Egypt pledges to stop anti-peace forces threatening Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, has told local media that north African neighbour Egypt had agreed to stop the activities of anti-peace forces who are behind protests in Ethiopia.

The premier was speaking at a press briefing to address major issues in the country. He said Egypt had pledged to stop any persons and activities related to fomenting violence in Ethiopia.

The state-owned ENA said the PM revealed that the two countries were committed to halting activities of media networks, specifically mentioning the Oromo Media Network and others that are considered terrorist institutions by Ethiopia.

We will not harm the Egyptian people, but they should also help us in making use of our natural resources. I am here today to assure the Egyptian people that we must work together to accomplish our goals.

Ethiopian FM in Cairo

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu, was in Egypt to meet President Al-Sisi and his counterpart, Sameh Shoukry.

Gebeyehu assured that Ethiopia was ready to help Egypt achieve their goals. “We will not harm the Egyptian people, but they should also help us in making use of our natural resources. I am here today to assure the Egyptian people that we must work together to accomplish our goals,” he said.

The Egyptian leader for his part also said Cairo respected the sovereignty of all countries and it neither interfered in domestic affairs nor conspires against its neighbours.

Ethiopia had in the past accused Egypt and Eritrea of accommodating persons who were behind widespread anti-government protests that started late in 2015 and throughout most of 2016. The parliament imposed a state-of-emergency to help quell the protests in October 2016.

Egypt has in the past flatly rejected claims by Ethiopia. Eritrea, the other accused, have also rubbished the allegations which were recently reiterated by PM Desalegn in an interview with the BBC.

Another area of cooperation where Egypt and Ethiopia meet is with respect to the Nile Dam and construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Leaders of the two countries and Sudan signed a deal in 2015 in a bid to ease tensions over the dam.

The leaders signed the cooperation deal over the giant hydroelectric dam which will lie on a tributary of the river Nile, tensions had risen over regional water supplies. The leaders said the “declaration of principles” would pave the way for further diplomatic cooperation on the Grand Renaissance Dam, which has stirred fears of a regional resource conflict. Read more here

Ethiopia's Human Rights Commission Admits Protesters Were Killed, but Shifts Blame Away From Government

The Ethiopian government's Human Rights Commission has declared that 669 people were killed during the uprising of 2016, a figure that is significantly lower than other numbers reported by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

The unveiling of the report took place on April 18 in a parliament that is completely controlled by the government. Addisu Gebregziabher, the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, read out the commission’s main findings to Ethiopian parliament, which placed the burden of responsibility for the bloodshed largely on opposition groups: “The violence happened because protesters were using guns and security forces had no other options”. Gebregziabher said the “negligence” of security forces was also a contributing factor, albeit a minor one.

Several human rights organizations, however, have reported that it was largely security forces firing on unarmed demonstrators.

Until the movement was subdued in October 2016, when Ethiopia declared a state of emergency, thousands had been demonstrating across Ethiopia. The protests began in April 2014 in Oromia, the largest of nine ethnically federated states, against a plan to expand the territorial limits of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, into neighboring Oromia villages and towns. The Oromo people have historically been persecuted by those in power in Ethiopia, and the plan was viewed as yet another encroachment on their rights. Over the following months, the protests expanded into other states, with participants rallying behind broader grievances against the government.

The government responded brutally; according to Amnesty International, at least 800 people were killed, while opposition groups and activists put the figure in the thousands.

The report as told by Gebregziabher blames opposition groups, diaspora-based satellite television stations, particularly Oromo Media Network, and social media for exploiting the prevailing “lack of good governance” in Ethiopia to stir violence.

The long-awaited report of the Human Rights Commission's investigation is not available on its website; the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate did not provide a link to it in theirnews report either. However, Al Jazeera has embedded a video that shows Gebregziabher’s presentation in parliament. Most of the news reports are based on the summary that was presented for the parliamentarians, which focused largely on the number of people killed and the losses to property.

The news reports did not indicate if the commission’s report addressed torture, arbitrary detention, and poor prison conditions. International organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Freedom House often point to evidence that shows these issues are rampant in Ethiopia. Similarly, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, the only independent local human rights organization in the country, has also reported their prevalence.

