If the above image of Meles Zenawi, shoulder to shoulder with two other Africa’s leaders, seeks to project an image of a statesman, below is another image of Zenawi. The image in the next caption was on display on 30 June 2007 demonstration in front of the office of the new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown at #10 Downing Street. The image is a caricature, a work of art and not an actual photo of Zenawi. Thus its meaning is symbolic and therefore more powerful. This is important because the caricature of Zenawi in this image expresses the true sentiment of the Somali people in that demo in response to the unmitigated death and destruction Zenawi’s Tigre army has been wrecking in Somalia.
In today’s Africa, and in the shadows of Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah, we have murderous thugs such as Meles Zenawi, Abdullahi Yusuf, Ali Mohamed Gedi, et al, who are murdering, maiming, looting and displacing the people of Somalia as they collect rewards of their crimes against humanity in the form of blood money and the false praises as payments of service rendered on behest of foreign forces. The image also makes other references such as UK, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Egypt, Algeria and Tanzania: these countries are part of an ad hoc committee known as The Contact Group for Somalia. They, too, have been complicit in Zenawi’s crime of genocide against the people of Somalia.
Sadly, as a political union comprising of independent African nations, the AU is dead. This is not to suggest that the ideal of Pan-Africanism is dead. Far from it: as long as African people and people of African descent continue to struggle for economic, political and social justice and the restoration of their human dignity, Pan-Africanism will remain relevant. But, as a political organization, the African Union (AU) is dead. On the specific issue of AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the current AU troops in Somalia is a mercenary army who are in Somalia’ soil to serve foreign forces determined to gain a total ownership over Somalia’s unexplored natural resources and install a puppet US friendly regime.
Somalis have no choice but to struggle for the liberation of their nation from the menacing grip of the unholy trinity of Zenawi’s Tirge army, US special forces and thuggish warlords of TFG. The AU has been collaborating with the forces currently menacing the people of Somalia. The Somali people are under the illegal occupation of the Tigre army of Meles Zenawi. It is the right and duty of all Somalis to struggle against the colonial takeover of their country. China has played a role in the project of death and destruction against the people of Somalia. Whilst the critics of western imperialism in Africa often point the accusing finger at the US’s meddling of the internal affairs of Africa, China’s meddling of the internal affairs of Africa has not receive a comparable scrutiny.
As a result, China has been able to quietly cultivate a network of dubious relationships with some of the must ruthless regimes in Africa, including Ethiopia’s dictator, Meles Zenawi, and the regime in Sudan. Second, whilst the US gives a cynical lip service to “the need to protect the human rights” of the local populations, China does not bother with such false pretenses. As a result, in Africa, China has been able to receive lucrative oil concessions and sweet deals from regimes in Africa with well documented gross human rights record such as Ethiopia and Sudan. In the specific case China’s oil drillings in Ogaden, China is implicated in Zenawi’s program of genocide against the people of Ogaden. This is because Zenawi’s program of death and destruction against the people of Ogaden, makes Ogaden “safe” for China to exploit the oil and natural gas in Ogaden. Thus, China, exploitation of natural resources of Ogaden and Zenawi’s program of the systematic liquidation of the people of Ogaden are linked.
It is pertinent to point out that while Ogaden is one of the most underdeveloped areas under Ethiopia’s control, China brought to Ogade Chinese workers to work in the Ogaden oil fields rather than hiring the local people. Thus, while China seeks promulgate its colonizing designs on Africa’s natural resources through the rhetoric of “bring development to Africa,” in reality, China is systemically undercutting Africa’s labour force by bring Chinese workforce to Africa rather than hiring local workers.
It is equally pertinent to point out that whilst Zenawi’s chosen tactic, in dealing with the Bush administration, is the need to fight “Islamic terror,” in order to ally himself and his tribal based Tigre regime with the US’s war against global terror, with China, Zinawi does not need to hide his ruthless human rights violations against the people of Oganden and other Ethiopian citizens. As a result, China and Zenawi have developed cozy relationship predicated on genocide, murder and exploitation of the people of Ogaden. Consequently, China might be exporting economic “development” to other parts of Africa but in Ethiopian occupied Ogaden, China brought in as well as has exacerbated Zinawi’ culture of gross human rights violations. It is in this specific context that China’s collusion with Meles Zinawi’s program of genocide against people in Ogedan must be critically examined, understood and contested.
