We are writing to express our deep concern about the whereabouts, legal status and health of Eritrean journalists Tesfalidet Kidane Tesfazghi and Saleh Idris Gama of Eritrean state broadcaster Eri-TV. Official statements and videotape indicate that your government has been holding them incommunicado after their arrests by Kenyan authorities late last year during fighting in Somalia.
We call on you to ensure your government accounts for veteran cameraman Tesfazghi and producer Gama, to publicly disclose charges and evidence against them, and to provide confirmation of their well-being.
A three-part video, titled “The Strategy of Sowing Discord by [President] Isaias [Afewerki’s] Eritrean Clique,” and posted in April on the Ethiopian government Web site Waltainfo, suggested the journalists were involved in military activities in Somalia, according to CPJ research. While journalists in Eritrea are often conscripted into military service, the video does not present any evidence linking the journalists to military activity.
Tesfazghi and Gama had been dispatched to Mogadishu by the Eritrean government, but later went on their own toward Kenya, reaching the border, according to an Amharic-language voiceover allegedly interpreting Gama’s comments from Tigrinya. The video also introduced Gama as “a reporter for Eritrean TV” who “reports on military-related issues” and “appears on TV wearing a military uniform with insignia,” according to CPJ research. “Until 2001, I was a member of the Eritrean armed forces. After that, I was transferred to the Eritrean Ministry of Information,” he is attributed to say.
Tesfazghi and Gama have apparently been held since late last year. According to an April statement from the Eritrean Foreign Ministry, Kenyan authorities stopped them at the border and held them for three weeks before handing them over to the Ethiopian-backed Somali transitional government on January 20.
Statements from your government acknowledge that a number of detainees in Somalia were later placed in Ethiopian government custody. In April, in response to international news reports about secret detentions, your government acknowledged that 41 people of 17 nationalities “captured” in Somalia had “indeed been brought over to Ethiopia” on suspicion of “terrorism,” according to an official statement of the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry. Twenty-nine prisoners were slated for release, with the remaining 12 scheduled for an April 16 appearance “before the competent Military Court,” according to the same source. Your government’s statements do not identify the detainees by name, but the videotape on your official site appears to confirm that Tesfazghi and Gama are among those being held.
Several Ethiopian officials, including Information Minister Zemedkun Tekle, Justice Ministry spokesman Ato Alemayu, and federal police spokesperson Demsash Hailu, declined to comment in response to CPJ’s inquiries. In July, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahid Belay told CPJ: “There is nothing new I can say on this issue. We stand by our previous statement and will issue another statement in time.”
As an organization of journalists dedicated to defending our colleagues worldwide, we call on you to use all your influence to ensure your government publicly account for the whereabouts, legal status, and health of Tesfazghi and Gama.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to your reply.
Ethiopia, the oldest independent country in Africa, will celebrate its millennium Wednesday, September 12. The Ethiopian calendar falls seven to eight years behind western dates as a result of the disparities between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, concerning the date of the creation.
As part of their millennium celebrations, Ethiopians in the United States have organized a five-day extravaganza. A one-day symposium Saturday looked at the past, present and future of Ethiopia. One of the topics for the symposium was the quest for democracy in the new millennium.
Mesfin Araya, professor of African studies at the City University of New York, looked at the quest for democracy and the lessons from the 2005 election. He said the ruling party of Ethiopia is organized along ethnic lines. But Professor Araya said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been able to stay in power because the opposition is fundamentally weak and fragmented.
“Their political history in the past has been marked by internal crisis, invariably disastrous fragmentation. And that tendency to fragment can also be seen today. De facto enhancing the longevity of the current regime. At the outset, an effort to form a broader national coalition that can critically confront Meles and his ruling party, the opposition forces decided to participate in the election at two splinter coalitions,” Araya said.
He said the opposition’s lack of consensus from within has continued to give Prime Minister Zenawi the opportunity to play the game of divide and rule.
Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic country with Amhara the predominant ethnic group. Ephrem Madebo, systems engineer for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration addressed the topic “Democratic Response to what he called the national question in Ethiopia. He proposed a decentralized federal government.
“I brought two alternatives. It could be federalism but not ethnic federalism. It could be interpreted in a way that the Ethiopian masses agree, or it could be kind of regional autonomy. Those are my two alternatives,” Madebo said.
Dima Sarbo, political science professor at the University of Tennessee addressed the topic: Challenges of balancing collective and individual rights. He said the rights of self-government and fair representation for national groups form the fundamental basis of democracy for a multi-national politic like Ethiopia.
“My argument is that if Ethiopia has to survive as a viable politic, it has to democratize and institute (a) guaranteed rights of citizenship for all its citizens irrespective of gender, ethnicity, language, religion or other differences, and (b) guaranteed national rights of autonomy and self-government through its linguistic and other national groups irrespective of their size and claims,” Sarbo said.
