Why President Kiir should pardon all prisoners across the country

By Simon Manut Chan

In December 2016, the Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan, Dr. James Wani Igga announced during an official visit to Juba Central Prison that his boss President Salva Kiir was expected to visit the same prison where he was expected to pardon prisoners convicted of various offences to celebrate with their families and friends the dawn of New Year 2017. Unfortunately, the visit has not materialized and up to date no single prisoner has been granted amnesty by the President.

On 10th March 2017, during the National Day of Prayers, President Kiir released only two “political detainees” that were in the custody of the National Security Service, the former Wau State Governor Elias Waya and his Deputy Andrea Dominic. And he promised to “visit the prisons to release more political detainees in a day or two”.

Again, this visit did not take place and no more prisoners were released as promised by the President of the Republic. On 22nd May 2017 while launching the National Dialogue Process and at the same time swearing-in members of the National Dialogue Steering Committee, President Kiir once against declared that, “in the spirit of the National dialogue and as a gesture of good will from your President, I have directed my Prosecutor General to review cases of people who have committed any crime against the state who are popularly known as political prisoners or detainees with the view of releasing them”.

Citizens of this country are waiting with bated breath to see if the President Kiir will follow through his promises and release prisoners across South Sudan as a true gesture of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation in South Sudan or people de-popularizing the President have stood in the way of this good will?

Traditionally, it is a normal practice worldwide in many democracies for presidents, heads of state and governments to issue pardon and amnesty to various categories of criminals or prisoners jailed for committing certain crimes. In recent years, many head of states and government in Africa and beyond have exercised this Constitutional prerogatives and released different categories of prisoners in big numbers. For example, early 2017 Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir pardoned 25 South Sudanese who had been sentenced to death for charges related to treason, terrorism and crimes against the State. President Uhuru Kenyatta pardoned and released nearly 7000 prisoners across the country and commuted sentences of people on death row to life imprisonment.

The practice of granting amnesty has remained a feature of many democracies around the world since the time of English kings who were vested with the power to grant reprieve, rescind or commute any sentence given the fact that they had absolute power vested in their hands. It continues to be invoked in different circumstances and for a ranges of reasons. South Sudan is not an exception to this well-established traditional practice. President Salva Kiir Mayardit should therefore exercise this Constitutional prerogative for this rather obvious reasons and empty prisons across South Sudan;

CONSTITUTIONAL PREROGATIVE

The Transitional Constitution of South Sudan 2011, amended 2015 gives President Salva Kiir the powers to pardon and give amnesty to all kind of categories of prisoners under Article 101 (H) which states that; “the President has the authority confirm death sentences, grant pardons and remit convictions or penalties according to this Constitution and the law”. This is absolute power of the President and no one can therefore question his decision to pardon or grant amnesty to prisoners regardless of their status; political or otherwise.

As part of marking important events and occasions such as independence day, presidents and heads of state usually issue executive orders or decrees releasing prison inmates to mark such events. In April 2017, Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli issued an Executive Order releasing more than 2300 prisoners to “mark the 53rd Anniversary of the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar by in line with powers vested on the President through Article 45 (1) (d) of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania”.

South Sudan gained independence on 9th July 2011, and so far very few prisoners if any have benefited from presidential pardons as part of marking such an important occasion. Some of the prisoners who where jailed when South Sudan was part of Sudan are still incarcerated at Juba Central Prison and other prisons across South Sudan. One month from now, South Sudan will be marking the 6th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of South Sudan on 9th July 2017, it is time for President Salva Kiir to direct his Minister of Interior, Minister of Justice and the Chief Justice to prepare list of those to be pardoned as part of marking this important event and to be submitted to the president to pardon prisoners.

