By Justin Skinner | Inside Toronto
TORONTO — Talented artists of Ethiopian and Eritrean heritage will showcase their works as the Selam Visual Arts Festival comes to the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, Canada.
Eritrean-born downtown Toronto resident Robel Matthews will be among several established and emerging local artists exhibiting their works at the festival alongside the works of noted Ethiopian photographers Aida Muluneh, Michael Tsegaye and Antonio Fiorente.
Matthews, who moved to Canada in 2006, is one of the more established artists in the festival. The 28-year-old Regent Park resident has studied and practiced art for nearly two decades.
“I studied art when I was 10 and I started to draw with charcoal,” he said. “I lived in Kenya for six years and I had some solo exhibitions and group exhibitions there.”
The festival was organized by Sound the Horn, a group dedicated to empowering Ethiopian and Eritrean youth in Toronto. It came about after some young artists decided to find ways to slow the spread of HIV and AIDS among African youth in Canada.
“I have two artworks (in the show) that deal with the dangers of HIV and AIDS,” Matthews said. “They look at it in a universal way to show the dangers in all kinds of cultures.”
While Matthews does not know anyone who has been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS personally, he said it is important for youth to learn about the diseases.
“It’s something that too many young people have to deal with,” he said.
The Selam Visual Arts Festival will take place Saturday, March 27 and Sunday, March 28 at the Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W. The festival will include an opening reception with some of the featured artists from 7 to 11 p.m. on Saturday and a question-and-answer session and live entertainment from 3 to 11 p.m. on Sunday.
For more information on the festival or on the work being done by Sound the Horn, visit www.soundthehorn.com
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – Ethiopia’s regime has tightened media control, stifled opposition and civil society in recent years, and ramped up restrictions ahead of May elections, a rights group said Wednesday.
Since the violent aftermath of the 2005 elections, the regime has arrested and detained several opposition members and threatened and harassed opponents, Human Rights Watch said in a report.
“Ethiopia’s citizens are unable to speak freely, organise political activities and challenge their government’s policies… without fear of reprisals,” said the report.
The New York-based watchdog said the measures had been undertaken to avoid a repeat of the 2005 post-poll violence sparked by opposition claims of irregularities, in which some 200 people were killed.
“Expressing dissent is very dangerous in Ethiopia,” said Georgette Gagnon said, the HRW Africa director.
“The ruling party and the state are becoming one and the government is using the full weight of its power to eliminate opposition and intimidate people into silence.”
Several activists and journalists have fled the country in recent months due to government repression, HRW said.
The country’s most prominent newspaper was closed in December and last week Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he was ready to censure the Voice of America’s Amharic language service for its “destabilising propaganda.”
Other than limiting political and media freedoms, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) embarked on a strategy in rural Ethiopia to prevent dissent.
Access to fertiliser, food assistance, health care and schools are conditional on membership of the ruling party, said the report entitled “One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure: Violations of Freedom of Expression and Association in Ethiopia.”
Local administration leaders wielding huge powers determine eligibility for the services in rural areas, home to 85 percent of Ethiopia’s 80 million people.
“These broad powers have been consistently used to punish and ostracise those perceived to support political opposition,” said the watchdog.
Between 2005 and 2008 EPRDF’s membership has quadrupled from 760,000 to more than four million in the rural areas.
“People are told that if they don’t vote EPRDF, then no fertilisers, no clinics,” Bulcha Demeksa, a leading opposition figure, told the rights group.
However, the HRW said Zenawi’s government denied the restrictions.
Opposition groups have accused the ruling party of repeated harassment in the run-up to the May 23 polls.
Gagnon also criticised Ethiopia’s donors for inaction on the alleged abuses.
“Ethiopia’s foreign backers should break their silence and condemn the climate of fear in Ethiopia,” she said.
“Donors should use their considerable financial leverage to press for an end to the harassment of the opposition and to oppressive laws on activists and the media.”
Around a third of Ethiopia’s government budget is foreign funded.
On World Water Day 2010, Jane Beesley looks back on her experiences of communities struggling with — and overcoming — difficult access to safe water.
Hawa Omar Kahin working as 10th woman whilst nine others collect water from within a cave. Photo: Jane Beesley/Oxfam
Looking back over the year since last World Water Day, it’s easy for me to remember people, images and stories relating to water — for many reasons.
For some people, the daily struggle for water continues — like the group of women in Ethiopia who, in teams of ten, collect water from deep inside a hillside. Often it takes them all day — every day. They described being down the hole as like being in a grave. I have a short film of one woman ascending from the hole, reaching up and passing a heavy jerry can to someone at the surface, before turning back to descend into darkness again.
