Month: February 2013

Ethiopia’s government plans to attract more foreign investment and boost domestic savings as it struggles to finance infrastructure and other development projects, State Minister of Finance Abraham Tekeste said.
The government is seeking “concessional loans” from development banks for roads and power lines and is “aggressively promoting” investment from Europe and the Middle East, Abraham said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa. Natural resources, improving infrastructure and cheap labor and power mean there are “bankable” opportunities in areas such as chemicals and agro-processing, he said.

Africa’s second-most populous nation plans to spend 144 billion birr ($7.8 billion) developing its economy this fiscal year as part of a five-year plan that ends in mid-2015. Investments are to be made in rail, power, sugar, roads and housing projects as Ethiopia seeks to become an industrialized middle-income nation by 2025.
“Finance has become a challenge,” Abraham said on Feb. 8. “As we intensify implementation of the plan, finance is increasingly becoming a critical constraint.”
Growth in sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-biggest economy slowed to 8.5 percent in the 12 months to July 7, the end of Ethiopia’s fiscal year, from 11.4 percent a year earlier, as agricultural productivity gains slowed, Abraham said. The expansion is expected to accelerate to more than 10 percent this year as investment in farming boosts output, he said. The International Monetary Fund projects growth will be 6.5 percent.
Plan ‘Rethink’
The government has been urged by the IMF to “rethink” its infrastructure investments and modify a requirement that commercial banks buy central-bank securities equivalent to 27 percent of the loans to help fund development projects. The Washington-based lender also advised the government to raise official interest rates, which are currently at about 5 percent.
Demand for credit from public enterprises is crimping private industry and an inflation rate well above lending rates is discouraging saving, the IMF said in October. Annual inflation slowed to 12.5 percent in January from 12.9 percent the month before, according to the country’s statistics agency.
The government will conduct a mid-term review of the five- year growth plan at the end of this fiscal year, Abraham said. Projects that boost business, such as a railway that links Addis Ababa to Djibouti, the country’s main trade route, and hydropower dams, will be prioritized, he said.
China, India
The Export-Import Bank of China loaned Ethiopia $475 million for railways in June, according to Finance Ministry data. The government is also discussing advances with India and other countries for the project, Abraham said.
While the country experienced a surge in demand for foreign exchange due to “uncertainty” at the time of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s illness and death in August, the central bank’s reserves haven’t dropped below the “critical level” of covering three months’ worth of imports, Abraham said. Ethiopia’s trade deficit was $7.5 billion last year.
Ethiopia’s national savings rate as a proportion of gross domestic product increased to 16.5 percent from 12.8 percent last year as business saved for investment, bank branches were opened, people were educated about the benefits of saving and new instruments were offered, including bonds to fund what will be Africa’s largest hydropower project, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Abraham said.
To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa at wdavison3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

BEIRUT: The first hearing for the man accused of contributing to last year’s suicide of Ethiopian domestic worker Alem Dechasa Desisa was postponed Monday until next month because of problems with paperwork.

Judge Wael Sadeq said proceedings would resume March 18, after Ali Mahfouz’ name was found to be listed incorrectly in the court’s records. Sadeq also said he had not received paperwork establishing Dechasa Desisa’s parents are her sole heirs, a status that would enable them to transfer their power of attorney to the Caritas Migrants Center.

A lawyer from the center, Joyce Geha, was present at the hearing.

Mahfouz, whose name will now be changed in the records from Ali Mahfouz Haidar to Ali Haidar Mahfouz, also requested time to find a lawyer.

Last March, a viral video showed two men forcing Dechasa Desisa into a car as she screamed and resisted outside the Ethiopian Consulate. One of the men was later identified as Ali Mahfouz, whose brother worked at her employment agency.

The incident took place in late February, and Dechasa Desisa was taken to the hospital. She took her own life while in a psychiatric institution in mid-March. Her public beating and death sparked an outcry about the treatment of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon.

At the time of Dechasa Desisa’s death, Mahfouz contended that she was mentally unstable and had previously attempted to take her own life. After the session, he brandished papers that he said showed the 33-year-old suffered from depression and that he had paid her funeral costs. They could not be independently verified.

Ethiopia’s consul general in Lebanon, Asaminew Debelie Bonssa, assured the court he would submit documents to establish power of attorney within the next two weeks, although he told The Daily Star that he had believed the paperwork was already in order.