But concrete information about torture, arbitrary detention, and prison conditions have been elusive in past reports from Ethiopia’s Human Rights Commission.

Seyoum Teshome, who himself spent at least four months in prison during the protest, wrote in response to the report: “God Save Us from Subservient Human Right Commission that intimidates the public”.

A day before the release of the report, Ethiopian officials rejected requests by the United Nations and the European Union to send independent investigators to consider the alleged human rights violations. Speaking to BBC Africa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said Ethiopia has independent institutions that can do such investigations on their own.

However, a closer look at the chairperson of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission Addisu Gebregziabher reveals that he has substantial ties to the government and a significant interest in maintaining the status quo. Previously, Gebregziabher held posts in the Ministry of Federal Affairs and was a deputy chair of the Ethiopian National Electoral Board that supervised the May 2015 parliamentary election, which was won by the ruling party, the EPRDF. The opposition complained of irregularities during and in the lead-up to that vote.

Since November 2015, Ethiopia has followed a devastating cycle of protests and repression. The country's Human Rights Commission published the findings of a similar investigation last June, but in it those responsible for the killings were not held to account, and protests abated only in October 2016 when authorities declared a state of emergency. With Ethiopia’s prisons full of political opponents, the latest report will likely only deepen the impasse if it also fails to address the root causes of the discontent. Read more here

Ethiopian withdrawal poses questions for future of Somalia

Ethiopian troops previously assisting the internationally funded African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were suddenly withdrawn to Ethiopia a few days after the Ethiopian government declared a six-month emergency in early October.  

As al-Shabaab retook a number of towns, many commentators were quick to diagnose the redeployment as a reaction to help Ethiopian security services subdue internal protests rocking the country since November 2015. But to settle for that explanation risks missing a more nuanced picture that reveals problems within AMISOM as it battles al-Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia, and within the United Nations peace-keeping system itself. “AMISOM should be able to do its mission with its quota of 21,000 – but it’s not managing it,” says a foreign politico with a multinational political organisation in Addis Ababa, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “AMISOM can’t do anything without those additional Ethiopian troops.”

AMISOM has grown from an initial deployment of 1,500 Ugandan soldiers in 2007 to a multinational African force of over 21,000 soldiers, with troops from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Uganda (Sierra Leone withdrew its battalion of troops in early 2015). Ethiopia’s military, the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF), provides more than 4,000 to that force – the third highest amount – and they are still in Somalia.

The withdrawn Ethiopian soldiers were part of an additional Ethiopian force of around 4,000 that operated outside, but in tandem with, AMISOM, providing crucial assistance. “Ethiopian troops know the land, they’re used to the temperatures, they are the only ones who have fought both guerrilla and conventional warfare,” says an Ethiopian Horn of Africa political analyst in Addis Ababa, who asked to remain anonymous.

Unsustainable costs

“Ethiopia didn’t need extra troops for the state of emergency, it has more than enough,” says the Ethiopian political analyst (the size of Ethiopia’s army is estimated at between 140,000 and 200,000 troops). “But the unrest was making it more expensive for Ethiopia to have its non-AMISOM troops in Somalia, as its foreign direct investment has been hit and its foreign exchange reserves are decreasing.”

The international community pays each country in AMISOM $1,028 per month per soldier, while the United Nations Support Office for AMISOM (UNSOA) covers all logistics and associated costs. Ethiopian troops outside of AMISOM, however, qualify for none of that, while the Ethiopian army pays them the same as its AMISOM troops for parity’s sake. General Samora Yunis, the ENDF chief of staff, had been saying for months that the army couldn’t sustain the cost. But the international community wasn’t willing to pay – it was already shelling out for AMISOM.

“It wasn’t just the money,” the Ethiopian analyst says. “The Ethiopian government felt it didn’t have the diplomatic support it should have, and that its efforts hadn’t been recognised.” Hence a loss of significant battle-hardened troops. Ethiopia’s modern military forces haven’t had much of a break for the last 50 years, whether fighting internal insurgencies, border skirmishes or full-scale international wars. As a result, they are one of Africa’s largest and most effective armies.