It is on the basis of China’s collusion with Zenawi’s gross human rights violations against the people of Ogaden that I took a keen interest after reading about China’s donation of $600,000 to help African Unions peacekeeping effort in Somalia. This is relatively a small donation. However, I wanted to know what is the real motivation behind this pathetic gesture of goodwill, for as one of the five permanent members of the security council, China has endorsed the US sponsorship of Ethiopia’s illegal invasion of Somalia. Put differently, China has contributed the current death and destruction Zinawi’ Tigre army is wrecking against the people of Somalia. Second, the African Union has also endorsed Ethiopia’s illegal invasion of Somalia. Thus, by endorsing Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, the African Union (AU) and UN Charters are in clear violation of Security Council resolutions 1724, 1725 and 1744.
The naked AU partisan in favor of Ethiopia and against Somalia is particularly insulting to ordinary patriotic Somalis. This is particularly so for Ethiopia’s illegal invasion of Somalia violates Somalia’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Absurdly, the AU has defended its backing up Ethiopia’s illegal invasion of Somalia as a way of restoring and “protecting” Ethiopia’s national sovereignty. To add more insult to Somalia’s collative injury, at present, the AU is using the destruction of Somalia to collect a “blood money” in name of “peacekeeping” duties in Somalia. This is clearly a cleaver way of creating employment opportunities for soldiers from some AU nations working in Somalia or might come at a later day, as a part of AU mercenary army occupying Somalia. Hence, the AU forces currently in Somalia are part of Zenawi’s Tigray mercenary occupation army which is currently killing, maiming, looting and raping the people of Somalia with impunity.
I have argued elsewhere reasons for Bush administration’s preference of AU “peacekeeping” force in Somalia over UN peacekeepers, for the former are willing to engage violent actions rights which are designed to subdue the Somali population in order to enhance the successful installation into the political power a group of thuggish warlord as a US puppet regime of TFG. In that work, I have also argued that, the US will try to seek the support of European Union nations to finance the bulk of UA peacekeeping force in Somalia. This option is still open. However, faced with gross human rights violations by the US backed Transitional Federal government and the Ethiopia’s occupation forces, EU member nations might be reluctant to give a full financial backing to the warlord regime of Yusuf and Gedi.
Some European nations, such as Italy, have openly expressed their opposition to Ethiopia’s continue occupation of Somalia. Italy has also pushed for more inclusive Somalia’s reconciliation process, which includes members of the defeated Islamists. It is not clear how this is going to happen since Islamists consider themselves a nonclanist organization and that the transition government has refused members of UIC a seat on the negotiating table unless members of Islamists are appointed by their clans. The clan based structuring of Somali political process is being frown upon not only by the Islamists, increasingly, ordinary Somalis are expressing their opposition to what they see as Zenawi’s designs of the systemic dismantling of Somalia’s national identity as a nation state with clearly marked territorial borders, social, cultural institutions and legal a system.
It is in this context that, increasingly, the Islamist in Somalia are being seen as a genuine nationalist force against US/Ethiopian foreign occupiers and TFG as a stooge serving the interests of its foreign masters rather than those of ordinary Somalis. Italy has also pledged a financial support to AU peacekeeping force in Somalia. However, Italy wants Ethiopian forces to completely withdraw from Somalia before African Union peacekeepers can take their place. This is significant for Italy is trying separate between occupation army of Ethiopia and peacekeeping force from other AU nations.
Whilst Italy has been demanding a complete Ethiopia’s troop pull out of Somalia, as the two main players currently contesting over the control of Africa’s natural resources, including oil and natural gas explorations and exploitations in the Horn of Africa, neither China nor the US has made similar demands of Ethiopia troop withdrawal out of Somalia. The US is the main player which is currently footing the bill for Ethiopia’s occupation of Somalia. With this small gesture, and probably more money to follow, China is now making an open investment to the Ethiopia’s occupation of Somalia. China’s eagerness to publicize its meager contribution to peacekeeping force in Somalia aims, primarily, at two main players: Ethiopia’s strong man, Meles Zinawi and his boss George W. Bush. Towards Zenawi, China is rewarding him for Zinawi’s ruthless suppression of the people of Ogaden so the China can safely exploit and appropriate oil resources from Ogaden. So this is China’s quid pro quo designed to appease Zinawi ruthless occupation of Somalia.
