European Parliament Demands Investigation Into Ethiopia Killings

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia, October 2, 2016.

© 2016 Reuters

Today, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for a United Nations-led independent investigation into the killing of protesters in Ethiopia. Between November 2015 and October 2016, Ethiopian security forces killed hundreds of protesters, and detained tens of thousands. An overly restrictive state of emergency has been in place for the past seven months, and tens of thousands more people have been detained under it. Today’s resolution echoes a previous European Union parliamentary resolution, resolutions by other countries, and last month’s request by the UN’s top human rights chief for access to investigate the abuses.

Ethiopia’s government has always rejected outside scrutiny of its horrific rights record, insisting that it can investigate itself. Yet it has conspicuously failed to do so. Past investigations by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have not met basic standards of impartiality, including its June 2016 report into abuses during the protests’ first six months. In April 2017, the EHRC acknowledged that 669 people were killed in an oral report to parliament, but found that security forces had used excessive force in just a few situations. This stands in stark contrast to what Human Rights Watch and other organizations have found, drawing on evidence that includes a wealth of video and photographic material. The EHRC hasn’t publicly released a version of their findings, so it’s impossible to assess their methodology or learn how they reached their conclusions.

International experts having access to areas where protests occurred and to people still in detention are important first steps towards meaningful investigations. But there are other obstacles too, like victims and witnesses being too afraid to speak out about government abuses. Thousands of Ethiopians have fled the country since the protests, seeking asylum in bordering countries. They too should be part of investigations into what happened, from locations where they may be more free to speak without fear.

Today’s resolution specifically calls on Federica Mogherini, the EU’s top diplomat, to “mobilise EU Member States” to urgently pursue the setting up of the UN-led international inquiry, and they can take the first step towards this at the upcoming Human Rights Council session next month in Geneva.

It’s hoped that implementing today’s timely resolution can help address the pervasive culture of impunity in Ethiopia. The resolution also reiterates the EU’s recognition of the importance of justice to ensure Ethiopia’s long-term stability. To the many victims of Ethiopia’s brutality, a UN-led inquiry could at least begin to answer pleas for justice that too often have gone unheard.

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Ethiopia’s candidate for the World Health Organization doesn’t like mentioning a certain disease

Ethiopia's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is a candidate for director general of the World Health Organization. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Despite warnings from its own experts, the World Health Organization took two months to declare the devastating Ebola outbreak in 2014 an emergency, during which time 1,000 people died in West Africa. Leaked emails later revealed that officials were loath to call it an epidemic for fear of angering the African countries involved and hurting their economies.

The WHO’s handling of the outbreak, which went on to kill more than 11,000 people, has been seen as a sign of the desperate need to reform this global organization, which is responsible for marshaling the global response to epidemics.

On May 22, member state will choose among three candidates — all of whom have pledged deep changes to the organization — vying for the post of WHO director general. One of the candidates, however, has been accused of the same kind of emergency-related minimization of crises that marred the WHO’s response to the Ebola outbreak.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 52, Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 to 2012 and foreign minister until 2016, is a strong candidate for the post, backed by the African Union as well as countries in the Pacific and the Caribbean. He has an impressive track record in Ethiopia. The country also covered up cholera outbreaks under his watch.

The candidate, who goes by his first name and campaigns as Dr. Tedros, presided over a dramatic expansion of Ethiopia’s health system and reductions in infant and maternal mortality as well as deaths from malaria. He also extended the reach of the health system deep into remote rural areas.

In the past 10 years, Ethiopia is also the only country in the Horn of Africa that has not been touched by cholera — according to the government. Critics disagree.

Since a cholera outbreak in 2006 in the Oromia region, Ethiopia has referred to the disease as “acute watery diarrhea” (AWD), essentially a symptom of the deadly waterborne cholera, which is caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium. Tests at the time by the United Nations confirmed that it was actually cholera.

The likely rationale for not calling the disease cholera is the same one that delayed the labeling of the Ebola outbreak an emergency in 2014 — it would make Ethiopia look bad, hurt tourism and could result in some countries banning food exports from Ethiopia.