Meanwhile, another increasing problem for AMISOM, says the foreign politico, is that due to its dependence on the United Nations it is increasingly hamstrung by UN peacekeeping processes when it needs be operating as a war fighting force. For there has been little to resemble peacekeeping during AMISOM’s deployment. Precise figures of AMISOM fatalities are unknown due to contributing countries not releasing numbers, but estimates range as high as 2,000.  

Taking the fight to al-Shabaab

“Ethiopia’s troops are the only ones that are mobile and taking the fight to al-Shabaab, while the rest of AMISOM stay in Mogadishu or a few major bases,” says the Ethiopian analyst. But there’s another side to the seemingly impressive capabilities of Ethiopia’s decisive troops.

“The ENDF intervention in 2006 was what created al-Shabaab as we know it today,” says Paul Williams, a peace and security expert, and a professor in international affairs at George Washington University in the US. “It moved them from a fringe element of the Union of Islamic Courts to the dominant force whose ranks were swelled by anti-Ethiopian vitriol.”

During two years of fighting between Ethiopian troops and Somalian insurgent fighters an estimated 10,000 civilians were killed, while the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that more than a million people, mainly from Mogadishu, were displaced. At the same time, Ethiopian troops were accused by local and international human rights organisations of committing atrocities against civilians and indiscriminate bombardment of built-up residential areas.

Some question the extent of such accusations, but it appears a legacy remains. “ENDF troops are militarily effective against al-Shabaab but potentially politically toxic with the local population, especially the further they move from the Ethiopian border,” Williams says. Further “historical baggage” from major conflicts between the two countries exacerbates the situation, the Ethiopian analyst says, as “no one likes to have their neighbours interfering in their affairs.”

Soft power not an option

“The appetite in the West to spend more money in Somalia is limited,” says an Addis Ababa-based security analyst with an international political organisation, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We are not personally invested like we were with Afghanistan – now it’s other countries’ armies.”

But, at the same time, he notes how Europe has “shouldered a huge amount of the burden with Somalia.” In fiscal terms this amounts to about $1.3bn spent during the last decade. That desire, by the West, to stabilise the often volatile Horn of Africa is also shared, not surprisingly, by governments in the region.

Since Ethiopia’s current ruling party came to power in 1991, a large part of its strategy to safeguard Ethiopia has involved projecting power to ensure its neighbours don’t pose a threat. By the end of the 1990s this typically took a military form. Increasingly of late, however, that approach has been replaced by economic soft power to foster regional peace based on economic integration.

But such a soft power option isn’t possible in strife-torn Somalia – neither for Ethiopia nor for the African Union. Hence AMISOM still has work to do, but without those extra Ethiopian troops, and with further questions about its ability to deliver what Somalia needs.

Such questions also extend to whether the African Union and its African Standby Force – a continental and multidisciplinary peacekeeping force with military, police and civilian contingents (of which AMISOM is a part) – can deliver the military capacity needed to tackle ongoing strife on the continent.     

“If at the end of 10 years of international support to AMISOM all we’ve created is another United Nations-type force then we will have failed,” says the foreign politico in Addis Ababa. “The whole point of the African Standby Force is to be able to do what UN peacekeeping can’t do.”

James Jeffrey Read more here

669 killed in Ethiopia violence since August

Almost 700 people have been killed during violence in Ethiopia since August 2016, a government-sponsored commission has said, bringing the total death toll since the unrest began in late 2015 to more than 900.

Ethiopia declared six months of emergency rule in October after almost  a year of anti-government violent protests in its Oromia, Amhara and SNNP regions. In March, the measure was extended by four months amid reports of continuing violence in some remote areas.

UN calls for release of missing protesters in Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission - mandated by parliament to investigate the violence - presented its long-awaited findings on Tuesday.

The commission blamed a lot of the violence on opposition groups, saying that security forces in some places had no choice but to respond with lethal force.