NATIONAL DIALOGUE PROCESS

As mentioned earlier, President Kiir promised on two different occasions to release what he described as “political detainees” or “political prisoners”. So far only two prisoners have been released; former Governor of Wau, Gen. Elias Waya Nyipuoch and his deputy General Andrea Dominic who has been detained by the National Security Service since 2016. Many prominent members of the National dialogue steering committee during their weekly deliberations have urged the prosecuting authority directed by the President in his speech to implement the President’s directives. Other important personalities including church leaders have stressed this call to the President during the National Day of Prayers to release all not only political prisoners but all other prisoners as a sign of genuine forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. Archbishop Paulino Lukuddu in particular is quoted as saying, “I ask the President to pardon and forgive all political prisoners as well as others arrested for minor offences, other who may have been arrested because of rumours mongering and propaganda”.

Now that the President has again reiterated his intention to release prisoners while swearing-in members of the National Dialogue Steering Committee, it is important that the president follow through his promise and ensure that he release prisoners irrespective of their status; political or otherwise. The National Dialogue that President Kiir launched is a very important milestone that will ensure peace, unity, harmony and stability in South Sudan.

By releasing prisoners as he has promised, President Kiir will be underscoring his commitment to make National Dialogue a success and bring everlasting peace, harmony, unity and stability to South Sudan. Reduce overcrowding in Prisons Juba Central Prison as the main prison in South Sudan and other prison facilities across South Sudan do not have enough spaces to accommodate the increasing number of prisoners. Many prisons in South Sudan are hosting a large number of prisoners twice or three times their normal capacity. This has led to congestion and hence squalid conditions in these prisons.

With the current economic crisis in the South Sudan, the government is struggling to provide adequate basic needs such as balanced diet, uniforms and medical services. Poor funding from the Government of South Sudan has also exacerbated the situation. Over 50 people have died in Juba Central Prison alone because of illnesses related to malnutrition and lack of hygienic conditions in the prison between 2016 and 2017 as a results of malnutrition and diseases.

As I write this article, the Director of Juba Central Prison, Brig. Gen. Michael Malou has been quoted by several media houses as saying that there is an outbreak of unknown disease that has affected nearly half of the prisoners, mostly prisoners on remand. Many of inmates at Juba Central Prison are petty offenders and juvenile who should be released. As part of effort to decongest prisons and other correctional facilities, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe released over 2000 prisoners in 2016. Former Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki released over 7000 prisoners in 2012 so as to decongest prisons facilities and improve their conditions.

President Salva Kiir should follow suit and released prisoners to ease the congestion and improve provision of basic human needs such as adequate food and medical attention so as to enhance good living conditions within prison facilities.

As alluded above, many prisons facilities across South are in such a sorry state. They are too overcrowded and conditions therein are so squalid for human accommodation. Although prisoners are people who are serving time as punishment for crimes committed against the society, they are also human beings worthy of humane treatment. In this regard, we are calling upon our President to consider releasing various categories of prisoners such as first time offenders, people who have served half of their sentences as well as old age prisoners who are above 60 to 70 years of age.

In addition, President Kiir should consider releasing prisoners who falls under special cases. These include prisoners with mental and physical disabilities as well as female convicts who were imprisoned while pregnant, lactating or with children and as a result are forced to bring up their children in prison. Commuted death row convicts to life imprisonment and if one has served 10 years of his 20 years of life imprisonment, should thereafter qualify for presidential pardon.

LEGACY

Many world leaders in all democracies are always mindful of their legacies. Their legacies are always based on the actions they took while in office to safeguard the interest of their countries and their people. These actions also includes acts of forgiveness and kindness extended to vulnerable members of the society. President Salva Kiir as the first president of the independent Republic of South Sudan had already made history and his legacy will continue to be shaped by such actions of forgiveness and kindness.

President Kiir is known for his humility, generosity, kindness and willingness to forgive others. As part of cementing your legacy, people of South Sudan expect you to extend these actions of kindness to the less-privileged members of the society who include prisoners and let your name be registered in the history books of South Sudan as the President who made good use of power to grant pardon and clemency for the benefit of the less-privileged members of the society. Mr. President, you are the Father of Nation which include free members of the society and those members of society incarcerated behind bars for crimes they may have committed against the society.

