SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Residents of Yemen’s second largest city say after 10 days constant protests, security forces have disappeared from the streets, threatening to plunge Aden into chaos.
Residents of thbe port city say groups of men are attacking, looting and burning government buildings and there is no sign of police or armed forces.
In the capital Sanaa, hundreds of Yemenis began demonstrating early in the morning Saturday outside the university demanding the ouster of the country’s longtime ruler as they marched towards the Justice Ministry.
“The people want the ouster of the regime,” they chanted.
Over the past nine days of protests, six people have been killed and more than 150 wounded as police fire tear gas and gunshots.
Rumours burned like petrol in Bahrain yesterday and many medical staff were insisting that up to 60 corpses had been taken from Pearl Square on Thursday morning and that police were seen by crowds loading bodies into three refrigerated trucks. One man showed me a mobile phone snapshot in which the three trucks could be seen clearly, parked behind several army armoured personnel carriers. According to other demonstrators, the vehicles, which bore Saudi registration plates, were later seen on the highway to Saudi Arabia. It is easy to dismiss such ghoulish stories, but I found one man – another male nurse at the hospital who works under the umbrella of the United Nations – who told me that an American colleague, he gave his name as “Jarrod”, had videotaped the bodies being put into the trucks but was then arrested by the police and had not been seen since.
Why has the royal family of Bahrain allowed its soldiers to open fire at peaceful demonstrators? To turn on Bahraini civilians with live fire within 24 hours of the earlier killings seems like an act of lunacy.
But the heavy hand of Saudi Arabia may not be far away. The Saudis are fearful that the demonstrations in Manama and the towns of Bahrain will light equally provocative fires in the east of their kingdom, where a substantial Shia minority lives around Dhahran and other towns close to the Kuwaiti border. Their desire to see the Shia of Bahrain crushed as quickly as possible was made very clear at Thursday’s Gulf summit here, with all the sheikhs and princes agreeing that there would be no Egyptian-style revolution in a kingdom which has a Shia majority of perhaps 70 per cent and a small Sunni minority which includes the royal family. … [Read more]
As news of Middle Eastern and North African protests swirl around the globe, satellite television and the Internet prove vital sources of information for Africans as governments fearful of an informed citizenry and a free press such as in Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, and Zimbabwe impose total news blackouts on the developments.
Nowhere is the news blackout more extreme than in Eritrea, where the government has banned independent media since 2001. Typing “Egypt” in the search field of the government news website Shabaitreturns about 50 results, the most recent and relevant of which is a December 3, 2010, item titled: “Presidents Isaias and Mubarak conduct discussion in Cairo.” Eritrean sources told CPJ, however, that satellite dishes in the capital Asmara’s rooftops allowed people to follow the unfolding events.
Earlier this month, Equatorial Guinea’s information minister, Jerónimo Osa Osa Ecoro, issued a statement accusing those who criticize the 32-year authoritarian ruler Teodoro Obiang’s election as the new president of the African Union of failing to “acknowledge the enormous steps” taken by Obiang toward democratization and human rights. Notwithstanding that Obiang won his last national election with 97 percent of the vote amid allegations of poll-rigging, it didn’t take long for his claim to be contradicted by a news blackout by the government-controlled national broadcaster RTVGE on protests in North Africa since February 11, according to news reports. Nevertheless, satellite dishes in Malabo allowed most people to access news and information, according to a local source. The same day the blackout started, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, editor of cultural magazine Atanga and a blogger with Spain-based online magazine Frontera Digital began a hunger strike that he vowed not to stop until a transitional government ushering democratic reforms was not put in place in Equatorial Guinea.
Flipping the pages of Zimbabwe’s government-controlled daily The Herald, Vincent Kahiya, editor-in-chief of the private Harare-based daily Newsday said to me on Thursday: “There is nothing on the international page on what’s happening in Bahrain, Libya, and so on.” Instead, he noted, “What we have seen is commentary on what they’re not reporting.” In fact, the ruling Zanu-PF-controlled state media has, among other things, accused the United States, which maintains sanctions restricting travel, financial, and business assets of President Robert Mugabe and members of the ruling Zanu-PF elite, of interfering in Egypt’s “rebellion.” Another journalist, whose name I have withheld for fear of government reprisals, shared in an e-mail: “I have DSTV [South Africa-based Digital Satellite Television] and I hardly watch Zimbabwean TV or read The Herald.” In fact, “CNN etc. is God-sent on these protests,” wrote another journalist. “Zimbabweans are talking about it, and there’s a lot of interest on those issues,” Kahiya said, adding that private newspapers reporting the North African developments were selling quickly.