Speaking to The Daily Star after the hearing, Mahfouz criticized the Ethiopian Consulate, calling their representatives “liars” who did not care about Dechasa Desisa when she was alive. “What embassy is this? They are liars. … He [Bonssa], who is here to complain now, refused to come downstairs to help her when I brought her to him.”

Shortly before the incident that was caught on tape, Mahfouz brought Dechasa Desisa inside the consulate, and Bonssa told Mahfouz she needed to be hospitalized.

Bonssa later expressed regret that he had trusted Mahfouz.

Bonssa declined to comment on the case except to discuss the documentation, saying it was “now with the courts.”

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on February 12, 2013, on page 4.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2013/Feb-12/206059-hearing-in-ethiopian-domestic-worker-suicide-case-postponed.ashx#ixzz2Kgz2LPPX
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

On the road to democracy and unity?
For some time now, I have been heralding Ethiopia’s irreversible march from dictatorship to democracy. In April 2011, I wrote a commentary entitled, “The Bridge on the Road(map) to Democracy”. I suggested,

We can conceive of the transition from dictatorship to democracy as a metaphorical journey on the road to progress, freedom and human enlightenment (democracy) or a regression to tyranny, subjugation and bondage (dictatorship). Societies and nations move along this road in either direction. Dictatorships can be transformed into democracies and vice versa. But the transition takes place on a bridge that connects the road from dictatorship to democracy. It is on this bridge that the destinies of nations and societies, great and small, are made and unmade. If the transition on the bridge is orderly, purposeful and skillfully managed, then democracy could become a reality. If it is chaotic, contentious and combative, there will be no crossing the bridge, only pedaling backwards to dictatorship. My concern is what could happen on the bridge linking dictatorship to democracy in Ethiopia when that time comes to pass.

In June 2012, I wrote a commentary entitled, “Ethiopia: On the Road to Constitutional Democracy”. I argued with supporting historical evidence that “Most societies that have sought to make a transition from tyranny and dictatorship to democracy have faced challenging and complex roadblocks.” Focusing on the practical lessons of the “Arab Spring”, I proposed a constitutional pre-dialogue and offered some suggestions:

The search for a democratic constitution and the goal of a constitutional democracy in Ethiopia will be a circuitous, arduous and challenging task. But it can be done… To overcome conflict and effect a peaceful transition, competing factions must work together, which requires the development of consensus on core values. Public civic education on a new constitution must be provided in the transitional period. Ethiopian political parties, organizations, leaders, scholars, human rights advocates and others should undertake a systematic program of public education and mobilization for democratization and transition to a genuine constitutional democracy. To have a successful transition from dictatorship to constitutional democracy, Ethiopians need to practice the arts of civil discourse and negotiations….”

They are pedaling backwards on the low road of dictatorship, but are we marching forward on the highway to democracy?

It is easy for some people to speak truth to power, or the powers that be. Without great difficulty, they can preach to abusers of power why they are wrong, what they are doing wrong, why they should right their wrong and do right by those they have wronged. But it is not so easy to speak truth to powers that could be, particularly when one does not know who “they” are. Instead of speaking truth to the powers that could be, I will simply ask: They are pedaling backwards on the low road of dictatorship, but are we marching forward on the highway to democracy? Where do we go (or not go) from here?

Ordinarily, this question would be put to Ethiopia’s “opposition leaders”. For some time now, I have been wondering who those leaders are and are not. In my commentary last September entitled, “Ethiopia’s Opposition at the Dawn of Democracy?”, I asked out loud (but never got answer), “Who is the Ethiopian ‘opposition’?” I confessed my bewilderment then as I do now: “There is certainly not a monolithic opposition in the form of a well-organized party. There is no strong and functional coalition of political parties that could effectively challenge both the power and ideology of the ruling party. There is not an opposition in the form of an organized vanguard of intellectuals. There is not an opposition composed of an aggregation of civil society institutions including unions and religious institutions, rights advocates and dissident groups. There is not an opposition in the form of popular mass based political or social movements. There is not…”

Stated differently, is the “opposition that amorphous aggregation of weak, divided, squabbling, factionalized and fragmented parties and groups that are constantly at each other’s throats? The grumbling aggregation of human rights advocates, civic society organizers, journalists and other media professionals and academics? The groups committed to armed struggle and toppling the dictatorship by force the opposition? Anyone who thinks or self-proclaims s/he is the opposition?” All or none of the above?

