the new government would find it difficult to deal with grievances in the absence of “any meaningful domestic political opposition”.
“Resentments would likely continue to be turned into ethnic and religious channels, thus undermining stability and, in the worst case of civil war, even survival of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state,” the authors said.
In a 2001 article, Samantha Power, currently a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama, referred to Ambassador Susan Rice and her colleagues as “Bystanders to Genocide” for failing to intervene and try to stop the Rwanda genocide. Samantha writes:
At an interagency teleconference in late April, Susan Rice, a rising star on the National Security Council (NSC) who worked under Richard Clarke, stunned a few of the officials present when she asked, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?”
This one sentence crystallizes the nature of Susan Rice as a morally bankrupt person bereft of human decency. Therefore, when she heaps praise on Meles Zenawi, a genocidal dictator who burned entire villages in Ogaden and slaughtered the Anuak ethnic group in western Ethiopia, to mention just two of his countless crimes, no body should be surprised.
Samantha goes on to write:
Susan Rice… feels that she has a debt to repay. “There was such a huge disconnect between the logic of each of the decisions we took along the way during the genocide and the moral consequences of the decisions taken collectively,” Rice says. “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.” Rice was subsequently appointed NSC Africa director and, later, assistant secretary of state for African affairs…
Susan is repaying a debt by sharing a stage with an ICC-indicted war criminal, Al Bashir, in calling a mass murderer, Meles Zenawi, a wise man with a world class mind.
Susan Rice was a bystander to genocide during the Clinton Administration, and currently in the Obama Administration, she is a cheerleader to genocide. If Obama is elected for another term and she becomes a secretary of state, who knows what she will become.
Watch Susan Rice’s speech below. Read the full text of Samantha’s article here.
It is a new-year in Ethiopia, (belated) happy 2005 one and all. With it comes a new prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, deputy PM under Meles Zenawi who died some time in August or was it July. A fog of misinformation and uncertainty surrounds the final months of Meles life, ingrained secrecy being both a political and national characteristic that works against social and ethnic cohesion, strengthening mistrust and division.
It is unclear what route the deputy PM, a Protestant from humble beginnings in the small, desperately poor Wolayta community, took to step into the prime ministerial shoes. Some believe the US administration through its powerful military machine Africom, engineered the sympathetic replacement. The US is Ethiopia’s main donor, giving around $3 billion a year, Ethiopia for it’s part and in exchange for such generosity perhaps, allows the US military to station and launch drones from it’s sacred soil into Somalia, or indeed anywhere the Pentagon hacks choose and the deadly drones can reach.
New Prime Minister same old regime story
The new Prime Minister has worryingly vowed, the BBC 21/09/12 report, to continue Mr. Meles “legacy without any change,” a legacy littered with human rights violations and injustices, which has little to recommend it. Meles ruled over a single party State in all but name, for, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) make clear, “Meles engineered one-party rule in effect for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and his Tigrayan inner circle, with the complicity of other ethnic elites that were co-opted into the ruling alliance, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).” A dictatorship in fact and form and as is consistent with such regimes, brutal, controlling and intolerant. No matter the accolades expressed on Meles death by senior politicians and diplomats around the world, who like nothing more it seems than a friendly tyrant.
Hailemariam was chosen, it is alleged, simply to give the appearance of an ethnically balanced leadership, that he will have little independence, and dutifully tow the ideologically driven line of Revolutionary Democracy. Whatever the method and no doubt it was constitutionally correct, Hailemariam and deputy Demeke Mekonnen, are now enthroned, let us wish them well for there is much work to be done within Ethiopia.
Old injustices urgent issues
Human rights issues cry out to be dealt with, starting with the immediate unconditional release of all so called ‘political prisoners’, tried and Imprisoned under the internationally condemned, unjust Anti Terrorist Proclamation, for the heinous crime of publicly disagreeing with the TPLF dominated government. The Ethiopian government should, HRW demand, “amend the law’s most pernicious provisions, which are being used to criminalize free expression and peaceful dissent.” Journalists, mainly working outside of Ethiopia and supporters of opposition political parties are the common targets, tried in absentia in Ethiopian courts by a judiciary that functions as little more than a sentencing body for the government and thinks nothing of handing down life sentences to dissenting voices, based on fabricated charges. Human Rights Watch (HRW) make this illegal pattern clear, stating “the use of draconian laws and trumped-up charges to crack down on free speech and peaceful dissent makes a mockery of the rule of law,” both Federal and International.