In Ethiopia, a local journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals used the term “silent report” to describe the coverage of the government-controlled Ethiopian Television and Radio Agency, explaining that the station limited newscasters to reading two or three paragraphs without further reporting. Nevertheless, “much of the public is well aware of the issues,” the source said, adding that even rural area people had access to satellite TV.
Ethiopian police became apparently angered by persecuted journalist Eskinder Nega’s coverage of the protests. Nega, whose weekly columns appear on U.S.-based news forum EthioMedia, was picked up on February 11 as he walked out of a café in the capital, Addis Ababa. He later reported that the Ethiopian deputy commissioner of police allegedly delivered to him a warning from the government for his alleged “to incite an Egyptian and Tunisian like protests in Ethiopia,” with his Internet writings. Nega’s columns compared and contrasted Egypt and Ethiopia in terms of the military’s role in politics, and pro-democracy movements, according to CPJ research.
In Djibouti, where a series of protests have erupted since last month, government-controlled state broadcaster Radio Télévision de Djibouti was also censoring news of the North African protests, a local journalist told CPJ on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. However, few Djiboutians watch the channel and most people passionately follow developments through their satellite dishes, the journalist said.
In Gabon, where supporters of opposition supporters have been protesting since André Mba Obame claimed fraud had robbed him of victory in the August 2009 presidential elections and declared himself president, state media’s coverage of the North African protests has also been minimal, said independent editor Norbert Goua Mezuï. “I don’t even watch the national channels, I do when I stumble on them,” he said, “but we rely on France 24, Africa 24, TV5, TF1, and France 2 to tell us what is really happening elsewhere.”
(Mohamed Keita is advocacy coordinator for CPJ’s Africa Program. He regularly gives interviews in French and English to international news media on press freedom issues in Africa and has participated in several panels. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ.)
Deutsche Welle Amharic Service reports that 40,000 residents of Ethiopia’s southern town of Awassa have been asked to vacate their homes. The Woyanne ruling junta’s local puppet administration issued the order saying that the houses the residents own have been built without proper permits. It’s reported that several residents who have voiced opposition to the measure are being rounded up and arrested. Listen the report below [Amharic].
As protests continue across the Arab world, rumblings of political discontent have sounded in sub-Saharan Africa as well. These rumblings range from serious protests in Gabon and Sudan to pro-revolution newspaper columns in countries like Nigeria. Revolution will likely not spread through sub-Saharan Africa, but leaders in Ethiopia and Uganda moved this week to block even the possibility of uprisings. These moves show that the Arab protests are making some African leaders quite nervous, particularly as their countries navigate political transitions.
In Ethiopia, journalist Eskinder Nega has compared his country to Egypt and speculated about the possibility of an Egypt-style mobilization in Ethiopia. Eskinder’s remarks online and on the radio drew the attention, he says, of the Ethiopian government:
Eskinder Nega says six heavily-armed policemen jumped from a truck on a busy central Addis Ababa street last week, grabbed him and whisked him away to federal police headquarters. He says during a two-hour detention, he was brought before a deputy police commissioner who did not identify himself, but who warned him his activities were considered seditious.
“He said, ‘You’ve been trying to incite Egyptian and Tunisian-like protests in Ethiopia through writings you do on the Internet,” Eskinder recounted. “And the interviews you give to various news outlets. And he said, ‘Nothing similar is going to happen in this country.’”
Eskinder was jailed during the 2005 government crackdown in Ethiopia, which followed fiercely contested elections. Last year’s elections in Ethiopia did not produce the same levels of dissent – or violence – that 2005′s elections did, but Eskinder’s latest detention suggests that Ethiopian authorities are keen to shut down any voices who say that the government lacks legitimacy and is vulnerable to the wave of uprisings.
