A leader of Ethiopia’s opposition alliance on Monday criticized a court verdict in the stabbing death of an opposition parliamentary candidate, accusing the ruling party of intimidating a key witness.
The candidate, Aregawi Gebre-Yohannes, was killed March 2 at his restaurant in the Tigray region. The opposition said the candidate was killed by supporters of the ruling party. The killer, Tsegie Berhane, was sentenced last week to 15 years in prison, said Shimeles Kemal, a government spokesman. Mr. Tsegie was granted leniency because he had confessed, Mr. Shimeles said, adding that the accused was not a member of a party.
“It was an arranged and orchestrated court,” said Gebru Asrat, a leader of the Arena party, part of the opposition alliance.
He said witnesses who testified had been “involved in the killing.”
Advocacy for Ethiopia (AFE) and Ethiopian National Priorities Consultative Process (ENPCP) are pleased to announce the convening of a historic three-day conference on good governance, peace, security, and sustainable development in Washington, D.C, and April 9-11, 2010, at the Double Tree Hotel, Crystal City, VA.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars, civil society leaders, activists, diplomats, journalists of the free press and representatives of the international community to one forum to highlight potential tragic conflicts that have escaped the minds of many in the past. The conference will focus on how to put Ethiopia, the most populated country in the Horn, on a path towards rapid, equitable, democratic and sustainable growth and development. Creating the foundation for pluralist democracy and rapid and equitable development, in which everyone will benefit, will pave the way for regional peace, stability, economic cooperation, security and shared prosperity.
Her Excellency Ms. Anna Gomez, member of the European Parliament who had headed its election monitoring team to the 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary elections and had exposed electoral fraud, irregularities and crimes against innocent civilians and opponents, will be our key-note speaker at the plenary session on Saturday, April 10, 2010. Ms. Gomez has continued to champion civil liberties, human rights and democratization in Ethiopia. High ranking dignitaries from the U S Government and Congress, including the US State Department, human rights organizations, think tank/policy and advocacy NGOs are expected to speak as keynote speakers and distinguished speakers at plenary sessions on Friday, April 9 and Saturday, April 10.
Many imminent scholars, professionals, researchers, academics, human rights activits, members of the free press, civil society leaders and past Ethiopian Government officials, coming from various States in the US, Europe, Canada, Ethiopia, and the countries of the Horn, will present researched, scholarly and policy-oriented papers on themes relevant to the conference. In order to cover as many topics as possible, the organizers have scheduled concurrent sessions. Themes and topics will include, but will not be limited to: the 2010 national elections, pre and post election scenarios, meaning and application of good governance, human rights, freedom of the press, politics beyond ethnicity and ethnic-polarization, the role of civil society organizations, independent judiciary, election board, policy and security, the political economy of poverty, aid, debt and dependency, foreign direct investment (FDI) and regulations, farmland leases and sales to foreign investors and the role of FDI in achieving food security, economic monopolies and the domestic private sector, economic productivity, regional economic integration, peace and security in the Horn Africa, the threat posed by terrorism, environmental degradation, and climate change in the region.
At the end of the conference, on Sunday, April 11, a public meeting will be held at which distinguished personalities will address the participants and the community at large. Speakers and presenters are committed in crafting and disseminating a roadmap for rapid, equitable and sustainable development and democratization of Ethiopia. The conference intends to hold a special program to honor those who have made notable sacrifices in the struggle for freedom, political pluralism and shared prosperity.
This conference is sponsored by a number of civil society networks and advocacy organizations. This is the first time that Ethiopians in the Diaspora have gone beyond political advocacy for a single political group or ideology and focused solely on a common purpose whose objective is to serve the needs, hopes and aspirations of all of the Ethiopian people. The Conference is co-sponsored by Africa Action and TransAfirca Forum, two of the oldest Africa advocacy organizations in the US.
British rock impresario and Africa aid promoter Bob Geldof, a.k.a. “Saint Bob,” was back in the headlines this past week after blowing his stack at the BBC for a story it aired alleging that Ethiopian rebels had diverted 95% of the $100 million in Ethiopian famine relief raised in the mid-1980s — much of it by Geldof’s iconic Band Aid concert.
Geldof’s spirited denials (he called the BBC a “rotten old cherry” and said there was not a “shred” of evidence to support the claim) drew support from NGOs that worked in Ethiopia at the time, along with those who remember the miseries of the famine which killed hundreds of thousands of people, as well as the gumption Geldof showed by pulling together rock stars from the U.S and Britain to help feed the victims. In the days since, however, Geldof has raised eyebrows for his apparent refusal to acknowledge the possibility that money may have been skimmed off the top, which many aid agencies and humanitarian workers say routinely happens in developing nations. In fact, doubts in the last few years about whether relief supplies reach their intended sources in conflict zones have given rise to a whole new way of thinking about humanitarian aid — and caused some to question whether giving aid in times of war does any good at all.
