EDITOR’S NOTE: What does this {www:ችጋራም} Woyanne knows about farming? Over 6 million people are starving because of his regime’s mismanagement of Ethiopia’s resources.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – In the past four years the rain fell in torrents, Demeke Hafiso’s crops sprouted like clockwork, his three-acre plot filled the stomachs of his nine children – and millions of farmers like him powered the Ethiopian economy to double-digit growth.
This year the rain came too late, he has abandoned his field of dead maize, and is sitting by the bedside of his motionless son in a medical centre run by Médecins Sans Frontières. The 16-year-old’s hollowed-out cheeks betray the starvation that has brought him here.
A drought in Ethiopia’s southern highlands between January and May led to the failure of a harvest that has left 4.6m people needing emergency food aid and 5.7m in drought-affected areas requiring other handouts, according to the United Nations.
It is another of the hunger crises that have periodically hit Ethiopia since the famine of 1984-85 and before, but the rural country of 80m is not facing starvation on the same apocalyptic scale.
The drought, however, has serious implications for politics and policy. It has punctured the hubris around the government’s agriculture-led development strategy and made it defensive over its commitment to small-scale farming on state-held land.
Steady rain and bumper harvests helped the Ethiopian economy expand by an annual average of nearly 12 per cent over the past four years, a trend that the ruling regime presented as evidence of the agricultural sector getting stronger.
But the withering effect of this year’s drought suggests it may have simply been getting lucky. “We were doing very well and all of a sudden we collapsed,” says Tewodros Gebremichael, country health director of Merlin, a UK-based aid group. One official at the Economic Commission for Africa, a UN body in Addis Ababa, describes the past four years of plenty as a “missed opportunity”.
Assefa Admassie, director of the Ethiopian Economic Association, says: “Ethiopian agriculture needs a structural transformation. If we depend on small farmers and a fragmented, rain-fed system, we’ll always face this problem.”
Dispute over problems
The government bristles at such criticism. Meles Zenawi, the prime minister, says the problems in the south are the result of a “freak event” and he rejects the assertion that the arable farming system has any flaws. The subject is sensitive for his government – which seized power as a group of bush fighters in 1991 and won a disputed election in 2005 – because it has pinned its legitimacy on agricultural development.
The government introduced improved seed varieties, set up a donor-funded welfare programme to help farmers accumulate assets, and built roads so food could be moved from regions with a surplus to those with a shortage. Productivity rose and so did rural incomes as farmers were encouraged to grow cash crops such as coffee alongside their food.
But observers say the official story of an agricultural transformation does not tally with what they see on the ground, where micro-irrigation systems are sparse and the distribution of drought-resistant crops poor.
Population growth as contributing factor
One reason for the intractability of Ethiopia’s hunger problem is the pace of population growth – estimated to be 2 to 3 per cent a year – as well as the custom of subdividing land between children. Over-cultivation in some areas has already damaged the soil irreversibly.
The government is criticised by liberal commentators for not allowing land to be privately owned, leaving farmers with little incentive to invest in improving their plots. It is a policy that can be traced back to the Meles regime’s command-and-control instincts and its suspicion of market forces.
Eyessus Zafu, president of the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce, is one of several businessmen urging the government to go corporate. “Capital-intensive commercial agriculture would have given you the surplus you need,” he says. Bigger farms would create opportunities for land consolidation and mechanisation.
But Mr Meles says it is “patently stupid” to advocate a wholesale switch to big farms.
For Mr Demeke, the immediate priority is to avoid having to bring another child to the centre: “The government could give us cows and oxen and we hope God will give us enough rain so we can plant our own food again.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a glorious moment for the people of Somalia. A job well done for kicking Woyanne invaders out of your country. Ethiopian Review sends heartfelt congratulations to Somali freedom fights who stood up and fought the Woyanne fascist forces. The same fates await Woyannes in Ethiopia. They will be kicked out of our country too soon by EPPF, OLF, ONLF and other Ethiopian freedom fighters.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — SOMALIA’S FRAGILE government appears to be on the brink of collapse. Islamist insurgents now controls large parts of southern and central Somalia – and are continuing to launch attacks inside the capital, Mogadishu.
Ethiopia Woyanne, which launched a US-backed military intervention in Somalia in December 2006 in an effort to drive out an Islamist authority in Mogadishu, is now pulling out its troops.
