(ANI) — A visit to the world’s greatest monument to love, the Taj Mahal, has left most African leaders thieves speechless.
Heads of state of Dictators of Uganda and Ethiopia, who were in India to participate in the two-day India[-to-Exploit]-Africa Forum Summit, went into raptures after visiting the historic monument that was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
Uganda President dictator Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who went around Taj Mahal with his wife Janet Kataha, marveled at the architecture and technology used by artisans of yore in building the monument.
“This is a magnificent place, given the technology of that time. To find that they could build such a big structure suspended on arches, supported by columns inside the ground. I salute their contribution to human effort,” said Yoweri.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Ethiopia Prime Minister dictator MELES Zenawi, who described the monument as an extraordinary sight.
Built by an army of 20,000 stone masons, gem cutters, marble fitters and labourers between 1631 and 1648, the Taj Mahal attracts millions of tourists every year. (ANI)
It is not surprising that these two fools find Taj Mahal “extraordinary” since the countries they claim to lead cannot even grow enough food.
The Death Sentence Was Used As a Tool of Intimidation
Interview with Leonard Vincent, head of the RSF’s Africa desk.
CAPE TOWN (IPS) – Journalism in Ethiopia has become an increasingly hazardous trade over recent years. A clampdown on the media in the wake of disputed elections in 2005 continues to resonate in the country, while certain members of the press have even found themselves facing capital punishment.
In July 2007, journalists Andualem Ayele Legesse, Mesfin Tesfaye Gobena, Wonakseged Zeleke Tessema and Dawit Fasil Woldeselassie were sentenced to death on charges that included treason — this in connection with the unrest that followed the 2005 polls.
While the four were later amnestied, their sentences are viewed as having had a somewhat chilling effect on press freedom in Ethiopia. To find out more, IPS correspondent Miriam Mannak spoke to Leonard Vincent, head of the Africa desk at Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders, RSF). This Paris-based advocacy group helped negotiate the release of the four condemned writers.
IPS: The decision to issue death sentences against the journalists must have come as a shock to RSF…
Leonard Vincent (LV): On the one hand it was, as it is a very serious matter. On the other hand, we never thought that the Ethiopian government would go ahead with it and shoot the journalists. The death sentence was used as a tool of intimidation, a way to put journalists in their place and to make sure they understand the consequences of defying the authorities.
Despite the fact we were aware of this and knew the government was overreacting, we treated the situation with the greatest urgency…
IPS: What effect has this event had on the media in Ethiopia?
LV: It has had a great impact. Self-censorship is a way of life for Ethiopian journalists, especially for those living and working in Addis Ababa (the capital). Any form of criticism and any attack against the president or the government may lead to telephonic threats, intimidation or even arrest and (a) jail sentence…
Nevertheless, two of the journalists involved have again started independent newspapers in Addis Ababa. This was a couple of months ago. Of course, both editors are under strict surveillance and it has been very difficult to obtain a license, but they are managing.
IPS: Are journalists in Ethiopia afraid of the death penalty?
LV: No real fear exists among media people when it comes to the death penalty. These were exceptional circumstances that lead to the events in 2005, and everyone understands that. That includes RSF.
There is… a greater fear of being imprisoned. Prisons in Ethiopia have a very bad reputation: we are talking about cells with 120 people and only one latrine, as well as restricted visiting rights.
IPS: Have there been recent cases of journalists elsewhere in Africa receiving death sentences?
LV: Not that I know of. Maybe some artists have been sentenced to death, but not journalists — at least not in the past 10 years.
There have been cases of life imprisonment. Moussa Kaka, a journalist from Niger, was arrested in September last year on a charge of complicity in an attack on state authority. He is being accused of being in contact with the rebels who are fighting in the north of the country. Moussa faces a life sentence, but has not been tried yet. In the same event, two French journalists were arrested and threatened with the death penalty. They were released in January this year.
IPS: In general, is it difficult for journalists in Africa to write about the death penalty?
