Ethiopia extends emergency as old antagonisms fester

The Ethiopian government has extended a nationwide state of emergency for four months, hailing it as successful in restoring stability after almost a year of popular protests and crackdowns that cost hundreds of lives.

But while parts of Amhara, one of the hotbeds of the recent unrest, may be calm on the surface, IRIN found that major grievances remain unaddressed and discontent appears to be festering: There are even widespread reports that farmers in the northern region are engaged in a new, armed rebellion.

Human rights organisations and others have voiced concern at months of draconian government measures – some 20,000 people have reportedly been detained under the state of emergency, which also led to curfews, bans on public assembly, and media and internet restrictions.

“The regime has imprisoned, tortured and abused 20,000-plus young people and killed hundreds more in order to restore a semblance of order,” said Alemante Selassie, emeritus law professor at the College of William & Mary in the US state of Virginia. “Repression is the least effective means of creating real order in any society where there is a fundamental breach of trust between people and their rulers.”

The government line is far rosier.

“There’s been no negative effects,” Zadig Abrha, Ethiopia’s state minister for government communication affairs, told IRIN shortly before the measures were extended by four months, on 30 March.

“The state of emergency enabled us to focus on repairing the economic situation, compensating investors, and further democratising the nation… [and] allowed us to normalise the situation to how it was before, by enabling us to better coordinate security and increase its effectiveness.”

Clamping down

On 7 August 2016, in the wake of protests in the neighbouring Oromia region, tens of thousands of people gathered in the centre of Bahir Dar, the capital of Amhara. They had come to vent their anger at perceived marginalisation and the annexation of part of their territory by Tigray – the region from which the dominant force in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition is drawn.

Accounts vary as to what prompted security forces to open fire on the demonstration – some say a protestor tried to replace a federal flag outside a government building with its now-banned precursor – but by the end of the day, 27 people were dead.

That toll climbed to 52 by the end of the week. In all, some 227 civilians died during weeks of unrest in the Amhara region, according to the government. Others claim the real figure is much higher.

A six-month state of emergency was declared nationally on 9 October. Military personnel, under the coordination of a new entity known as the “Command Post”, flooded into cities across the country.

“Someone will come and say they are with the Command Post and just tell you to go with them – you have no option but to obey,” explained Dawit, who works in the tourism industry in the Amhara city of Gondar. “No one has any insurance of life.”

James Jeffrey/IRIN

Local people told IRIN that the Command Post also took control of the city’s courts and did away with due process. Everyday life ground to a halt as traders closed shops and businesses in a gesture of passive resistance.

In Bahir Dar and Gondar, both popular historical stop-offs, tourism, an economic mainstay, tanked.

“In 2015, Ethiopia was voted by the likes of The New York Times and National Geographic as one of the best destinations,” said Stefanos, another Gondar resident who works in the tourism sector. “Then this happened and everything collapsed.”

Lingering resentment

Before it was renewed, the state of emergency was modified, officially reinstating the requirement of search warrants and doing away with detention without trial.

Prominent blogger and Ethiopian political analyst Daniel Berhane said the state of emergency extension might maintain calm in Amhara.

It “isn’t just about security,” he said. “There is a political package with it: Since two weeks ago, the government has been conducting meetings across the region at grassroots levels to address people’s economic and administrative grievances, which are what most people are most concerned about.”

But bitterness remains.

“We have no sovereignty. The government took our land,” a bar owner in Gondar who gave his name only as Kidus explained. “That’s why we shouted Amharaneut Akbiru! Respect Amhara-ness!” during the protests, he added.

Others still feel marginalised and are angry at the government’s heavy-handed response.

“If you kill your own people, how are you a soldier? You are a terrorist,” 32-year old Tesfaye, who recently left the Ethiopian army after seven years, a large scar marking his left cheek, told IRIN in Bahir Dar. “I became a soldier to protect my people. This government has forgotten me since I left. I’ve been trying to get a job for five months.”

A tour guide in Gondar, speaking on condition of anonymity, was also critical of the response: “The government has a chance for peace, but they don’t have the mental skills to achieve it. If protests happen again, they will be worse.”

However, some do believe the authorities have to take a tough line.

“This government has kept the country together. If they disappeared, we would be like Somalia,” said Joseph, who is half-Amharan, half-Tigrayan. “All the opposition does is protest, protest. They can’t do anything else.”

Mountain militias

Even as calm has been restored in some areas, a new form of serious opposition to the government has taken shape: Organised militia made up of local Amhara farmers have reportedly been conducting hit-and-run attacks on soldiers in the mountainous countryside.

“The topography around here is tough, but they’ve spent their lives on it and know it,” said Henok, a student nurse who took part in the protests. “They’re like snipers with their guns.”