Diplomats and analysts in neighbouring Nairobi believe the government will fall once Ethiopia Woyanne completes its withdrawal, and secret plans have been made to evacuate government ministers to neighbouring Kenya.
That may happen sooner rather than later. A shipment of Ethiopian Woyanne weapons, including tanks, left Mogadishu port last month as part of the withdrawal. Bringing the equipment back to Ethiopia by land would have been impossible – analysts believe Ethiopian Woyanne troops and their Somali government allies control just three small areas in Mogadishu and a few streets in Baidoa, the seat of parliament. There are now estimated to be just 2500 Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers left inside Somalia, down from 15,000-18,000 at the height of the war.
Somalia’s overlapping conflicts go back, at the very least, to 1991, the year the country’s last recognised government was overthrown. Men and women who were children then have since given birth to a second generation of Somalis who have known only war.
But analysts believe Somalia is now in the midst of its worst ever crisis. The ongoing conflict, which has claimed the lives of at least 9000 civilians and forced more than 1.1 million to flee their homes, has combined with devastating droughts and rocketing food prices to create one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.
Almost half the population – 3.2m people – are in need of emergency aid (the figure has almost doubled in the last 12 months). One in six children is thought to be malnourished.
“This crisis is broadening as well as deepening,” said Mark Bowden, the head of the UN’s humanitarian effort. “It is now the world’s most complicated crisis.”
Violence and insecurity have made it almost impossible for aid to get through, and 24 aid workers have been killed in Somalia so far this year. A recent shipment of food aid needed a military escort to navigate Somalia’s pirate-infested waters. But within hours of the food being unloaded in Mogadishu’s port most of it was stolen by gun-toting gangs.
Oxfam, Save The Children and 50 other aid agencies working in Somalia last week said the international community had “completely failed Somali civilians”.
As the crisis worsens thousands are trying to leave the country every week. Around 6000 people are now crossing the border into Kenya every month – despite the Kenyan government’s decision to close the border. Some are arriving at the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya, which is now one of the largest refugee camps in the world with nearly 250,000 people.
Others try to leave by sea, travelling to the northern town of Bosasso and paying $100 to people smugglers who ram more than 100 people onto a small fishing boat and set sail for Yemen.
Many do not make it. Smugglers last week forced 150 people off the boat three miles off the Yemeni coast. Only 47 made it to shore.
Attempts to find a political solution have stalled. The UN claims progress has been made, citing an agreement signed in neighbouring Djibouti by the Somali government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).
But the deal has been signed only by the moderates on each side: Prime Minister Nur Adde and the ARS’s Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord who controls the government’s security forces, has refused to get involved. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the hardline Islamic leader of another faction of the ARS, has denounced the deal, as have the leaders of the insurgents, a group called Al Shabaab.
Since the deal was struck in June, the level of violence has increased.
Few Somalis will weep if the government falls. In most respects it is a government in name only. Few ministries have offices, let alone civil servants to fill them. There are no real policies – and no real way to implement any.
Worst of all, this government, which is backed by the United Nations and funded by Western donors including Britain and the EU, has been accused of committing a litany of war crimes. Its police force, many of whom were trained under a UN programme part-funded by Britain, has carried out extrajudicial killings, raped women and fired indiscriminately on crowds at markets. Militias aligned to the government have killed journalists and attacked aid workers.
The government’s fall would mark the end of a disastrous US-backed intervention. For six months in 2006, Somalia was relatively calm. A semblance of peace and security had returned to Mogadishu. The reason was the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a loose coalition of Islamist leaders who had driven out Mogadishu’s warlords.
Hardline elements within the UIC vowed to launch a jihad against Somalia’s traditional enemy, Ethiopia. The US viewed the UIC has an “al-Qaeda cell” – a belief not shared by the majority of analysts and diplomats.
Ethiopia Woyanne, with the support of the US, sent thousands of troops across the border to drive out the UIC. It took just a few days to defeat them. Their leaders fled towards the border with Kenya, while many of the fighters took off their uniforms and melted into Mogadishu.
Within weeks, an Iraq-style insurgency had begun, targeting Somali government and Ethiopian troops. Al Shabaab began laying roadside bombs and firing at Ethiopian troops from inside civilian areas.
The Ethiopians Woyanne responded by bombarding residential areas. Hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands fled Mogadishu. Human rights groups accused Ethiopia Woyanne of committing war crimes.
The US must now be wondering whether it was all worth it. Western backing for the unpopular Somali government and US support for the Ethiopian Woyanne intervention has created a groundswell of anti-West sentiment in Somalia.