“Whereas outsiders might have been well-intentioned in wanting to solve the problems of famine in Ethiopia, the regime and rebels were very much aware of how they could make use of that aid to advance their own interests,” James Shikwati, director of the Inter Region Economic Network, a Nairobi-based think tank, and a longtime critic of foreign aid, tells TIME. “Instead of trying to defend themselves, I think Bob Geldof and his friends should be looking at this as part of the problem of the aid industry.” Shikwati is a leading advocate in an emerging movement that wants to see foreign development assistance — and some emergency help — stopped entirely in Africa. He says foreign aid fosters corruption and a sense of dependence on Western donors. In some countries, leaders have also been accused of steering development projects to areas where people have voted for them while opposition areas get nothing, Shikwati says.
The real story behind Ethiopia’s famine exemplifies many of the problems with aid. In the West, the famine of the 1980s was seen as a great natural disaster. Band Aid was so successful — it raised tens of millions of dollars — because it played on Westerners’ sense of obligation to “save Africa” and their sense of guilt for somehow “allowing” the famine to happen. But the reality was far more complex. While Ethiopia was indeed in the grip of a drought, Mengistu Haile Mariam’s government, which was fighting an insurgency at the time, restricted NGOs from helping famine victims in certain areas and forcibly moved hundreds of thousands of people from one place to another in a repeat of Soviet-era collectivization campaigns, exacerbating their plight. The rebels, who came to power years later, are partly responsible for people’s suffering, too. A CIA report cited by the BBC found that money raised by the insurgents, ostensibly to help the starving, was “almost certainly” diverted for military purposes.
It seems ironic that in one of his ripostes, Geldof argued that current Ethiopian Prime Minister tribal warlord Meles Zenawi — who was a rebel leader during the time of the famine — denied that any aid had been diverted in the 1980s. But Meles has been accused of doing the very same thing in recent years in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, which is also home to a rebel insurgency. Aid workers operating in the region in 2007 told TIME the government allowed them to distribute food in some places and not others. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the government. In a report soon after that, Human Rights Watch accused the Meles government of rounding up and killing livestock in the region and blocking aid. The government has repeatedly denied such accusations.
It’s not just happening in Ethiopia either. A new U.N. report on Somalia, first revealed in a report by the The New York Times on March 9, found that Somali contractors skim off as much as half the food aid delivered by the World Food Program and give it to Islamic militants battling the government. That revelation followed on the heels of a sharp debate on aid in Somalia between the U.N. and the U.S., which has announced it will restrict some supplies to the country out of fear it’s helping the rebels. “Operating in conflict zones is always a complex challenge for humanitarian organizations,” WFP’s Nairobi spokesman, Marcus Prior, tells TIME. “Even in the worst circumstances, we seek to follow all rules and regulations surrounding our operations and to remain true to our humanitarian mandate of impartiality and neutrality.” But the WFP has had a hard time doing that given the fact that it is part of the U.N., a body made up of member states.
Other groups have laid down specific rules that keep them from working too closely with certain governments or rebel groups. Among the most prominent is Doctors Without Borders. The French arm of that group was, in fact, expelled from Ethiopia during the famine in the 1980s when it criticized the government for forcibly moving some of the population and manipulating aid. The group now makes a point of delivering as much direct aid to those in need as possible, rather than working through governments or what it calls “armed actors.” This week, it went after NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen after he made a seemingly innocuous remark about wanting to “improve the frequency and quality of the dialogue between NATO and the NGOs” in Afghanistan. He went on to say that “hard power” must be combined with “soft power,” an idea that infuriates Doctors Without Borders, which said in response that it “never works alongside, or partners with, any military strategy.”
“We have left places where the level of interference was too much,” Monica Camacho, the group’s coordinator in Somalia, tells TIME. “We are very clear that the moment you are interfered with, you no longer have legitimacy. News of whatever happens to us in one conflict will spread, and we are very aware that it has an impact everywhere.”
DUBAI — When Frenchman Leo Lefort first heard he was being assigned to be a curator in Ethiopia, he was horrified at the very thought. Despite his reservations about the place, he went on to Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia — and was relieved to find it a “very beautiful city” and “everything but what people know of it.”