In conclusion, however, the origin of modern practice of power to pardon traces its origin in the British System where it was a Royal Prerogative of the King to forgive. In the medieval time, pardon was extensively used as method to reduce overcrowding in prisons during war or political upheaval or revolt. In many modern democratic countries, the power to grant pardon or clemency is vested in the head of Executive, in this case the President of the Republic.

Apart from using pardon as means of reducing overcrowding in prisons, pardon has been traditionally to save person(s) due to miscarriage of justice or in cases of doubtful convictions. It is always better to grant liberty to a guilty offender rather sentencing an innocent person. As such the power of pardon is to correct possible judicial errors as there is no human system of judicial administration that can be free from imperfections.

The mere hope that one may be pardoned itself serves as incentive for the convict to behave himself or herself in the prison facility and thus helps considerably in solving issues of prison discipline. Research has shown that pardoned offenders always try to avoid committing crimes they were accused of and thus contributing to greater harmony and peace within societies.

With the current economic crisis in the country couple with the outbreak of unknown diseases and squalid conditions in prison facilities across South Sudan, the urgency to release prisoners is far greater now than at any other time in the history of our young nation. I personally believe that these individuals will be your good ambassadors in the National Dialogue Process as they will preach your goodwill to the nation. Read more here

Simon Manut Chan is a legal researcher, practitioner and human rights activist based in Juba. He can be reached at: smanut.chan@gmail.com, 0954112244

Chinese firm to build new industrial park in Ethiopia

File photo shows workers at a construction site in Hawassa, Ethiopia, Feb. 3, 2016. The Hawassa Industrial Park, built by China Civil Engineering Corporation (CCECC), focuses on garment manufacture and agro-industry. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)

ADDIS ABABA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) is to build an industrial park in the resort city of Bahir Dar, 552 km north of Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, at a cost of 60 million dollars.

The agreement was signed in Addis Ababa Friday between Chief Executive Officer of the Ethiopia Industrial Park Development Corporation (IPDC) Sisay Gemechu and Li Wuliang, general manager of CCECC Ethiopia.

This will be the first industrial park to be constructed in Bahir Dar, capital city of Amhara regional state well known for its lakeside attractions and as a center for conference tourism.

Li said CCECC will strive to finish the 75-hectares industrial park, which will have 8 factory sheds and basic infrastructure utilities, within the agreed 9-month period.

CCECC is already constructing an industrial park in Adama city, 99 km southeast of Addis Ababa.

It also constructed Ethiopia's flagship industrial park -- the Hawassa Industrial Park -- located 275 south of Addis Ababa at a cost of 250 million dollars.

Gemechu on his part said once operational the Bahir Dar Industrial Park will utilize a workforce in excess of 20,000 people producing value-added agricultural products for export.

Ethiopia is on a massive industrialization drive with plans by the state entity to develop 100,000 hectares of land annually for a 10-year period ending 2025. Read more here

Kenya unease grows as Ethiopia becomes region’s largest economy

Addis Ababa / Djibouti train line. The 750 kilometre (460 mile) railway, built by two Chinese firms, links Addis Ababa to the Red Sea port city of Djibouti in about 10 hours. [AFP] It is official: Kenya is not the largest economy on this side of the Sahara. That coveted trophy goes to Ethiopia. Addis Ababa’s double-digit growth has seen Ethiopia speed past Kenya, leaving Nairobi at a precarious second position in economic ranking in Eastern Africa. And with a resurgent Tanzania breathing noisily behind Kenya’s neck, analysts think it is just a matter of time before Dar es Salaam deposes Nairobi from the second place summing up Kenya’s economic coup de tat. According to the IMF’s latest report, 