The Islamist leaders they were so keen to oust are the same ones they are now engaged in negotiations with. US officials have met both Sheikh Sharif and the more hardline Sheikh Aweys in an effort to find a peace deal.
Meanwhile, in Somalia, the Islamists taking control of towns and villages across the country are considered far more extremist than Aweys. “They are real international jihadis,” said one Nairobi-based diplomat. “The Americans’ fear of al-Qaeda in Somalia is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Listen the report: [podcast]http://www.voanews.com/english/figleaf/mp3filegenerate.cfm?filepath=http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/english/2008_10/Audio/Mp3/LCR%20Heinlein%20ETHIOPIA%20NGO%20LAW%202350155%20%20329P%20gg.Mp3[/podcast]
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Ethiopia’s government The Woyanne dictatorial regime in Ethiopia is coming in for fierce criticism over a draft law before parliament that would prohibit or criminalize many activities of foreign charities and NGOs. VOA’s Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports the bill is almost certain to pass easily in a legislature overwhelmingly controlled by Ethiopia’s ruling party.
Ethiopian Woyanne officials have told western diplomats that parliament will approve a proposed Charities and Societies Proclamation within weeks. The bill would give the government supervisory powers over non-governmental organizations that receive at least 10 percent foreign funding, including money from Ethiopians living abroad.
The text before lawmakers prohibits such NGOs from promoting democratic or human rights, the rights of children and the disabled, and equality of gender or religion. Violators could face up to 15 years in prison and fines up to $10,000.
Foreign NGOs have reacted with alarm to the bill, saying it could make it impossible for them to operate in Ethiopia. A group of ambassadors in Addis Ababa recently warned Ethiopian Prime Minister Woyanne dictator Meles Zenawi that passage of the Charities and Societies Proclamation could mean the loss of untold millions of dollars in desperately needed aid.
The organization Human Rights Watch issued a statement urging Ethiopia’s lawmakers to reject the bill, calling it ‘repressive’. But the leader of an opposition parliament faction, Bulcha Demeksa, said he and like-minded lawmakers are powerless to stop it in the face of an overwhelming ruling-party majority. “The government is going to silence the NGOs and their leadership when they speak about human rights, when they spoke about democratic rights, when they spoke about giving democratic education to the citizens.”
He continued, “The government does not like it, that is why the government wants to silence them, and I am very sorry about it, I am very hurt about it. I wish I could do something about it, because practically all the NGOs are doing something good for this country.”
A senior adviser to the prime minister dictator, Bereket Simon, says NGOs will still be welcome to help fight poverty. But he says the bill is designed to prevent foreign interference in the country’s political affairs. “We need foreign NGOs to participate in poverty alleviation programs and to participate in development works, but we definitely believe the political realm must be left for Ethiopians. That is the prerogative of Ethiopians.”
Tom Porteous, the U.K. country director of Human Rights Watch says laws governing the behavior of foreign NGOs can be positive. But he says the draft before Ethiopia’s parliament is contrary to the country’s constitution. “NGOs should not be immune from accountability, and we would support efforts by the Ethiopian Woyanne government to increase the accountability of civil society organizations.”
Porteous added, At the same time, many other countries in Africa have managed to achieve this without criminalizing human rights activities for example, and in fact this law contravenes not only international and regional African treaties on freedom of association and so forth, but it actually violates Ethiopia’s obligations under its own constitution.”
Ethiopian Woyanne officials, however, say they see nothing repressive or unusual about the draft law. Bereket Simon says NGOs who stay out of Ethiopia’s internal affairs should have nothing to fear. “It is not repressive, because this is a matter that is between Ethiopia and foreigners, so foreigners have their domain, we have our domain. As a sovereign state which runs Ethiopia, we are designing our own law, and any foreigner who is ready to work in Ethiopia should come and see the law, and if it feels comfortable with the law, it can continue to work. If he does not feel comfortable, then we are not going to force them to work here.”
Bereket says the law is aimed partly at what he described as ‘NGOs collaborating with terrorist organizations’. He declined to elaborate.
There are an estimated 3,000 NGOs in Ethiopia. Their combined budgets are believed to be more than $1 billion a year.
Last year, Ethiopia’s Woyanne government expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross, charging its workers with providing assistance to rebels fighting for independence in the country’s Somali region known as the Ogaden. The ICRC dismissed the allegations.
Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous nation, and one of the world’s largest recipients of international aid. The United States is the largest single donor to Ethiopia Woyanne, with aid donations this year expected to top $800 million.
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan summoned the Kenyan and Ethiopian Woyanne ambassadors on Monday to protest against what it said were illegal shipments of arms to its semi-autonomous south, state media reported.
Khartoum was protesting over “violations” linked to an arms shipment seized by pirates off Somalia’s coast that Western diplomats said was bound for south Sudan, and a plane-load of weapons from Addis Ababa, state news agency SUNA reported.
SUNA stopped short of accusing Ethiopia and Kenya of directly supplying the arms to south Sudan, which won its own government and the right to its own army in a 2005 peace deal with Khartoum that ended a two-decade civil war.
But it said that “against the backdrop” of the two shipments, the foreign ministry asked both envoys to “inform their governments of its protest at these violations”.
The move raised the heat in a simmering row over the shipment of 30 tanks seized by pirates last month off Somalia that western diplomats said were heading for south Sudan in possible breach of the peace agreement.
The pirates, who are still holding the cargo, said paperwork showed the tanks were heading to south Sudan through Kenya’s port of Mombasa. South Sudan has denied ordering the tanks and Kenya has insisted the machines were meant for its own army.
MILITARY PLANE
Sudan’s foreign ministry also protested about unspecified weapons that it said had arrived in south Sudan’s capital Juba on Friday on an Ethiopian military plane, SUNA said.
Southern officials and army officers on Monday denied the weapons were part of an arms delivery and told Reuters they had been brought in as exhibits in a long-planned trade fair.
Lieutenant General Biar Ajang of the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) said that rumours of an Ethiopian delivery of armaments were “confused”.
“They are coming to show local products, tents, uniforms, armaments, shells … like a shop,” he said.
Ethiopia’s Consul General Negash Legesse told Reuters some of the weapons had been taken to SPLA headquarters for inspection. “They are samples. Some Kalashnikovs. Some others that Ethiopia is producing,” he said.
Sudan’s foreign ministry said it was surprised at the shipments as both Kenya and Ethiopia had backed a 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war between north and south Sudan, SUNA said.
There are currently no global arms embargoes banning south Sudan from buying arms or supplying the SPLA.
But the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ban both the north and the south from building up arms without the approval of a north-south Joint Military Board.
Activists have repeatedly accused the northern Khartoum government of also re-arming, and of breaching the terms of a U.N. arms embargo covering the warring parties in the separate Darfur conflict.
(Additional reporting by Skye Wheeler in Juba, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The number of Ethiopians needing emergency food assistance has jumped to 6.4 million from 4.6 million in June, the aid agency Oxfam said on Friday.
Drought and high food prices have both contributed to the worsening crisis in Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa like Somalia and north Kenya, aid workers say.
Oxfam, citing U.N. figures, said there was a $260 million shortfall for agencies trying to address Ethiopia’s crisis.
“Compared with the funds going to shore up the global financial system, the aid needed to save lives in Ethiopia is a drop in the ocean,” Oxfam’s country director Waleed Rauf said.
While government figures showed 6.4 million people needed emergency assistance, more than 13.5 million were in need of some sort of aid, Oxfam said. “The number of those suffering severe hunger and destitution has spiralled,” Rauf said.
(Reporting by Barry Malone, editing by Tim Pearce)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – On Saturday, I woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM to leave for my first shift as a volunteer/English/Music teacher at Menagesha – the Cheshire Services Rehabilitation Facility for children with disabilities. I caught a mini-bus to Meskal Square where I boarded the Cheshire Services employee bus which transports all of the Cheshire employees to Menagesha from Addis and then back to Addis at the end of the shift. Menagesha is about 25 km away from Addis and the bus leaves Meskal Square about 6:45 AM. The bus was really nice, unlike any of the mini-buses or local transport I had taken so far. In fact, it was reminiscent of a Greyhound bus back home with plush seats and head rests. As expected, I fell asleep and awoke 1 hour later to find myself at Menagesha.
The first order of the day was to meet with the teacher at Menagesha who taught the children math and languages during the week. I was told that I would teach my class from 9 to 10:15 AM. For the first hour (i.e. from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM), I worked in the handicraft room with the children. The children taught me how to make woven bags, wallets, purses etc. One of the children also told me that he would show me how to use the sewing machine next week. I told him that I barely passed sewing in Grade 9 and this was after my sewing teacher had practically made my whole final project for me. The craft room was such a treat and reminded me of the many crafts that my mom taught me when I was a child.