Towards the Bush administration, by contributing or seeming to be contributing to ,financially, AU peacekeeping effort in Somalia, China is aiming to struck another quid pro quo deal with the U.S so that, rather than fighting over it, China and the U.S might come to a mutually satisfactory agreement over the remaining oil and gas resources in Africa. So that the US might drop charges of human rights abuses against the regime in Sudan [i.e. Darfur]. The US might go along with China’s scheme for China can also use it’s own proxy agents who can bring charges of human rights abuses against the US’s backing of criminal warlords in Somalia or even against Zenawi Tigre army’s gross human rights record in Somalia. In the current scramble for Africa’s natural resources, human rights, war against “Islamic terror”, “development” and “democracy” are interchangeable metaphors which are capriciously deployed to advance imperialistic agendas.
Majority of Africans are willing to deny or minimize extent to which African tribes may have participated in the greatest genocide against humanity: The Transatlantic Slave Trade. Today, we cannot deny that African leaders are standing shoulder to shoulder with Meles Zenawi as his Tigre troops continue to commit war crimes and crimes of genocide against humanity against the Somali people inside Ethiopia’s occupied Ogaden and in Ethiopia’s occupied Somalia. Today, leading African nations are either openly or by their tacit conspicuous silences, supporting the Tigre colonization of Somalia. For the people of Somalia, the message is clear. The Somali people must and will struggle to liberate their country and victory shall be theirs.
Amina Mire, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Email: [email protected]
July 5, 2007 (LONDON) — White Nile said Thursday it has a joint study agreement with the Ethiopian Government’s Petroleum Operations Division, over the prospective East African Rift system in the southwest of the country.
The White Nile which was pulled out of South Sudan last month said its area of interest is in Southern Ethiopia in the Southern Rift Basins.
“As part of the exploration programme, ground geophysical surveys, including magneto-tellurics and gravity, have now been completed in the Omo River area to the north of Lake Turkana. This data is being used to determine basin disposition and depth in this critical area of interference between three proven petroliferous basin trends known as the Turkana Depression.
“Early results of the interpretation are encouraging and have revealed deep basins, potentially containing sedimentary section similar to that of the petroliferous Muglad and Melut Basins of Southern Sudan,” the company said.
It added the next stage in the development of the Company’s Ethiopian project is to finalise the interpretation of the data collected, which will identifying the areas that White Nile wishes to translate into a PSA. Following this the Company will design a reconnaissance 2D seismic programme to identify drill targets.
The company said Chairman Phil Edmonds has recently returned from a meeting in Juba, where he met Vice President of Southern Sudan government Riek Machar and Paul Mayom, the Minister of Interior and Chairman of Nile Petroleum Corp.
According to the White Nile both officials confirmed the proposed formation of a new oil consortium with regard to Block B in Southern Sudan comprising NilePet, White Nile, Total SA, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company and Sudan National Petroleum Corporation, the state owned oil company of northern Sudan.
But reports from Khartoum denied such deal.
The White Nile chairman, Phil Edmonds, has requested that a White Nile board meeting be convened in Juba at the earliest opportunity, followed by a meeting with NilePet to discuss matters relating to further strengthening the relationship between NilePet and White Nile.
The Sudan’s National Oil Commission has pulled out the White Nile from oil consortium working in Block 5 in a meeting held last June. The Commission is co-chaired by the Sudanese president Omer al-Bashir and the First Vice President and president of the Southern Sudan government Salva Kiir.
Kiir had also, ordered the White Nile to freeze oil exploration in Jonglei state, last May, and formed committee to investigate the contract of White Nile oil company, headed by ex-England cricketer Phil Edmonds.
MOGADISHU, Somalia, Jul. 5, 2007 (AP) A roadside bomb exploded Thursday near a convoy carrying Mogadishu’s mayor, the second attempt on his life in two months, his spokesman said.
No one was hurt in the blast targeting Mayor Mohamed Dheere, said the spokesman, Mohamed Muhyadin Ali.
“It was an assassination attempt, but luckily he survived,” Ali said. In May, a bomb exploded near Dheere’s convey, killing two civilians.