It is not clear whether Tedros had any input in the government’s decision to stop using the term “cholera,” but the change occurred during his tenure as health minister.

Since then, there have been several AWD outbreaks, including in Addis Ababa in 2016 and in the drought-hit Somali region, where more than 16,000 have been diagnosed since January and 3,500 new cases are being declared every month. None have been identified as cholera.

Yet under the rules of the WHO, countries are supposed to report outbreaks of such diseases.

“In the aftermath of the unconscionable WHO response to Ebola, perhaps the most important global health norm is to accurately and rapidly detect, report and respond to disease outbreaks,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.

The Ethiopian government is fighting the outbreak, regardless of what it is called. The Health Ministry sent 1,200 health professionals, including 500 nurses and 68 doctors, to affected areas this year and set up 100 treatment centers.

On Tuesday, the ministry issued a statement carried on Tedros’s website that said: “We are working to establish robust surveillance systems for critical diseases … acute watery diarrheal diseases including cholera is of course included in this effort.” The statement went on to praise Tedros’s tenure as health minister and noted that “despite hosting the largest number of refugees in Africa, Ethiopia has a lower rate of childhood deaths from diarrheal diseases than Africa as a whole.”

But international aid organizations have privately expressed frustration at Ethiopia's refusal to call the disease cholera; such a move would trigger an international response.

Human Rights Watch says local health workers are under pressure not to refer to the disease as cholera.

“We have interviewed a number of health professionals who have been pressured by government officials not to refer to cholera outbreaks as such, instead referring to outbreaks as ‘diarrhea’ or AWD,” said Felix Horne, the organization's researcher for Ethiopia. “This is emblematic of the control that government exerts over some of its health professionals — there is little space to question health policies or to challenge the government’s success narratives.”

So while neighboring Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya have cholera outbreaks, Ethiopia just has diarrhea outbreaks.

The Ethiopian Medical Association has endorsed Tedros’s candidacy, saying Wednesday that he would bring a fresh perspective to the WHO. “One that is rooted in the reality of what it takes to design and implement change in a country that is resource-constrained with a high disease burden,” said the association's president, Gemechis Mamo. He would not comment on the cholera-denial accusations.

“We have been informed that it was acute watery diarrhea,” he said.

Critics say the lack of transparency is part of the repressive nature of the state. Much of the opposition to Tedros’s candidacy emanates from the Ethiopian diaspora, which has taken to social media to criticize his ties (he is a member of the ruling party political bureau) to a government known for its poor human rights record and for suppressing debate. Their campaign even has its own 

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Ethiopia must respect rights, open democratic space – 14 US Senators

Fourteen members of the United States Senate have through a bipartisan resolution jointly called for the Ethiopia government to respect the rights of opponents and to end all forms of political persecution.

Senators Ben Cardin (Democrat, Maryland) and Marco Rubio (Republican, Florida) were the main sponsors of the bill. They also called for a credible accounting of the excesses of the security forces during massive anti-government protests that hit the country for the better part of last year.

Ethiopia is currently under a state of emergency that was imposed in October 2016 to curb the wave of protests. It was extended in April despite the government saying that peace had returned.

The fact that we have partnered with the Ethiopian government on counter-terrorism does not mean that we will stay silent when it abuses its own people.

The United Nations and the European Union requested independent investigations into the protest deaths but Addis Ababa flatly refused saying it was capable of such a probe. The country’s rights body recently released a report that said over 660 people died during the protests.

It is not the first time that US top officials are impressing on the Ethiopian authorities to open up the democratic space. The main ethnic groups of Amhara and Oromo continually protest marginalization in the political space is dominated by the minority Tigray ethnic group.

The Senators while admitting that the US partners with Ethiopia especially in the area of counter-terrorism, insisted that that was not enough grounds for rights to be abused and for democratic space to continue to shrink as is currently the case.

What Senator Cardin said:

“The Ethiopian government must make progress on respecting human rights and democratic freedoms.  I am deeply troubled by the arrest and ongoing detention of a number of prominent opposition political figures. 