At 9 AM, I started to teach my first English class which included about 40 students ranging in age from 4 years old to about 15 years old. The levels of English comprehension also varied from child to child with some children being quite fluent in English and others wanting to learn the basics. I started off with some easy conversational questions including asking the children to tell the group their names, their hometowns etc. The children are all from outside of Addis and while they are staying at Menagesha, they often do not have much (or any contact) with their family. The children were all very happy to talk about their hometowns and tell me about themselves. I told them a bit about life in Canada which generated a number of questions, especially from the older children – about the weather in Canada, whether the people were nice, what it was like compared to Ethiopia etc. They asked how I traveled from Canada to Ethiopia – by boat or plane?
It was fascinating to hear all of their questions and to engage them in conversation. It was often hard to communicate though given the linguistic barriers and the teacher (Hailu) who teaches the class throughout the week served as a translator. This linguistic barrier is further complicated by the fact that all of the children do not speak Amharic, as they are from different regions of Ethiopia with different linguistic traditions.
Afterwards, I taught them a song that I learned when I was taking music/human values classes in Canada. I wrote the lyrics on the blackboard and the children who could read English automatically lifted their voices in order to serve as beacons for the children who could not read. Eventually, after about 5 or 6 go-arounds on the song, the children were good to go and really enjoyed it. They also learned all of the actions that went with the song. I was so impressed.
They then asked me what type of music I liked and I told them that I really enjoyed Teddy Afro and his song Ababaiyo. The children were thrilled and then one child counted the beat and the entire class burst into a rousing rendition of Ababaiyo complete with the rhythmic clapping beat that is so central to the song. I was so touched and they could tell I was totally enjoying it. It was like a musical where suddenly the entire cast bursts into song! No joke.
After class, the kids were so sweet and wanted to visit with me. It was not the gawking or over-inquisitiveness that I often encounter in Addis when some people are fascinated by the “farenji”, but instead it was a genuine concern and outpouring of love. I ended up playing soccer with some of the kids. Yes – you all read that correctly. I played a sport. I was actually running around on a field kicking a soccer ball. Luckily the traumatic memories of my one year in soccer in Grade 4 did not come flooding back. I then had a chance to play table tennis with one of the kids.
Apparently, word spread that there was this farenji teaching music and English lessons to the children. You see, many of the children at Menagesha are confined to their beds, as they have just underwent surgical procedures that require them to remain on strict bed-rest for a long time. These children heard that I had given a class and asked that I come and visit them also. It was so wonderful to meet these kids. As I mentioned earlier, I was super nervous about what it would be like to teach given the huge linguistic barriers (with me knowing virtually no Amharic).
The children in the recovery wing were super awesome. They could sense that I was not sure how to communicate with them. They pointed to different things around the room and taught me how to say them in Amharic. They taught me how to count to one million in Amharic (not each and every number but the main numbers i.e. 1 to 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, and 1000000). They taught me about colours and animals and furniture and the corresponding words in Amharic. They would repeat words with difficult pronunciations to make sure I understood them correctly. At 11:45 AM, it was time for their lunch and it was time for me to leave to catch my bus back to Addis which departed at noon. The children insisted that I stay and have lunch with them and when I told them I would come back next week, each one of them called me to come close and gave me a huge hug. It took everything in me not to burst into tears (which admittedly did happen on my walk back to the bus).
These children, full of love, laughter and light, have touched my heart in a way that I cannot even begin to express, just by accepting me so unconditionally. On Saturday morning, I traveled to Menagesha hoping to help in some small way. The truth is that I did nothing. These children helped me. They taught me Amharic. They got me to play soccer (I know – shocking!). They got me to laugh. They sang me Ababaiyo. They got me to see that life, with its many obstacles and complexities, is so precious. They are absolutely incredible and I am so grateful to them.
– – – – – –
The writer is a lawyer from Saskatchewan, Canada, who is currently in Ethiopia on an international placement. Menagesha is a rehabilitation facility which helps children during their post-surgery rehabilitation. Most of the children face a permanent physical disability and the center specializes in working with these children. The center includes physical rehabilitation services, a department which builds wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and assistive footwear devices. The children are also given daily instruction both in subjects such as English and arithmetic but also in life skills and art. The children typically arrive at Menagesha immediately after their surgery and remain there for a period of 4-6 months for post-surgery rehabilitation.