In Uganda, which holds presidential elections today, there seems to be little chance that President Yoweri Museveni will lose, and little chance that mass demonstrations could drive him from power. Still, Ugandan opposition leaders have talked about launching protests if Museveni wins. This threat was enough to worry the government, which “ordered phone companies to intercept text messages with words or phrases including ‘Egypt’, ‘bullet,’ and ‘people power’ ahead of [today]‘s elections that some fear may turn violent.” This preemptive maneuver seems to presage a greater crackdown to come, if the opposition does indeed take to the streets.
Government crackdowns could end up being the decisive factor in stopping sub-Saharan African protest movements before they really get off the ground. Northern Sudan’s repression appears to have stymied protesters there for the most part. And the words of an Ethiopian opposition member that Eskinder interviewed are revealing as to the political realities there:
Could the legal Ethiopian opposition leaders try to replicate what the legal opposition triggered in Egypt? “No,” firmly answered an opposition official I queried. “There will be a massacre, and it will also be the end of us,” he said. I could have been mistaken, but I thought I had sensed alarm in his tone.
There is another important issue also: If government repression did occur, would media outlets cover it? Given how little coverage Gabon has received in comparison with Arab countries, I think it unlikely that international media would devote substantial attention to a short – but merciless – crackdown in a country like Ethiopia. Some people paid attention in 2005, of course, but not on the scale that we’re seeing with Egypt and elsewhere.
In some places, then, African activists’ realistic fears of death and failure are already discouraging potential protesters. Nevertheless, as I said Wednesday, everyone is well aware of the events in Egypt – including governments who are taking steps to signal policies of zero tolerance for dissent.
(Alex Thurston is a PhD student studying Islam in Africa at Northwestern University and blogs at Sahel Blog.)
Tens of thousands of people held a massive protest rally in Djibouti against the regime of President Ismail Guelleh. Opposition leaders say that the police fired live bullets at peaceful protesters yesterday.
(Bloomberg) — Djibouti opposition groups will meet today to decide what step to take next after police allegedly fired on demonstrators yesterday, injuring at least two of them, an opposition leader said.
“The situation is very bad,” Ismail Guedi Hared, president of the Union for a Democratic Alternative, said by phone late yesterday. The police “used tear gas and they shot in every direction. I know two people are in hospital.”
In Djibouti, the Horn of Africa nation that hosts the only U.S. military base on the continent, President Ismail Guelleh’s People’s Rally for Progress party has ruled since independence in 1977. The 63- year-old leader, who was first elected in 1999, amended the constitution in March to allow him to extend his rule by two more six-year terms.
Yesterday’s protest turned violent near the Hassan Guled stadium in the capital, Djibouti, Hared said. Live ammunition was used by both sides and a crowd of about 100 demonstrators threw stones at the police after leaders of the protest were escorted away, according to the Djibouti-based website Djibouti24.
“The police are confronting demonstrators,” Mohamed Daoud Chehem, head of the Djibouti Party for Development, said by phone from the protest yesterday. “They have opened fire,” he said, without being able to specify if anyone was injured or what type of ammunition was used.
Chehem said that as many as 20,000 people had joined the protest against Guelleh. The country has a population of about 860,000.
Exiled Djiboutian opposition leader Abdourahman Boreh, who is currently in London, said the demonstrations may continue.
“We will see how it goes,” Boreh said yesterday. “This is the first day. We will see how the government reacts.”
Last month, Boreh called for elections scheduled for April to be delayed by as much as a year and for international monitors to oversee an electoral roll that includes 130,000 to 140,000 of the population of about 865,000.
Djibouti ranks 148th out of 169 countries in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, education and living standards.
U.S. Concerns
“We’re closely monitoring, keeping an eye on developments, especially as they relate to any forces we may have in the region,” Pentagon spokesman, Marine Corps Colonel David Lapin, told reporters yesterday.
The U.S has had a base in Djibouti since 2001, while former colonial power France also has 3,000 troops stationed in the country, which is smaller than the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The republic borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and is seen as a strategic location in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism and piracy.