Safe water means a huge difference to people’s lives
Elsewhere, where Oxfam has been able to work with communities, I am constantly struck by the huge difference having access to safe water makes to people’s lives, and the positive effects of having a borehole, or any of the water systems we’ve been able to help with. In southern Sudan a community worked together to clear through dense bush a road where none had existed before, so Oxfam could construct a borehole. Now, despite the roughness of the road, other organisations can find the community and further development is on its way. The road and the borehole meant that more people were returning home from camps that they’d fled to because of conflict.
In another part of southern Sudan the boreholes were having other effects, often unexpected — like more girls attending school. With Oxfam buckets the girls can go to school, held under trees, and have something to sit on during lessons before going to the nearby borehole to collect water on their way home.
Women on the water committee
But it’s across the border in northern Kenya, in Turkana and in Wajir, where I’ve had the privilege to meet the same people five or six times, that I’ve seen real progress made. There are so many stories to tell, but those that stand out are the stories where women, through being involved in managing their water systems (often new, sometimes rehabilitated) has given them some standing in their communities. One woman, Mumina Ali Amin, on recognising me in a town in Wajir rushed up and said, “We are no longer in the kitchen!” Eighteen months earlier I had been at a meeting where several men had spoken about women not being strong enough to be on a water committee, and belonging in the kitchen. Women were now on the water committee, and Mumina told me how this had made a difference and improved women’s access to water.
Down the road in another community, where Oxfam no longer works, the committee reported back how they were not struggling during the current water shortage; how they had raised money to extend their water system and purchase solar panels to pump water instead of having to buy expensive fuel, and were even in a position to provide water for others and their livestock.
Pastoralists bring their animals to the waterpoint at Kaikor. Photo: Jane Beesley
Over in Turkana, there’s a place called Kaikor. It’s one of my favourite places in the world – at night there are more stars than can be imagined. But the real stars are the water committee members. Over the years they have had — and continue to have — problems and challenges that they have worked together to solve. Recently a friend went to carry out an assessment and reported back that when a new policeman had tried to get water without paying the small charge, he was challenged by the kiosk operator, Lydia. Lydia explained the system and the reason for the charges, to which the policeman responded, “I didn’t know I was talking to someone in authority,” and handed over the money. Lydia was delighted to be seen as a person of authority.
I hope that the women who have to descend into darkness will soon have easy access to safe water.
Audio slideshow: Water in emergencies
By Ali Abdi | The Standard
A truck emerged from the tracks in bushes and then dropped about 30 passengers at Kambi Garba near Isiolo town. Immediately after they disembarked, two taxis pulled up and immediately some of the passengers entered before the cars zoomed towards Isiolo Town.
The taxis later returned to pick the rest of the passengers. They took them to a lodging in town. At the lodging they met members of a cartel promising to arrange their travel to South Africa.
On the same day, more than 60 people were dropped by a truck and two new Land cruisers at Archers Post, Samburu East District.
Lucrative trade
Unfortunately, 14 of them were arrested while the rest managed to travel to Isiolo.
This is part of a lucrative human trafficking and smuggling business that has taken root along the Kenya-Ethiopia border. It involves desperate Ethiopians out to join their relatives who are refugees in Western Europe and North America or those looking for greener pastures in South Africa and Namibia.
In the first case, the truck driver, who managed to pass through more than 10 police barriers in Moyale, Marsabit and Samburu drops his human cargo at Kambi Garba, about 5km from the Isiolo town centre, to avoid the police barrier that is less than 3km ahead.
They avoid the police in Isiolo mainly for three reasons; because there is a feeling police here are more vigilant, their bribery charges are higher or the fear that the illegal activity has been leaked to the authorities.
In the second incident, the truck driver who brought his passengers from various illegal entries along the border avoids the Isiolo-Moyale highway at Turbi in North Horr and instead use cattle tracks to Merti in Isiolo District.
Many of those trafficked are women and children, who believe the cartel means well for them.
But things do not often work out.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says many find themselves as slaves when they reach their destinations.
Kenya has been identified as a source, destination and a transit point for trafficked persons, a new form of modern slavery.
While admitting the existence of the trafficking cartels, Eastern Provincial Police Officer Marcus Ochola told CCI that they are so sophisticated that they use routes that are only known to locals.
Little attention
“The cartels use their knowledge of local language and terrain to bring in the Ethiopians. Every day they use a new route. We are shocked that the Ethiopians are now using Merti road to avoid the police barriers along the Isiolo-Moyale highway,’’ noted Ochola.
