The City Administration’s campaign to dismantles houses it deems illegal settlements has begun. More than 205 residents in the Bole district have seen their dwellings destroyed as the city attempts to shape the Capital according to the Master Plan.

Addis Fortune

FORTUNE STAFF WRITER WUDINEH ZENEBE chronicles the plight of those left in the wake of the operation.

Etenesh Yemane, 35, is a mother of four who raises her children without a father. She is employed at a community recreation centrein Kebele 01 of Bole district where she earns a monthly salary of 150 Br. In 1991 she built a mud house at a cost of 7,000 Br in Bole district, which was demolished in 2002 by the City Administration, having been designated illegal. But she stubbornly argued with the Administration, which, according to her, admitted that her house had indeed been built on legally secured land. She has since rebuilt a four-room residence on the same place, having been given the green light from officials of the district.

She reminisces about the misery her family of five went through when her house was demolished five years ago.

“We used to live in plastic huts on the same place where our demolished house lays,” she told

Last week Etenesh and other dwellers living in Bole district, Kebele 01, in a place commonly called silsa sidist, had to relive that misery as the Caretaker Administration demolished 205 houses that were considered to have been built on illegally obtained land. The campaign, headed by Berhane Deressa, mayor of the Addis Abeba City Caretaker Administration (AACCA), launched on Thursday, May 24, 2007, is demolishing homes declared illegal.

There are over 50,000 homes built by squatters in the city, Bole district sources told. The targets of the first round of the campaign would be homes built after May 2005, as envisaged in the city’s campaign document.

“We were told to immediately extricate our goods on Thursday morning, 6:00am, the same day our homes were demolished by earth moving machinery,” said Mulugeta Mekonnen, who had a home demolished by the Administration.

Another victim of this campaign is Legesse Geletu, who lives with his wife and two children. Legesse, a former soldier, earns 25-30 Br a day working as a daily labourer on construction sites.

As the military disbanded, I came to this place and built the house at a cost of 20,000 Br,” he told. “The place, 321sqm, was full of garbage at the time; I cleaned the area, planted trees and breathed life into the place,” he added.

After years of stable living, Legesse is understandably dismayed with the letter he received on, May 17, 2007, which ordered him and 205 other homeowners in the Kebele to demolish their houses in seven days. The letter, signed by Izra Beyene, head of Land Development and Administration Office at Bole district, gave the inhabitants seven days to appeal the decision.

Accordingly, the homeowners, including Legesse protested to the decision. They argued that they lived on the sites for a long time, and have made considerable investments on the lands, and thus do not deserve to be evicted. They also argued that they deserved to be provided replacement lands to build their own houses.

However, their plea could not save their homes as they do not appear on the Master Plan. Moreover, the area has been designated an aviation security zone on the Plan. Hence, 203 families, including Etenesh and Legesse had to lose their homes.

Their plight is an outcome of a campaign on squatting that will last from May 9 to September 2007. The campaign, according to the City Administration, will mainly focus on constructions on illegally obtained land, unlawful appropriation of government houses, land lease and sale of property in violation of applicable laws, including brokers who facilitate such illegal activities. Moreover people who break into condominiums of the Housing Agency will be the target of this campaign.

The other challenges are the Administration’s workers who are collaborators in these illegal acts. It believes the illegal acquisitions and unlawful appropriations of homes are made with the consent of some staff in the Administration, a member toldFortune . The restructuring of the Administration several times has created loopholes which were exploited by these employees, he admitted.

The Ministry of Works and Urban Development (MoWUD) previously handled land related issues in Addis Abeba before the mandate was transferred to the Addis Ababa City Work and Urban Development Bureau. This Bureau has four divisions: Land Administration, Land Development Authority, Infrastructure and Construction Permit Authority and Housing Agency. Certain activities of the Bureau, including the management of documents related to houses, were later decentralised to 10 districts after the merger of the Land Development Authority and Land Administration.

In all this restructuring, due attention was not given to the security of these documents, a veteran who worked in the city administration for over 20 years toldFortune . This has created a suitable condition for some workers of the City Administration to abuse their position to advance their own interests by illegally authenticating documents, and by transferring and selling files to a third party, he added.

A conspiracy detected in Bole district two weeks ago was revealing of the extent of underhandedness in the district administrations and the City Administration. This conspiracy aimed at transferring 40 plots with 175sqm each to a non-existent association. The plots were to be sold at 250,000 Br each. The campaign also targets these corrupt workers.