I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that the disciples of the late Meles Zenawi would have no problems explaining where they are going from here. They would state with certainty, “Come hell or high water, we’ll pedal backwards lockstep in Meles’ ‘eternally glorious’ footsteps to the end of the rainbow singing Kumbaya to grab the pot of gold he has left for us under the Grand Renaissance Dam. We will fly high in the sky on the wings of a 10, 12, 15 percent annual economic growth and keep flying higher and higher…” I say it is still better to have a road map to La-La Land than sitting idly by twiddling one’s thumbs about the motherland.

Is the question to be or not be in the opposition? What does it mean to be in the “opposition”? What must one do to be in the “opposition”? Is heaping insults, bellyaching, gnashing teeth and criticizing those abusing power the distinctive mark of being in the opposition? Is frothing at the mouth with words of anger and frustration proof of being the opposition? How about opposing the abusers of power for the sake of opposing them and proclaiming moral victory? Is opposing the abusers of power without a vision plan, a plan of action or a strategic plan really opposition?

I have often said that Meles believed he “knew the opposition better than the opposition knew itself.” Meles literally laughed at his opposition. He considered the leaders of his opposition to be his intellectual inferiors. He believed he could outwit, outthink, outsmart, outplay, outfox and outmaneuver them all, save none, any day of the week. He believed them to be dysfunctional, shiftless and inconsequential; he never believed they could pose a challenge to his power. In his speeches and public comments, he ridiculed, scorned and sneered at them. He treated his opposition like wayward children who needed constant supervision, discipline and well-timed spanking to keep them in line. Truth be told, during his two decades in power, Meles was able to outwit, outthink, outsmart, outplay, outfox and outmaneuver, and neutralize his opposition at will. Meles’ disciples today trumpet their determination to walk in his footsteps and do exactly the same thing.

Where is the “opposition” now?

Perhaps it is premature to pose the question, “Where do we go from here?” to Ethiopia’s “opposition”. It may be more appropriate to ask where the “opposition” is (is not) now. From my vantage point, the “opposition” is in a state of resignation, stagnation, negation, frustration and alienation. I see the “opposition” watching with hypnotic fascination the abusers of power chasing after their tails. The “opposition” seems anchorless, agenda less, aimless, directionless, dreamless and feckless. The “opposition”, it seems to me, is in a state of slumber, in crises and in a state of paralysis.

Time was when the “opposition” got together, stood together, put heads together, worked together, campaigned together, negotiated together, compromised together, met the enemy together and even went to jail together. Flashback 2005! The “opposition” set aside ethnic, religious, linguistic, ideological and other differences and came together to pursue a dream of freedom and democracy. That dream bound the opposition and strengthened the bonds of their brotherhood and sisterhood. The “opposition” mobilized together against factionalism and internal conflicts and closed ranks against those who sought to divide and split it. By doing so, the opposition thumped the ruling party in the polls.

In the past seven years, the dream of democracy and freedom among the “opposition” seems to have slowly faded away and the strength of its champions sapped away in mutual distrust and recrimination. Dialogue in the “opposition” has been replaced with monologue and deafening silence; action with inaction; cooperation with obstruction; coalition with partisanship; unity with division; amity with enmity and civility with intolerance.

The “opposition” wants change and rid Ethiopia of tyranny and dictatorship. But as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent. … We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The Ethiopian “opposition” needs to stand up erect and make demands with steely ackbone and stiff upper lip.

There are many ways to stand up and show some backbone. To speak up for human rights and against government wrongs is to stand up. To demand that wrongs be righted is to stand up. To open up one’s eyes and unplug one’s ears in the face of evil is standing up. To simply say “No!” even under one’s breath is standing up. Speaking truth to power is standing up. Dr. King said, “A just law is a manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” Standing up against an unjust law is standing up for justice.

In January 2011, I wrote a weekly column entitled, “After the Fall of African Dictatorships” and posed three questions: “What happens to Africa after the mud walls of dictatorship come tumbling down and the palaces of illusion behind those walls vanish? Will Africa be like Humpty Dumpty (a proverbial egg) who “had a great fall” and could not be put back together by “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men”? What happens to the dictators?”

