Addis Ababa – Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship in Ethiopia is to bolster its defence budget by $50-million (about 450 million birr) “for stability reasons” amid tension in the Horn of Africa region, according to a draft budget presented to parliament Tuesday by Finance Minister Sufian Ahmed.
“The defence budget for the next fiscal year (beginning in July) will be raised to four billion birr ($400-million) up from 3.5-billion ($350-million) last year,” Sufian said. “We believe that this amount is proportional.”
The budget is to be approved by the end of the month.
The Meles dictatorship is involved in a tense standoff with Eritrea over a border row that has remained unresolved despite the signing of a peace deal that ended their two-year war in 2000.
Its troops are also battling insurgents in Somalia after entering in late 2006 to bolster Somalia’s beleaguered transitional government, in a move supported by the United States.
“We have raised the amount for stability reasons as we are based in the Horn of Africa region,” the finance minister said. “We can only sustain economic development when there is stability in our region.”
The crisis that has sent food costs spiraling upward around the globe is causing Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel to give up something priceless: a piece of their culture.
Tens of thousands of the expatriates are being forced to abandon their traditional diets because of the skyrocketing cost of teff grain.
Teff, a nutritious and hardy cereal domesticated in Ethiopia thousands of years ago, is the primary ingredient in injera, a round flatbread that accompanies most Ethiopian meals.
A drastic shortage has caused the price of teff to jump by some 300 percent over the past year.
A 110-pound (50-kilogram) sack now runs at least 600 New Israeli shekels (about U.S. $179).
The price increases hit Israel’s Ethiopian community particularly hard, as it is a struggling group with about three-quarters living below the poverty line, according to official figures.
“It just seems foolish to me. It doesn’t seem logical to throw away so much money just to eat the same food that I ate in Ethiopia,” said Ayelet Inbaram, an Ethiopian living in Bat Yam.
“We can get along fine with bread, pitas, spaghetti, rice,” she said. “The preservation of our heritage is very important to me. I prepare injera and eat from one plate with my children.
“[But] I tell them how we lived, where we came from, how we walked to Israel … There are ways to remain connected without throwing money away.”
Drought and Trade
In the early 1980s, for a variety of social and religious reasons, tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews began walking toward Israel. Up to half of them died or were killed during the months-long desert treks to refugee camps in Sudan.
The survivors were transported into Israel during covert operations by the Israeli military and intelligence agencies. Emigration continued, and some 100,000 now live in Israel, home to the world’s second-largest Ethiopian expatriate community after the United States.
These Ethiopian-Israelis adhere largely to a traditional diet of injera served with meat, chicken, fish, or vegetables. Teff is also used to produce beverages, and its straw is used to feed cattle and even for construction purposes.
But the Israeli climate is not suited to growing teff, so consumers are entirely dependent upon imports from Ethiopia—and these have shriveled away in recent months due to a variety of factors.
A drought year caused teff production to drop in the rain-dependent country, even as its population continued to increase. In response, Ethiopian officials have reduced exports to a bare minimum to keep most of the grain for domestic use.
In the absence of official trade ties between Israel and Ethiopia, merchants have been illegally transporting teff from Ethiopia via Djibouti and other laborious—and costly—routes.
In addition, the popularity of teff among non-Ethiopian Israelis seeking a healthier grain has driven up the cost, according to Shlomo Molla, the only Ethiopian member of Israel’s parliament.
Molla said he is working to secure an Israel-Ethiopia trade agreement that would allow regulated imports of teff.
“Unfortunately, I am the only one in the government confronting this situation,” Molla said. “Our Ministry of Industry and Trade also has to intervene and set fixed prices for teff.”
Almost Gone?
Meanwhile, many Ethiopian-Israelis can no longer afford to eat their traditional food, and others are actively refusing to buy teff to protest the high cost and the government policies that have contributed to the shortage.
Inbaram, the Bat Yam resident, said the Israeli government should regulate the price of teff, just as it does with other staples such as flour, bread, and dairy products. Meanwhile, she hopes a boycott will force teff merchants to lower prices.
