ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia earned more than $1.3 billion from exports in 2006/07, missing its $1.5 billion target owing to price fluctuations in international markets, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said on Tuesday. [How much of it went to EFFORT (Woyanne’s business conglomerate) and Al Amoudi?]
Africa’s leading coffee exporter also paid a total of $4.7 billion for imports ranging from industrial machines to fuel during the same period, the ministry’s Export Promotion Department said in a report.
Ethiopia generated $1.1 billion from exports and paid $3.6 billion for imported goods in 2005/06.
“The country’s major export commodities in 2006/07 fell far short of anticipated revenue, thus generating less than the planned $1.5 billion,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Ethiopia exported 176,390 tonnes of coffee earning $424 million in 2006/07, up from the 153,155 tonnes that grossed $365.8 million in 2005/6, but lower than a projected $488 million, the ministry said.
Oil seeds and spices fetched $267.5 million, below a forecast income of $343.7 million.
“Most commodities underperformed, causing the country’s annual foreign currency revenue to be less than anticipated,” it said.
Africa’s second most populous country is the one of the world’s poorest, with millions of its 81 million people dependent on food aid.
The government is keen to tackle poverty by boosting the agricultural sector upon which most of its citizens depend, particularly exports.
Meat and live animal exports were hurt by a ban slapped on Ethiopia from its major traditional buyer United Arab Emirates last November, following scares over an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in neighbouring Kenya, the ministry said.
But gold and coffee exceeded government expectations. The country exported 5.58 tonnes of gold, about a third more than anticipated.
Export earnings from 11.7 tonnes of cotton fetched $14.3 million, compared with a projected $8.9 million.
Rising tensions in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, combined with chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrean enmity, and human rights concerns, are testing US support for the Addis Ababa government led by Clinton-era good governance pin-up Meles Zenawi.
The Bush administration welcomed the recent release of 38 opposition politicians detained after violent protests over the conduct of elections in 2005. But it has kept quiet over Ethiopia’s subsequent expulsion of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers from Ogaden’s Somali regional state, following claims they were aiding Ogaden National Liberation Front separatists (ONLF).
The ICRC condemned Ethiopia’s action, warning it would have “an inevitable, negative impact” on an already impoverished, largely nomadic population. The ONLF claimed the expulsions, and a ban on foreign media, were an attempt to prevent the international community witnessing “the war crimes taking place against the civilians of Ogaden at the hands of the Ethiopian regime”.
The rebels also blamed Ethiopian government forces for the killing in a roadside attack on July 29 of two leaders of the main indigenous relief organisation, the Ogaden Welfare and Development Association. Despite Ethiopian denials, the ONLF says the government continues to enforce “a virtual blockade against aid and commercial goods in Ogaden”. It has repeatedly called for UN intervention.
Congress’s Africa committee endorsed legislation last month that could oblige President Bush to withhold US financial and military assistance to Ethiopia’s government unless all political prisoners are freed, freedom of speech and information are respected, and human rights groups can operate unhindered.
“Ethiopia’s authoritarian prime minister Meles Zenawi was once a darling of the Clinton administration and has forged close ties the Bush administration. With Washington’s blessing, Meles sent troops to Somalia in December to expel the radical Islamic Courts movement linked to al-Qaida,” a Washington Post editorial noted. But the paper said the “preposterous” charges against opposition activists, abuses in Somalia and reported atrocities in the “internal war” in Ogaden meant ties might have to be reviewed.
A recent report for the international watchdog Human Rights Watch quoted witnesses describing how Ethiopian troops burned homes and in some cases, killed fleeing civilians.
Human Rights Watch said the separatists were also guilty of serious abuses, a refrain vigorously pursued by the Ethiopian government. “The ONLF, a terrorist group acting in collaboration with the defunct Islamic Courts (in Somalia) and the Eritrean government, has been committing atrocities and human rights violations, including indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians,” the foreign ministry said.
Wider US interests in the Horn of Africa suggest Washington will be minded to continue to accept Addis Ababa’s side of the story, unless the situation grows egregious and the international community becomes more involved. Those US interests include Ethiopia’s role in supporting the enfeebled transitional government in Somalia and opposing the spread of Islamist extremism across the region.
Keeping a firm hand on ethnically Somali, Muslim Ogaden, the scene of a cold war-era proxy conflict, is a long-standing US objective. The US has also sought Ethiopia’s support in peacemaking in southern Sudan and Darfur.
But region-wide instability seems to be increasing. Nearly 30,000 Somalis were displaced from Mogadishu in July. Political reconciliation efforts have made no headway so far. Despite their political differences, many if not most Somalis regard the Ethiopian troops as a hostile occupation force.
Eritrea, its bitter border dispute with Ethiopia still simmering, is shipping “huge quantities of arms” to insurgents in Somalia, according to a UN report. Concerns about a spreading humanitarian and refugee emergency grow, even as international aid targets undershoot. And now, far from being “defunct”, Somalia’s Islamist movement may be gaining friends and influence in an increasingly isolated, radicalised Ogaden.