In the first round of the campaign, 2,400 homes built by squatters in the Yeka distict, and 3,000 in Nifas Silk Lafto, will be demolished. Out of this, 400 homes were demolished in March to April, 2007. In Bole district 20,000 homes are planed for demolition, a Bole district official toldFortune. The district started demolishing 205 houses built by squatters in Kebele 01 and the measure will continue, the source told Fortune.

Kebede Desta, a law enforcement department head in the Lafto district told Fortune that 200 houses built by squatters in Kebele 02 in the area known as Koshe were rebuilt to a better standard within two days after their demolition. Kebede said the capacity of the local security forces to control the construction of houses by squatters is limited.

The district deployed 94 federal and city police officers during the campaign, but they were redeployed four days later. Squatters built seven ‘moonlight houses’ (houses built in the middle of the night) every day, Kebede said.

Action Professionals Association for the People (APAP) has condemned the actions of the city administration.

“Such an act is illegal and unconstitutional and goes against the letter and spirit of all international conventions and agreements to which Ethiopia is a party,” APAP stated in a press release.

It further said that having gone through the documents of the evicted families, it has found that “not all of the legal conditions and requirements for the forceful evictions of these families have been met and as such the eviction is a violation of the laws of the land.”

AACCA issued a 20-page working plan which states the roles and responsibilities of the participants in the campaign. The participants are the Mayor’s Office, Manager of the city, Law and Justice Bureau, Addis Abeba Police Commission, the Federal Police and 11 subordinate agencies of the city, districts and kebeles. There are only 10-15 law enforcement agents in the each of the 99 districts, making the federal police and the city police necessary to handle security incidents that may occur in the course of the campaign.

An appeal hearing bench, headed by Ayalew Melaku, president of the Land Clearance Appeals Commission, has been set up to address the complaints tenants might have. The Legal and Justice Bureau has also established a bench to address complaints by people who claim to have been unlawfully victimised by the campaign. Muluneh Wordofa, head of the Bureau, declined to comment on the campaign.

But such compensatory measures have not given solace to all those affected by the campaign.

The demolition drove some dwellers into tears, after they saw their houses turned into piles of junk in hours.
“I have no friend or relative whom I can depend on,” Etenesh said. tenesh Yemane, 35, is a mother of four who raises her children without a father. She is employed at a community recreation centrein Kebele 01 of Bole district where she earns a monthly salary of 150 Br. In 1991 she built a mud house at a cost of 7,000 Br in Bole district, which was demolished in 2002 by the City Administration, having been designated illegal. But she stubbornly argued with the Administration, which, according to her, admitted that her house had indeed been built on legally secured land. She has since rebuilt a four-room residence on the same place, having been given the green light from officials of the district.

She reminisces about the misery her family of five went through when her house was demolished five years ago.

“We used to live in plastic huts on the same place where our demolished house lays,” she told Fortune.

Last week Etenesh and other dwellers living in Bole district, Kebele 01, in a place commonly called silsa sidist, had to relive that misery as the Caretaker Administration demolished 205 houses that were considered to have been built on illegally obtained land. The campaign, headed by Berhane Deressa, mayor of the Addis Abeba City Caretaker Administration (AACCA), launched on Thursday, May 24, 2007, is demolishing homes declared illegal.

There are over 50,000 homes built by squatters in the city, Bole district sources told Fortune. The targets of the first round of the campaign would be homes built after May 2005, as envisaged in the city’s campaign document.

“We were told to immediately extricate our goods on Thursday morning, 6:00am, the same day our homes were demolished by earth moving machinery,” said Mulugeta Mekonnen, who had a home demolished by the Administration.

Another victim of this campaign is Legesse Geletu, who lives with his wife and two children. Legesse, a former soldier, earns 25-30 Br a day working as a daily labourer on construction sites.

“As the military disbanded, I came to this place and built the house at a cost of 20,000 Br,” he told Fortune. “The place, 321sqm, was full of garbage at the time; I cleaned the area, planted trees and breathed life into the place,” he added.

After years of stable living, Legesse is understandably dismayed with the letter he received on, May 17, 2007, which ordered him and 205 other homeowners in the Kebele to demolish their houses in seven days. The letter, signed by Izra Beyene, head of Land Development and Administration Office at Bole district, gave the inhabitants seven days to appeal the decision.

Accordingly, the homeowners, including Legesse protested to the decision. They argued that they lived on the sites for a long time, and have made considerable investments on the lands, and thus do not deserve to be evicted. They also argued that they deserved to be provided replacement lands to build their own houses.

