Tuesday May 29, 2007 7:46 PM
By ANITA POWELL
Associated Press Writer
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) – Ethiopia began counting its population Tuesday, a daunting task in a country where asking personal questions is considered socially taboo but where the government and international donors sorely need more information to plan economic and social programs.
More than 100,000 census takers, most of them schoolteachers, fanned out across Africa’s second most populous country as part of a 10-day program to find out from every household details such as how many of them there are, their ethnicity, religion, and the languages they speak.
One out of five homes will also be asked questions about their education and even the condition of their homes.
“In some cases, some people do not like to be asked such questions,” said English teacher Tsedale Endale, 32, a census worker who allowed a reporter from The Associated Press to accompany her. The problem is most prevalent in rural areas, where most Ethiopians live, she said.
“They think that if they count their children, one of them will die soon,” Tsedale said, referring to a popular African superstition.
The last census was in 1994 when officials found out there were 54 million Ethiopians in the country. Preliminary results of the 2007 population count will be released in five months, and final results in 1 years.
“It is a huge activity especially in this country, where the majority of the population is not literate, where transportation is not adequate, and so many people live in rural areas,” said Mekonnen Tesfaye, a census official and statistician.
The difficulty of conducting a census in Ethiopia is compounded by the nation’s nearly 90 different ethnic groups and as many languages.
The terrain and weather also make it difficult, delaying the count in some areas such as the remote Afar and Somali regions. The largely nomadic population in those regions disperse over a wide area during the rainy season, which has begun. They will be counted in November when they return to more accessible areas.
That count will be in addition to the 10-day one that began Tuesday.
Taking population counts in African countries has long been difficult. In Nigeria, for example, four censuses have been aborted since independence from Britain in 1960 because of logistical problems and allegations that ethnic and religious groups had sought to inflate their numbers.
The U.N. Population Fund’s 2006 report estimates Ethiopia has 79.3 million people, ahead of Egypt with 75.4 million people. The most populous country in Africa is Nigeria, with 134.4 million people.
Because most of the officials doing the population count in Ethiopia are teachers, schools closed three weeks early this year to allow them to prepare for the census.
On Tuesday, Tsedale and geography teacher Zemeny Ali, 32, wound their way through the Ethiopian capital’s serpentine neighborhoods to reach a large apartment project where they worked through 40 apartments in four hours.
Residents were for the most part cooperative, many offering tea and food to the census takers. But many also complained that the numbers they cared about were not addressed by the census.
“Life is becoming very expensive,” said 33-year-old Merkineh Mohammed, who fixes fire hydrants for the fire department. But he added, “I don’t expect anything from the government, because the government is also living on aid.”
As much as a third of Ethiopia’s budget is funded by Western aid.
Others complained about the census itself.
“The process is too long,” said Mekonnen Alemu, 29, of the 47-question form, which took him half an hour to complete. “We’re asked too many questions.”
The census takers, who are being paid $6 a day, also found the process tedious, but persevered because they believe the exercise is important.
“I think it’s actually a little boring,” Zemeny said after asking two dozen people the same set of questions.
But, Tsedale added, “We do it because we love our country.”
ADDIS ABABA, 29 May 2007 (IRIN) – Ethiopia began a nine-day national census on 29 May to determine demographic trends in the country, but the exercise was delayed in Afar and Somali, officials said.
“Due to the mobility of their populations, the census does not include the Somali and Afar regional state,” Gebeyehu Abelti, acting deputy director-general of Demographic and Social Statistics Sector at the Central Statistics Agency said. “The census will be carried out [in the two regions] in October.”
The northern Afar region is a remote, hot and arid area, while the eastern Somali region, which hosts a large nomadic Somali population, is far away from the capital of Addis Ababa. In 2005, it experienced flooding after the Shebelle River burst its banks, leaving up to 100 people dead.
The census, which began after a two-day delay, will be conducted in seven regional states and two city administrations (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa) by 81,024 enumerators, plus thousands of primary school teachers.
Ethiopia conducted its first census in 1984 and the second 10 years later. The third national census is costing US$45.7 million, but an additional $13.1 million is needed for the Afar and Somali regional state.
“The findings will be released to the public after the October census in Afar and Somali,” said Yehualashet Mekonnen, technical officer for the Addis Ababa census commission.
According to government statistics, Ethiopia has an estimated population of 77.1 people, of whom 64 million live in rural areas.
MOGADISHU, Somalia: Two explosions and a prolonged gunbattle shook northern Mogadishu overnight, leaving two people dead, officials and witnesses said Monday, while police killed two other men suspected of robbing civilians.
Government officials declined to comment on the overnight explosions and gunfire in the Somali capital, but witnesses said at least one blast had come from suspected insurgents throwing an explosive device at a police station in the Huriwaa district. No police officers were reported injured.
Another explosion occurred near an Ethiopian army base, prompting an hours-long gunbattle, but it was not clear who was fighting whom.
It was near the Ethiopian base where the two bodies in civilian clothes were seen, with gunshots in the back and in the chest, area resident Abdi Hashi Nour said. It was not clear if the bodies were civilians or suspected insurgents. Nour said they were removed by police, who cordoned off the area.