Ethiopia’s economy has overtaken Kenya’s with Ethiopia’s gross domestic product (GDP)- or the total value of goods and services produced annually- hitting Sh7.4 trillion in 2016 compared to Kenya’s Sh7 trillion in the same year. And there is no respite for Kenya as Tanzania, which according to the World Bank has “maintained relatively stable, high growth” of between six and seven per cent over the last decade, seems to have cast its eyes on toppling Kenya as the East African Community kingpin. Indeed, according to the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects 2017, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda are expected to post higher GDP growth rates than Kenya. In fact, Ethiopia’s and Tanzania’s growth rates will be the first and second highest respectively in Sub-Saharan Africa in the next three years. ALSO READ: Capital flows into Kenya fall by 58pc Corruption and wastage Tanzania’s GDP has more than doubled in the last 10 years growing from $21.5 billion (Sh2.22 trillion) in 2006 to a high of $48.2 billion in 2014. It dropped slightly to Sh4.6 trillion in 2016. Economics lecturer and former Permanent Secretary in President Mwai Kibaki’s Government, Gerrishon Ikiara, says he is not amused by these developments. He notes that Ethiopia has “always been a strong economy in the region” while Tanzania is re-awakening after a dark period in which the resource-rich East African economy was devastated by the late President Julius Nyerere’s socialist policies. 

Observers note that underpinning the strong growth in these countries- including another fast-growing member of the EAC, Rwanda- is their relatively strong governance structures. Most of these countries have a zero-tolerance towards corruption and wastage that have become endemic in Kenya. Of the nine Eastern Africa countries, only Uganda ranks above Kenya in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. “Ethiopia is a country we need to watch, it is on the rise,” says Dr Samuel Nyandemo, a development economist and lecturer at the University of Nairobi. Besides having a larger population of about 100 million people and a landmass of 1,104,300 square kilometers, the Horn of African country has also enjoyed a stable political environment for an extended period. “The institutional framework in place in Ethiopia has made mobilisation of resources and put it into good use,” says Nyandemo. This stability has seen Ethiopia’s real estate flourish, the manufacturing industry reboot and its transport sector modernised. Ethiopia’s match to the pinnacle has been aided, in large part, by the massive infrastructural projects funded by China. A recent article in China Daily quoted a senior Ethiopian official saying that Chinese firms have invested a whopping $4 billion (Sh4.1 trillion) in Ethiopia in the last two decades, thus deepening political and economic relationship of the two countries. 

Ethiopia’s huge population has been a source of cheap labour, an attractive incentive for many manufacturing firms eager to set base in the region but wary of the high cost of production in most African countries. A 2015 report by management firm McKinsey found that around 2013 “a number of European companies—among them, H&M, Primark, and Tesco—began sourcing some of their garments from Ethiopia.” Although Kenya’s textile and apparel sector was similarly attractive, Ethiopia beat Kenya as a sourcing destination. It featured among top-ten sourcing destinations in the next five years among a number of chief purchasing officers (CFOs) interviewed by McKinsey. Only Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Mynmar, Turkey and China were more lucrative than Ethiopia to these respondents. The survey showed that while Ethiopia had cost advantages, Kenya boasted of “higher production efficiency.” But the cost advantage seems to have won it over for Ethiopia, with 28 out of 40 CFOs saying they plan to start sourcing from Ethiopia, compared to 13 who said they would like to do the same in Kenya. “Ethiopia’s wages for garment workers are among the lowest globally, at below $60 (Sh6,201) per month, and work-permit costs for foreign workers are less than one-tenth those in neighboring Kenya,” read the article written by Achim Berg, Saskia Hedrich. “Additionally, Ethiopia has low electricity prices. 

The country has a strong supply of hydroelectric power, and while the power grid is not the most reliable, the Ethiopian government is building a separate grid for new industrial zones currently under development,” added the article. On the other hand, manufacturers and buyers lamented that comparatively high labour costs were a challenge of doing business in Kenya. Monthly wages for garment workers was estimated at around $120 (Sh12,403) to $150 (Sh15,504) range. “Energy costs are also high, and because the power supply is spotty, factories often have to rely on generators. In Africa, power from generators works out to be four times as expensive as power from the grid,” read article, East Africa: The next hub for Apparel Sourcing? Indeed, Ethiopia’s growth has mirrored that of its main benefactor- China. Like China, Ethiopia has adopted a centrally planned economy in which the State has maintained an iron-grip on all of the country’s economic development agenda even as it suppresses any countervailing individual and political interest. Ikiara says this is the main reason the country has developed very fast. This is unlike in Kenya with its liberal constitution that grants citizens unfettered individual rights but which, unfortunately, tend to be “abused.” “Ethiopia has been able to manage its politics,” says ikiara. 

