(BBC) — Ethiopia’s ruling junta, Woyanne, has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America’s (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in “destabilising propaganda”.
Prime Minister Warlord Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia his regime had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station.
The Amharic Service has experienced interference since late February.
Meles also compared the VOA’s transmissions to broadcasts in Rwanda in the mid-1990s that incited genocide.
‘Unfortunate’ comments
“We have for some time now been trying to beef up our capacity to deal with this, including… jamming,” Mr Meles said on Thursday.
In a statement, VOA director Danforth Austin said that any comparison of VOA programming to Rwandan broadcasts inciting genocide in the 1990s was “incorrect and unfortunate”.
“The VOA deplores jamming as a form of media censorship wherever it may occur,” he said, adding that the station’s Amharic Service was required by law to provide accurate and objective information.
The VOA and other foreign media organisations say broadcasts in Amharic – the country’s most widely spoken language – have been jammed around elections in the past.
The next polls in Ethiopia are in May and human rights groups say there has been a crackdown on the press.
The last elections saw opposition accusations of widespread rigging.
Thousands of opposition supporters were arrested after protests and some western countries reduced aid to Ethiopia.
Meles also rejected calls to free opposition leader Birtukan Medeksa from jail.
She was sentenced to life in prison in 2005 after the election protests, pardoned in 2007 and then re-imprisoned in 2008.
The prime minister dictator said she would remain in prison “permanently” and that diplomats and journalists could not visit her – the same rules as for other prisoners in Ethiopia.
Separately, Meles again denied claims in a recent BBC report that he had ordered the diversion of food aid money to buy arms to fight the government in the 1980s.
“We did not need to [do it]. We were not short of ammunition or arms. That was never our problem. Our main problem was that we were operating in an environmentally very fragile area unable to feed itself,” he said.
Voice of America said Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi’s comparison of its local-language news service with the Rwandan broadcaster accused of fomenting that country’s genocide in 1994 was “incorrect and unfortunate.”
Meles said yesterday the U.S. government-owned station’s Amharic-language broadcasts “copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda.” He accused VOA, which is overseen by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, of “wanton disregard for minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.”
Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines gained notoriety during 1994 for transmitting broadcasts inciting hardline Rwandan ethnic Hutus to carry out a genocide that left 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead.
“Any comparison of VOA programming to the genocidal broadcasts of Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines is incorrect and unfortunate,” Danforth Austin, director of Washington-based VOA, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
On March 4, VOA reported that its Amharic-service broadcasts to Ethiopia were being jammed. Shimeles Kemal, a government spokesman, called the accusation “an outright lie” and said Ethiopia’s constitution forbids jamming of news broadcasts. Meles said yesterday that the government had been
trying to “beef up” its capacity to interfere with VOA’s signal.
Jamming Capacity
“If they assure me at some future date that they have the capacity to jam it then I will give them the clear guideline to jam it,” Meles said, adding that recent broadcasts may have been unintelligible because “they may have been testing the equipment that they have for jamming.”
VOA, along with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, are the only two foreign broadcasters that provide a news service in Ethiopia’s main language. The Ethiopian government owns the country’s only television broadcaster and domestic radio waves are dominated by government and ruling-party stations.
“VOA deplores jamming as a form of media censorship wherever it may occur,” Austin said in the statement.
Ethiopia has been a key ally of the U.S. in recent years. U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, occupying Mogadishu for two years and assisting the U.S. in pursuit of suspected al-Qaeda members. The U.S. trains Ethiopia’s military and American aid to the country topped $850
million last year.
Political tensions in Ethiopia have been rising ahead of elections scheduled for May 23.
Violence
On March 2, an opposition candidate for parliament from Meles’s home region of Tigray was stabbed to death. Two other opposition candidates were beaten that week, and opposition leaders have accused the government of responsibility. The government has said the violence was not politically motivated.
In February a newspaper columnist was jailed for criticizing Meles and at least a dozen Ethiopian reporters fled the country in 2009 citing government harassment, according to a statement from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Ethiopia has “several hundred” political prisoners, according to a U.S. State Department report released earlier this month. They include opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa, who has been jailed under a life sentence since 2008 and whose “mental health had deteriorated significantly,” the State Department said.
Meles has called the State Department allegations “lies” and said the U.S. was opening itself to criticism by reporting false allegations of human rights abuses.
WASHINGTON DC (VOA) — Ethiopia’s Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi says he is prepared to order jamming of VOA broadcasts in Amharic, the country’s main official language. Mr. Meles compared VOA Amharic to the hate media that incited the Rwanda genocide.
