By Sue Pleming
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday for talks with African leaders aimed at tackling long-running conflicts in the volatile Great Lakes region, Somalia and Sudan.
On only her second trip in two years to sub-Saharan Africa, Rice said she wanted to move international efforts forward to resolve those conflicts in a string of meetings with African leaders during her 24-hour trip to Addis Ababa.
“I am increasingly concerned about several crisis spots in Africa,” she told reporters traveling with her to the Ethiopian capital, which is also the headquarters of the African Union.
Rice planned to meet leaders from Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda and ministers from Democratic Republic of Congo, to discuss the conflict in the Great Lakes region that brings in all those countries. Congo’s President Joseph Kabila could not attend the meeting, said an official traveling with Rice.
Rice’s aim is to develop common strategies to deal with what Washington says are “negative forces” including the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda), made up of key figures in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as well as the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army and renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda.
In meetings with Sudanese officials, Rice said she would seek to prevent a north-south peace deal from unraveling, threatening a return to full scale civil war.
“That is really an agreement that we cannot afford to let unravel because everybody is focused on Darfur, but of course the North-South civil war led to millions of deaths,” Rice said.
Rice will also discuss delays in deploying a U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur and she reiterated U.S. frustration at hold-ups by the Sudanese government in letting in the peacekeepers to resolve a conflict that the United Nations estimates has claimed about 200,000 lives.
“We have been skeptical all along because we have seen this movie several times before,” she added, referring to persistent Sudanese obstacles in allowing in the force.
The schedule for getting 26,000 peacekeepers into Darfur by year-end is months behind and Rice said she had spoken to U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon about the delays. She was also pressing Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have some influence over Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Rice will also meet Somalia’s new Prime Minister, Nur Hassan Hussein and she said she would appeal to him to be more “inclusive” in pulling together his fragile, new government.
Four Somali cabinet members resigned on Monday, barely 24 hours after being appointed to protest against what they said was their clan’s under-representation in the government which is faced with long-standing clan divisions and an Islamist insurgency.
Rice will also meet officials from Ethiopia, which cooperates closely with the United States on counter-terrorism issues.
Tensions have been mounting between Ethiopia and neighbor Eritrea over its disputed border, with Eritrea accusing the United States of siding with Addis Ababa Woyanne over the issue.
Rice said the border needed to be drawn up in a way that was “sustainable” for both sides. “We don’t need a use of force here,” she added.
(Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by Dominic Evans)
OSASSO, 4 December 2007 (IRIN) – Genet Mengesha left her home in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, to undertake the uncertain, often treacherous, journey to Yemen shortly after the 2005 elections.
“I was tired of the violence; my brother was one of those students who were killed,” the 24-year-old Genet told IRIN on 2 December in Bosasso, capital of Somalia’s self-declared autonomous region of Puntland.
Genet and her husband had planned to make their way to the port city where they would pay a smuggler to get them into Yemen.
“We met a broker in Addis who charged us US$100 to get to Nazareth and then another broker to Harar [both in Ethiopia],” she said. “In Burao [Somaliland], the broker kept us in a compound for 15 days, robbed us and threatened to kill anyone who tried to escape.”
Three members of her group were killed when they tried to escape. “He killed a woman and two men, because they were so hungry they tried to see if they could find food,” she explained. “He is well known and feared.”
The group was put on a bus to Bosasso, but they were dumped before their destination. “We had no idea where we were, so we kept walking,” Genet said. “It took us four days to get to Bosasso.”
Despite the hardships, the group was happy to reach Bosasso – a trip Genet said cost her $300 – because it was the last stop to Yemen. “We had to spend time here to make some money to go to Yemen,” she said.
Because of her pregnancy and the difficulties in raising money, Genet and her husband agreed he should go ahead. But like many migrants, he drowned when the boat capsized near the Yemeni coastline – which she only found out weeks later when one of the survivors called.
Now the mother of a nine-month-old baby, the former university student lives in a shack with other would-be migrants in Bosasso.
Abdulkadir Nur, 30, arrived in Bosasso 15 days previously from Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. Sitting on the dusty floor of a tea kiosk, the former bus driver and father of six weighed his options.
“I have heard of the dangers, but it is a risk I am willing to take,” he said. “Staying in Mogadishu was a guaranteed death sentence. If we were not killed by the shells and bullets, we would have died of hunger.”
He added: “There was no work because of the security; it got to the point where we could not get out of our house; [here] I have a 50-50 chance of survival and making it to Saudi Arabia.”