The mud walls of dictatorship in Ethiopia have been exhibiting ever expanding cracks since the death of the arch architect of dictatorship Meles Zenawi sometime last summer. The irony of history is that the question is no longer whether Ethiopia will be like Humpty Dumpty as the “king” and “king’s men” have toiled to make her for two decades. The tables are turned. Despite a wall of impregnable secrecy, the “king’s men and their horses” are in a state of disarray and dissolution. They lost their vision when they lost their visionary. The old saying goes, “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Well, the king is no more; and the “king’s men and horses” are lost in the wilderness of their own wickedness, intrigue and deception.

The “fierce urgency of now” is upon Ethiopia’s opposition leaders to roll out their plans and visions of democracy. Now is the time for Ethiopia’s human rights advocates to bring forth their vision of a society governed by the rule of law. Now is the time for Ethiopia’s civil society leaders to build networks to connect individuals and communities across ethnic, religious, linguistic, gender and regional lines. Now is the time for Ethiopia’s intellectuals to put forth practical solutions to facilitate the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Now is the time for all freedom loving Ethiopians to come forward and declare and pledge their allegiance to a democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Now is the time to unchain ourselves from the burdens of the past. Now is the time to abandon the politics of identity and ethnicity and come together in unity for the sake of all of Ethiopia’s children. Now is the time to organize and mobilize for national unity. Now is the time for truth and reconciliation. Now is the time to assert our human dignity against tyrannical barbarity.

Now is not the time to for division, accusation and recrimination. Now is not the time for finger pointing, bellyaching and teeth gnashing. Now is not the time to remain silent. Now is not the time to turn a blind eye. Now is not the time to turn a deaf ear.

Where should we go from here?

I will try to answer my own question in brief form for now. The opposition should get on the highway that leads to democratic governance. The opposition should roll out its action plan for a democratic, post-dictatorship Ethiopia. The principal lesson to be learned from the experiences of the past seven years is that the opposition’s role is not simply to “oppose, oppose and oppose” for the sake of opposing. The opposition’s role and duty goes well beyond simply proclaiming opposition to the abusers of power. The opposition’s role goes to the heart of the future democratic evolution and governance of the country. In that role, the opposition must relentlessly demand accountability and transparency of those absuing power. The fact that the abusers of power will pretend to ignore demands of accountability and transparency is of no consequence. The question is not if they will be held to account but when. The opposition should always question and challenge the actions and omissions of those abusing their powers in a principled and honest manner. The opposition must analyze, criticize, dice and slice the policies, ideas and programs of those in power and offer better, different and stronger alternatives. It is not sufficient for the opposition to publicize the failures and of the ruling party and make broad claims that they can do better.

For starters, the opposition should make crystal clear its position on accountability and transparency to the people. For instance, what concrete ideas does the opposition have about ending, or at least effectively controlling, endemic corruption in Ethiopia. In an exhaustive 448-page report, the World Bank recently concluded that the Ethiopian state is among the handful of the most corrupt in the world. I cannot say for sure how many opposition leaders or anyone in the opposition has taken the time to study this exquisitely detailed study of corruption in Ethiopia; but anyone who has read the report will have no illusions about the metastasizing terminal cancer of corruption in the Ethiopia body politics. The opposition should issue a white paper on what it would do to deal with the problem of corruption in Ethiopia.

Speaking truth to the powers that could be

I know that what I have written here will offend some and anger others. Still many could find it refreshing and provocatively audacious. Some critics will wag their tongues and froth at the mouth claiming that I am attacking the “opposition” sitting atop my usual high horse. They will claim that I am weakening and undermining the “opposition” preaching from my soapbox. Others will say I am overdramatizing the situation in the “opposition”. Still others will claim I am not giving enough credit or am discrediting those in the “opposition” who have been in the trenches far longer than I have been involved in human rights advocacy. They will say I am doing to the opposition what the power abusers have done to them. They will say I don’t understand because I have been sitting comfortably in my academic armchair and have not been on the front lines suffering the slings and arrows of an outrageous dictatorship. Be that as it may!

Though I acknowledge such claims could be convenient diversions, there are two essetnial questions all of us who consider ourselves to be in the “opposition” can no longer ignore and must be held to answer: They are pedaling backwards on the low road of dictatorship, are we marching forward on the highway to democracy? Is the “opposition” better off today than it was in 2005?

Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.