It’s been roughly 11 years since he made the move, and Lefort indicates he has no regrets. On the contrary, he is overwhelmed by the strong artworks that the country is now producing.
In Dubai for the Bastakiya Art Fair 2010, Lefort is one of the curators participating for the first time this year.
He will be showcasing the works of 14 Ethiopian artists, whose themes vary from refugees to land disputes — even falling angels. The projects he works on are interesting and powerful in their own right. Currently, he is working on one called Hotel Distopia , Room #25/55. Those, he says, are the coordinates you can find him on, if you were to enter them in Google Earth. “I’m trying to do the same project in other places too, such as New York and France.”
Speaking of the development of the arts in Ethiopia, he says the art market there is only “just emerging.” It’s a description heard most often in connection with Dubai’s own foray and expansion into the international arts and culture scene. But Lefort maintains that the two markets still differ greatly. “It’s much easier to hold an exhibition in Dubai,” he says. “You have the infrastructure needed to make exhibitions happen, from international artists to gallery spaces.”
Moreover, he was impressed by the way organisers of the Bastakiya Art Fair took care of everything, making sure he got what he needed seamlessly. On the other hand, he says, in Ethiopia, it would have taken three weeks to get things in — and even then, they wouldn’t meet requirements.
“Two years ago, I was working on a documentary on Ethiopian fine art — but I couldn’t find a producer. I suppose if you say ‘Ethiopia’ and the ‘Red Cross’, they’d go together, but ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘producer’ don’t seem to match,” he reflects, with a laugh. Nonetheless, he cautions they are not to be taken lightly. In the school of fine arts in Addis Ababa, where Lefort is teaching art history and aesthetics, 2,000 students compete every year for the 25 seats available. “Despite the obvious limitations, everyone here takes their work seriously.”
As a Frenchman in Ethiopia, has he ever considered moving his work back home? Lefort falls silent for a moment before answering, “I went back to France at one point and began looking for a job. But I realised that it was in Ethiopia that I wasn’t restricted to a box. This is the capacity of third world countries,” he says. “When you have to survive, you’ll do anything and everything. People used to ask me, ‘Why Ethiopia?’ But for me, it’s not identity that matters, or place — but it’s what you do that counts.”
DOHA, QATAR (AFP) — Ethiopian Meseret Defar won a record fourth consecutive women’s world indoor 3000m title on Saturday.
Defar, who won Olympic 5000m gold at the Athens Games and a bronze in Beijing, clocked 8min 51.17sec.
“I’m very happy with this race and my fourth gold medal,” she said.
The Ethiopian, who also won world outdoor 5000m gold in 2007, finished 0.68sec ahead of Kenyan world 5000m champion Vivian Cheruiyot in silver.
Defar’s team-mate Sentayehu Ejigu took bronze at 0.91sec.
Defar was happy to bide her time, sitting on the coat-tails of Portuguese frontrunners Jessica Augusto and Sara Moreira.
Augusto pushed the pace with eight laps to go, taking Kenyan Sylvia Kibet with her as the field began to string out.
Defar, Ejigu and Cheruiyot moved to the front with two laps remaining, and the pace stepped up a gear.
Come the final bend at the Aspire dome and Defar produced one last decisive kick to storm home in front of a crowd swelled by a large and vociferous Ethiopian contingent.
A women’s group is criticising the United Nations for appointing only men to a 19-strong panel of experts to work out how to raise billions of dollars to fight climate change.
“A planet of men? Since when?” asks the German-based Gender CC — Women for Climate Justice in a statement. (An update — since the list was announced, U.N. officials say that a woman has been added — French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde)
The new panel, to be co-chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, will look into ways to raise at least $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries combat climate change. The panel includes Guyana’s president, Norway’s prime minister, finance ministers, investors and leading economists: all men.
Marion Rolle of GenderCC says U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could expand the panel and add some well-qualified women before a first meeting planned in London for March 29. “There’s still time” she told me.
Rolle says Ban’s next test will be the appointment of a successor for Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate change official, who stands down on July 1 after four years in the job. His predecessor was a woman, the late Joke Waller-Hunter.
“The important thing is to look at the qualifications of both men and women. It must not be a woman at any price,” Rolle said. Many studies show climate change is harsher on women in developing countries than men, partly because mothers usually have to stay in areas affected by droughts, deforestation or crop failure.
Strong female candidates for de Boer’s job might be Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai or Dessima Williams, Grenada’s ambassador to the United Nations, she said.
(Picture: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks next to U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer (R) at a news conference during the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen December 15, 2009. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins)
A women’s group is criticising the United Nations for appointing