"The violence happened because the protesters were using guns and so security forces had no other option," Addisu Gebregziabher, the commission's head, told members of parliament.

The report, the second by the commission, said police used "proportionate force" in most areas during the unrest, but could have provided better security during the rallies.

READ MORE: Ethiopia - Ethnic nationalism and the Gondar protests

It said that since August the unrest claimed 495 lives - 462 civilians, 33 security personnel - in Oromia; 140 - 110 civilians and 30 security personnel - in Amhara; and 34 in the SSNP regional states. 

Last year, the commission's first investigation said that 173 people in Oromia and 95 people in Amhara had been killed between November 2015 and August 2016.

"The commission here is blaming a lot of the violence on what it describes as the opposition both in Ethiopia and abroad using social media to stoke the unrest," Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford, reporting from inside Ethiopia's parliament in the capital, Addis Ababa, said.

"The government has denied access to any independent international rights organisation to come to Ethiopia and conduct its own investigation into the violence," he added.

"It has also made it increasingly difficult for journalists to speak to witnesses or travel to the most badly-affected areas since the emergency law was passed in October."

Violent protests

The state of emergency, declared on October 9, was a reaction to protests that were especially persistent in the Oromia region. Many members of the Oromo ethnic group say they are marginalised and that they do not have access to political power, something the government denies.

A wave of anger was triggered by a development scheme for Addis Ababa, which would have seen its boundaries extended into Oromia. Demonstrators saw it as a land grab that would force farmers off their land.

The protests soon spread to the Amhara region in the north, where locals argued that decades-old federal boundaries had cut off many ethnic Amharas from the region.

OPINION: The Oromo protests have changed Ethiopia

The Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups together make up about 60 percent of Ethiopia's population.

The country's ruling coalition, which has been in power for a quarter of a century, is controlled primarily by the Tigray ethnic group, who make up six percent of the population.

Tensions reached an all-time high after a stampede in early October in which at least 52 people were crushed to death fleeing security forces at a protest that grew out of a religious festival in the town of Bishoftu.

In the following days, rioters torched several mostly foreign-owned factories and other buildings that they claimed were built on seized land.

The government, though, blamed rebel groups and foreign-based dissidents for stoking the violence.

The state of emergency initially included curfews, social media blocks, restrictions on opposition party activity and a ban on diplomats traveling more than 40 kilometres outside the capital without approval.

Authorities arrested more than 11,000 people during its first month.

Some provisions of the state of emergency were relaxed on March 15th, two weeks prior to Thursday’s announced extension. Arrests and searches without court orders were stopped, and restrictions on radio, television and theatre were dropped.

The government has repeatedly said that those responsible, including security forces, for the violence must be held accountable.

No members of the security services have faced any charges for the killing of the protesters.

A state of emergency was declared in October last year following months of often violent anti-government protests [Reuters]

Visa Fraud: U.S. embassy warns Ethiopians

(Xinhua/NAN) The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia on Tuesday warned Ethiopian students wanting to travel to the U.S. of the dangers of visa fraud.

The Embassy didn’t specify the reasons for the notice, but it comes months after another statement dismissing speculation that visa rules for Ethiopians will be tightened.

Though Ethiopia was not one of the seven countries placed under the executive travel ban of the administration of U.S. President Donald trump last January, the ban nevertheless caused concern.

Every year thousands of Ethiopians travel to the U.S. for resettlement, education or family visits.

Although there are no known statistics of number of Ethiopians and people of Ethiopian origin living in the U.S., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia estimates it to be in upwards of half a million.

With Ethiopia bordering by Sudan and Somalia which were put on the travel ban and refugees from both countries using the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia for visa applications Ethiopian visa applicants feared they would be unwittingly included in the ban.

During the January executive travel ban several dozen people mainly from Somalia, Sudan and Yemen which use Ethiopia as a transit were temporarily stranded at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

The travel ban first issued in late January was suspended by a judge, although there was a second failed effort to reinstate the ban on six of the seven countries again blocked in the courts.

With the suspension of the travel ban, the stranded passengers were able to leave the airport for their final destinations. Read more here