The government, immersed in paranoia and determined to control all forms of debate and platforms of expression, fire off accusations of terrorist activity to anyone seen to disagree with their disagreeable policies. The ambiguous provision of ‘conspiracy to commit terrorist acts’ is usually cited as criminal activity, or the even more foggy crime of offering ‘moral support’, which has little or no specific meaning and as HRW assert, “is contrary to the principle of legality.” Such ill-defined terms are employed to criminalize dissent and justify the unjust.
Each urgently required reform flows into and out of the other, connected, as they are by the fundamental need to observe basic human rights, at the heart of which sits freedom and justice. Constitutional law provides for the statutory observation of all freedoms of expression that are nevertheless denied in practice or at best grossly restricted. The press, TV and radio is almost exclusively State owned, television is firmly under government control and with literacy resting at around 48% of the adult population is the arm with the greatest reach and influence. Control of the World wide-web is also in the hands of the EPRDF, the sole telecommunications company being listed in the extensive business portfolio of the government, who control and restrict both Internet expansion and use. Over 80% live in rural areas and currently a mere 0.5% (400,000) of the population have Internet access, the second lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Unity in diversity
With between 70 and 80 tribal sets within the seven major ethnic groups and a 45/35% Christian, Muslim split, cooperation tolerance and unity are essential factors in the countries wellbeing and strength, as well as its internal security. As imperial nations have long known a united civilian population is a threat; divide the factions, separate the ethnic groups, fragment the people make them compete, even fight among themselves and maintain dominion. This, contrary to the EPRDF’s policy of Ethnic Federalism devised in 1991 when they took power, has consistently been the regimes approach. All political authority rests firmly within the party controlled by the TPLF, as the ICG report makes clear, “behind the façade of devolution, [the EPRDF] adopted a highly centralized system that has exacerbated identity-based conflicts.”
Self-determination and self-rule for the major regional groups was, on paper, a central component of Ethnic Federalism, however, as The international human rights group Advocates for Human Rights (AHR) in its report on ethnic groups in Ethiopia found, the government, “actively impedes the rights of disadvantaged ethnic groups to self determination.” Far from building partnerships and cultivating cooperation and tolerance, policies flowing from the TPLF/EPRDF’s desire to maximize control in all areas of society, including the powerful religious groups work to encourage fragmentation, create religious dissonance, strengthen ethnic divisions and deny much needed social unity.
Ethiopia has the third largest population of Muslims in Africa and is thought to be the birthplace of Islam in the continent as well as the cradle of African Christianity. The government has for long controlled Muslim affairs via The Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, which is simply a mouthpiece for the ruling party. There has, as Crescent International reports, “been no election in the council for the last 13 years. The council has remained against the rights of Muslims including wearing hijab and congregational prayer in universities.” Muslims have been calling with increasing intensity for the removal of the unelected council and the State sponsored imposition of Al-Ahbash (The Abyssinian) Islam, a movement that blends elements of Sunni Islam with Sufism. Protests against government meddling are now a regular extension to Friday prayers in Addis Ababa. The Washington Post 2nd November reports the new PM speaking to parliament on 16th October, stating, surprisingly given the EPRDF’s involvement in all things religious, that “the government fully respects freedom of religion and “would not interfere in the affairs of religion just as religion would not interfere in matters of politics.” It does indeed seem he is determined to follow in word and deed in the dictatorial duplicitous footsteps of his predecessor.
The Government with predictable consistency has labeled these legitimate demands the actions of ‘religious extremists’ and In July this year resorted to violent means in an attempt to settle the issue, killing four Muslims at prayer and arresting scores more. HRW reported “Ethiopian police and security services have harassed, assaulted, and arbitrarily arrested hundreds of Muslims at Addis Ababa’s Awalia and Anwar mosques who were protesting government interference in religious affairs.“ Religious extremists as we all know means terrorists, the US Army definition of terrorism is worth relating at this point. It is, they say “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature…through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear.” Accordingly if name-calling is the name of the game, the EPRDF’s policies qualify them unconditionally for the terrorist label, prefixed with the title, ‘State’
It’s worth noting that Orthodox Christian leaders have spoken out in support of their Muslim brothers and aired their own concerns at government interference in all things religious. The head Christian is also a regime appointee. The richness of the countries culture lies in its ancient ethnic diversity and a deeply religious nature that infuses all areas of cultural life, expressed by both orthodox Christians and Muslims who, despite the governments best effort have lived peacefully side-by-side as it were for generations.