Thursday’s explosion came an hour before the European Commission’s representative for Somalia arrived in Mogadishu to discuss security and humanitarian issues with President Abdullahi Yusuf.
The Somali capital has seen little peace since government troops backed by Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces drove an Islamic movement out of the city in December. Roadside bombs, attacks on government installations, assassination attempts and gunbattles have become common, and civilians are caught in the crossfire.
The Council of Islamic Courts ruled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months last year, during which they sought to impose an Islamic state. Insurgents linked to the Islamic group have vowed to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war.
Battles in Mogadishu between March 12 and April 26 alone killed at least 1,670 people.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned against one another, defending clan fiefdoms. The government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but has struggled to assert any real control.
The Afar people in Ethiopia live in the north-eastern part of the country known as the Afar Regional State. The pastoralist Afar of the area is mainly dependent on livestock rearing. The traditional Afar economy survived for centuries by adapting a lifestyle of pastoralist, being opportunistic and utilizing scarce resources by migrating from place to place. The Afars have strong ties to their ecosystem and have unique traditional values that promote harmony between human, livestock and nature.
Recently, the TPLF-led Government in Ethiopia is carrying out a huge irrigation project with aim to establish a big sugar cane plantation as well as two sugar factories both in lower and middle awash valley menacing the livelihood of over a half million people and fauna and flora. The project was established as a state company in its own right, taking responsibility from the Ethiopian Sugar Industry Support Centre. The project was launched under the joint auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Water Resources at the beginning of 2005. Out of five sub-regions (zones) of the Afar State, four southern sub-regions are directly affected by this project.
To support water supply of the project two huge dams are being built in Tandaho and Kassam-Kabana at Sabure. The land clearing activities is being carried out with intensity destroying the forest, livestock and animal life in the region. The shortage of grazing area due to clearing of the land for plantations and government-instigated investment, to get space for irrigation, has created serious tribal confrontations with detriment of lives. Moreover, the loss of grazing land, water sites and increased government backed investment meant greater poverty among the Afar pastoralists in the region. This irresponsible action is leading not only to the destruction of the Afar as pastoral society but also have a long-term and irreversible impact on ecosystem of entire Awash Basin. So far, no alternative livelihood is being thought for the Afar pastoralists except displacement.
The Kesem-Tendaho project is expected to cost over 20 billion Birr and to share 3 percent of the world sugar market. Up on completion, the project is expected to produce sugarcane through developing over 100,000 hectares of land. The project is expected to become fully operational in 2008 and is projected to produce over 900,000tn of sugar, 300,000tn of molasses and 200 million litres of ethanol annually at full capacity. Some of the Chemicals used in the plantation are threatening life in the region. About 200 000-300 000 labourers from the highlands, maybe imported from Tigrean militias, to acquire own Party base in the Afar region. The experience of the past party policy of labourers brought from other region has proved that the government has intentionally instigated -local conflicts between the Afars and the government-brought labourers which is usually an ample opportunity for repressive measures against the Afars. Furthermore, the environmental impact of the project is huge, since the Awash River is currently the most polluted river in the country, where industry wastage released and forbidden chemicals are used on state plantation without any restriction in the region. To support the project a huge armies are stationed in both the lower and middle Awash valley. Serious conformation between the Afar and the armies is taking place frequently. Pastoralists who question the project or do not remove their homestead from the project sites are threatened, imprisoned and killed, without even getting any formal charges against them. Although the opposition by the Afar people is growing by all means day by day the Afar did not get the due international attention yet.
What are lessons learned from previous projects with similar intentions? One, which had a great impact on the Afar, was the agricultural development in the Awash Valley. Seeing its great potential for irrigated agriculture already in 1962 the Awash Valley Authority (AVA) was established with a special Charter, which authorized it to monitor and advance the Awash Valley resources, during which time commercial farmers invaded the valley. While the agenda of AVA clearly stated the government’s objectives, obviously it contained nothing about the future of local Afar. The dergue applied a similar policy by introducing State Farms, took even more lands, leaving the Afar no place to go. The TPLF-led Government in Ethiopia has intensified its involvement too in the Valley through state-backed investors and directly government financed huge projects.