LV: Yes, commenting on judicial decisions is tricky in many countries. In some nations journalists are not even allowed to comment on the justice system. Last month in Niger, the editor of the independent publication ‘L’Eveil Plus’, Aboubacar Gourouza, was sentenced to one month in jail for an article in which he compared the provisional release of the mayor of the city of Maradi with a decision to keep the mayor of Niamey (the capital) in prison. Both mayors had been accused of fraud.
IPS: What type of difficulties does your organisation encounter when trying to highlight these problems?
LV: In some countries, the authorities are quite prejudiced and sceptical towards us. In Rwanda, for instance, they suspect that RSF is funded by the French government. Others think we are paid by the American intelligence services. That is obviously not true…We try to open the debate with the authorities and talk to them about freedom of the press. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
(AME Info) — Ethiopian Airlines, the fastest growing African carrier, has announced its plan to launch flight services to Kuwait and Riyadh starting June 2. The flights will operate Addis Ababa-Riyadh-Kuwait-Addis Ababa twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays with the return flights on Tuesdays and Fridays. Ethiopian currently operates 35 flights weekly to six destinations in the Middle East: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Beirut, Dubai, Jeddah and Sana’a.
ADDIS ABABA (Associated Press) — “We are getting out of the whole process. The whole process is an illegal process,” Beyene Petros, leader of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, a national coalition of opposition parties, told The Associated Press.
Ethiopia The Woyanne regime in Ethiopia, a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, has a long history of human rights abuses and flawed elections. Government security forces killed 193 civilians protesting alleged fraud in the 2005 general elections, which the European Union said were flawed.
Ethiopia will hold local, regional and some federal elections on April 13 and 20, with some 4 million seats up for grabs. But the main opposition groups, including UEDF and the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, say at least 17,000 of their candidates have dropped out under pressure.
Many of the dropouts are in volatile western Ethiopia, where a rebellion by the Oromo ethnic group has been simmering for decades, the opposition said.
The dropout figures, which the opposition cited from their own tallies, could not be independently verified.
The Ethiopian Woyanne government strongly denied the allegations.
“That’s simply baseless,” said Bereket Simon, special adviser to Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi. “There is no harassment, that’s why nobody can prove it. We haven’t experienced that, and they haven’t experienced it either. Both the opposition and the ruling party haven’t experienced any intimidation.”
But the AP interviewed a dozen candidates and voters who gave independent accounts of intimidation by local officials with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne).
“Intimidation is going on on a mass scale,” said Bulcha Demeksa, a lawmaker who heads the opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement. “People have been told all kinds of scary things, like their children won’t find jobs when they finish school … that if they starve, they will not get any food.”
David Shinn, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, told a congressional committee in Washington in March that he was concerned about this month’s elections.
“The local elections are an opportunity for advancing democracy in Ethiopia,” Shinn told the panel. “If they fail to achieve this goal, it will be an enormous lost opportunity.”
In the tiny town of Nedjo, nestled deep in Ethiopia’s western coffee country, aspiring teacher Seifu Tamiru said local officials from the ruling party forced him to abandon his ambitions of becoming a member of the town council.
“They said, ‘If you keep on running for this position, you will not be employed as a teacher,'” said Seifu, 26, who ran as a member of the OFDM. “They said, ‘Nobody in your family is going to be employed.'”
Seifu’s campaign didn’t even last a week.
“I was registered on Friday,” Seifu said. “They started intimidating me on Saturday. I dropped out on Wednesday.”
Beyene, leader of the UEDF, said at least one candidate from his party faced an attempt on his family’s life.
“They torched a family when they were sleeping,” he said. “The father was running as a candidate on our ticket.”
The family, he said, escaped unharmed.
“That is our biggest success,” Beyene said wryly, “that no one has been killed.”
The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia said it has received complaints but cannot act without more evidence.
“Can they provide the evidence they were forced (to drop out)?” said board secretary Tesfaye Mengesha. “No, we asked them, they can’t. How can they say they are forced? It’s just an allegation.”
OFDM said it has determined that up to 3,000 candidates may have been forced to drop out, according to their internal records. Beyene, the leader of the other opposition party, said the party lost 14,000 candidates for local seats in western and southern Ethiopia.