James Jeffrey/IRIN

Outskirts of the city of Gondar, in the northern Ethiopian Amhara region

“The government controls the urban but not the rural areas,” he said. “[The farmers] are hiding in the landscape and forests. No one knows how many there are,” he said, adding that he’d seen “dozens of soldiers at Gondar’s hospital with bullet and knife wounds.”

Young Gondar men like Henok talk passionately of Colonel Demeke Zewudud, who led Amhara activism for the restoration of [the annexed] Wolkite district until his arrest in 2016, and about Gobe Malke, allegedly a leader of the farmers’ armed struggle until his death in February – reportedly at the hands of a cousin on the government’s payroll.

“The farmers are ready to die,” a priest in Gondar told IRIN on condition of anonymity, stressing that the land is very important to them. “They have never been away from here,” he explained.

Without referring specifically to any organisation of armed farmers, Zadig, the government minister, said the state of emergency had been extended because of “agitators” still at large.

“There are still people who took part in the violence that are not in custody, and agitators and masterminds of the violence who need to be brought before the rule of law,” he said. “And there are arms in circulation that need to be controlled, and some armed groups not apprehended.” 

Solutions?

Terrence Lyons, a professor at The School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in the United States, said the government must decentralise power to achieve longer-term stability.

“Grievances haven’t been addressed by the state of emergency or by the government’s commitment to tackle corruption and boost service delivery,” Lyons told IRIN. “There needs to be a reconsideration of the relationship between an ethnic federation and a strong centralised developmental state, involving a process that is participatory and transparent – but we aren’t seeing that under the state of emergency.”

In 1995, Ethiopia adopted a federal system of government, which in theory devolves considerable power to the country’s regions. But in practice, key decisions are still taken in Addis Ababa.

“If the government wants a true and real form of stabilisation, then it should allow for a true representative form of governance so all people have the representation they need and deserve,” said Tewodros Tirfe of the Amhara Association of America.

In a report presented to a US congressional hearing in early March, Tewodros said some 500 members of the security forces had been killed in the recent clashes in the Amhara region. “Deeper resentment and anger at the government is driving young people to the armed struggle,” he told IRIN.

But Zadig and the government insisted: “The public stood by us.”

“They said no to escalating violence. In a country of more than 90 million, if they’d wanted more escalation we couldn’t have stopped them.”

Lyons warns of complacency.

“As long as dissidents and those speaking about alternatives for Ethiopia are dealt with as terrorists, the underlying grievances will remain: governance, participation, and human rights,” he told IRIN.

“The very strength of the [ruling] EPRDF is its weakness. As an ex-insurgency movement, its discipline and top-down governance enabled it to keep a difficult country together for 25 years. Now, the success of its own developmental state means Ethiopia is very different, but the EPRDF is not into consultative dialogue and discussing the merits of policy.”

Source:http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2017/04/03/ethiopia-extends-emergency-old-antagonisms-fester

Stop BEDiSA Group’s Land Grab of Tana Beles-Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Amhara Professional Union (APU) an organization dedicated to the defense and protection of the ideals and interests of the Amhara of Ethiopia in all sectors has initiated a petition to stop the purchase of the Tana Beles project by a Turkish corporation called BEDiSA Group.

The TPLF regime has been selling fertile Amhara land in the name of development while at the same time committing genocide of the Amhara people, forced eviction of farmers without adequate compensation, and imprisonment. The Amhara people will not benefit from the sale of Tana Beles, but instead the profits from these ventures go to the pocketbooks of TPLF leadership. Therefore, the Amhara Professional Union (APU) is suggesting to the BEDiSA Group to hold off all of its investment in Tana Beles until a government that represents the concerns and aspirations of the Amhara people is installed. The BEDiSA Group can invest in the Amhara region once a government that represents the wishes and aspirations of the Amhara people is in place and by then the hospitable Amhara people will welcome the group to invest in the region that will surely boost the investment’s value, safety, and profitability.

Thus, we are asking all Ethiopians and friends to please click on the link below, read the APU statement, and sign the petition. This petition will be delivered to Binai Boran, Chairperson of the BEDiSA Group.

https://www.change.org/p/stop-bedisa-group-s-land-grab-of-tana-beles-amhara-region-ethiopia

Source:http://www.zehabesha.com/stop-bedisa-groups-land-grab-of-tana-beles-amhara-region-ethiopia/

The Political Crisis in Ethiopia – ASA Panel Discussion

The Political Crisis in Ethiopia

African Studies Association Panel Discussion

Washington, D.C.

3 December 2016

David H. Shinn

Adjunct Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs

George Washington University

(Davidshinn) — The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is experiencing its most serious governance and security challenge since it took power in 1991.  It dealt successfully with the Eritrean-Ethiopian war from 1998 to 2000, managed to avoid destruction during an internal party schism at the beginning of this century, and papered over a serious political crisis in the aftermath of the 2005 national elections.