Getachew Metaferia, professor of political science at Morgan State University looked at Ethiopia-U.S. relations and its impact on the quest for democracy in Ethiopia. He says the U.S. has frustrated the quest for democracy by its support for unpopular governments in Ethiopia.
“The U.S. has also contributed to the dismal situation in Ethiopia by supporting and abetting an unpopular government and failing to listen to the people. Rectifying such a situation and fostering progressive, not conventional foreign policy, will cultivate Ethiopian peoples’ support for the U.S. and ensure mutually advantageous long-term U.S. national interest,” Metaferia said.
Metaferia urged the United States to assist in fulfilling the Ethiopian people’s quest for democracy. He also called on the U.S. to critically examine the effectiveness of its foreign assistance to Ethiopia because Metaferia said despite U.S. technical, military, and financial assistance, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
(AP – ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia Woyanne briefly detained what it said were four U.S. soldiers trying to contact a rebel group that has been fighting for greater autonomy for eastern Ethiopia, Ethiopian Woyanne officials said Friday.
Bereket Simon, a senior [propaganda] adviser to Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, declined to say when the soldiers were detained or give any further details. Asked about the U.S. soldiers, he told the AP: “Four soldiers, or some soldiers, were detained. They were trying to contact the ONLF (the Ogaden National Liberation Front). That was not permitted.”
An official at the U.S. Embassy couldn’t immediately comment on the issue.
In an interview published in this week’s edition of Time magazine, Meles said Ethiopia had no proof the U.S. soldiers made contact with the rebels but they could have been “moving in that direction.”
“As far as we know, these personalities did not have official sanction to do that what they were doing. They were violating their own code of conduct,” the premier told Time in an interview conducted last month.
An official familiar with the case said the soldiers were detained in May in the eastern region of Somali State, as the Ogaden is known. The official said they were immediately released and their Ethiopian-American interpreter released in August.
At the time, the U.S. soldiers’ detention wasn’t made public.
NAIROBI, Aug 31 (Reuters) – International aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) accused Ethiopia’s [Woyanne regime] on Friday of denying it access to the remote Ogaden region where battles are raging between government troops and a rebel movement.
“The government of Ethiopia [Woyanne] has denied MSF access to the five zones of the Somali region under military operation, often referred to as the Ogaden region,” it said in a statement.
Woyanne launched a campaign several months ago to flush out Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels after they carried out one of their bloodiest attacks to date, on a Chinese-run oil field, killing 74 people.
A United Nations fact-finding mission is in the region, assessing allegations by the rebels and rights groups of human rights abuses, as well as the food, water and health needs of Ogaden’s ethnic Somali people.
“MSF urgently calls on the Ethiopian authorities to allow MSF teams to provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable civilians living in that area,” the group added in a statement released in Nairobi. But a senior Ethiopian official said the group’s accusation was unfounded.
“Ethiopia does not have any no-go zone,” Bereket Simon, special adviser to [dictator] Meles Zenawi, told Reuters.
MSF said an “exploratory mission” by its personnel in the region prior to the ban had revealed “urgent health needs and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis.”
“Despite a signed agreement with MSF, the authorities in Addis Ababa continue to deny MSF access to the area, in order to help the civilian victims of the conflict.”
Earlier in August, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had pulled out of the Ogaden following a government order.
The ONLF accuses [Woyanne] of blockading food relief, choking commercial trade and risking “man-made famine.”
The government denies that, saying the ONLF are Eritrean-backed terrorists peddling lies to the world.
The claims and counter-claims are hard to verify, as the arid region, populated largely by nomadic herders, is effectively off-limits to most rights workers and journalists. (Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)
The crisis that has engulfed the Debre Selam Kidist Mariam (DSKM) Ethiopian Orthdox Church in Washington DC continues to worsen. The latest development is that on Sunday, the Church’s board had called police on members and officials of the Debre Selam Kidist Mariam Idir who demanded the board to tell the truth. The DC police with five cruisers rushed to the Church when board member Abebe Aboye made an emergency call. The police left the church premesis grumbling after observing that there was no emergency. But the presence of the police inside the church served as a wake up call to many of the DSKM members who remained silent or indifferent ጆሮ ዳባ ልበስ up to now when their church is being taken over by a rogue group of opportunist individuals who wish to go back home and do business with Woyanne, à la Aba Melaku of another Ethiopian church in DC.
This Sunday’s confrontation started when board chairman Frew Bulbula told the congregation that a new executive committee has been elected to take over the Idir. This angered a lot of people who felt lied to. The fact is that there was a meeting on August 19 that was attended by over 150 members of the Idir. The meeting was held at the Cathedral Catholic Church in Washington DC after the DSKM board refused to allow it to take place inside the church’s meeting hall. At that meeting, the Idir members asked the current executives to remain in their position until the attempted ‘hostile takeover’ of the Idir by the DSKM board is repulsed. Funds were also collected to cover legal expenses. Unbeknown to the Idir members and officials, the DSKM board had also called a meeting on the same day where less than fifty of their collaborators showed up. Bililign Mandefro and cohorts told the participants that they are called to the meeting to elect new officials for the Idir.