“The fighting is not over in our district,” said another resident, Abdulkadir Shidane Ali. “There are bomb attacks every night on the bases of either government soldiers or the Ethiopians by unknown men, and we pay the price because a curfew has been imposed. We face arbitrary arrests and are caught up in gunbattles.”
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Government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon and the police commander of Huriwaa district, Col. Abdi Hassan, declined to comment.
Separately, government forces killed two men dressed in army uniforms in a gunbattle on Sunday night, after finding the men attempting to rob people of mobile phones and money in northern Mogadishu, local government official Abdullahi Mohamed Roble said. Four others in the gang were arrested, Roble said.
The bodies of the two dead men, showing no visible wounds but with their feet bound, were displayed outside a government building Monday as “an example” for anyone who thought of similar crimes, Roble said.
Ethiopia reopened its embassy in Mogadishu on Sunday for the first time since the countries fought a war 30 years ago, strengthening the nations’ ties as Somalia tries to stave off an Islamic insurgency.
Somalia’s government has struggled to survive since forming with backing from the United Nations in 2004, and was sidelined by a radical Islamic group until Ethiopia’s military intervened Dec. 24 and turned the tide.
But insurgents linked to the Islamic group, known as the Council of Islamic Courts, have launched an Iraq-style guerrilla war, saying the government is allowing Ethiopia to “occupy” the country. The U.S. has long accused the group of having ties to al-Qaida, which the council denies.
Last month, the government declared victory over the insurgents, who want Somalia to become an Islamic state. Battles killed at least 1,670 people between March 12 and April 26. Months of violence drove about a fifth of Mogadishu’s 2 million residents to flee for safety since February.
The Council of Islamic Courts ruled much of southern Somalia for six quiet months in 2006 before being driven from power by Somali troops and their Ethiopian allies.
Thousands of Ethiopians gathered in the capital on Sunday to remember victims of a brutal Marxist junta, weeping at the sight of flower-covered coffins with remains from mass graves across the country.
The service marked the anniversary of the downfall of the junta’s leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam — known as “the butcher of Addis Ababa” — who is living in exile in Zimbabwe.
Some experts say 150,000 university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed in a nationwide purge by Mengistu’s Marxist regime, the Dergue, though no one knows for sure.
Even those who were young during the 1974-1991 regime carried dark memories of the Red Terror, the 1977-78 siege when the government killed and imprisoned thousands of people.
Ahmed Hussein said that three decades ago police brought his younger brother home from jail and asked the family to gather outside.
“They shot him in front of us,” Ahmed said, his eyes welling with tears. “We were not allowed to cry.”
Elderly women clutched black-and-white photographs of loved ones and wailed during the ceremony.
“I used to see dead bodies on the street when I went to school,” said Michael Melake, 35, an environmental activist. “It was like a kind of Holocaust for Ethiopia,” he said.
The government is planning to erect a monument, library and museum in the capital to commemorate the victims.
Muluadem Assefa, 39, clutched a photo of her father, Assefa Casa, whom she believes was killed in jail in the 1970s. She never saw her father again after he was taken to jail.
Ethiopia, which has a long history of human rights abuses, will not see another Red Terror, said Deputy Prime Minister Addisu Legese, who attended Sunday’s ceremony.
“This will never, never happen again,” he said. “We have fought for that.”
Ethnicity as the main cause of the problems following the period 1991
By Abeje Tesfaye
I wrote this piece after the religious crisis in Jimma last year. It appears to me that more of such a crisis will happen now and then in the near future. After all that is what the ruling EPRDF wanted to hang on power. These who committed the crimes got the arms from government and run away with it. In this brief piece, I will discuss ethnicity as the main cause of the problems following the period 1991.
The introduction of ethnic based federal form of government in Ethiopia in 1991 has marked a new chapter in the nation and created new forms of identity in the nation’s political history. Since then federalism has been an issue of political significance employed both to justify and to criticize the idea of government and its intention to represent ethnicity.
For some the development and increased participation of different ethnic groups since 1991 is welcomed as a positive change that erodes the previous patterns of domination and facilitates aspects of local expression that were previously impossible. What happened after the introduction of federalism was that the country went through more than 20 different forms of conflicts. The factors encouraging conflicts come from different directions and the causes and the scope of these conflicts are many and complex.
The dramatic and fundamental transformation in to a federation based on ethnicity however was not subject to public debates and it was simply imposed by EPRDF. Government indicated its euphemism for the systematic, deliberate isolation of different ethnic groups to participate in matters affecting their life. Political appointment and commitment from ethnic groups calculated by loyalty to the party or the person in charge and meant only for symbolic purposes.
For many reasons, the assumption that ethnic federalism provides a cure for the problems created by the existence of ethnicity proves to be in contentious. Arguments in favour of ethnic federalism focus on the concept of identity. By strengthening identity it is hoped that members of various linguistic groups can come to feel more strongly identified with the central state, thus reducing the likelihood of violence and ethnic conflicts. Arguments against ethnic federalism however states that there is substantial hostility and resentment felt both for rational and irrational reasons.