The Ethiopian leader dictator denies having authorized the interference VOA Amharic listeners have been experiencing since February 22. But speaking to reporters Thursday, he acknowledged ordering preparations for jamming, and said as soon as the equipment is working properly, he would give the go ahead.
“We have to know before we make the decision to jam, whether we have the capacity to do it,” said Meles Zenawi. “But I assure you if they assure me at some future date that they have the capacity to jam it, I will give them the clear guideline to jam it. But so far there has not been that formal decision to jam.”
Mr. Meles said what listeners may have been experiencing for the past four weeks is testing of the jamming equipment.
The prime minister dictator compared VOA’s Amharic Service to Radio Mille Collines, which broadcast hate messages blamed for inciting the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
“We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda,” he said.
Voice of America Director Danforth Austin issued a statement Thursday saying, “any comparison of VOA programming to the genocidal broadcasts of Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines is incorrect and unfortunate.”
He added, “the VOA deplores jamming as a form of media censorship wherever it may occur.”
The statement said VOA’s Amharic Service is required by law to provide accurate, objective and comprehensive news and information and abide by the highest journalistic standards.
Austin also noted that “while VOA is always ready to address responsible complaints about programming, the Government of Ethiopia has not initiated any official communication in more than two years.”
VOA language service broadcasts to Ethiopia have been jammed in the past around election times. The next election for parliament is just over two months away. But in past instances, the government denied being responsible for the jamming.
Monitors say the recent jamming has only been aimed at Amharic broadcasts, but has not affected Afan Oromo and Tigrinya language service transmissions to Ethiopia. They are heard on the same frequencies before and after the Amharic broadcast.
The Voice of America is a multi-media international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. Government. VOA broadcasts more than 1500 hours of news and other programming every week in 45 languages to an audience of more than 125 million people.
Sir Bob Geldof told Meles Zenawi to “Grow up!” when he found out that security forces directly under the control and command of Zenawi had massacred hundreds of unarmed protesters following the 2005 elections. It looks like Sir Bob may have to take his own advice and do a little growing up. In the days after the BBC reported its findings some ten days ago on a scam that diverted $95 million from famine relief to weapons purchases by Zenawi’s rebel group in Ethiopia in 1984, Sir Bob has been throwing temper tantrums on the talk show circuits.
Before Bob became “Sir” Bob in 1986, and “Saint Bob” before that for his work in famine relief in Ethiopia in 1984/5, he was well known (vocalist in the Irish group Boomtown Rats) for his brash and abrasive personality in the British and Irish rock music scene. When he toured the talk show circuit last week in the brewing Live Aid-gate scandal in Ethiopia, he showed his true colors once again. He tongue-lashed, chewed out and raked over the coals the BBC, its investigative reporters and editors and the two former high level rebel group leaders-turned-whistleblowers who brought international attention to the scandal. Sir Bob was literally frothing at the mouth. He was furious, combative, huffy and testy. He was affronted, exasperated and totally rattled by the BBC report. Sir Bob was pissed off big time, not at the fingered criminals but at the journalists who dug up the evidence and the whistleblowers who spilled the secret beans. In his interviews, Sir Bob confused the issues and mischaracterized the report[1].
Sir Bob was categorical in his claim that no Live/Band Aid money went to purchase weapons for the rebels at any time:
Not a single penny went on armaments. Not one. Not a pound; not a penny. Let me be clear on that. And I’ve also spoken to some of the others, including the Red Cross, who say it is absolute rubbish that any of their money could have possibly gone on arms.
He said the two individuals who were interviewed for the report by the BBC have an axe to grind, and should be disbelieved because their intention was to embarrass Zenawi as the so-called May election draws near:
The Ethiopians say that he [Aregawi] wasn’t even in the country at the time. This is a dissident political exile whose specific enemy, of which he has a track record of spinning against, is Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, who has a General Election coming up. He is not a credible voice whatsoever.
Sir Bob challenged the BBC or anyone else to come up with a “shred” of evidence of misuse of any of the money he raised, and offered to personally investigate and initiate a lawsuit to recoup any stolen money:
Produce, produce one shred of evidence, one iota of evidence – not some dissident exile malcontent in Holland. Produce me one shred of evidence and I promise you I will professionally investigate it, I will professionally report it; and if there is any money missing I will sue the Ethiopian government who are the rebels who were fighting the war in Tigray for that money back now and I will spend it again on aid. There is not… a single shred of evidence that Band Aid or Live Aid money was diverted in any sense. It could not have been.