Last week, when a relative of one of the Idir members died, Ato Seyoum Garedew, chairman of the Idir, gave $7,000 to the family of the deceased. However, on Sunday, Ato Frew Bulbula told the congregation that the Idir’s new board gave the money to the family. This outright lie inside a church angered several people who were aware of the fact. Some of them shouted: “stop lying!” It was this angry response from the congregation that caused Ato Abebe Aboye to panick and call the police. The church members were angry, and they were shouting at the board that is acting and smelling like Woyanne. But they would not resort to violence or engage in any harmful action inside their own church.
The DSKM board has the backing of some of the priests. After members of the church pointed out Frew Bulbula’s lies on Sunday, the head priest said, let them shout, they will get it in court! What arrogance (ዕብሪት) coming from a ‘spiritual’ leader!
Some who don’t know the story behind the story may wonder why the DSKM board is aggressively going after an independent idir (self-help organization) and its officials. After all, Idir by its definition is an ad hoc group of individuals who get together and contribute some money that is used to pay for funerals and weddings. In Kidist Mariam Idir’s case, they only pay for funeral expenses. The money that is in the bank — $300,000 — also is not that much. The DSKM board could spend close to that amount for legal fees alone by the time the whole thing is over.
The real issue behind the DSKM board’s attempt to take over the independent Idir is politics. As reported previously, the DSKM board that had been slouching toward the Woyanne camp for a long time is now out of the closet. They used to claim that DSKM is an independent church, i.e., they are under the authority of neither the Woyanne-installed patriarch in Addis Ababa, nor the legitimate patriarch who is currently in exile. Now, after … continued to next page >>
The crisis that has engulfed the Debre Selam Kidist Mariam (DSKM) Ethiopian Orthdox Church in Washington DC continues to worsen. The latest development is that on Sunday, the Church’s board had called police on members and officials of the Debre Selam Kidist Mariam Idir who demanded the board to tell the truth. The DC police with five cruisers rushed to the Church when board member Abebe Aboye made an emergency call. The police left the church premesis grumbling after observing that there was no emergency. But the presence of the police inside the church served as a wake up call to many of the DSKM members who remained silent or indifferent ጆሮ ዳባ ልበስ up to now when their church is being taken over by a rogue group of opportunist individuals who wish to go back home and do business with Woyanne, à la Aba Melaku of another Ethiopian church in DC.
This Sunday’s confrontation started when board chairman Frew Bulbula told the congregation that a new executive committee has been elected to take over the Idir. This angered a lot of people who felt lied to. The fact is that there was a meeting on August 19 that was attended by over 150 members of the Idir. The meeting was held at the Cathedral Catholic Church in Washington DC after the DSKM board refused to allow it to take place inside the church’s meeting hall. At that meeting, the Idir members asked the current executives to remain in their position until the attempted ‘hostile takeover’ of the Idir by the DSKM board is repulsed. Funds were also collected to cover legal expenses. Unbeknown to the Idir members and officials, the DSKM board had also called a meeting on the same day where less than fifty of their collaborators showed up. Bililign Mandefro and cohorts told the participants that they are called to the meeting to elect new officials for the Idir.
Last week, when a relative of one of the Idir members died, Ato Seyoum Garedew, chairman of the Idir, gave $7,000 to the family of the deceased. However, on Sunday, Ato Frew Bulbula told the congregation that the Idir’s new board gave the money to the family. This outright lie inside a church angered several people who were aware of the fact. Some of them shouted: “stop lying!” It was this angry response from the congregation that caused Ato Abebe Aboye to panick and call the police. The church members were angry, and they were shouting at the board that is acting and smelling like Woyanne. But they would not resort to violence or engage in any harmful action inside their own church.
The DSKM board has the backing of some of the priests. After members of the church pointed out Frew Bulbula’s lies on Sunday, the head priest said, let them shout, they will get it in court! What arrogance (ዕብሪት) coming from a ‘spiritual’ leader!
Some who don’t know the story behind the story may wonder why the DSKM board is aggressively going after an independent idir (self-help organization) and its officials. After all, Idir by its definition is an ad hoc group of individuals who get together and contribute some money that is used to pay for funerals and weddings. In Kidist Mariam Idir’s case, they only pay for funeral expenses. The money that is in the bank — $300,000 — also is not that much. The DSKM board could spend close to that amount for legal fees alone by the time the whole thing is over.
The real issue behind the DSKM board’s attempt to take over the independent Idir is politics. As reported previously, the DSKM board that had been slouching toward the Woyanne camp for a long time is now out of the closet. They used to claim that DSKM is an independent church, i.e., they are under the authority of neither the Woyanne-installed patriarch in Addis Ababa, nor the legitimate patriarch who is currently in exile. Now, after … continued to next page >>