He regrets the fact that in Kenya “everything is contested” with projects being delayed or shelved as result. A good example is the new railways recently built in Kenya and Ethiopia by Chinese contractors. Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway is a 752 kilometre standard gauge railway (SGR) that is fully electrified. Kenya’s new railway from Mombasa to Nairobi is also standard gauge (1,435mm) and covers an area of 472 kilometres. However, questions have been asked as to why an electrified Ethiopian line that is 350km longer than Kenya’s cost about $3.4 billion compared to $3.2 billion for Kenya’s diesel-powered. Official explanation has been that this was due to high terrain which called for many bridges and tunnels and a high cost of land compensation, as land in Kenya is owned by individuals rather than by the State. Land compensation not only took a tidy some of the Sh327 billion used to build the infrastructure, it also delayed the project with some individuals running to Court whenever they felt slighted. The debacle that is the land compensation in Kenya has in recent times cost the country a number of key projects. 

While it is not very clear why Uganda snubbed Kenya for Tanzania for its oil pipeline, a few Ugandan officials were reported saying that expensive land acquisition was one of the reasons Kampala re-routed its pipeline to Dares Salaam. Regional powerhouse Last year, receiver managers of Kinangop Wind farm decided to pull the plug on the Sh15 billion mega-power project which was expected to wire an additional 15,000 homes to the national grid, citing a land compensation stalemate between the contractor and locals in Kinangop, Nyandarua County. Interestingly, Ethiopia’s model has also been assumed by Tanzania, a country that can as well be described as sleeping giant with its vast resources. Ikiara says that if Tanzania could have been well managed right from independence, they could have been far ahead of Kenya. But the country has, slowly but surely, embarked on a process of reclaiming its place in the region’s economic pecking order, especially following the election of Dr John Pombe Maghufuli, a no non-sense head of State who does not tolerate complacency and criticism in equal measure. Maghufuli’s goal, it seems, is to topple Nairobi as East Africa’s regional hub and regional powerhouse. 

Dares Salaam wants to achieve this by, first of all, keeping Kenya at arm’s length and frustrating the successful integration of the EAC, according to Ikiara. Maghufuli who has come under attack for muzzling dissenting voices, has moved with speed to seal all loopholes of pilferage even as he decimates all vestiges of Ujamaa, a socialist system initiated by Tanzania’s founding father Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and which is roundly blamed for under developing Tanzania. As pangs of hunger bit following a debilitating drought that ravaged the whole of Horn of Africa, Maghufuli is said to have lectured Tanzanians against expecting the Government to feed them, proclaiming that the Government “did not have farms.” The result has been, while Kenya’s drought situation has driven inflation to a five-year high of 11.5 per cent, in Tanzania inflation still remains within the Government’s target. And it looks like Kenya is losing the battle for the control of the East African region to Tanzania. Dr Nyandemo notes that Tanzania’s Southern Corridor, rather than Kenya’s Northern Corridor, is fast turning into a favorite for the landlocked countries of Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda. And even as Kenya embarks on building a 32 Berth port at Lamu under the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET), Tanzania has also inked a deal with the Chinese that will see Dar es Salaam develop one at Bagamoyo which is expected to handle about 20 million containers. It has been billed as East Africa’s race for the biggest port. “Most tourists are flocking to Tanzania helped by the terrorists attacks in Kenya and the relaxation of Visa-entry rules,” noted Nyandemo, adding that the cost of visiting tourist sites has also gone down. 