However, beneath the veneer of public outrage, Sir Bob was downright aghast and forlorn about what the scandal could do to his image and legacy in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa:
[Live Aid] did influence the entire debate about Africa and development and poverty. It really did have a huge political impact that resonates to today… Twenty-five … I was in Tigray just before Christmas and I saw what we began twenty-five years ago. Valleys, which were moonscapes, now verdant and lush and giving life and jobs and eighteen thousand Birr a year to the farmers of that neighbourhood. That’s what we started. We built dams. There’s our names on them. Not in armaments. We started that. Today, according to the Economist, Ethiopia is the fifth fastest growing economy in the planet in the year of the African World Cup. Isn’t that the story, or part of the story?
In short, Saint Bob saved Ethiopia! The Live/Band Aid-gate 2010 could seriously endanger his divine mission to save the rest of Africa! Right now, it is time for Sir Bob to save Sir Bob.
But why so much sound and fury from Sir Bob?
One wonders. Could it be that he finally got a definitive answer to the question he posed in his trademark song (one of the best selling singles of all time) in 1984: “Do they know it is Christmas?”
Sir Bob seems to be having great difficulty handling the truth now that he knows it. Whatever failings the two former high ranking members of Zenawi’s rebel group may have, they are telling it like it was:
Yep! We knew it was Christmas! It was the best Christmas ever. Thank you, Sir Bob (or should we say Saint Bob [Santa Claus?]) for stuffing the stockings with goodies and for the millions of dollars under the Christmas tree. Tell ya what Bobby? Since them good old days back in ’84, for some of the big boys in the gang, every day been Christmas day!
The fact of the matter is that despite Sir Bob’s histrionics and temper tantrums, famine relief and aid is stolen and diverted for weapons purchases and other corrupt purposes in Africa everyday.
On March 10, 2010, the New York Times citing a U.N. report stated that $240 million in famine relief aid was stolen in 2009 by Somali rebel groups, local contractors and U.N. staff:
As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report. The [U.N. report] outlines a host of problems so grave that it recommends that Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon open an independent investigation into the World Food Program’s Somalia operations. It suggests that the program rebuild the food distribution system — which serves at least 2.5 million people and whose aid was worth about $485 million in 2009 — from scratch to break what it describes as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors… American officials believe that some American aid may have fallen into the hands of Al Shababa, the most militant of Somalia’s insurgent groups.[2]
For Sir Bob to categorically claim that “not a penny” of the relief money was taken by Zenawi’s rebel group flies in the face of the inescapable African reality of corruption, fraud, waste, abuse and outright theft of not just humanitarian aid, but all kinds of international economic aid and loans. If Somali “contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members” could steal $240 million in food aid in 2009 with all the sophisticated and “best practices” monitoring and auditing mechanisms of the U.N. in place, why does Sir Bob tenaciously hold the childish belief that Zenawi’s rebel group could not have taken a “penny” from the aid money he raised in 1984? Sir Bob does not want to face the truth so he has chosen to bury his head, like the proverbial ostrich, in the sands of denial.
Dr. Aregawi Berhe, one of the eyewitnesses to the scam, was a commander in the rebel army. Gebremedhin was a senior finance officer of the rebel group. Just because they have been critical of the Zenawi regime does not mean they are fabricating lies. As the Independent newspaper which interviewed Sir Bob noted: “That does not mean they are wrong, but it sets up reasonable doubts.” That is indeed a fair place to begin establishing the truth. Let Gebremedhin, Dr. Aregawi and many others with first hand knowledge of the facts (including all the principals implicated in the wrongdoing and the NGO bagmen who carried cash to pay the rebels) be called to testify publicly before an independent international inquiry commission. Regardless, as percipient witnesses any evidence given by Gebremedhin and Dr. Aregawi to date is admissible in any court of law in the world, except kangaroo court.
Zenawi, speaking for the first time on the issue last week said he met with Sir Bob in Nairobi who expressed deep disappointment over the BBC report. Amazingly, Zenawi neither confirmed nor denied the central allegation in the report that he and/ or other members of his rebel group diverted relief money in 1984 for military purchases or any other purposes [3]. It was a brilliant anticipatory legal maneuver stonewalling on the central issue as Zenawi leaves no potentially incriminatory statement which could later be used to impeach (show prior inconsistent statement) him. Naturally, one would have expected an impassioned denial and condemnation of the purportedly vile and scurrilous accusations. But not a word. Instead, Zenawi savagely attacked the integrity and professionalism of Martin Plaut, the BBC reporter who broke the story, as a former Eritrean stooge experienced in distortions and lies (elsewhere known as “yellow journalism”). He accused others who had commented on the matter as being driven by “blind hatred.”
