Eritrea threatens Ethiopia

The Eritrean representative at UN said If Ethiopia wants peace and stability in the region...watch the clip.





The Ethiopian counterpart responded with the following...

Why we must engage on our Forum

By Tim Lam, Sara Jacobs, Samuel Roth, Mishaal Khan, Iman Nanji, Emily Tamkin, Chris Chan, Alisa Lu, and Alex Frouman
Over the past week, Ethiopian, East African, and human rights organizations all over the world have published a flurry of open letters, condemning Columbia’s decision to host Prime Minister of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi at this week’s World Leaders Forum. The letters reopen the old, rankling, and unsettled debates raised by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2007 visit, questions about whether it is in line with the University’s mission and stature to invite controversial—some would say dictatorial—world leaders to speak to students and faculty members on campus. As these questions reemerge, the Columbia Political Union wishes to express its position that the invitation of Zenawi, and all events fostering political dialogue and awareness, are both in tune with our own mission and that of the University as a whole.
Yet, such events may only be beneficial to students and the world when the University serves as a neutral and critical moderator. In this light, the previous inclusion of an unedited quote from the Ethiopian government’s mission on the WLF’s online event description must be described as an unfortunate and sullying gaff. The unqualified statement implied University support for Zenawi and his government. The retraction of the quote and the reaffirmation in a statement by Columbia’s Director of Media Relations, Robert Hornsby, that the University remains a neutral party and that Zenawi’s speech will be followed by an open question-and-answer period, have done much to assure that the event will, in line with the goal of WLF, “advance lively, uninhibited dialogue.” Still, the mishap has raised reasonable doubts.
CPU maintains that this event can prove beneficial, especially in exploring the criticisms of Zenawi used to urge Columbia to reconsider its invitation. Detractors accuse Americans of viewing Zenawi, an American ally in Africa, without scrutiny—and this is fair. His is not a name to make the major news cycles, not a name to enter daily conversation like Ahmadinejad’s. Profiles of the man in the West are a mixed bag—questioning his two-decade tenure and his treatment of opposition parties and the press, but applauding his push for stability, economic growth, and self-sovereignty. Most Americans could not tell their East African counterparts whether they consider the man a dictator, or a democrat in the throes of difficult national transitions.
Giving such a man a podium does not mean endorsing his ideas, as has been argued. It does, however, mean drawing attention to the man. And as long as we are true to our spirit—and Hornsby holds his word that a free and robust questioning of Zenawi occurs, possibly forcing him to confront with candor the questions he may be able to avoid in his own nation—that attention will hopefully lead to reflection and investigation in the news cycle, and among individuals at Columbia and beyond, which will benefit the world.
True, if Zenawi is a dictator, he may spin the event any way he likes at home, casting this as an endorsement. But spin is spin, and a dictator seeking self-legitimation will find it somewhere. Weighing the benefit of awareness, dialogue, pressure from our corner, and the manipulation of that dialogue by outside sources is a complex calculation. But to shy from controversy, to avoid engaging with a tricky situation, to cease even trying to support uninhibited and fruitful dialogue in the world, would be misguided and out of line with our mission as a group, and Columbia’s as an institution. As long as the exchange is truly free, spirited, and critical, it is wise to err on the side of engagement.
Sara Jacobs is the general manager. Emily Tamkin is the director of operations and the Spectator editorial page editor. Alex Frouman is the treasurer. Mishaal Khan is the events coordinator. Alisa Lu is the director of communications. Samuel Roth is the publisher and a member of the Spectator editorial board. Tim Lam is the CubPub.org blog editor-in-chief. Chris Chan is the technical director. Iman Nanji is the publisher of the Columbia Political Review. Mark Hay is the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Political Review.

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Hung up on the Horn of Africa: We should let the fractious region go its own way

With the exception of countries the United States has wrecked through wars — Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan — the area where we have done the most damage in recent years probably is the Horn of Africa. The Horn of Africa is generally defined to include Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, the “horn” part referring to the fact that the African coastline in the northeast takes that shape. Looking at the region strategically, Sudan belongs to the Horn as well.

I take full responsibility for my own part in what has occurred in the Horn, having served as U.S. ambassador and special envoy to Somalia during the relatively ruinous years of 1994 and 1995, but there is a fundamental problem for the United States in devising policy toward the area: The people there have an unfortunate, pronounced predisposition to settle problems among themselves by warfare and violence.

They are fractious and heavily armed. If they ever lack arms, they do not hesitate to sell whatever they have to sell to get them — including their allegiances or humanitarian food deliveries from abroad intended for their hungry populations. The regime of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a sometime-favorite of American leaders, provided the most recent example.