Ethnic division centralized discriminatory rule
Regional divisions are being strengthened as ethnic groups are forced to compete for life saving handouts administered by the EPRDF through their network of regional councils. The Kebeles and Woreda’s reach into every village and household, stomach and mind in the country, distributing a range of development support from international donors, including emergency food relief determined by allegiance to the ruling party. Along with this illegal immoral act that needs the urgent attention of donors, whose silence and apathy makes them complicit in the regimes criminality, AHR found the EPRDF use discriminatory tactics to “interfere with the rights of disadvantaged ethnic groups” in all areas of civil society.
Employment is all too often conditional on party affiliation, teachers thought to be supporters of opposition parties are harassed, trade unions, supported within the liberal constitution, if not affiliated with the regime party face dismantling, the members and leaders intimidated and threatened. And Oromo business people, AHR discovered, “are denied business licenses without explanation and face police harassment targeted at customers, suppliers, and employees.”
In schools and colleges both teachers and students are exposed to political indoctrination and ‘encouraged’ to join the ruling party; continued employment and studies being a carrot, unemployment and expulsion the regime stick, membership of the Oromo Liberation Front a guarantee of both. In areas relating to culture, AHR found ”Oromo’s e.g. do not feel free to speak Oromiffa in public or to use distinctively Oromo names,” leading Oromo cultural figures have been persecuted and the Charities and Societies Proclamation – another poisonous piece of legislation that needs revising or scrapping, restricts the development of cultural relationships with members of the diaspora.
Forced from village to Villagization
Ethnic groups forced into villagization programs by the government as they sell off large tracts of land to foreign corporations, make easy targets for a regime pursuing the fragmentation of society and the exploitation of the people. Large numbers have been forcibly re-located, in Gambella alone HRW report, “approximately 70,000 people were slated to be moved by the end of 2011,” into settlements that provide no health services or clean water and often lack schools. Quick to capitalize on the child’s plight Government officials, AHR report “force schoolchildren in these villages to abandon their studies to provide labor for constructing shelters.” An illegal action adding further, to the catalogue of State criminality or to give it its US army title, State terrorism.
It is projected that if the herding of indigenous people continues at the present rate, all rural dwellers, that’s 80% of the population, will be living in one or other of these government created villagization centers by the next decade, without any consultation with those affected, no matter the party line on participation and voluntary movement. It’s hard to discuss social engineering and ancestral land rights with armed solders whilst your home is demolished. Violent coercion is widespread, HRW again ‘security forces enforcing the population transfers have been implicated in at least 20 rapes in the past year. Fear and intimidation are widespread among affected populations.”
Divide and rule extends into the very heart of ethnic communities, families are routinely broken up when driven into the villagization settlements, making women and children particularly vulnerable, as AHR found “in rural areas typically populated by disadvantaged ethnic groups are often victims of human trafficking. The Government has taken no meaningful measures to prevent such trafficking or to provide assistance or support to victims.” Trafficking of women within Ethiopia and overseas, often to the Gulf States almost always equates to prostitution or forced domestic labor, where sexual abuse, violence and degrading treatment is the common experience.
United in purpose
The EPRDF has divided, inhibited and controlled the people of Ethiopia. Fear and intimidation their weapons of choice, wielded without recrimination, compassion or regret, the ‘international community’, who supply a third of the national budget uninterested in their brutality act not in support of the people. The opportunity presented to and by the change of Prime Minister has (to date) proven to be nothing more than a hollow hope. The cry of the people ignored once more, their voices cast into the darkness and dismissed.
The political opposition, fragmented and dysfunctional, offers no vision of change, however there is a powerful alternative responsible group; It is the worlds ‘second superpower’, it is the rich diversity of the people and the strength inherent in their potential unity, standing together in peaceful defense of social justice, freedom and human dignity. The people of Oromo and Amahra, Tigray and Somali, Sidama, Gurage, Wolaita and Afar, look to each other and fear not, look to your neighbors and friends, share your concerns, your hopes, and fear not; for fear is the weapon of the bully the enemy of the good. Look to the next village, communicate and organize, fear not, for fear inhibits and controls. Look to the adjoining street and neighborhood where live others, who too shiver in fear of the police and armed forces, the Kebeles and Woredas who in the full light of day distribute food, jobs, education opportunities and health care based on illegal partisan discrimination.