Sir Bob should know better. In fact, he does. After he learned of the shooting of innocent protesters following the May 2005 elections, Sir Bob told Channel 4 News on June 9, 2005[4] what kind of a man Zenawi really is:
Spare me, what are they doing? It is pathetic. I despair, I really despair. No doubt, I’ll get a briefing from the Ethiopian embassy: ‘it wasn’t like this, it was like that’. Grow up, they make me puke. I know those people, Meles Zanawi is a seriously clever man, what is he doing? What is he doing closing down radio stations, and journalists and that, it’s a disgrace. Behave.
Whatever disagreements we may have with Sir Bob on the BBC report, we share his despair fully. We really despair with him. We agree with him wholeheartedly that it is a shame and a disgrace to shoot down innocent unarmed protesters in the streets, shut down the independent press, jail opposition political leaders and engage in gross violations of human rights. We share his belief that it is disgrace and a crime to misuse a single penny earmarked for bread and butter for the hungry to buy guns and bullets for a rebel army. Unfortunately, the fact is that the world is menaced by “seriously clever men” who will stop at nothing, even stealing food from the mouths of babes. That makes all of us puke with disgust, not just Sir Bob. Because one believes in a noble cause, it does not follow that those with whom one comes in contact are also noble.
It is a great thing Sir Bob did in Live Aid back in 1984 and thereafter. But there is new thinking and evidence on the horizon. As Dambissa Moyo’s new book “Dead Aid” shows, the influx of aid, including humanitarian aid, is at great risk of both being corruptly diverted and of exacerbating existing endemic corruption in Africa. It may be hard for Sir Bob and the rest of us naïve Ethiopian utopians to open our eyes in Africa’s New Age of Kleptocracy and see “seriously clever men” and con artists lining up to cannibalize their people for their last bowls of rice and handful of pennies.
The fact remains that there is still famine of the worst kind in Ethiopia and Africa that no Live Aid, Band Aid or Dead Aid can cure. It is a famine of democracy, justice, accountability, transparency, rule of law and human rights.
In the final analysis, the BBC report is not about Sir Bob’s reputation or legacy in Ethiopia or his future humanitarian work in Africa. It is about the truth; and if Sir Bob is truly committed to finding out the truth, let’s come together, relentlessly pursue it and let the chips fall where they may. We believe the truth shall make us all free!
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
British rock impresario and Africa aid promoter Bob Geldof, a.k.a. “Saint Bob,” was back in the headlines this past week after blowing his stack at the BBC for a story it aired alleging that Ethiopian rebels had diverted 95% of the $100 million in Ethiopian famine relief raised in the mid-1980s — much of it by Geldof’s iconic Band Aid concert.
Geldof’s spirited denials (he called the BBC a “rotten old cherry” and said there was not a “shred” of evidence to support the claim) drew support from NGOs that worked in Ethiopia at the time, along with those who remember the miseries of the famine which killed hundreds of thousands of people, as well as the gumption Geldof showed by pulling together rock stars from the U.S and Britain to help feed the victims. In the days since, however, Geldof has raised eyebrows for his apparent refusal to acknowledge the possibility that money may have been skimmed off the top, which many aid agencies and humanitarian workers say routinely happens in developing nations. In fact, doubts in the last few years about whether relief supplies reach their intended sources in conflict zones have given rise to a whole new way of thinking about humanitarian aid — and caused some to question whether giving aid in times of war does any good at all.
“Whereas outsiders might have been well-intentioned in wanting to solve the problems of famine in Ethiopia, the regime and rebels were very much aware of how they could make use of that aid to advance their own interests,” James Shikwati, director of the Inter Region Economic Network, a Nairobi-based think tank, and a longtime critic of foreign aid, tells TIME. “Instead of trying to defend themselves, I think Bob Geldof and his friends should be looking at this as part of the problem of the aid industry.” Shikwati is a leading advocate in an emerging movement that wants to see foreign development assistance — and some emergency help — stopped entirely in Africa. He says foreign aid fosters corruption and a sense of dependence on Western donors. In some countries, leaders have also been accused of steering development projects to areas where people have voted for them while opposition areas get nothing, Shikwati says.