And all these efforts have started paying off. EAC volumes of trade- both service and manufacturing- seem to be favoring Tanzania more, according to Nyandemo. “This is seen by total value of transactions. Indeed while Rwanda is leading service sector, it is followed closely by Tanzania. The service sector is boosted by tourists and Southern corridor,” explained Nyandemo. Tanzania also recently launched the construction of its own standard gauge railway, an electric-driven unlike Kenya’s that is diesel-driven, as it keeps up the pressure on Kenya. “I will not be surprised if the coming five years, Tanzania is also ahead of Kenya,” says Ikiara. But there is hope for Kenya, which, according to Ikiara, is also doing “fairly well.” With the SGR, Nyandemo feels that Kenya might redeem itself and not be deposed by Tanzania. “With the SGR in place, and if we minimize the bureaucracy at the point of entry, we will catch up,” said Nyandemo. But even as Ethiopia basks in the glory of being ahead of Kenya, its citizens are currently suffering internet black-out after the Government shutdown the services as students sat for exams.
Read more at: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001242982/kenya-unease-grows-as-ethiopia-becomes-region-s-largest-economy

Ethiopian Leader Proud to Show Israel the Way When It Comes to Refugees.

The rains have come to Ethiopia. After three seasons of drought that hit agricultural areas hard, farmers are waiting for the grass to grow again so they will be able to pasture their herds. And the way Ethiopia dealt with the drought is a good example of the progress the country has made over the past 20 years. Although the drought was said to be the worst in 50 years, photos of skeletal children with bellies distended from starvation – which were largely the international image of Ethiopia at the end of the 20th century – did not materialize this time around.

“Green development, investment in small-scale agriculture, sustainable land management – 20 years of development allowed us to have resilience to crises,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told Haaretz during his visit to Israel last week.

Like the rain, life has returned in the cities of Gondar and Bahir Dar, the main cities of the Amhara region in the northwestern part of the country. Businesses are open and the streets are full of pedestrians. These are the same streets that were flooded with armed soldiers during the state of emergency the government declared last fall, after months of protests that were violently suppressed.

Hundreds were killed and thousands are still in prison after two years of protests by the country’s two largest ethnic groups – the Oromo and Amhara. The state of emergency has been eased somewhat, but it was still extended at the end of March by a further four months.

But Desalegn insists there are no ethnic tensions in his county. All ethnic groups in Ethiopia have the right to self-determination, he said, “up to secession.” Reports of ethnic tensions and repression are “fake news,” he said, explaining that those involved are a small group of extremists and “provocations from abroad, coming from the U.S. and Britain” through social media. According to Desalegn, those responsible are people in political exile who fled the country after the toppling of the communist military dictatorship that ruled the northeast African country until 1991.

Desalegn also rejected accusations by international human rights groups – including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – regarding the number of political prisoners in Ethiopia. “There is no political prisoner in my country,” he said. “There are only criminals put in prison by the courts.”

Ethiopia’s high place on the list of countries that imprison journalists doesn’t concern him, either. “We don’t repress freedom of speech. You can criticize the government and expose corruption,” he said. “There are a large number of private TV stations.”

The Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Its light rail transit system is changing the face of public transport in a city where almost 60 percent of the population walks to their destination.Mulugeta Ayene/AP

According to Desalegn, the “journalists” who are in prison are working for armed militias backed by the Eritrean government, which is trying to undermine the stability in Ethiopia. “They are terrorist groups, not journalists,” he said.

Desalegn strongly rejected the idea of allowing international oversight of the human rights situation. “Do you allow [people] in your country for external investigation?” he asked rhetorically. It’s a question of sovereignty and national honor, he noted. “Ethiopia is a country which has never been conquered. We fight those kinds of people who think they are the neat ones, they are the perfect ones, while in their own cities there are a number of human rights violations taking place by their own security forces. We have a system to check. We don’t want anyone to check for us. As for criticism from the international community, let them do their own job in their countries,” he said.

Such scorn for international human rights groups sounds familiar to Israeli ears. The importance of Ethiopia as an island of stability in one of the stormiest regions in Africa, its key role in fighting terror in the Horn of Africa and its great contribution to peacekeeping forces in the region, restrict international criticism of the country’s human rights track record. That is true not only in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who is indifferent to the whole issue, but was also true of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, who took a major interest in human rights elsewhere.