The TPLF-led government has decided to intensify the grip on the Afar land, where the party-affiliated Tigrean supremacy in the region has been systematically imposed. For instance, the Afdera salt lake investment, in the northern Afar, is solely dominated by state-backed Tigrean investors. In the same region of the Afar an oil exploration is going on without the consent of the Afar people. However, the question has been throughout who owned the land in the Afar region? In the Afar traditional society, land is a communal property, and therefore cannot be claimed by an individual or authority without the general public consent. Those who cultivate land, or graze it, do so by virtue of being members of the clan with corporate rights. The territorial extension of a clan is not exactly defined and the distribution of land among clans has never been necessary prior to the introduction of agriculture in the Awash Valley in 1960s. Nothing has more seriously threatened the Afar traditional rights than the individual freehold over land, introduced by commercial farms in the Awash Valley and consolidated by subsequent regimes in the county.
The Afar Human Rights Organisation (AHRO) believes that the lives of our people, fauna and flora of the region are in serious danger. Our Organisation setup a committee to support Afar pastoralists affected by the Sugar project. You can contact and support the committee through e-mail: “AFAR HUMAN”
* We call up on all human rights organisations in UN, EU, USA and others!
*We call upon international community to pressurise the TPLF-led government to withdraw its fatal project operation from the Awash Valley immediately!
*Stop all forbidden chemical use in the plantation of the Awash Valley!
*Stop all types of international assistance to the project in the Awash Valley!
*Boycott sugar and cotton production from the Awash Valley!
*Release all Afar pastoralists imprisoned without charges in connection to the project!
The Ethiopian Community Organization in Houston (ECOH) expresses its deepest concern over the apparent plan by the Houston Museum of Natural Science to exhibit Lucy (aka Dinknesh) in contravention of International protocol, and at a great risk to such fragile hominid fossil.
The Ethiopian Community after careful and thoughtful deliberation and in concurrences with many scientists including Smithsonian and other prominent museums has decided to oppose the Lucy Exhibitions for the following reasons:
* The exhibition violates the 1999 UNESCO International protocol on the transport of hominid fossils beyond the country of origin and it goes against the wishes of many prominent archeologists and paleontologists.
* Lucy is a great legacy to Ethiopia and mankind and no chance should be taken to put this priceless legacy and species at risk. We believe like many archeologists and paleontologists, the long and arduous journey poses dangers to Lucy.
According to National Natural History Museum spokesman Randall Kremer, Smithsonian scientists feel that certain artifacts, such as Lucy, “are too valuable for the stresses of travel and should remain in their homes”. He added, “this is one of the most important specimens relating to human origins in the world and it is too much of a risk to have it travel for the purposes of public viewing.”
Since its discovery in 1974, the Ethiopian public was allowed only twice to see the real Lucy remains. The Lucy exhibition at the Ethiopian Natural History Museum in the nation’s capital, Addis Ababa, is a replica and the real remains are usually locked in a vault.
For Dirk Van Tuerenhout, curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which is arranging the tour it is about money. In news paper interview, he said, “If you are able to showcase an original fossil, then you have a story, then you have a point of attraction that will bring in the most number of people, and then you can tell them that story”
The current junta that the Museum transacted with has alienated the majority of Ethiopians by wrestling power by force, by continuing to rule by force, and like the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia by engaging in revisionist history to undermine the rule of law, and unity of the country through a Machiavellian divide and conquer scheme. For this and many other reasons, it has brought its legitimacy into question and probably its right to transact business on behalf of the 77 million Ethiopians. Since 1991, it engaged in massacres, election fraud, misallocation of resources, in unnecessary conflicts with neighboring countries, and looting of the national treasury by creating phony companies through relatives and cronies. The Lucy transaction is no exception to this reckless behavior of the regime to enrich its relatives, friends and lobbyists at any cost against the interest of the Ethiopian people.
Currently, the legitimately elected leaders of Ethiopia are in prison, including the Mayor of Addis Abeba, Dr. Berhanu Nega and Engineer Hailu Shawl, head of the largest opposition party. We therefore, ask the honorable Mayor, City Council, the Board and Officers of the Houston Museum of Natural Science to reconsider this risky undertaking against international protocol, and against the advice of many scientists.
Africa’s Leaders Shoulder to Shoulder and Hips on Hands with Meles Zenawi