The police chief noted that while the Government was focusing on the Somalia-Kenya border, that of Kenya-Ethiopia had been given little attention thereby increasing the number of aliens getting into Kenya through the unmanned porous border.
Ochola said the police and immigration officers were on high alert, but admitted that they lack enough personnel and resources like vehicles to properly cover the vast, porous and remote borderline.
He said the cartel had outsmarted his officers due to their knowledge of local terrain and language adding that the brokers use different routes that are not designated as
roads.
“They (cartel) are now using the Merti road taking advantage of the unusual heavy traffic resulting from the oil exploration in the division. We are now looking at all the possible routes,’’ said the PPO.
CCI learnt that the vehicles ferrying the immigrants use the Merti-Lososia-Archers Post route and drop the Ethiopians at night at the junction of the Isiolo-Moyale highway and Archers Post-Merti road. Taxi drivers later pick them in groups and take them to hotels in Isiolo town.
They use illegal entries in Moyale, Wajir, North Horr and Turkana to enter Kenya before travelling to Nairobi and thereafter to their preferred destinations abroad.
On the Kenyan side, a trafficking cartel operates from Moyale but has branches in Marsabit and Isiolo to assist the Ethiopians to get to their destinations through Kenya.
Our month-long investigation revealed that an average of 100 Ethiopians get to Isiolo daily. An average of 30 of them are arrested by police and charged with being in Kenya illegally while the rest find their way to Nairobi.
Our findings, also confirmed by both the police and the Immigration Department in Moyale, show that most of the aliens enter through illegal border entries in Moyale’s Central and Sololo divisions, Forolle in North Horr and at entries bordering Moyale and Wajir districts through the assistance of the cartels.
The Ethiopians also use illegal entry points at the Kenya-Ethiopia and Kenya-Sudan-Ethiopia border at Lokichoggio (Turkana) and Illeret (North Horr).
From Lokichoggio, they board matatus to Nairobi while from Illeret, they use the Loyangalani-Baragoi-Maralal-Nyahururu route to get to Nairobi.
Sources said agents in Ethiopia connect those who can afford the trip with their counterparts in Kenya.
Those involved in the illegal trade speak Borana, Amharic and other Oromo languages while most of the victims hail from centres in southern Ethiopia.
To win their trust, the cartels assure the strangers of safely reaching Nairobi.
A source intimated that each person pays the agents an average of Sh50,000 for the journey between Moyale and Isiolo.
According to a member of the cartel operating in Isiolo who has since fallen out with his colleagues, Sh25,000 is meant for transport, Sh10,000 for the agents and Sh15,000 is to be used to bribe the police and the provincial administration officers along the route.
The trip is in two phases. The first phase is between Moyale and Isiolo and it is considered the most dangerous due to the high possibility of arrest by immigration
officials and police. The other phase is between Isiolo and Nairobi and is less risky.
After paying the required amount, the cartels load the Ethiopians on trucks bound for Nairobi.
But due to difficulties experienced at police barriers, the smugglers have come up with special vehicles to ferry the aliens up to Isiolo or Archers Post in Samburu East District.
Moyale border point deputy immigration officer Guyo Duba confirmed the work of the human traffickers saying they use illegal entries along the porous border to bring in the Ethiopians.
Duba said Ethiopians, mostly traders with valid travel documents, pass through the legal border point in Moyale town while the aliens with no papers seek the help of smugglers.
No resources
“Moyale border point was among the best manned last year. Only Ethiopians with valid passport pass through here but out there, we have problem with cartels aiding aliens to use illegal entries to get into Kenya,’’ said the officer.
Many victims of human trafficking believe those transporting them mean well for them. ‘I wanted to travel to Nairobi and thereafter see the possibility of travelling to America to join my big brother. I was connected to the Kenyan traffickers in Moyale by a friend in Ethiopia,’’ said a convicted Ethiopian alien who only gave his name as Haile. He said he hails from Dirre in southern Ethiopia.
He is now serving a three-month sentence at Isiolo GK Prison and faces repatriation afterwards.
Other victims interviewed said they had given all their money to the brokers. They lamented the agents had failed to protect them from the police adding that they were asked to bribe the police if they wanted to proceed with their journey.
“I gave out Sh50,000 to the agent in Moyale. I was told part of the money was to be given to the police but on arrival here (Isiolo) I was arrested along with my brothers. My agents were nowhere to protect us,’’ lamented Haile speaking in Amharic.
Duba lamented that his department lacks resources like vehicles to monitor the border. He said they often rely on police who sometimes work with the cartels to frustrate their efforts.
He, however, noted that most of the arrests are done on the strength of information forwarded to the police by immigration officers. He said they are working with the police to end the illegal trade.
