The battle to keep racism alive!

The case of racist Getachew Haile

Rundassa Asheetee | February 28, 2014

Getachew Haile

There is no doubt that all ethnic groups of empire Ethiopia are victims of the political catastrophe that the Abyssinian kings and clergy men have created.

Thought such catastrophe can and should be left behind as history, the Abyssinians who interpret this catastrophe as a Nobel work based on their narrow perspective have opened unhealthy conversations between them and their victims. Interestingly, this situation allowed the minority Tigre tribe to rule the country for 23 years with iron fist and the tribe is  going to stay in power as long as past continues to occupy, disturb and divide the people of empire Ethiopia, particularly the Oromo and the Amhara.

Exceptions to the democratic rule: Sweden is not Ethiopia, but pretending that they have nothing in common does no one any favours

The Swedish journalists were released after 438 days in an Ethiopian jail [AFP]

February 27, 2014 (Ajazeera) — In 2012, after having been sentenced to 11 years in prison for “terrorism” for illegally entering Ethiopia from Somalia in the presence of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye took the advice of their legal council, confessed to their “crimes” and requested an official pardon. It was a pragmatic move – both journalists vehemently denied the charges and considered any confession to be a charade – taken to save their own skins.

The request was granted, and the journalists were released after 438 days in jail. Their capture, trial, imprisonment and subsequent release were, as one would expect, all big news stories in Sweden. As told in the media, the Persson/Schibbye story followed a standard trope: Backward, undemocratic Africa versus progressive, democratic Sweden. Human rights violators versus human rights defenders. And, frankly, who could argue with that framing of events? 

ETHIOPIA 2013 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR
2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Report
February 27, 2014

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Ethiopia is a federal republic. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of four ethnically based parties, controls the government. In September 2012, following the death of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, parliament elected Hailemariam Desalegn as prime minister. In national parliamentary elections in 2010, the EPRDF and affiliated parties won 545 of 547 seats to remain in power for a fourth consecutive five-year term. Although the relatively few international officials allowed to observe the elections concluded that technical aspects of the vote were handled competently, some also noted that an environment conducive to free and fair elections was not in place prior to the election. Authorities generally maintained control over the security forces, although Somali Region Special Police and local militias sometimes acted independently. Security forces committed human rights abuses.

MARAAMMARTOO SIYAASAA IRRAA OF TIKISAA !!

SEENAA Y.G(2005) | Guraandhala 24, 2014

Ummati mirgi isaa dhiibame yk xuqame mirga isaa kabachiisuuf falmachuun ykn mormuun yk diddaa isaa mul’ifachuun mirga. Dirqamas. Mormii fi diddaan kun garuu, Ajandaa qaama biraa yk diinni qalbii keenya gara dabarsuuf yk waan keessa jirru hubachuuf waa tokko uumuu isaa irraa qofaan kaanee , waan yaannu hundaa irra buufannee, yaada diinaa sanas fashalsinee qofaa kan manatti gallu yoo taate, MARAAMMARTOO DIINAA nuuf kiyyeesse keessa seennee jiraachuu keenya hubachuu qabna. Diinni maraammartoo siyaasaa kan namaa qopheessuuf, joonja’anii akka kufaniif. Kana ragaadhaan deeggaruun barbaada.

Ethiopia: Land, Water Grabs Devastate Communities

Satellite Images Show Devastating Toll on 500,000 Pastoralists

February 19, 2014 (Nairobi) – New satellite imagery shows extensive clearance of land used by indigenous groups to make way for state-run sugar plantations in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley, Human Rights Watch and International Rivers said today. Virtually all of the traditional lands of the 7,000-member Bodi indigenous group have been cleared in the last 15 months, without adequate consultation or compensation. Human Rights Watch has also documented theforced resettlement of some indigenous people in the area.

The land clearing is part of a broader Ethiopian government development scheme in the Omo Valley, a United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, including dam construction, sugar plantations, and commercial agriculture. The project will consume the vast majority of the water in the Omo River basin, potentially devastating the livelihoods of the 500,000 indigenous people in Ethiopia and neighboring Kenya who directly or indirectly rely on the Omo’s waters for their livelihoods.

“Ethiopia can develop its land and resources but it shouldn’t run roughshod over the rights of its indigenous communities,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The people who rely on the land for their livelihoods have the right to compensation and the right to reject plans that will completely transform their lives.”

Dassanech (“What will happen when hunger comes?”)

A prerequisite to the government’s development plans for the Lower Omo Valley is the relocation of 150,000 indigenous people who live in the vicinity of the sugar plantations into permanent sedentary villages under the government’s deeply unpopular “villagization” program. Under this program, people are to be moved into sedentary villages and provided with schools, clinics, and other infrastructure. As has been seen in other parts of Ethiopia, these movements are not all voluntary.

Satellite images analyzed by Human Rights Watch show devastating changes to the Lower Omo Valley between November 2010 and January 2013, with large areas originally used for grazing cleared of all vegetation and new roadsand irrigation canals crisscrossing the valley. Lands critical for the livelihoods of the agro-pastoralist Bodi and Mursi peoples have been cleared for the sugar plantations. These changes are happening without their consent or compensation, local people told Human Rights Watch. Governments have a duty to consult and cooperate with indigenous people to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources.