However, their plea could not save their homes as they do not appear on the Master Plan. Moreover, the area has been designated an aviation security zone on the Plan. Hence, 203 families, including Etenesh and Legesse had to lose their homes.

Their plight is an outcome of a campaign on squatting that will last from May 9 to September 2007. The campaign, according to the City Administration, will mainly focus on constructions on illegally obtained land, unlawful appropriation of government houses, land lease and sale of property in violation of applicable laws, including brokers who facilitate such illegal activities. Moreover people who break into condominiums of the Housing Agency will be the target of this campaign.

The other challenges are the Administration’s workers who are collaborators in these illegal acts. It believes the illegal acquisitions and unlawful appropriations of homes are made with the consent of some staff in the Administration, a member toldFortune . The restructuring of the Administration several times has created loopholes which were exploited by these employees, he admitted.

The Ministry of Works and Urban Development (MoWUD) previously handled land related issues in Addis Abeba before the mandate was transferred to the Addis Ababa City Work and Urban Development Bureau. This Bureau has four divisions: Land Administration, Land Development Authority, Infrastructure and Construction Permit Authority and Housing Agency. Certain activities of the Bureau, including the management of documents related to houses, were later decentralised to 10 districts after the merger of the Land Development Authority and Land Administration.

In all this restructuring, due attention was not given to the security of these documents, a veteran who worked in the city administration for over 20 years toldFortune . This has created a suitable condition for some workers of the City Administration to abuse their position to advance their own interests by illegally authenticating documents, and by transferring and selling files to a third party, he added.

A conspiracy detected in Bole district two weeks ago was revealing of the extent of underhandedness in the district administrations and the City Administration. This conspiracy aimed at transferring 40 plots with 175sqm each to a non-existent association. The plots were to be sold at 250,000 Br each. The campaign also targets these corrupt workers.

In the first round of the campaign, 2,400 homes built by squatters in the Yeka distict, and 3,000 in Nifas Silk Lafto, will be demolished. Out of this, 400 homes were demolished in March to April, 2007. In Bole district 20,000 homes are planed for demolition, a Bole district official toldFortune. The district started demolishing 205 houses built by squatters in Kebele 01 and the measure will continue, the source told Fortune.

Kebede Desta, a law enforcement department head in the Lafto district told Fortune that 200 houses built by squatters in Kebele 02 in the area known as Koshe were rebuilt to a better standard within two days after their demolition. Kebede said the capacity of the local security forces to control the construction of houses by squatters is limited.

The district deployed 94 federal and city police officers during the campaign, but they were redeployed four days later. Squatters built seven ‘moonlight houses’ (houses built in the middle of the night) every day, Kebede said.

Action Professionals Association for the People (APAP) has condemned the actions of the city administration.

“Such an act is illegal and unconstitutional and goes against the letter and spirit of all international conventions and agreements to which Ethiopia is a party,” APAP stated in a press release.

It further said that having gone through the documents of the evicted families, it has found that “not all of the legal conditions and requirements for the forceful evictions of these families have been met and as such the eviction is a violation of the laws of the land.”

AACCA issued a 20-page working plan which states the roles and responsibilities of the participants in the campaign. The participants are the Mayor’s Office, Manager of the city, Law and Justice Bureau, Addis Abeba Police Commission, the Federal Police and 11 subordinate agencies of the city, districts and kebeles. There are only 10-15 law enforcement agents in the each of the 99 districts, making the federal police and the city police necessary to handle security incidents that may occur in the course of the campaign.

An appeal hearing bench, headed by Ayalew Melaku, president of the Land Clearance Appeals Commission, has been set up to address the complaints tenants might have. The Legal and Justice Bureau has also established a bench to address complaints by people who claim to have been unlawfully victimised by the campaign. Muluneh Wordofa, head of the Bureau, declined to comment on the campaign.

But such compensatory measures have not given solace to all those affected by the campaign.
The demolition drove some dwellers into tears, after they saw their houses turned into piles of junk in hours.

“I have no friend or relative whom I can depend on,” Etenesh said.

Editor’s Note:

The result of the Woyanne regime’s callus action in the name of city planning is this gut-wrenching report by BBC on street children

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Alert from Kinijit International

“We have received an urgent alert from Kailiti that Muluneh Eyuel ( Secretary-General of CUDP-Kinijit) and Andualem Arage, two young heroes of the Ethiopian democratic movement, have been severely beaten and locked up in solitary confinement again. We have no further information as to what prompted the prison guards to commit another wave of atrocities against these “prisoners of conscience.”