Ethiopia can teach the West a thing or two about one aspect of human rights, though: taking in refugees. It has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia, South Sudan and even its enemy, Eritrea, in recent years.
Despite the economic burden on a developing country, Ethiopians do not intend to abandon this path. Desalegn said his country has an open-door policy: “The refugees are our brothers and sisters. We will pay any price to help them.”

Desalegn then addressed the Eritrean issue in more detail. The number of Eritrean refugees entering Israel in 2016 was zero. Refugee organizations also say there has been a sharp drop in the number of Eritreans reaching Europe. According to human rights groups, the reason for this is because the road from Ethiopia to Europe has become harder than ever – militias hound the refugees in Sudan; the security forces harass them in Egypt; and human traffickers lock them up and abuse them in Libya. But according to Desalegn the number of Eritreans fleeing their own country is rising sharply, and most of them are in Ethiopia.

While Ethiopia has been at war with the dictatorship next door since 1991 (Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993), there is still an open-door policy for Eritreans seeking to flee oppression in their country. Isolated Eritrea tightly controls all information coming out of it, which makes it difficult to properly understand the situation there. But according to Desalegn, the increasing flow of refugees – thousands of whom have entered Ethiopia in recent months – is a clear sign that “the regime in Eritrea is failing.”

While rejecting most criticism of his country as international hypocrisy, foreign provocations and fake news, Desalegn does concede that not everything is perfect. “Ethiopia is an ancient country but a young democracy,” he said. “Democracy cannot be copied, but has to be a culture.” Desalegn added that his government is working to inculcate a democratic culture, beginning in kindergarten. “Children learn how democracy works,” he enthused.

The prime minister also admitted that many improvements still need to be made in the workings of the Ethiopian parliament. In the previous election in 2015, his party garnered 100 percent of the seats in the legislature – not a sign of a healthy democracy. Members of the opposition claimed election fraud, but observers from the European Union said no significant irregularities had been documented in the voting.

Desalegn explained that the regional “winner takes all” election system is the reason for the lack of diversity in his country’s parliament. He cited the example of Addis Ababa, where his party took only 56 percent of the vote but got all of the seats. “We are working on turning the opposition support into seats in parliament,” he said.
And will the electoral reform be complete before the next election in 2020? “Yes,” the prime minister said firmly.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-1.795143

Ethiopia warns emergency drought aid to run out next month

Warder - Ethiopia's government is warning it will run out of emergency food aid starting next month as the number of drought victims in the East African country has reached 7.8 million.

An international delegation visited one of the worst-affected areas on Friday near the border with Somalia, which suffers from widespread drought as well.

Ethiopia's disaster relief chief Mitiku Kassa told The Associated Press that the country needs more than $1bn for emergency food assistance.

Seasonal rains have been critically small and local cattle are dying. The number of drought victims has risen by two million people in the past four months.

The risk of an acute food and nutritional disaster is "very high," the disaster relief chief said.

The International Organisation for Migration said hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, with the problem compounded as people pour into Ethiopia from Somalia.

A United Nations humanitarian envoy said donor fatigue and similar crises elsewhere have hurt aid efforts. Both Somalia and neighboring South Sudan are among four countries recently singled out by the United Nations in a $4.4bn aid appeal to avert catastrophic hunger and famine. Already, famine has been declared for two counties in South Sudan.

"Our main concern should be for this drought in Ethiopia not to degenerate into a famine," said the humanitarian envoy, Ahmed Al- Meraikhi. The United Nations has warned that Ethiopia's drought will pose a severe challenge to the humanitarian community by mid-July with the current slow pace of aid.

Along with the drought, Ethiopia also faces an outbreak of what authorities call acute watery diarrhea, though critics have said the government should call it cholera instead.

"I've never seen the resources so poor to respond to the crisis," the country director for aid group Save the Children, John Graham, said of the drought. "It is very worrying. These people are not going to be able to continue to survive in these dilapidated displaced people's camps. It could get very much worse. We are also worried that some of the children affected by the drought may die. Read more here