The people of the Horn are also enterprising in getting assistance, including military assistance, from American administrations. It took the Ethiopians and some of the Somalis no time to figure out that America’s hot button since 9/11 has been “Islamic terrorism.” Suggesting that one’s enemy was infected by — or even in touch with — al-Qaida or some other radical Islamic group was enough not only to get U.S. military aid, but even to get the Americans to attack the enemy in question.

That particular vulnerability on America’s part has become even more severe in recent years as the U.S. military has come to play a large role in determining and carrying out U.S. policy in the Horn. Part of this phenomenon is an accident of history.

For many years the United States had no military command dedicated to Africa. When I was deputy commandant of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., in 1993-1994 I wrote a monograph in which I noted that there were military commands for Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia but none for Africa. This, I argued, was to slight Africa: It showed a lack of respect that there was no military-to-military contact and none of the ample Department of Defense resources flowing to Africa.

The Pentagon, certainly not because of my advocacy, created an African Command in 2008. Because none of the African countries where AFRICOM might have liked to have been located wanted its headquarters, AFRICOM continues to be based in Germany. Its one base in Africa is in Djibouti, in the Horn.

In late 2006, claiming radical Islamic activity in Somalia, Ethiopia, backed by U.S. arms, aircraft, intelligence and possibly special operations forces, invaded Somalia. The Somalis hate the Ethiopians a lot, dating in part from the 1970s when the United States supported the Ethiopians against them, then switched sides and supported the Somalis in a Cold War-era regional war. Eventually the Somalis “convinced” the Ethiopians to go home in 2009.

The bad part for the Somalis came in the fact that the only stable government it’s had since its armies forced dictator Mohamed Siad-Barre out in 1991 was an Islamic Courts regime that was in power in Mogadishu for the six months preceding the Ethiopian invasion. This government was relatively moderate in Islamic terms. (When I was in Somalia in the 1990s, Somalis in general were moderate Sunni Muslims. The women did not go veiled, wore bright colors and played public roles in society.)

By the time the Ethiopians had been driven out, the Islamic Courts had morphed into the more radical and religiously rigid al-Shabab. In the meantime, the world had organized a Somali “transitional” government in Kenya — after years of arm-twisting and bribes — that was installed in Mogadishu under foreign, African Union protection. The members of this “government,” busily fighting among themselves, are now cornered in a few square blocks in Mogadishu, and the African Union troops, from Uganda and Burundi, are cursing the day they got dragged into the intra-Somali conflict.

My guess is that pretty soon al-Shabab will overrun the transitional government enclave, forcing the flight of the fickle government forces and obliging the AU to leave. I fervently hope the Americans at the base in neighboring Djibouti do not intervene to help the government hold on against the al-Shabab forces. But I don’t rule that out.

In the meantime, elsewhere in the Horn, Ethiopia and Eritrea, both with undemocratic, heavy-handed governments, continue to quarrel with each other as they have since Eritrea’s breakaway from Ethiopia in 1993. Djibouti hangs on — a tiny, reasonably democratic state of 850,000 living like a chihuahua sleeping among pit bulls.

Sudan is what needs to be watched now. The basic problem there is that an agreement brokered in 2005, including by the United States, provides for the people in the south to vote on independence in 2011. The South undoubtedly will choose independence. But the current government is based in the north, in Khartoum, and most of the country’s oil wealth is located in the south — a recipe for conflict. The Obama administration is having internal policy differences over what U.S. policy toward Sudan should be.

I would suggest that Sudan’s fate is, almost entirely, none of America’s business. Last of all should U.S. military resources based in Djibouti come into play in seeking to determine one outcome or another in Sudan.

Just because you think you can do something doesn’t mean you should, particularly in the Horn of Africa.

By Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Alemayehu G. Mariam: Ethiopia: Indoctri-Nation

The Ministry of Indoctrination This past week Ethiopia's Ministry of Education issued a "directive" effectively outlawing distance learning (or education programs that are not delivered in the traditional university classroom or campus) throughout the country. According to reports, the directive of the Ministry's Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency (HERQA) prohibits enrollment of new students in all distance education programs. It also creates a monopoly for state-controlled universities to administer the disciplines of law and teaching. There are said to be 64 private institutions serving some 75,000 students throughout the country that are impacted by the directive. The reason for the sudden and radical change in policy is said to be concern for educational quality. Ministry spokesman Abera Abate painted all private distance learning institutions in the country with a broad brush by categorically condemning them as scams and diploma mills. "When the purpose is collecting money, it is not a good purpose. The only issue some universities have is collecting money." Of course, the directive does not apply just to "some" universities whose "purpose is collecting money"; it applies to all distance education providers in the country. The response from the various private educational service providers was swift. Wondwosen Tamrat, president of St Mary's College and former chairman of the General Assembly of the Ethiopian Private Higher Education Institutions Association (EPHEIA) described the directive as "ridiculous. The [regime's] inability to enforce the quality standards already set should not lead to these kind of measures... We have participated in the legal education reform programs, and our college issues a biannual law journal...In fact, in this area, it is public institutions that are suffering ...Full story