Written by: Jeffrey Wolf, Web Producer and Shawn Patrick, Reporter

Last updated: 5/31/2007 6:20:56 AM
………………..

Boy pulled out of pool not expected to survive. 9NEWS at 10 p.m.

Aurora Police believe his sister died while trying to save him.
It happened Monday afternoon in the Rain Tree East subdivision in the 9900 block of East Evans Avenue, which is near Iliff and Havana in Aurora.

Sixteen-year-old Bethlehem Kahsay and her 11-year-old brother, Yacob Kahsay, were pulled out of the water. Efforts to revive the girl failed.

Yacob is in the pediatric intensive care unit after being airlifted to Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center.

Yacob’s father, Gezaee Kahsay, says his son is still in critical condition and the outlook for him is not positive.

“The doctor said the brain is almost gone,” said Gezaee. “He’s very bad, he can’t survive now.”

Their neighbor, and father of another 11-year-old boy, is losing sleep after the incident pool.

Ron Burney’s son and his wife found the two in the pool.

“I took off running out the door. I said, ‘Grab my phone.’ I thought it was kids playing a joke or something, but it wasn’t a joke,” said Burney.

Burney called 911 to get help.

“There’s two dead kids in the pool, please hurry,” he told the 911 dispatcher. “There are two children in the pool, they are floating, one is at the bottom. It looks like two young kids. Oh Lord, have mercy. They’re dead, they’re both dead.”

Gezaee says he is now praying for a miracle for his son. The doctors told him his son is brain dead and his organs have shut down.

He emigrated to the U.S. from Ethiopia 10 years ago.

“We worked so hard to bring them here for education and to get a college degree, and now we have nothing left,” Gezaee said.

He plans to move back to Ethiopia for the burial of his children and the family is trying to raise money for the services.

If you would like to help, contact the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, at 574 Pennsylvania Street in Denver. You can call them at 303-698-9957.

Both Gezaee and his wife were at work on Wednesday. Burney says he did not realize who the children were until he saw their faces on the news.

“These people worked. I pray to God they don’t think they did something wrong, it was just God’s plan,” said Burney.

By Claire Martin
Denver Post Staff Writer
05/30/2007

With one child dead and the other dependent on life support, Gezaee and Mulu Kahsay spent Tuesday shuttling in a daze of grief between the church and the hospital.

“The doctor told us there is nothing he can do,” said the children’s uncle, Johannes Haile. “We have asked them to give us until tomorrow. If some kind of miracle happens, that’s what his mother is thinking. Maybe his brain will wake up.

Ngiste Gebrezgi, left, a friend of the victims’ family, weeps as she walks to the home of Bethlehem and Yakob Kahsay, supported by one of Bethlehem’s classmates. Bethlehem’s drowning at Raintree East in Aurora hit the Ethiopian community hard. (Post / Lyn Alweis)

“Our Bethlehem,” he said, “she was so brave.”

Wrapped in white veils, wailing, grieving women from Denver’s Ethiopian community surrounded the parents and relatives of Bethlehem Kahsay, 16, who drowned Monday in an apparent attempt to save her 11-year-old brother as he struggled in a subdivision pool.

Dozens of people gathered at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church near downtown Denver, trying to console the children’s father, Gezaee, and mother, Mulu.

Already the Kahsays are weighing the prospect of taking their daughter’s body back to Ethiopia for burial, but, as Haile observed, as refugees, “we don’t have a lot of financial resources.”

Bethlehem was wearing street clothes when her body was found Monday near her brother, Yakob, who was wearing swim trunks, leading to speculation she tried to save him.

Bethlehem and Yakob immigrated to the United States last fall, joining their father, who has lived in Colorado for 10 years, and their mother, who arrived here a little more than two years ago. Gezaee Kahsay works in United Airlines’ catering department. Mulu Kahsay works part time at a hair salon and as a cook, said Haile.

Bethlehem, a sophomore at Overland High School, was an exemplary student and a capable member of the girls soccer team, Haile said. While she loved American rock music, Bethlehem knew how to make excellent injera, the traditional Ethiopian flatbread, and other dishes, including the popular chicken stew, doro wat

Haile described Yakob as an energetic boy who loved splashing in the pool, less than a30-second walk from his parents’ town home in the Raintree East subdivision. He has a special knack for math – though his uncle also wryly recalled that Yakob needs reminders to finish his homework before turning on his favorite ninja cartoons.