Unity of the people, rich in diversity united in purpose, is the need and song of the time, for Ethiopia and indeed for the world. Together there is safety and strength beyond measure, “when there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you,” proclaims an African proverb. This truth applies to the individual, the family the people of a nation. Brothers and sisters of one humanity we are, our pains are shared, so too our joys and hopes. No government can withstand the unified strength of a people held together by a common and just cause, acting peacefully in honor of freedom and justice. Such is the need within the wonderful land of Ethiopia, the people of which have suffered much and for far, far too long.
Participants in nonviolent movements sometimes, because of a particular act by the dictatorship has so enraged the populace that they have launched into action without having any idea how the rising might end. While spontaneity has some positive qualities, it has often had disadvantages. Frequently, the democratic resisters have not anticipated the brutalities of the dictatorship, so that they suffered gravely and the resistance has collapsed. At times the lack of planning by democrats has left crucial decisions to chance, with disastrous results… [read more]
It is proper to congratulate President Obama on his re-election to a second term. He put up a masterful campaign to earn the votes of the majority of American voters. Mitt Romney also deserves commendation for a hard fought campaign. In his concession speech Romney was supremely gracious: “At a time like this we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work, and we citizens also have to rise to occasion.”
There has been a bit of finger-wagging, teeth-gnashing, eye-rolling and bellyaching among some Ethiopian Americans in the run up to the U.S. presidential election held last week. Some were angry at President Obama and actively campaigned in support of his opponent. They felt betrayed by the President’s inability or unwillingness to give effect to his lofty rhetoric on human rights in Africa and Ethiopia. Others were disappointed by what they believed to be active support for and aid to brutal African dictators. Many tried to be empathetic of the President’s difficult circumstances. He had to formulate American foreign policy to maximize achievement of American global national interests. Terrorism in the Horn of Africa was a critical issue for the U.S. and Obama had to necessarily subordinate human rights to global counter-terrorism issues.
I was quite disappointed by the President’s failure to implement even a rudimentary human rights agenda in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa. But I also understood that he had some fierce battles to fight domestically trying to shore up the American economy, pushing some basic social policies, fighting two wars and putting out brushfires in a conflict-ridden world. I gave the President credit for a major diplomatic achievement in the South Sudan referendum which led to the creation of Africa’s newest state. President Obama authorized the deployment of a small contingent of U.S. troops to capture or kill the bloodthirsty thug Joseph Kony and his criminal partners. He launched the kleptocracy project which I thought was a great idea. As I argued in my column “Africorruption, Inc.“, the “business of African governments in the main is corruption. The majority of African ‘leaders’ seize political power to operate sophisticated criminal enterprises to loot their national treasuries and resources.” I felt the kleptocracy project could effectively prevent illicit money transfer from Ethiopia to the U.S. According to Global Financial Integrity, Ethiopia lost US$11.7 billion to illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2009. I gave the president high marks for working through the U.N. to pass U.N. Resolution 1973 which endorsed the effort to protect Libyan civilians and his use of NATO partners to shoulder much of the military responsibility to rid Gadhafi from Libya after 41 years of brutal dictatorship. More broadly, I give him credit for closing secret C.I.A. prisons, ending extraordinary renditions and enhanced interrogations (torture), trying to close down the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay and move trials from military tribunals into civilian courts and abide by international laws of human rights. No doubt, he has much more to do in the area of global human rights.