The use of language as a structure for organizing society, for example is inherently problematic because individuals do not necessarily fit neatly into linguistic categories. Geopolitical units once established are far from stable and are subject to constantly evolving processes of redefinition. At times it may not even be the inhabitants who are concerned about whether they belong to a particular geopolitical unit or another.
In the past two decades, we have witnessed the bitter fact that the establishment of ethnically defined federalism resulted but not limited to creating fresh forms of identity, which increases on potential damage in perpetuating and creating separate formulations of identity, up to destroying the unity of the Ethiopian State. Then these translated in to severe problems of low income and pricing, revenue, and shortage of capital and persistent debt due to engagement on agrarian in nature.
The constitution protects fundamental rights and freedoms and specifically guarantees self determination. However, those guarantees are less ironclad in practice. The government exerts subtle pressure on groups that ask for the attainment of the constitutional provisions. The constitutional guarantees have fallen short due to ingrained social prejudices, weak judicial system, and underperforming government social assistance agencies. The government’s heavy-handed dismissal of the political agenda of large segments of the Oromo population is seen as ingrained bias by many.
To hold on to state power, to hold the states together, and to defend its interest, the government used ethnic cleansing as an instrument of warfare against opponents. Terror was justified by its security forces and appeals to maintain “the constitutionally established Governmentâ€Â. Attack and description of opposition as ‘unconstitutional and illegitimate’ led to further breakaway away of groups from the national politics. The government brands those who propose alternative policy approaches as illegitimate, if not terrorists.
If peace is to become real in Ethiopia, it is indispensable to work to rebuild the relationship with different ethnic groups in the country. The central challenge to this exercise does not lie in the repair of the physical and institutional devastation, nor in the repatriation and reintegration of refugees. The primary challenge in rebuilding a society that has been torn apart by ethnic lines has to do with mending relations and restoring trust. If people do not trust each other, and lack confidence in any political arrangement put in place and in the conflict prevention mechanisms process in general, then the best rebuilding strategies are likely to fail.
Despite it is a current structural limitation, if federalism is properly coordinated and consulted with history, culture, tradition and way of life of the different groups, ethnic federalism will address the concurrent social, political, economic and cultural conflicts in the country. One concrete way to help in peace building is to provide informal mechanisms, in which the main actors can meet, talk, share their differences and points in common, and build confidence.
In making peace to happen in Ethiopia, EPRDF can and must be ready to sacrifices its interest to the benefit of all the different groups. Flexible approaches that aim to accommodate diversity are the most likely means to achieve coherent and functional federalism, whether it is ethnic in character or not.
A 24-year-old New Jersey man who traveled to Somalia to help establish an Islamic state there but was instead imprisoned by three different nations, was released Friday and returned home yesterday, his father said.
“Everything is fine,” said Mohamed Meshal, the father of Amir Mohamed Meshal.
When Mr. Meshal, of Tinton Falls, N.J., left for Somalia in December 2006, the African nation was on the edge of chaos.
Ethiopian troops, with backing from the United States, were preparing to invade Somalia to restore to power a transitional Somali government that had been forced from the capital, Mogadishu, by militants who wanted to establish a strictly Islamic state. The invasion threat prompted the insurgent Islamists to call on Muslims around the world to help defend Somalia by fighting a jihad against Ethiopia.
During his four-month odyssey, Mr. Meshal was imprisoned in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
“It’s been quite an ordeal,” Jonathan Hafetz, Mr. Meshal’s attorney, said yesterday.
“The Meshal family is thrilled that their son Amir is free after four months of detention without due process,” the family said in a statement. “They look forward to spending time with their son, who they love very much.”
A spokesman for the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry declined to comment last night about Mr. Meshal’s release or to provide other details. Calls to the F.B.I. were not immediately returned.
United States officials have said in the past that Mr. Meshal is not wanted by American authorities.
In January, a few weeks after Mr. Meshal arrived in Somalia, fighting broke out and he fled south, along with a cadre of Islamist leaders and fighters. In late January, he reached neighboring Kenya.
While trying to enter Kenya illegally, he was detained by Kenyan authorities and put in jail. He was interrogated by F.B.I. agents, who concluded that he had no ties to terrorist organizations, American officials said.
Mr. Meshal told the F.B.I. that he had been in Somalia to help rebuild that country as an Islamic state, an American official said.
During his detention in Kenya, the State Department and the F.B.l. told Mr. Meshal’s family that once they sent an airline ticket, he would be released from prison.
Instead, in February, Mr. Meshal was blindfolded, shackled and put on a plane to Somalia. By then much of the country was controlled by Ethiopian soldiers. He was placed in a Somali jail.
The United States said then that it had no role in deporting Mr. Meshal to Somalia and that Kenya had done so without notifying the American Embassy.
However, the Kenyan government defended the deportation and dozens of others because it said the detainees had been engaged in a guerrilla war against a democratically elected government, referring to Somalia.
In late February, Mr. Meshal was taken from Somalia to Ethiopia, where he remained imprisoned until yesterday.
Mr. Hafetz said yesterday that after Mr. Meshal was released Friday, he was flown first to Germany and then arrived in the United States yesterday afternoon.