‘‘The fact that we have partnered with the Ethiopian government on counter-terrorism does not mean that we will stay silent when it abuses its own people,” said Senator Cardin, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

What Senator Rubio said:

“On the contrary, our partnership means that we must speak out when innocent people are detained, and laws are used to stifle legitimate political dissent.”

“As the Ethiopian government continues to stall on making progress on human rights and democratic reform, it is critical that the United States remains vocal in condemning Ethiopia’s human rights abuses against its own people,” said Senator Rubio, chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on human rights and civilian security. 

“I will continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to urge the Ethiopian government to respect the rule of law and prioritize human rights and political reforms,” he added.

14 cosponsors of the resolution

The other colleagues who joined them as original cosponsors included: Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Chris Coons (D-Del.),

The remaining were: Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Read more here

Flexenclosure sends two data centers to Ethiopia

21st African country to get modular data centers from Sweden

Prefabricated data center specialist Flexenclosure is setting up two facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for East African ICT company ERP Software Technologies (ERPST).

ERPST is involved in a major IT infrastructure deployment for the Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC), and Flexenclosure’s ‘eCentres’ will manage and run ERC’s digital activities as the rail network expands across the country.

Addis Ababa Light Rail

Source: Wikimedia Commons/Turtlewong

Right on track

“Ethiopia is engaging in a highly ambitious railway construction program as the government lays the foundations for future economic growth,” Mark Nycander Ali, CEO and owner of ERPST, said.

“ERPST is playing a central and vital role in the project and we needed a tried and tested data center solution we could rely on. With their track record of successful deployments across Africa, Flexenclosure’s eCentre was the obvious choice.”

David King, CEO of Flexenclosure, added: “We are delighted to be working with ERPST on this project. Ethiopia is new country for us, increasing Flexenclosure’s and eCentre’s deployment footprint across the African continent.”

Construction has begun on the two data center modules, which will be shipped from Vara, Sweden, to Ethiopia later this year. As we detailed in our feature on setting up facilities in frontier markets, Flexenclosure has used this prefabricated model to great success across much of the developing world.

With this latest deal, King said: “We now supply our products in no less than 21 African nations, proving our experience and ability to deliver mission critical infrastructure in the most challenging of environments.” Read more here

Top 3 must-see places in Ethiopia

Situated in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has emerged as one of the top global tourist destinations in the past few years. But Filipinos have little knowledge of the diverse cultural treasures that this tropical country has to offer.

Ethiopia was recognized by the European Council Tourism and Trade as the “Best Tourism Destination” in 2015, and earlier this year by the Lonely Planet as among the top 10 world tourist destinations for 2017.

To increase Filipinos’ knowledge and appreciation of this hidden African gem, here are top 3 must-see historical destinations and beautiful sceneries to visit in Ethiopia, which are recognized UNESCO World Heritage Sites, as listed by a top African airline:

Fasilides. Photo by Ethiopia Airlines

1. Gondae

Dubbed as the “Camelot” of Africa, the historical city of Gondar, composed of structures built by kings during the 17th century, is an iconic remnant of the once strong African empire. It is known for the Royal Enclosure or the Fasil Ghebbi, which is composed of beautiful stone castles and banquet halls where princes and princesses once strolled. Other components include the Castle of Emperor Fasilides, the Castle of Emperor Iyasu, the Library of Tzadich Yohannes, the Chancellery of Tzadich Yohannes, the Castle of Emperor David, the Palace of Mentuab, and the Banqueting Hall of the Emperor Bekaffa.

Axum. Photo by Ethiopia Airlines

2. Axum 

Regarded as one of the most sacred destinations in the world, Axum is said to house the Ark of the Covenant, which contains the Ten Commandments or Tablets of Law, a significant biblical symbols in Christian religion. It is known to be the historical and religious heart of Ethiopia.

Ethiopian Airlines flies from Manila to Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa three times a week. YG/JE

Lalibela. Photo by Ethiopia Airlines

3. Lalibela

The northern town of Lalibela in this 13th century “New Jerusalem” is famous for its 11 medieval rock-hewn churches in the mountainous region. Up to this day, it remains to be a highly respected place of pilgrimage and devotion in Ethiopian Christianity. Read more here