The real story behind Ethiopia’s famine exemplifies many of the problems with aid. In the West, the famine of the 1980s was seen as a great natural disaster. Band Aid was so successful — it raised tens of millions of dollars — because it played on Westerners’ sense of obligation to “save Africa” and their sense of guilt for somehow “allowing” the famine to happen. But the reality was far more complex. While Ethiopia was indeed in the grip of a drought, Mengistu Haile Mariam’s government, which was fighting an insurgency at the time, restricted NGOs from helping famine victims in certain areas and forcibly moved hundreds of thousands of people from one place to another in a repeat of Soviet-era collectivization campaigns, exacerbating their plight. The rebels, who came to power years later, are partly responsible for people’s suffering, too. A CIA report cited by the BBC found that money raised by the insurgents, ostensibly to help the starving, was “almost certainly” diverted for military purposes.
It seems ironic that in one of his ripostes, Geldof argued that current Ethiopian Prime Minister tribal warlord Meles Zenawi — who was a rebel leader during the time of the famine — denied that any aid had been diverted in the 1980s. But Meles has been accused of doing the very same thing in recent years in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, which is also home to a rebel insurgency. Aid workers operating in the region in 2007 told TIME the government allowed them to distribute food in some places and not others. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the government. In a report soon after that, Human Rights Watch accused the Meles government of rounding up and killing livestock in the region and blocking aid. The government has repeatedly denied such accusations.
It’s not just happening in Ethiopia either. A new U.N. report on Somalia, first revealed in a report by the The New York Times on March 9, found that Somali contractors skim off as much as half the food aid delivered by the World Food Program and give it to Islamic militants battling the government. That revelation followed on the heels of a sharp debate on aid in Somalia between the U.N. and the U.S., which has announced it will restrict some supplies to the country out of fear it’s helping the rebels. “Operating in conflict zones is always a complex challenge for humanitarian organizations,” WFP’s Nairobi spokesman, Marcus Prior, tells TIME. “Even in the worst circumstances, we seek to follow all rules and regulations surrounding our operations and to remain true to our humanitarian mandate of impartiality and neutrality.” But the WFP has had a hard time doing that given the fact that it is part of the U.N., a body made up of member states.
Other groups have laid down specific rules that keep them from working too closely with certain governments or rebel groups. Among the most prominent is Doctors Without Borders. The French arm of that group was, in fact, expelled from Ethiopia during the famine in the 1980s when it criticized the government for forcibly moving some of the population and manipulating aid. The group now makes a point of delivering as much direct aid to those in need as possible, rather than working through governments or what it calls “armed actors.” This week, it went after NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen after he made a seemingly innocuous remark about wanting to “improve the frequency and quality of the dialogue between NATO and the NGOs” in Afghanistan. He went on to say that “hard power” must be combined with “soft power,” an idea that infuriates Doctors Without Borders, which said in response that it “never works alongside, or partners with, any military strategy.”
“We have left places where the level of interference was too much,” Monica Camacho, the group’s coordinator in Somalia, tells TIME. “We are very clear that the moment you are interfered with, you no longer have legitimacy. News of whatever happens to us in one conflict will spread, and we are very aware that it has an impact everywhere.”
A women’s group is criticising the United Nations for appointing only men to a 19-strong panel of experts to work out how to raise billions of dollars to fight climate change.
“A planet of men? Since when?” asks the German-based Gender CC — Women for Climate Justice in a statement. (An update — since the list was announced, U.N. officials say that a woman has been added — French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde)
The new panel, to be co-chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, will look into ways to raise at least $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries combat climate change. The panel includes Guyana’s president, Norway’s prime minister, finance ministers, investors and leading economists: all men.
Marion Rolle of GenderCC says U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could expand the panel and add some well-qualified women before a first meeting planned in London for March 29. “There’s still time” she told me.
Rolle says Ban’s next test will be the appointment of a successor for Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate change official, who stands down on July 1 after four years in the job. His predecessor was a woman, the late Joke Waller-Hunter.
“The important thing is to look at the qualifications of both men and women. It must not be a woman at any price,” Rolle said. Many studies show climate change is harsher on women in developing countries than men, partly because mothers usually have to stay in areas affected by droughts, deforestation or crop failure.
Strong female candidates for de Boer’s job might be Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai or Dessima Williams, Grenada’s ambassador to the United Nations, she said.
(Picture: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks next to U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer (R) at a news conference during the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen December 15, 2009. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins)
A women’s group is criticising the United Nations for appointing