I believe he could have done a lot more in Africa and Ethiopia to promote human rights, but did not. I have written numerous columns over the past couple of years that have been very critical of U.S. policy. In the “The Moral Hazard of U.S. Policy in Africa“, I argued that neither the U.S. nor the West could afford to sacrifice democracy and human rights in Africa to curry favor with incorrigible African dictators whose sole interest is in clinging to power to enrich themselves and their cronies. In my column, “Thugtatorship: The Highest Stage of African Dictatorship”, I argued Africa’s thugtatorships have longstanding and profitable partnerships with the West. Through aid and trade, the West and particularly the U.S. has enabled these thugocracies to flourish in Africa. A few months ago, in my column “Ethiopia in Bond Aid,” I argued that international aid is negatively affecting Africa’s development. “Before much of Africa became ‘independent’ in the 1960s, Africans were held under the yoke of “colonial bondage”. ‘International aid’ addiction has transformed Africa’s colonial bondage into neo-colonial bondaid.” In another recent column “Ethiopia: Food for Famine and Thought!”, I criticized the G8 Food Security Summit held in Washington, D.C. this past June as a reinvention of the old colonialism: “The G-8’s ‘New Alliance’ smacks of the old Scramble for Africa. The G-8 wants to liberate Africa from hunger, famine and starvation by facilitating the handover of millions of hectares of Africa’s best land to global multinationals…”
But despite disappointments, misgivings, apprehensions and concern over the Obama Administration’s failure to actively promote human rights in Ethiopia and Africa, I have supported President Obama. For all his faults, he has been an inspiring leader to me. Like many Americans, I was awed by state Senator Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic national Convention in 2004 when he unapologetically declared: “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. There is not a liberal America. There is not a conservative America. There is a United States of America.” These words continue to inspire me to dream of the day when young Ethiopian men and women shall come together from all parts of the country and shout out and sing the words, “There is not an Oromo Ethiopia, Amhara Ethiopia, Tigrai Ethiopia, Gurage Ethiopia, Ogadeni Ethiopia, Anuak Ethiopia… There is only a united Ethiopia where ‘justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”
During the advocacy effort to pass H.R. 2003 (“Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007”), we had opportunities to meet with U.S. Senator Obama’s staffers in his district office and on the Hill on a number of occasions. Our meetings were encouraging and there was little doubt that Senator Obama would support H.R. 2003 if the bill had made it to the Senate floor after it passed the House of Representatives in October 2007. In February 2008, our advocacy group, the Coalition for H.R. 2003, formally endorsed Barack Obama’s presidential bid. We declared that “it is time for the U.S. to abandon its support of African dictators, and pursue policies that uplift and advance the people of Africa. It is time for an American president who will stand up for human rights in Ethiopia, and demand of those who violate human rights to stand down!”
Over the last four years, our enthusiasm and support for the President flagged and waned significantly as Africa remained on the fringes of U.S. foreign policy agenda. During the recent presidential “foreign policy debate” Africa was barely mentioned. There was only passing reference to Al Qaeda’s presence in Mali, the third poorest country on the planet. (According to the Economist Magazine, Ethiopia is the poorest country on the planet.) But not to make excuses, the President had a lot on his foreign policy plate. The Arab Spring was spreading like wildfire sweeping out longtime dictators. Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East remains a critical issue. The global economic meltdown threatens certain European countries with total economic collapse.
Hope Springs Eternal in Ethiopia and the Rest of Africa
I am hopeful that human rights in Africa will occupy a prominent role in the foreign policy agenda of President Obama’s second term. An indication of such a trend may be evident in the announcement two days after President Obama’s reelection that he will be visiting Myanmar (Burma) in a couple of weeks. After five decades of ruthless military dictatorship, Myanmar is gradually transforming itself into a democracy. President Thein Sein has released political prisoners, lifted media bans and implemented economic and political reforms. Amazingly, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is the acknowledged opposition leader in parliament after two decades of house arrest. Last week, a State Department spokesperson underscored the need for human rights improvement in Ethiopia according to a Voice of America report. There are favorable signs the Obama Administration will pursue a more aggressive human rights agenda in Africa.
President Obama Would Like to Leave a Legacy of Democracy and Freedom in Africa
Historically, second-term presidents become increasingly focused on foreign policy. They also become acutely aware of the legacy they would like to leave after they complete their second term. I believe President Obama would like to leave a memorable and monumental legacy of human rights in Africa. I cannot believe that he is so indifferent to Africa that he would leave it in worse condition than he found it. When he became president, much of Africa was dominated by dictators who shot their way to power or rigged elections to get into power. In much of Africa today, the absence of the rule of law is shocking to the conscience. Massive human rights violations are commonplace. In Ethiopia, journalists, dissidents, opposition leaders, peaceful demonstrators, civil society and human rights advocates are jailed, harassed and persecuted every day.
