HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s opposition party said on Friday it doubted its unity government with President Robert Mugabe would extradite Ethiopia’s former Marxist ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam, who has asylum there.
Mengistu, called the “Butcher of Addis Ababa” by his enemies, was driven from power in 1991. He was sentenced to death in absentia last year. [The current ruler, Meles Zenawi, is as well known as the butcher of Addis Ababa and Mogadishu.]
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has agreed to join a government with Mugabe, said it would seriously consider extraditing Mengistu if it were forming a government by itself.
“But what we are going to have is a government of national unity, and decisions there will have to be reached through some consensus and I don’t know whether that’s going to be possible,” said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa.
The extent of the MDC’s influence in the new administration remains unclear.
The Ethiopian government has long called for Mengistu’s extradition, but Mugabe’s government has refused that.
He was sentenced to death in absentia in May 2008 by Ethiopia’s Supreme Court. It found him guilty of genocide arising from the thousands of killings during his 17-year rule that included famine, war and the “Red Terror” purges of his suspected opponents.
Yoseph Kiros, the special prosecutor during the trial of Mengistu and other senior officers, welcomed any chance that prospects for extraditing Mengistu could have improved. He said any such decision by Zimbabwe “would bestow great honour on that country.”
By Carly Lagrotteria and Sarah Scire | The GW Hatchet
A George Washington University alumnus working for the State Department was found dead in Ethiopia this week and U.S. government officials say his death is being investigated as a homicide.
Brian Adkins, who graduated in 2007, worked for the State Department as a Foreign Service officer stationed in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. Representatives from the State Department said Wednesday that Adkins died on Saturday, but would not give further details because it was an ongoing homicide investigation.
Adkins, who would have turned 26 on Feb. 2, completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at GW, graduating summa cum laude as an international affairs major from the Elliott School of International Affairs in 2005. He joined the State Department after receiving his master’s degree in 2007 and was assigned to Ethiopia.
After studying the indigenous language and culture for nearly a year, Adkins moved to Ethiopia as part of a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship.
John Wysham, head of the Ethiopia desk at the State Department, said he was unable to provide details about Adkins’ death or the homicide investigation.
“The trouble here is that it is a crime scene we are talking about,” Wysham said. “It wasn’t like he fell off a rock and hit his head.”
He added, “We’d love to talk about it and stop some of these rumors but we cannot.”
Wysham said that he has been in contact with the Ethiopian embassy and Ethopian police forces about the ongoing investigation.
A Foreign Service officer also stationed in Africa is planning to accompany Adkins’ body from Ethiopia to the United States, Wysham said. The casket will be transported by military aircraft.
Ginny Boncy, a member of the State Department’s casualty assistance department, said Adkins was in the first year of his assignment and performing consular work for the State Department.
Consular work typically includes providing services like assisting Americans in distress and handling visas and passports.
Though Adkins’ father could not be reached for comment, senior Michael Geremia, one of Adkins’ best friends, described the Ohio native as “selfless, hardworking, confident, funny, charming, articulate, a scholar and a gentleman.”
“The world has lost someone who had so much to offer. I miss him tremendously,” Geremia said. “When I received word of his death on Monday, which would have been his 26th birthday, a piece of me died in Ethiopia.”
Geremia said that he last spoke to Adkins on Sunday, Jan. 25, when the two friends started to plan Adkins’ summer vacation in D.C.
“He was so excited to be in Africa serving his country as a diplomat, promoting American values,” Geremia said. “As much as he loved his career, he missed the U.S.”
Geremia said that despite the trials of living abroad, Adkins was optimistic about his future as a diplomat.
“Whenever I would urge him to be safe, he would reassure me that Ethiopia was safer than D.C.,” Geremia said.
As a student in Foggy Bottom, Adkins was a leader at the Knights of Columbus and the Newman Center, two organizations devoted to the Catholic faith.
He served as a trustee and held several officer positions with the Knights, including chancellor in charge of membership. After graduating, Adkins served as state ceremonial chairman and district warren for the Knights. In 2007, he was named Knight of the Year in D.C.
“He was friendly to everyone, incredibly devoted to his faith, and always willing to volunteer and give of himself,” said senior Conrad Murphy, a former grand knight. “When he left for Ethiopia, we found that it took at least three of us just to fill his shoes.”
Friends and fellow members of the Knights of Columbus, including Murphy, said Adkins will be remembered as incredibly intelligent and always working to master a new language. He spoke French, Arabic and Amharic, the official working language of Ethiopia.
Tom Saccoccia, a fellow 2007 alumnus and close friend, said Adkins will also be remembered for his humility.
“He just wasn’t a credit grabber, even though he did everything,” Saccoccia said. “He was just an all-around good guy.”
Adkins was a native of Columbus, Ohio. A Rite of Christian Burial is planned in his honor at St. Mary’s Church in his hometown.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The just completed African Union summit in Addis Ababa was partly a celebration of the continent’s achievements, and partly a reminder of how deeply it remains troubled by wars, poverty and flawed leadership.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attended the African Union summit, as did the heads of international financial institutions and as many as 25 other heads of state and government. But they were all upstaged by the golden-robed Libyan leader Moamar Gadhafi, hailed by supporters as ‘the king of kings’ as he was sworn in as AU chairman for the coming year.
The opening sessions were all business, presided over by the outgoing chairman, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete in his finely tailored suit. He was the third consecutive AU leader from a country where the government is chosen through elections.
Lukewarm reception for Colonel Gadhafi
The tone changed half way through the second day, when President Kikwete gave way to Libya’s ruler. In contrast to the packed hall during the earlier business sessions, the room was half empty, with only a handful of heads of state on hand as Mr. Gadhafi turned the floor over to the tribal kings in native dress he had brought with him.