“This is from our own records,” he said. “We maintain our own records and we tally who has passed, who has qualified and who has been dismissed. Our district managers compiled this information.”
Beyene said he again fears violence in constituencies where his party’s candidates have popular support. He also cited ethnic concerns and popular frustration with the nation’s political elite, which is dominated by Ethiopians from the northern Tigray region.
“My fear is that in many of these places there will be violence,” he said. “The worrisome point is how this society is being polarized. And this follows ethnic lines.”
Also Thursday, about 2,000 people gathered in central Addis Ababa to hold a rare political protest.
“We want to be free,” said Tayib Mohammed, 37, a member of the Welene, a predominantly Muslim tribe from the south of Ethiopia. That group also claims exclusion from the political process.
But despite promises by the government to bolster freedoms, many critics, opposition supporters and politicians feel democracy in Ethiopia has regressed since 2005.
“It has not gotten better,” said Bulcha, the opposition lawmaker. “Democracy in Ethiopia is stillborn. It is not active now.”
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – If U.N. peacekeepers abandon the border between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea, a new war could break out between the two Horn of Africa neighbors, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report.
The U.N. border mission, or UNMEE, has already withdrawn nearly 1,700 troops and military observers who for the past seven years had been trying to prevent Eritrea and Ethiopia Woyanne from resuming a border war they fought from 1998-2000.
The peacekeepers had been stationed in a 15.5-mile (25-km) buffer zone inside Eritrea. But Asmara turned against UNMEE because of U.N. inability to enforce rulings by an independent commission awarding chunks of Ethiopian Woyanne-held territory, including the town of Badme, to Eritrea.
Most UNMEE troops have been sent home temporarily and only 164 peacekeepers are now in Eritrea, Ban said in the report, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday. But those troops are only there to guard UNMEE equipment until it can be evacuated.
There are also a few peacekeepers on the Ethiopian Woyanne side of the border, but Ban said Addis Ababa told him: “Ethiopia Woyanne would find it extremely difficult to accept a long-term deployment of UNMEE limited only to the Ethiopian side of the border.”
UNMEE pulled most of its troops out of Eritrea after the government cut off access to fuel and restricted deliveries of food and other essential supplies. Asmara denies this and accuses UNMEE of enabling Ethiopia Woyanne to occupy its territory.
Ethiopia Woyanne has offered to hold talks with Eritrea but Asmara says Addis Ababa must first withdraw from Eritrean territory.
With Eritrea refusing to discuss the question of UNMEE’s return, Ban said there were several options for the future of U.N. forces on the border, where both sides have amassed troops in recent months. He also said the Security Council must make a swift decision on the fate of UNMEE.
“It is essential that the Security Council makes the necessary decisions as a matter of priority,” he said. In the meantime Ban said he could try to mediate between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea and the council could also consider sending missions to both countries.
TOTAL WITHDRAWAL
One option is to remove all UNMEE personnel from the area, though this would be a very dangerous move to make, he said.
“The total withdrawal of UNMEE … could result in an escalation of tensions in the border area with the risk of a resumption of open hostilities, despite declarations by the two parties that they have no intention to restart the war.”
One of the problems of withdrawing UNMEE from the border zone is that their presence is required under the ceasefire agreement, which could then be dismissed as invalid.
A better option would be to deploy a small observer mission in the border area, which could try to defuse tensions between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea. This mission, Ban said, could “serve as the eyes and ears of the international community and would continue to report to the Security Council on the situation.”
If one of the countries were to reject this option, observers could be placed on one side of the border, though that “could be perceived by one party as freezing the status quo and serving the interests of the other,” Ban said.
Other options would be for UNMEE to return to its original full deployment — an unlikely scenario given Eritrea’s refusal to discuss the issue — or to establish “liaison offices with civilian and military personnel” in Addis Ababa and Asmara.
April 9 (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s annual inflation rate increased to 22.9 percent in February led by rising food costs, the Central Statistical Agency said.
Inflation expanded from 19.4 percent in January, the Addis Ababa-based agency said in a report today. Food prices climbed 30.2 percent on an annual basis, from 28 percent in January, according to the report.
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To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via the Johannesburg bureau at [email protected].