UN reveals global disparity in broadband access

By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News

Africa is now encircled with high-speed internet cables

The global disparity in fixed broadband access and cost has been revealed by UN figures.

The Central African Republic is the most expensive place to get a fixed broadband connection, costing nearly 40 times the average monthly income there.

Macao in China is the cheapest, costing 0.3% of the average monthly income.

Niger becomes the most expensive place to access communication technologies, when landlines and mobiles are also taken into account.

"Access to broadband in an affordable manner is our greatest challenge," Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), told BBC News.

The statistics were released ahead of the UN 2010 Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York on 19 September.
Continue reading the main story
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* Mapping the growth of the internet
* Mobile banking closes poverty gap
* Broadband 'legal right' for Finns

Remote care

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of targets intended to reduce global poverty and improve living standards by 2015.

Specific goals target education, fighting disease and promoting gender equality.

Access to communications technology is a part of one of the targets.

With five years to go until the deadline to achieve the goals, progress remains uneven. Some countries have achieved many of the goals, while others - mostly in the developing world - may not realise any.

Many development experts question how the goals will be achieved and how they will be paid for. Some even question whether the approach is neccessary or helpful.

But Dr Toure said that he believed technologies such as broadband could be used to "accelerate" progress on the goals and help countries achieve them.
Men sell phone credit (Kiwanja) Mobile phones have proliferated throughout Africa and the world

"Unfortunately many observers will say that we run the risk of not meeting the goals. But I think the focus should be on how we meet the goals," he said.

"I am putting ICT [Information and Communication Technologies] as an opportunity of meeting the goals."

In particular, he said, broadband and connectivity could be used to develop e-health and e-education programmes.

He said broadband would allow people in rural and remote areas to access "state of the art" health facilities and doctors.

"You will also be able to ensure that students around the world will have access to the best universities at their fingertips," he said.

"That can only be done if [connectivity] is accessible and affordable."

Claire Godfrey, senior policy advisor for Oxfam, agreed that technology could help accelerate progress on the MDGs but said "the root causes of poverty must be addressed first", including "access to clean water, adequate food, free healthcare and education".

"Rich countries' governments need to meet their aid commitments, with sustainable, well-targeted and predictable aid and they need to help poorer countries to make health care and education free," she told BBC News.
Cheapest fixed line broadband as proportion of monthly income
Rank Country Price as % of monthly income B'band subscriptions per 100 inhabitants...Full story

Ethiopians Continue to Suffer in Middle East: Five Die in Saudi Prison | NewBusinessEthiopia


Five Ethiopians died in a crowded Saudi Arabia prison, which they call it ‘centre for deporting illegal immigrants’, the Arab News reported this week. Ethiopian Women Migrants Destinations by Country in 2009 The five died in the deportation centre in the southern Red Sea port of Jizan of "asphyxiation due to overcrowding," the newspaper stated quoting a local police official. “The disease-breeding situation in the center persists,” the Supervisor General of the National Society for Human Rights in Jazan, Ahmad Al-Bahkali, told Arab News. “I was totally shocked by the hundreds of people there with no sanitation facilities, and I was equally shocked by the callousness on the part of the employees there,” wrote Khaled Almaeena, Arab News Editor-in Chief, describing the worst situation of Saudi deportation center when he visited to check on his driver who was held at the deportation center at the Old Jeddah airport. “It was total anarchy. How could this happen in a country that proclaims to be following the Qur’an and the Sunnah?,” he questions. “I believe it is a crime. The explanation of acting Jazan police spokesman Abdul Rahman Al-Zahrani that they died of asphyxiation due to overcrowding should give us cause for even more concern.” “I am in agony that in this holy month of Ramadan five people whose only crime was that they were illegal migrants would meet such a horrible fate. What is even more agonizing is that these are being justified as “death by natural causes” due to overcrowding, Khaled wrote. Reports show that every month thousands of Ethiopians legally and illegally migrate to Saudi Arabia and Middle East Countries. It has now become common for Ethiopian families to receive dead bodies of their families and relatives at Bole International Airport from these countries. Monthly Ethiopian women migration to the Middle East A research done by Bina Fernandez of the University of Leeds in September 2009, entitled, “Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle-East’ shows that from 2004 – 2006 a total of 70,781 Ethiopians migrated to Middle East. Out of this 68,090 were females. They pay brokers between 100 to 750 USD dollars, according to the study, while they are only supposed to pay for their passports and medical check up. The return ticket, insurance and visa to be covered by the employer. In 1989, there was a doubling of the figures of migrants to the ME, from 1,742 to over 3,000 in 1990 and 1991; with a slightly higher percentage of male migrants. This tapered off in the rest of the nineties, with roughly stable and equal numbers of men and women. The total rose again dramatically in 2003, with 5,510 migrants leaving the country; this time, 72% of them were women, a percentage that has today increased to over 96% of official or documented migration.