But Ronen Sanbate, an Ethiopian-Israeli teff merchant from Rishon Letzion, said Ethiopian export restrictions have created a situation in which no new teff is arriving in Israel.
He and fellow merchants are now selling off their current stock and—unless the situation changes—Israel’s supply will run out.
“If Ethiopia doesn’t start to release teff, I will be out of work,” Sanbate said.
“We grew up on teff,” he added. “When it runs out, we’ll have no choice—we’ll have to get used to rice.”
A Canadian citizen who has been imprisoned in Ethiopia for 18 months without being formally charged is being treated humanely and is in “good health”, says the parliamentary secretary to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was in Ethiopia earlier this year.
But if there isn’t any action on the case soon, Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai says he will return to Ethiopia this summer to press officials again.
Obhrai flew to Ethiopia this spring to meet with the government to try to lobby for consular access to Bashir Makhtal, a former Torontonian who was arrested in late December 2006 on the Kenya-Somalia border, held in Kenya and then deported to Somalia and on to Ethiopia in late January 2007. Makhtal – who has been held incommunicado by the Ethiopian government since he was rendered there – is originally from the Ogaden, a part of Ethiopia where his grandfather started a rebel separatist movement.
Obhrai was in Kenya in March on Canadian government business when he flew to Ethiopia to meet with the state secretary for foreign affairs to ask for consular access for Makhtal. During his visit, Obhrai said, he met with Dr. Takeda Alemu and expressed the government’s concern over the case.
But for Said Maktal, Bashir’s cousin, these latest moves by Obhrai are not enough. Nor does he believe the Canadian government has been forceful enough in intervening with the Ethiopian government on his cousin’s behalf.
“The government of Canada is not doing enough for this case,” Maktal said today in an interview with the Star. “After all, the person sitting behind bars is my cousin – who is not getting any (consular) access from his own embassy, not getting access for a lawyer and not being treated, to me, as a human being.”
Maktal also believes that his cousin isn’t getting the same kind of treatment as other Canadians who have been imprisoned in foreign countries, pointing to the case of Brenda Martin. “I would love the Canadian government to pressure the Ethiopian government more. I’d like the Prime Minister, Mr. Stephen Harper, to talk to the government of Ethiopia.”
Obhrai said in his meeting in March he urged the Ethiopian government to follow due process and protect Makhtal’s human rights. Before he left the meeting he hand-delivered a letter from Helena Guergis, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The letter, he said, also urged the Ethiopian government to provide consular access to Makhtal and to protect his human rights.
“We had a frank discussion on the issue that Mr. Makhtal was a Canadian citizen and why it is important for us to have consular access,” said Obhrai. “He assured me that Mr. Makhtal has been treated humanely and he would convey the message to his government. He also assured me Bashir was in good health.”
Obhrai also urged the Ethiopian government to proceed with due process – either charge Makhtal or release him.
On April 23, Obhrai telephoned the Ethiopian state secretary for foreign affairs to press the case again, repeating his concern on consular access for Makhtal, the parliamentary secretary said. But there still has been no action and Makhtal has not had any consular access, nor has he been charged or allowed access to a lawyer.
The Calgary MP said he is now waiting for word from the Canadian ambassador in Ethiopia – who is on top of the file – before he proceeds any further. But he does plan to phone the Ethiopian state secretary for foreign affairs again – to plead the Canadian government’s case.
“We have asked the ambassador what the Ethiopians are doing and I plan to go later this summer,” he said. “We are waiting for them to move forward. They’ve assured us they will. I shall be making another trip to Ethiopia pending what the ambassador says and how it is moving.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) today announced it was launching an investigation into the police handling of death threats to a teenager who was stabbed to death on Monday.
Arsema Dawit was repeatedly knifed in a lift in Matheson Lang House, the block of flats in Waterloo, south London, where she lived with her family.
Thomas Nugusse, 21, a student from Ilford, Essex was tonight charged with her murder. He will appear at Greenwich magistrates court tomorrow, Scotland Yard said tonight.