The children attended the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church with their parents. Bethlehem showed a special interest in her faith. Hours before she drowned, she had talked to Haile on the phone, asking him to bring her a Bible in Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language, so she could study it more closely.

“The family has really been going to the church a lot, because that’s where the support system is for them,” explained Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center spokeswoman Angie Anania

Anania said she could not comment on Yakob’s prospects for recuperating. She also said the hospital had Yakob’s last name listed as Gezaee and police said that was also Bethlehem’s last name. Haile, however, said their last name was Kahsay.

“Obviously, our pediatric specialists are working with the family and doing whatever they possibly can for Yakob,” Anania said. “They’re focused now on what’s going to happen here in the next 24 hours.”

At the East Raintree complex, neighbors expressed dismay and sympathy for the family. Jesse Reggans Jr. described Beth lehem as a devoted big sister who often accompanied her brother on the short trek from their doorstep to the mailboxes that abut the pool area.
Several neighbors put arrangements of candles and flowers alongside the pool fence.

Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or [email protected].

30 May 2007 09:04:07 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU, May 30 (Reuters) – A roadside bomb blast tore through a convoy carrying Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops in a central Somali town on Wednesday, seriously wounding five soldiers, a security source said.

Baladwayne resident Osman Adan said he could see thick black smoke billowing from the scene of the explosion, which the security source said was caused by a remote-controlled landmine.

“An Ethiopian [Woyanne] truck was blown up. … The Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops immediately opened fire indiscriminately with heavy machine-guns … I do not know if any soldiers were wounded or killed,” Adan said, adding that two civilians were hurt in the shooting.

Ethiopian [Woyanne] soldiers cordoned off the area after the blast and carried out door-to-door searches in nearby streets, he said.

The security source in Mogadishu said one Ethiopian [Woyanne] truck was destroyed by an anti-tank mine.

“There were five troops on board. There were seriously wounded,” said the security source, who asked not to be named.

Insurgents from an ousted militant Islamist movement have increasingly adopted the tactics of Iraqi guerrillas since the interim Somali government and its Ethiopian [Woyanne] allies forced them out of the capital Mogadishu in December after a brief war.

The rebels have struck government buildings, convoys and Ugandan peacekeepers patrolling for the African Union (AU).

Most attacks have taken place in the seaside city, and local media said a Somali soldier was shot dead by unknown gunmen late on Tuesday near its sprawling Bakara Market.

On Monday, a senior court official from Baladwayne was also killed by gunmen in Mogadishu. His funeral was taking place on Wednesday in the town, 190 miles (300 km) north of the capital.

President Abdullahi Yusuf’s government is struggling to impose central rule on the Horn of Africa nation, in anarchy since warlords kicked out dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Ethiopia [Woyanne] says it wants its forces to leave once the AU force is up to strength, or at least at half its planned 8,000 troops.

But other African nations have been wary of sending more soldiers, especially after four Ugandan peacekeepers were killed two weeks ago by a roadside bomb targeting their convoy.

Wednesday , May 30, 2007  By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Ethiopian troops shot and killed five bystanders Wednesday after a land mine exploded as their convoy passed through the center of a western Somali town, police said.

A remote-controlled land mine detonated in the town of Belet Weyne as the last vehicle in the convoy, a water tanker, passed.

“Then the Ethiopians opened fire on civilians,” police Col. Yusuf Aden told The Associated Press by telephone from Belet Weyne, 180 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu. “Five people, all of them passers-by, were killed and three others were wounded.”

It was the first time an Ethiopian army convoy has been attacked outside the capital, where Ethiopian trucks have been frequently targeted. The Ethiopian troops are backing Somalia’s fragile government against radical Islamic insurgents.

The explosion rocked the town center, and huge plumes of smoke rose into the sky, said Ali Iid, a witness. The Ethiopian soldiers fired in all directions, then controlled movement at the site for 10 minutes before driving off, Iid told the AP by telephone.

“I saw five people lying in the street, including a woman,” he said.

Somalia’s U.N.-backed transitional government was sidelined by a radical Islamic group until Ethiopia’s military intervened in December and turned the tide.

Insurgents linked to the Islamic group have vowed to wage an Iraq-style guerrilla war, saying the government is allowing Ethiopia to occupy the country.

The government claimed victory over the insurgents last month after battles in Mogadishu that killed at least 1,670 people and drove a fifth of the city’s 2 million residents to flee.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991, when warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.