Rising tensions in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, combined with chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrean enmity, and human rights concerns, are testing US support for the Addis Ababa government led by Clinton-era good governance pin-up Meles Zenawi.
The Bush administration welcomed the recent release of 38 opposition politicians detained after violent protests over the conduct of elections in 2005. But it has kept quiet over Ethiopia’s subsequent expulsion of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers from Ogaden’s Somali regional state, following claims they were aiding Ogaden National Liberation Front separatists (ONLF).
The ICRC condemned Ethiopia’s action, warning it would have “an inevitable, negative impact” on an already impoverished, largely nomadic population. The ONLF claimed the expulsions, and a ban on foreign media, were an attempt to prevent the international community witnessing “the war crimes taking place against the civilians of Ogaden at the hands of the Ethiopian regime”.
The rebels also blamed Ethiopian government forces for the killing in a roadside attack on July 29 of two leaders of the main indigenous relief organisation, the Ogaden Welfare and Development Association. Despite Ethiopian denials, the ONLF says the government continues to enforce “a virtual blockade against aid and commercial goods in Ogaden”. It has repeatedly called for UN intervention.
Congress’s Africa committee endorsed legislation last month that could oblige President Bush to withhold US financial and military assistance to Ethiopia’s government unless all political prisoners are freed, freedom of speech and information are respected, and human rights groups can operate unhindered.
“Ethiopia’s authoritarian prime minister Meles Zenawi was once a darling of the Clinton administration and has forged close ties the Bush administration. With Washington’s blessing, Meles sent troops to Somalia in December to expel the radical Islamic Courts movement linked to al-Qaida,” a Washington Post editorial noted. But the paper said the “preposterous” charges against opposition activists, abuses in Somalia and reported atrocities in the “internal war” in Ogaden meant ties might have to be reviewed.
A recent report for the international watchdog Human Rights Watch quoted witnesses describing how Ethiopian troops burned homes and in some cases, killed fleeing civilians.
Human Rights Watch said the separatists were also guilty of serious abuses, a refrain vigorously pursued by the Ethiopian government. “The ONLF, a terrorist group acting in collaboration with the defunct Islamic Courts (in Somalia) and the Eritrean government, has been committing atrocities and human rights violations, including indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians,” the foreign ministry said.
Wider US interests in the Horn of Africa suggest Washington will be minded to continue to accept Addis Ababa’s side of the story, unless the situation grows egregious and the international community becomes more involved. Those US interests include Ethiopia’s role in supporting the enfeebled transitional government in Somalia and opposing the spread of Islamist extremism across the region.
Keeping a firm hand on ethnically Somali, Muslim Ogaden, the scene of a cold war-era proxy conflict, is a long-standing US objective. The US has also sought Ethiopia’s support in peacemaking in southern Sudan and Darfur.
But region-wide instability seems to be increasing. Nearly 30,000 Somalis were displaced from Mogadishu in July. Political reconciliation efforts have made no headway so far. Despite their political differences, many if not most Somalis regard the Ethiopian troops as a hostile occupation force.
Eritrea, its bitter border dispute with Ethiopia still simmering, is shipping “huge quantities of arms” to insurgents in Somalia, according to a UN report. Concerns about a spreading humanitarian and refugee emergency grow, even as international aid targets undershoot. And now, far from being “defunct”, Somalia’s Islamist movement may be gaining friends and influence in an increasingly isolated, radicalised Ogaden.
ADDIS ABABA, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) – Ethiopia’s defence ministry [the Woyanne junta] Tuesday said government troops had killed 200 rebels and captured hundreds in the restive predominantly Somali southern region of Ogaden over the past month.
“Over 200 anti-peace elements have been killed by the military,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that militants had “been destroyed …in a successful operation.”
“All the elements belonged to the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front), OLF (Oromo Liberation Front), and Al-Ittihad,” the ministry said.
Ethiopia earned $40 million from the export of gold supplied by traditional small-scale miners during the past 11 months, Ethiopian Mines and Energy Minister said on Monday.
Alemayehu Tegenu told journalists in Addis Ababa that close two tons of gold were supplied by the artisanal miners and shipped to foreign markets.
It was the first time Ethiopia earned such amount of foreign exchange from the export of gold.
“This was achieved due to the technical and material support to make traditional miners engage in legal mining works rather than illegal ones,” Tegenu said.
Extensive efforts were launched to organize traditional miners living in every region into associations thereby helping them engage in legal trade, he said.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) — The Woyanne regime in Ethiopia executed a military officer convicted of killing the country’s former head of security and immigration, the federal prison service said.
Major Tsehai Wolde Selassie was convicted of shooting dead Kinfe Gebremedhin, a close ally of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, outside an officers’ club in 2001.
“Major Tsehai was executed after his appeal for clemency to the Supreme Court was turned down and his death sentence was approved by President Girma Wolde Giorgise,” the Federal Prison Administration said in a statement.
The FPA did not say how Tsehai was executed but soldiers are supposed to face a firing squad, according to Ethiopian law.