Members of the family said they had earlier told police that the 15-year-old had been assaulted by an obsessive man.
Yesterday, Scotland Yard confirmed that on April 30 police received a complaint that a man, aged 29 or 30, had assaulted her in a McDonald’s restaurant on April 16, making threats to kill her.
An officer spoke to Arsema at her school on May 12, but she claimed to have “no knowledge” of the incident.
Police contacted the teenager’s mother a week later, and the investigation was still ongoing when she was murdered.
Today’s announcement of came after Scotland Yard said senior officers would also examine the handling of the case.
In a statement released this afternoon the Met confirmed it too had commissioned an “internal review of our investigation into the crime allegation made by Arsema Dawit and her family on 30 April this year”.
It said this investigation would be overseen by the violent crime directorate and the directorate of professional standards.
Police arrested a man in connection with the killing on a footbridge over the river Thames as he threatened to kill himself shortly after the teenager was attacked, officers said.
Earlier, detectives were granted more time to question a 21-year-old man who was arrested over Arsema’s death.
The man was arrested on a footbridge over the River Thames as he threatened to kill himself shortly after the teenager was attacked, police said.
An IPCC statement said it had asked the Metropolitan police for the investigation to be referred to the commission.
“The family complained to the Metropolitan police that Arsema … was assaulted on April 30, five weeks before her murder,” the statement said.
“The IPCC awaits the referral, whereupon [it] will assess how the investigation should be carried out.”
A source close to the police inquiry said officers were not aware of a wider campaign of harassment against Arsema.
She was the 16th teenager to be killed in the capital this year, and the first female victim.
The attack came days after the Scotland Yard commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, vowed to do everything in his power to combat knife crime.
A new study shows that Amara and Tigre merchants founded the ancient civilization of Gebts 5100 years ago and as a result developed the world’s first written language of business and trade.
Gebts represented a prime location to sell their goods and products, which Amara and Tigre merchants appear to have done in the area since 6000 years ago. But the key to establishing the ancient civilization that we all know about was when the Amara and Tigre merchants moved their farms and production into Gebts. Once they did, they needed to develop a way to document workers, wages, productions and sales.
Evidence is found in the word for “writing” in ancient Gebts, “matet”, which of course means, “give a report,” in Amarigna (“mehtat” in Tigrigna).
Using drawn-out objects to represent vowels and consonants, the Amara and Tigre developed a written language that could be used with both Amarigna and Tigrigna. Each vowel or consonant was taken from an object that contained it. Thus a drawing of a leg (“bat”) represented the consonant “b” and a closed lock (“zege”) was drawn for the consonant “z.”
Moving Amara and Tigre farming production into Gebts meant the local Gebts population could be employed as the farming and production labor. This allowed the merchants to generate an economy that never existed before.
But also, moving into the new region stimulated the economy with export sales, since new international markets could more easily and quickly be reached from the north-facing ports of Gebts at the Mediterranean Sea. This was an important opportunity for both Amara and Tigre merchants, as prior to this, Amara had to rely on the Nile River and Tigre had previously done trade primarily through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf to the south.
As a part of the administration of Gebts by the Amara and Tigre, Amarigna and Tigrigna represented a unique 2-language national written language system.
Surprisingly, the study reveals that Amarigna and Tigrigna were not recently split from each other, as it is commonly believed, and were already distinct languages 5100 years ago. The study also shows that Amara and Tigre culture has remained very much unchanged from 5100 years ago; we use the same words, eat the same food, and share the same beliefs 5100 years ago as we do now.
To view a list of 250 words from the ancient Gebts writings, visit ancientgebts.org
“Islands in the Stream” was a 1983 hit country music by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, written by the Bee Gees. Ethiopian singers Zeritu Kebede and Henock Mehari sing it beautifully at a concert in Addis Ababa.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) today announced it was launching an investigation into the police handling of death threats to a teenager who was stabbed to death on Monday.