The imagery also shows the impact of a rudimentary dam built in July 2012 that diverted the waters of the Omo River into the sugar plantations. Water rapidly built up behind the shoddily built mud structure before breaking it twice. The reservoir created behind the dam forced approximately 200 Bodi families to flee to high ground, leaving behind their crops and their homes.

In a 2012 report Human Rights Watch warned of the risk to livelihoods and potential for increased conflict and food insecurity if the government continued to clear the land. The report also documented how government security forces used violence and intimidation to make communities in the Lower Omo Valley relocate from their traditional lands, threatening their entire way of life with no compensation or choice of alternative livelihoods.

Ethiopian woman gang raped by seven Sudanese men, denied from making a formal complaint of rape and instead charged with adultery and prostitution

February 18, 2014 (Sihanet) –The Ethiopian woman in Khartoum, Sudan, who was gang raped by seven men, has been denied by the Attorney General the ability to make a formal complaint of rape and thus instigate a full investigation. She has instead been charged with adultery which carries the potential sentence of death by stoning.

In August 2013, a young Ethiopian woman was lured to an empty property and then brutally gang raped by a group of seven men. The incident was filmed by perpetrators but was then distributed six months later in January 2014. Both the perpetrators and the Ethiopian woman have been arrested and initially investigated under Articles 153 and 154 of the Sudanese criminal code which relate to the making and distribution of indecent material and indecent behaviour.

Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn: Who Is The Ethiopian Airlines Hijacker, And Why Was He Desperate For Asylum

February 18, 2014 | Horn Affairs, BTimes

Ethiopian hijacker Hailemedhin Abera’s close friends described him to Horn Affairs as following:

Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn was born in 1983, now 31 years old.

He was born in in Zegie Island, which is found on Tana Lake, the source of Nile, in western Ethiopia.

Hailemedhin was raised in Bahirdar city, on the offshores of Lake Tana, at the center of city called “kebele zero arat”.

He attended school at Atse Sereke Dingle elementary school, then Bahirdar Secondary School in 2000/01.

Subsequently, he joined Addis Ababa UniversityArchitecture department, which he quit to join the state-monopoly Ethiopian Airlines.

Hailemedhin is described by his high school friends as a quiet and reclusive man who rarely enjoyed social gatherings.

USAID’s cover-up of Ethiopia abuses overruled by Congress

The US Congress has acted to prevent aid being used to support the forced evictions of Mursi, Bodi and Kwegu tribes from their ancestral land in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley

February 12, 2014 (Survival International) — TheUnited States Congress has acted to prevent its aid to Ethiopia being used to fund forced evictions of tribal peoples in the south west of the country.

The provisions in the Omnibus Appropriations Billfor 2014 represent a slap in the face for USAID, which last month said that ‘there are no reports of widespread or systematic human rights abuses’ in the region.

In fact, tribes of the Lower Omo Valley are being violently evicted from their villages by the government to make way for lucrative cotton, palm oil, and sugarcane plantations whose irrigation will be made possible by the controversial Gibe III dam. Transferred to designated resettlement areas, the once self-sufficient tribes will be left with no access to their livestock or lands and, consequently, will be unable to sustain themselves. Intimidation tactics, such as rape and beatings, have reportedly been used against those who resist resettlement.

Ethiopian government spying on U.S.-based journalists

Video: The Post’s Craig Timberg breaks down a new report by digital watchdog group The Citizen Lab, which suggests the Ethiopian government is hacking the computers of Ethiopian journalists in the D.C. area.

February 13, 2014 (The Washington Post) — Mesay Mekonnen was at his desk, at a news service based in Northern Virginia, when gibberish suddenly exploded across his computer screen one day in December. A sophisticated cyber­attack was underway.

Stop Clearing Oromo from their Land in the name of boosting economic development

Who will stand for the Oromo’s living on the outskirts of Finfinnee?

By Sabbontoota Oromoo, Oromia | February 11, 2014

A.  Background

It is to be recalled that Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) was founded as the present capital city the so called Ethiopian in 1886 by a man called Minilik II. During this time, the area was inhabited by the Oromo people and the area was almost covered with natural forest.  Initially the Shawa government made it seat at Ankober. Hence, before the founding of Finfinee as a political and economic capital of the king, all the areas within the present Finfinnee and the surround areas was free like any other Oromia lands. However, after 1886 the Semitic people from the northern segments and others had taken the land and the Oromo people who were used to live in these areas were forced lost their land through time.

For example, according to Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia (2007) Out of the 2,738,248  100% total population living in Finfinnee,  the total number of the Oromo people living in the city was only 534,255 (19.51%). Since its founding as a capital, Finfinnee remained the capital city for the successive Ethiopian regimes (Menilik II, Lij Eyassu, Zawuditu, Hailesillasse I, Mengistu, Melles and HaileMariam).