Constant influx
According to local authorities in Bosasso, the influx began in 2000 with Somalis who were escaping insecurity in the south. It expanded in 2004-2005 when Ethiopians joined in, becoming a fully-fledged business.
Over the years, scores of migrants have died. On 29 November, for example, more than 80 people, including women and children, died off the Yemeni coast, according to Somalia’s consul-general in Aden, Hussein Haji Ahmed.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), at least 20,000 African migrants have crossed the Gulf of Aden this year in boats operated by traffickers from Somali ports; 439 people have died and another 489 are missing and feared dead.
Would-be migrants told IRIN there was a well-established route run by brokers, who are connected to boat owners, from Addis through Harar and Jigiga in Ethiopia; Togwajale, Hargeisa and Burao in Somaliland, and on to Bosasso.
Bosasso officials said there were thousands of would-be migrants in the port city, many living in difficult conditions with inadequate food, shelter and sanitation.
Photo: UNHCR
Bodies of migrants collected on a beach in Yemen
“The sanitation problems in Bosasso caused by the migrants are obvious,” an aid worker told IRIN. “They sleep and use every available space as a toilet. We have been lucky so far as we have had no major outbreaks of any disease.”
Yusuf Nur Bide, the acting mayor of Bosasso, told IRIN: “Our estimate at present is that there are about 10,000 migrants in Bosasso; they are everywhere and are sleeping in the open with all the health risk this entails.”
There are “those who want to leave no matter what, economic migrants who want to find work and stay, and those who straddle the first two categories”, he added.
On average, he said, five trucks brought about 200 migrants each into Bosasso daily. Some of the migrants, particularly the Somalis, join the already established displaced community in the town while others set up makeshift shelters, he added.
Taskforce
Catherine Weibel, an information officer with UNHCR in Somalia, said an inter-agency taskforce had been set up to undertake an advocacy campaign targeting migrants seeking to reach Yemen.
It comprises representatives of several agencies including the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Bide said the local administration had cracked down on the problem “by arresting some smugglers, repatriating migrants and confiscating properties used to [house] smuggle people. We even passed a law to discourage people from helping them, hoping that they will go back if no-one helps them; but it did not stop them.”
Appealing for assistance, he said it was beyond Puntland’s capacity to stop the problem. “We need major help if we are going to stop this. The international community needs to accept that this is an international problem.”
Locals in the port city, however said, people-smuggling was a highly organised business with “wakiilo” (representatives) in all major towns of Somalia and Ethiopia.
The wakiil, one source said, work with “Mukhalas” (brokers) and boat owners. “Everybody knows who they are and where they operate,” he added. “If the government was serious about ending this, they could do it in an hour.”
Blaming the Puntland authorities for reluctance to address the problem “for financial and political reasons”, one boat owner said many of his colleagues were “politically connected” and “it would be politically difficult for the government to shut them down”.
Some local aid workers agreed that the authorities were not doing enough. “They could do a lot more if there was the political will,” one aid worker said.
However, Ali Abdi Aware, the minister for local government, told IRIN: “We have done more than anyone else to address this problem.” The administration, he added, had confiscated boats and trucks used to ferry migrants, arrested and prosecuted smugglers.
”The US with all its power could not stop Mexicans; the EU could not stop African migrants. How on Earth do you expect Puntland with its very limited resources to tackle the problem by itself?”
“The US with all its power could not stop Mexicans; the EU could not stop African migrants. How on Earth do you expect Puntland with its very limited resources to tackle the problem by itself? We have asked for help many times but none came forward. It is not a question of political will, but of resources.”
Apart from the inter-agency “mixed-migration” taskforce, there is no aid agency specifically tasked to help the would-be migrants in Bosasso. “They have no legal status, so there is not much one can do for them,” one aid worker said.
Another source said the aid agencies faced a dilemma. “You want them to have access to help but you don’t want to make it so attractive that more will come,” he said.
Aware said his administration would carry out campaigns to warn would-be migrants of the dangers involved. “Right now, that and pressure on boat owners is all we can do.
“We don’t have the means to patrol our coast as effectively as we would like; when we close one port they go to another,” he added. “Instead of criticising us for doing little, the international community should start doing a little bit.”
ah/eo/mw
December 4, 2007
The Hon. Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520
Via Facsimile: 202 647-2283
Dear Secretary Rice:
In advance of your meeting with Ethiopian officials in Addis Ababa, the Committee to Protect Journalists would like to draw your attention to our concerns regarding press freedom conditions there.