The current situation is different.  It is a grassroots protest movement centered in Oromia but with manifestations in other parts of the country.  Unlike the 2005 post-election crisis, the protests are not being driven by opposition political parties but mostly by individuals with local grievances and, in some cases, long-standing concerns that the EPRDF does not allow sufficient space to express dissent.  Today, there is less freedom of the press and openness in Ethiopia’s political system than when I served as ambassador from 1996 to 1999.

The protests in 2016 have occurred in spite of impressive economic growth and infrastructure improvements orchestrated by the EPRDF over the past fifteen years.  However, this raises the question whether these achievements in the economy are benefiting the peasant farmer and urban laborer.  Part of the problem is that any government, irrespective of its success in managing the economy, begins to wear out its welcome after 25 years in power.  There is also the perception of growing corruption in the political system, another common characteristic of parties that remain in power for so many years.

Ethiopia’s high population growth rate, which adds each year to the population between one and two million people, also creates strains in society.  The massive expansion of primary, secondary, and, especially, tertiary education, which should be considered an EPRDF success story, has led at the same time to significant youth unemployment or under employment.  Even the rapidly growing economy has not been able to employ many of these young people.  Each year, an estimated 600,000 Ethiopians enter the work force.  That is more than the population of Luxembourg and not a whole lot less than the population of Djibouti.

The diversity and size of Ethiopia add to the governance challenges.  The second most populous country in Africa, Ethiopia has some 85 ethnic groups and important religious divisions among Orthodox, Protestants, and Muslims.  While religion does not seem to be a significant factor in the 2016 protests, it has contributed to outbreaks of violence in recent years.  In the minds of some, ethnic federalism has played a role in the protests, although others argue that ethnic federalism is a positive force.  At a minimum, it is clear that ethnic identity continues to be important in Ethiopia’s political process.

You can add to these challenges the fact that Ethiopia is undergoing a generational shift.  This development has a potential positive side because the younger generation appears to be less influenced by the prejudices and shibboleths of the older generation.  The question is, however, whether enough new blood can move into positions of power before the political system unravels.

The EPRDF response to the crisis so far has been largely the historical Ethiopian response of repressive security measures.  The EPRDF announced in January that it would scrap the Addis Ababa master plan that called for expanding the capital into surrounding farms.  This was one of the demands of the Oromo protesters but was seen by many as too little, too late.  As the protests expanded, the EPRDF increased the number of detentions and arrests, announced a state of emergency in October, and then released 2,000 detainees at the end of October.  A cabinet reshuffle took place at the beginning of November.

In mid-November the EPRDF acknowledged that it was still holding 11,000 persons while one of the opposition political parties claimed the number of detainees was 60,000 and deaths had reached 1,500 over the past year.  The response to the protests by the EPRDF has been piecemeal, erratic, and disjointed.

All of these issues are exacerbated by several cultural characteristics that I believe are common in the Ethiopian highlands.  The concept of compromise appears to be nearly anathema to highlanders.  There is a tendency to believe that you must be 100 percent for a position and, if not, you are by definition against it.  There is little or no middle ground.  This makes it exceedingly difficult to resolve differences.  The EPRDF leadership also operates under a high degree of secrecy.  There is little transparency in the decision-making process.  This contributes to miscalculations by those who mistakenly interpret what the EPRDF is doing.

The question is where does the EPRDF go from here.  This is obviously a question for Ethiopians to answer.  The EPRDF says it is ready to reform the electoral process.  As an outside observer and friend of Ethiopia, I would encourage both supporters and detractors of the EPRDF to take the EPRDF at its word and pursue vigorously electoral reform.  A place to start is the municipal elections in 2018.  A completely revamped political process that levels the political playing field would, I believe, go a long way to defuse the current crisis.   While accommodating the concerns of the large Oromo and Amhara populations, it is also imperative to take into account the fears of the eighty plus smaller ethnic groups in Ethiopia.

Source:http://www.ayyaantuu.net/political-crisis-ethiopia/

Ethiopia Criminalize Watching Esat and OMN, Diplomats Cannot Travel Out Of Addis Abeba Now

De Birhan

Under The State Of Emergency, Diplomats Cannot Travel Out Of Addis Abeba Now
15-10-2016
The specifics of the Ethiopian regime’s Command Post State of Emergency state that diplomats cannot travel outside of Addis Abeba, maximum being 40 km radius, without the knowledge of the Command Post. If this ban applied to diplomats, it is possible  that it will also affect tourists who wish to travel outside of the capital.
The declaration contains around 30 articles. It could now be soundly claimed that the Ethiopian Defense Forces, dominated by one ethnic group, has taken over by conducting a negotiated or silent coup. The names of the members of the new Command Post has not been made public but the faces being shown on TV include Siraj Fegessa, Minister of Defense and the Attorney General, Getachew Ambaye and “PM” Hailemariam Dessalegn. These three individuals are being used as PR by a secret team of TPLF military personnel, who form and lead the Command Post.   Some of the main articles include:
- Fifty km inside the borders  of the country have been flagged red zones.