Needless to say, for President Obama Africa is the land of his father even though he was born and raised in America. I believe President Obama, like most immigrant Ethiopian Americans, would like to help the continent not only escape poverty but also achieve better governance and greater respect for the rule of law. He would like to see Africa having free and fair elections and improved human rights conditions. In his book Dreams From My Father, he wrote, “… It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew – Frank or Ray or Will or Rafiq – fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own – my father’s voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people’s struggle. Wake up, black man!” A man whose life’s inspiration comes from Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, W.E. B. DuBois and Nelson Mandela cannot ignore or remain indifferent to the suffering of African peoples. I think he will help Africans in their struggle for dignity in his second term.
U.S. Human Rights Policy in the Post Arab Spring Period
In the post-Arab Spring world, the U.S. has come to realize that its formula of subordinating its human rights policy to security and economic interests in dealing with dictators needs reexamination, recalibration and reformulation. By relying on dictators to maintain domestic and regional stability, the U.S. has historically ignored and remained indifferent to the needs, aspirations and suffering of the Arab masses. When the Arab masses exploded in anger, the U.S. was perplexed and did not know what to do.
The U.S. has been timid in raising human rights issues with Africa’s dictators fearing lack of cooperation in the war on terror and other strategic objectives. The U.S. effort has been limited to issuing empty verbal exhortations and practicing “quite diplomacy” which has produced very little to advance an American human rights agenda. I believe the President understands that America’s long term global interests cannot be advanced or achieved merely through moral exhortations and condemnations. We know that the President’s style is to exhaust diplomacy before taking more drastic measures. As he explained, “The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach–and condemnation without discussion–can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.” For the past four years, few African dictators have walked through the door that leads to democracy and human rights. Many of them have kicked it shut. I am hopeful that in the second term, the President will go beyond “exhortation” to concrete action in dealing with African dictators since he holds their aid purse strings.
President Obama is Not Just a President But Also a Constitutional Lawyer and…
I believe President Obama’s experiences before he became a national leader continue to have great influence on his thinking and actions. As a constitutional and civil rights lawyer, I believe he has an innate sense of moral distaste and repugnance for injustice and arbitrariness. President Obama cut his teeth as a lawyer representing individuals in civil and voting rights litigation and wrongful terminations in employment though he could have joined any one of the most prestigious law firms in America. He spent his early years doing grassroots organizing and advocacy working with churches and community groups to help the poor and disadvantaged. To be sure, he has spent more time doing community work than serving on the national political stage. As a constitutional and civil rights lawyer, law professor and advocate for the poor, I believe President Obama understands the immense importance of the rule of law, protection of civil liberties and human rights and the need to restrain those who abuse their powers and sneer at the rule of law. I think the community activist side of him will be more visible in his second term.
Ask Not What Obama Can Do for Ethiopia, But…
Some of us make the mistake of asking what President Obama can do for us. The right question is what we can do for Ethiopia by organizing, mobilizing and lobbying the Obama Administration to establish and pursue a firm human rights agenda. In his victory speech on election night President Obama said, “The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government.” Governor Romney in his concession speech said, “At a time like this we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work, and we citizens also have to rise to occasion.” These are the principles Ethiopian Americans, and others in the Diaspora and at home, should embrace and practice. It should be time for a fresh start. We should learn from past mistakes and begin to organize and reach out in earnest to the Obama Administration. Many groups have had success with the Administration in advancing their causes including Arab Americans, Iranian Americans, Armenian Americans, Macedonian Americans, Serbian Americans and many others. As human rights activists and advocates, we should demand engagement by senior U.S. officials and diplomats on human rights issues.
The U.S. knows how to apply pressure on dictators who have been “friends”. In the 1980s, the U.S. played a central role in the transition of the Philippines, Chile, Taiwan, and South Korea from dictatorship to democracy. The United States also kept human rights agenda front and center when it conducted negotiations with the Soviet Union and other Soviet-bloc countries. The question is not whether the U.S. can advance a vigorous human rights agenda in Ethiopia or Africa, but if it has the political will to do so. I am hopeful that will will manifest itself in President Obama’s second term.
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
It is proper to congratulate President Obama on his re-election to a second term. He put up a masterful campaign to earn the votes of the majority of American voters. Mitt Romney also deserves commendation for a hard fought campaign. In his concession speech Romney was supremely gracious: “At a time like this we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work, and we citizens also have to rise to occasion.”