You may know that 15 Ethiopian journalists were recently released from prison, but this development belies the country’s sustained record of contempt for independent media, which manifests itself in a variety of legal and administrative restraints. The 15 jailed journalists were sentenced on trumped-up charges such as genocide in connection with the media’s coverage of Ethopia’s 2005 post-election unrest.
On November 26, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission confirmed that the Amharic and Oromo language broadcasts of Voice of America and Deutche Welle to Ethiopia have been jammed for the past two weeks. Information Minister Berhane Hailu told CPJ that outside reports of the jamming were not credible.
CPJ is also concerned about the whereabouts, legal status, and health of Eritrean journalists Tesfalidet Kidane Tesfazghi and Saleh Idris Gama of Eritrean state broadcaster Eri-TV. Official statements and videotape indicate that the Ethiopian government has been holding them incommunicado since their arrest by Kenyan authorities as they attempted to enter Somalia late last year. In September, CPJ wrote a letter to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi inquiring about these journalists’ status, but did not receive a response. Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahid Belay told CPJ in July that he could not provide any information regarding this matter.
In addition, out of the 15 journalists released this year, at least seven felt compelled to flee the country following harassment and surveillance by government security forces. Three others have yet to receive publishing licenses to resume their work despite fulfilling all legal requirements necessary for publication. Journalists Sisay Agena, Serkalem Fassil, and Eskinder Nega applied for licenses to launch Lualawi and Habsheba newspaper since September but have yet to be approved.
The October launch of Ethiopia’s first private commercial radio station, Sherger Radio, and private weekly, Addis Neger—the first independent political publication since 2005—were encouraging signs that Ethiopia is concerned about strengthening its press freedom environment. In light of the strong ties America shares with Ethiopia, we urge you to engage the Ethiopian government on this issue in your upcoming visit. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
The Committee to Protect Journalists
CC:
H.E. Sobusa Martin Gula-Ndebele, Ambassador of Ethiopia to the United Nations
H.E. Raphael Tuju, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya
H.E. Donald Yamamoto, U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia
H.E. Dr. Samuel Assefa, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia to the United States
Faith Pansy Tlakula, African Commission Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Reine Alapini-Gansou, African Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights Defenders
U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Foreign Relations, and Co-Chair, Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press
U.S. Senator Russell D. Feingold, Chairman, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Committee on Foreign Relations
U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Member, Committee on Foreign Relations, and Co-Chair, Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press
U.S. Senator John E. Sununu, Member, Committee on Foreign Relations
U.S. Representative Tom Lantos, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. Representative Donald M. Payne, Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, Founder and Co-Chair, Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press
U.S. Representative Mike Pence, Co-Chair, Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press
U.S. Representative Donald M. Payne,
Ethiopian Human Rights Council
American Society of Newspaper Editors
Amnesty International
Article 19 (United Kingdom)
Artikel 19 (The Netherlands)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Freedom House
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Center for Journalists
International Federation of Journalists
International PEN
International Press Institute
Michael G. Kozak, United States Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
The Newspaper Guild
The North American Broadcasters Association
Overseas Press Club
The Society of Professional Journalists
World Association of Newspapers
World Press Freedom Committee
Berhanu Nega reassures Kinijit supporters
Addis Ababa Mayor-Elect, Dr Berhanu Nega, gave reassurances to Kinijit supporters today that the party will take the necessary steps to get back on the right track.
In a 2-hour interview with the Ethiopian Current Affairs Discussion Forum (ECADF), Dr Berhanu said that his colleagues, members of the Kinijit central council, must start to enforce the party’s rules and procedures in order fix the ongoing leadership crisis and start addressing the real issues affecting the people of Ethiopia, such as the atrocities being committed against our people in the Ogaden region.
Dr Berthanu expressed regret that the crisis inside the Kinijit leadership has completely paralyzed the party to the point that it is not able to even speak out against the rape, torture and killing of fellow Ethiopians in Ogaden.
Many Kinijit supporters expressed concern that the top leadership is allowing anarchy to prevail in the party by hesitating to enforce its decisions and the organization’s basic rules.
Dr Berhanu said that a party that does not respect its own rule cannot be taken seriously by any one. He said, let do what we have to. “Let’s move forward.”
The interview was broadcast live by the Ethiopian Review Radio Network.
We will try to post the recorded audio of the interview shortly.