-All major roads leading to regional cities and borders, except to Mekele/Tigray region, have been marked red zones.

- A curfew has been imposed after 6pm and before 6 am on all private and government investments, projects and institutions.

- All political parties are banned from issuing pressers that may contain any sense of incitement.

- Watching listening  or reporting to diaspora based Ethiopian media outlets such as ESAT, OMN  is banned and vaguely called “other radio stations.”

- Communicating with outside groups/forces using social media such as Facebook has been banned.

- Security forces cannot seek resignation or an annual leave during the period of the State of Emergency.

- Terminating or shutting own’s business or service has been banned.

- Demonstrating inside educational institutions is banned.

- Religious leaders are banned from speaking about political issues or current affairs.
To cover and implement the curfew and SoE, the regime’s army will be stretched and this will loosen the border security. The curfew will also cripple businesses, education, and government’s own services.It is difficult to even imagine if this declaration would bring about the intended purposes or rather have unexpected and indirect consequences on national security and economy.

Source: http://debirhan.com/?p=10646

በአሶሣ ዩኒቨርሲቲ ግንባታ ሰበብ የተፈናቀሉ 400 የአማራ ብሔር ተወላጆች ካለ ፍትሕ ከስድስት ዓመት በላይ እየተጉላሉ ነው

ግንቦት ፲(አሥር) ቀን ፳፻፰ ዓ/ም ኢሳት ዜና :- በቤኔሻንጉል ጉሙዝ ክልል ውስጥ የሚኖሩ ቁጥራቸው ከ400 በላይ የሚሆኑ የአማራ ብሔር ተወላጆች ከነባር ይዞታቸው መፈናቀላቸውን አስመልክቶ ለአማራ ክልል ብሶታቸውን አሰምተዋል።
ለአሶሣ ዩኒቨርሲቲ ግንባታ ተብሎ ከዛሬ ስድስት ዓመት በፊት 163 ሺህ ሄክታር መሬታቸው ላይ ካለምንም ካሳ ተነስተው ጎዳና ላይ መጣላቸውን ገልጸዋል። እስከ ከፍተኛው ፍርድ ቤት ድረስ አቤት ቢሉም ሰሚ አካል ማጣቸውንና የፍትሕ ያለህ በማለት ለከፍተኛ ችግር መዳረጋቸውን አመልክተዋል።
ከቦታቸው መወሰድ በተጨማሪም በክልሉ ውስጥ የመኖር ዋስትና ማጣቸውንና ከክልሉ ነባር ተወላጆች እኩል የአስተዳደር አገልግሎት እንደማያገኙም አስታውቀዋል። በአማራ ተወላጅነታችን ብቻ እኛ ላይ የተለየ አስተዳደራዊ በደል ተፈጽሞብናል ያሉት አርሶ አደሮቹ በክልሉ የነበረንን የእርሻ መሬት ከህግ ውጪ ተቀምተን የመኖሪያ ቦታ ከሌለንና ተሠማርተንበት በነበረው ግብርና ልጆቻችንን ማሳደግ ካልቻልን የኛ በክልሉ መኖር ትርጉም የለውም ብለዋል፡፡
ከ6 ዓመት በፊት ለአሶሳ ዩኒቨርሲቲ ግንባታ ተብሎ ለተወሰደባቸው ቦታ ምትክ እንዲሰጣቸው ወይም ካሣ እንዲከፈላቸው የጠየቁት አባወራዎቹ ለዚህም የቤኒሻንጉል ጉሙዝ ክልል መንግስትንና ትምህርት ሚኒስቴርን በፍርድ ቤት ቢከሱም ሰሚ አካል አለማግኘታቸውን በመጥቀስ፡ ክልሉ መብታቸውን እንዲያስከብርላቸው ጠይቀዋል፡፡
አቤቱታቸውን ለአማራ ክልል ፕሬዝዳንት አቶ ገዱ አንዳርጋቸው ቢሮ ለማቅረብ ከአሶሣ ወደ ባህርዳር ቢያቀኑም አቶ ገዱ ሊያነጋግሯቸው ፈቃደኛ ሳይሆኑ ቀርተው ወኪላቸው ደብዳቤያቸውን እንዲቀበሉዋቸው አድርገዋል። ይህን ያህል ዓመት ካለ ፍትሕ ከቀያችን እንድንፈናቀል የተደረግነው የአማራ ብሔር ተወላጅ በመሆናችን ብቻ ነው ሲሉ መናገራቸውን አዲስ አድማስ ጋዜጣ ዘግቧል።

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