Delegates at this summit reacted cautiously to Mr. Gadhafi’s election. When asked for her reaction, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said , ‘I have accepted it”. Other leaders made a silent statement by staying home, making this one of the most poorly attended summits since the organization began.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gadhafi sharply criticized racism in the United States, America’s role in creating the world financial crisis, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the failure of democracy in Africa, which he blamed for the recent rise in military coups.
Speaking in Arabic through an interpreter, Mr. Gadhafi said in his Green Book, a collection of thoughts published in 1988, he had predicted the election of a black president in the United States.
“But the Green Book says after analysis, after all various conditions that black people will prevail over the world, and today Obama, the Kenyan son has imposed himself in the United States of America, defying openly. It was a kind of challenge against this despicable attitude toward the black population, the looting of African wealth and the looting and pillaging of the continent,” he said.
Later, in answer to a reporter’s question, the Libyan leader railed against multi-party democracy, calling it an imported system that has brought nothing but chaos to Africa.
“Finally there was multi-partyism, but this new method, which is imported, is now faced with many challenges. Unfortunately we have seen coup d’etats and rebellions are showing back their ugly heads. After elections, there are massacres as it happened in Kenya. Also results of elections are made public then followed by rebellion, a president is elected and a revolt follows and a coup d’etat takes place, a rebellion and so on,” said the Libyan leader.
AU cautious on continental government
There were few heads of state in the room to hear Mr. Gadhafi’s speech. The summit had been extended an extra day because of a standoff between the Libyan leader and most other delegations over his plan to create a union government, and most presidents and prime ministers had gone home by the time the closing ceremonies were held.
In the end, this was Mr. Gadhafi’s summit, and he insisted he is pushing ahead with his plans. It was left to Africa’s chief diplomat, AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping to explain to reporters that, despite what Mr. Gadhafi may say, his dream of a continent-wide government will not be coming true any time soon.
Concerns about heavier workloads and the “managerialist” culture of universities are not the exclusive preserve of the UK – they are also being voiced in Ethiopia.
The worries are set out in a paper published in the journal Higher Education Quarterly, which analyses the consequences of the expansion of Ethiopia’s university sector.
In the country, which has a population of 80 million, education is underdeveloped. Primary schooling is not available to all, and access to tertiary education is worse than in any other sub-Saharan nation.
However, the past 15 years have seen the “massification” of higher education, with access to universities growing four- to fivefold. By 2007, enrolments had risen to almost 200,000, according to the paper by Kedir Tessema, an academic at Addis Ababa University.
Ethiopia has 21 universities, many of which were started from scratch two to three years ago. But the report highlights an “acute” shortage of qualified staff, with the proportion of lecturers holding a PhD falling from 28 per cent to 9 per cent in just six years.
The study suggests that academics are bogged down by the number of tasks they have to do and struggle with class sizes, which on average have grown from 35 students in 2000 to more than 100 today.
One academic interviewed said: “Too much teaching, plus administrative assignments, plus my own research … is damaging my social and family life.”
The paper says: “Massification has resulted in increasing workloads and extended work schedules for academics. A managerialist attitude has evolved that measures teaching against instrumental outcomes. There is a sense of deprofessionalisation and deskilling among staff.”
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (BBC) — An African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia has been extended to a fourth day amid disagreements on the issue of creating a United States of Africa.
Many leaders said the proposal by Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi would add a layer of bureaucracy that the continent does not need.
But they did agree on changing the name of the AU Commission to AU Authority.
Col Gaddafi had used his inaugural address as rotating head of the AU to push his long-cherished unity project.
The Libyan leader said closer integration between African states should start immediately.
In the long grass?
He envisages a single African military force, a single currency and a single passport for Africans to move freely around the continent.
But other African heads of state said the Libyan leader’s plan was not practical.
African leaders said they would study the legal implications of the unity proposal, make a report and meet again in three months time.
In other words, says BBC’s Mark Doyle in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, they are kicking the ball into the long grass to slow it down.
He says the outcome is a political fudge, as no member wishes to alienate the leader of oil-rich Libya.
One participant in the closed-door meeting of the 53-country union said the Libyan leader appeared to admit defeat and laid his head on the table in despair.
Our correspondent says waiting reporters next saw the Libyan leader sweep out of the room accompanied by his protocol man, who had a uniform like that of an airline pilot – but with more gold braid.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said: “He didn’t walk out, he just got tired.”
She denied to the BBC that the outcome was a fudge and said it was a step on the path to a United States of Africa.
Legal implications
Leaving the talks in the early hours of Wednesday, Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said leaders had had a “very rich” discussion that they would resume later in the day.
South African President Kgalema Motlanthe appeared upbeat, telling AFP news agency: “A day will be arrived at where there will be a single authority in charge of Africa.”
The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says changing the name of the AU Commission – which is the administrative branch of the organisation – to the AU Authority sounds like a mere formality and a change of notepaper.
But, she says, it has legal implications as the commission is written into the constitution of the AU.
Our correspondent understands that any amendment to that charter would have to be agreed by two thirds of AU leaders and ratified by their national parliaments.
Before arriving at the summit, Col Gaddafi circulated a letter saying he was coming as the king of the traditional kings of Africa.
Last August, he had a group of 200 traditional leaders name him the “king of kings” of Africa.
The summit’s main agenda – to boost Africa’s energy and transport networks – has been pushed largely to the fringes, weighed down by the grim realities of the global economic downturn.
Brian Adkins, who graduated in 2007, worked for the State Department as a Foreign Service officer stationed in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. Representatives from the State Department said Wednesday that Adkins died on Saturday, but would not give further details because it was an ongoing homicide investigation.