They are virtually endless in number and in their suffering of untold ignominy they offered the world a shocking and compelling story. They are the Ethiopian women, young and middle-aged and they are Jews who migrated to Israel in search of better life and living. Instead, in their new country they were subjected to unbelievable tribulations as the white Zionists sought to establish complete control over their lives.

Israel perpetrated ‘an inconceivable crime’ against these women only because of the colour of their skin. In 2012 alone, heaven knows how many, adult Ethiopian women, irrespective of whether they were married or not, were forcibly given Depo-Provera contraceptive injections so that they cannot conceive ever in their life. The Zionist objective was to reduce black population and maintain white Caucasian hegemony in Israel by criminal infringement upon the reproductive rights of a section of Israeli population.

Under mounting pressure and criticism, Israel has admitted its crime but hasn’t yet come clean on the issue. No figures saying how many Ethiopian women were duped and given the contraceptive injection have yet been officially released. Researcher Sava Reuven, says that at least 40 women have received the shot. But journalist Gal Gabay’s “Vacuum” documentary series shown on Israeli Educational Television, said that countless new female immigrants from Ethiopia were given the injection and without their consent or knowledge.

The injections given to Ethiopian women are part and parcel of an overall Israeli attitude toward the immigrants, especially those who are not white and the Ethiopians. Ferocious incitement against these powerless minorities and neo-Nazism in Israel in the name of fulfilment of the Zionist dream has been growing in Israel since over a decade. The situation in the Zionist state is appallingly similar to that what prevailed in certain parts of England way back in 1968 in the wake of a virulent anti-immigrant movement.

The sentiment in Israel today is one of virulent bellicosity against the Ethiopian immigrants. The country resembles Germany of nineteen thirties or Britain of nineteen sixties.

In a world where apartheid has now become a taboo word racism is embarrassingly and terrifyingly too rampant to be shoved underneath the carpets. Israel is a racist nation with multiple racial fault lines perceptibly crisscrossing the society.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu was shocked to witness blatant racism in Israel which he described as: “Much like what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about”.
A survey done by Israel Democracy Institute showed that at least one third of the Jewish population in Israel is racist who do not consider either the Arab citizens or the coloured Ethiopians as Israelis.

Racism in Israel is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since the inception of the Jewish entity in 1948 and is at present alarmingly widespread. It is between the Jews and Arabs, between Jews from America and Europe, between Jews from western world and Africa and so on. So endemic is the scourge that even religious edicts have been issued, time and again, forbidding the white Jews from selling, renting and leasing out their houses and other properties not only to the Arabs but also to non-white Jews who have migrated from Africa and Asia.

Regrettably, the stony silence of the government in reaction to such edicts and the crime has made its complicity to the felony more than evident. In fact, former Israel’s justice minister Yaakov Neeman, since his appointment, has added fuel to the fire significantly which has virtually kept the depravity raging.

Studied and calculated reticence of the majority has only offered tacit support to the apartheid. Helped the ultra Rights to take over forcing the Israeli society into a state of paralysis, nay comatose. Surprisingly, even the United States, who has been lecturing the world on human rights, has been maintaining an inexplicable silence on the matter.

Racism in Israel dates back to 1948 when hundreds and thousands of Palestinians were driven out only to grab their land. Like the white settlers in South Africa Zionist pioneers, colonised a land which was already inhabited. And since then the plague has survived six decades of shameful existence assuming more insidious proportions.

Race matters in Israel which is at present predominantly white. At least 121,000 citizens of Ethiopian descent live mostly in the smaller urban areas of central Israel. In an opinion piece in Haaretz Roy (Chicky) Arad has been absolutely unequivocal. He opined that Israeli Ethiopians suffer from racism directed at African migrants. Many Ethiopians are reluctant to walk around areas like southern Tel Aviv at night, from fear of being targets of violence and racial slurs.

Israel is in the grip of a new level of racial intolerance today. ‘Today, Arab schools receive less funding than Jewish schools and Arab areas of East Jerusalem receive less municipal services’. Israeli society today is in a despicable state of decay. And for sure, had not there been the benevolence of the United States Israel would have by now been one among the failed states in the world.

In the ecstasy of sharing a new common enemy whose elimination the white Zionists feel is must. This is not only small-minded but also extremely dangerous. If this is how easily such a simple and flawed message is accepted by the Israeli audience, then what hope is there for the equally hapless Palestinians?
The author is the Opinion Editor of Times of Oman