Ethiopia: The Outcast August 23, 2010: Ethiopia announced that it had negotiated a peace deal with a large faction of the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front). Last month, the Ethiopians signed a peace deal with one of the smaller Somali rebels groups in Ogaden province. This area, on the Somali border, is populated largely by Somalis and has long been claimed by Somalia. There is oil in Ogaden (worth up to $100 billion or more), and Ethiopia is willing to wheel, deal and fight to protect this resource. As fierce as the Somalis are, the Ethiopians can match them in combat. So the Somalis have been offering gifts, and peace, to make deals with the Ogaden rebels. This approach has apparently included some nasty violence against Ogaden rebels, to make the point that the alternative to peace is very painful. The ONLF denies that there has been any peace deal, but the Ogaden has been quiet over the Summer, and calls talk of peace government propaganda. Lack of violence is what passes for peace in this part of the world. Eritrea continues to wallow in dictatorship, poverty and paranoia. The government is currently denying that there is a major drought and food shortage. The government's main concern is hanging on to power, and keeping opposition non-existent. The situation is not much better next door in Ethiopia, where there is a bit more prosperity, attention to the drought and political opposition. But Ethiopia also has one party rule. Nevertheless, inflation and food prices are down in Ethiopia, and up in Eritrea. While Ethiopia and Eritrea host each other's rebels, Eritrea has the most to fear from this. Ethiopia is a larger place (a million square kilometers and 79 million people, versus 118,000 square kilometers and 5.7 million), and the various rebel groups have plenty of places to hide. Not surprisingly, Eritrea is a major source of refugees in the region. Those with money flee across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and exile in the Middle East and beyond. Those without money go to Ethiopia, where the government there recently allowed these 36,000 refugees to live outside the refugee camps. Ethiopia continues to maintain thousands of troops on the Somali border. Since these troops are also in Ogaden, they keep Somalis out, and local ethnic Somali rebels under control. Islamic rebel groups in Somalia still talk of invading Ethiopia, but none have tried it in months. China has replaced Germany as Ethiopia biggest export customer. China bought 36 percent of these exports (which totaled $2 billion in the last year), the biggest item being sesame seeds. Coffee and khat (an addictive leaf that is chewed fresh to obtain the narcotic effect) are the two biggest exports overall. Eritreas economy is increasingly dependent on gifts from Iran, which uses Eritrea as a base to support Islamic radicals in the region. August 15, 2010: The ONLF claims attacks on Ethiopian troops in four Ogaden towns, killing 44 soldiers. But there was no way to confirm this, and the Ethiopians denied any such activity. The ONLF has claimed non-existent attacks in the past, and this appears to be more of them. July 29, 2010: The Ethiopians signed a peace deal with the UWSLF (United West Somali Liberation Front) to reduce the amount of violence in Ogaden. July 11, 2010: In Uganda, Somali Islamic terrorists set off several bombs, killing over 70 people. Most African nations condemned this, but not Eritrea, which supports Somali Islamic terrorist groups. Eritrea provides safe bases for Somali Islamic terrorist groups and allows illegal arms to be brought to Eritrea, where they can be flown into Somalia. In the face of these attacks on Uganda, Eritrea is even more isolated.

How Did al-Shabab Emerge from the Chaos of Somalia?

An al-Shabab fighter runs for cover near a burned African Union military tank in Mogadishu on July 2, 2010

The concerns and agenda of Somalia's al-Shabab militia are very much rooted in local politics. However, its rise to prominence is tied to decisions taken by the U.S. and its regional allies in pursuit of the Bush Administration's global war on terrorism.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. deemed the 10-year power vacuum in Somalia a potential refuge for al-Qaeda, one that prompted Washington, together with African allies, to arm and fund various Somali warlords. In 2004, some warlords were drawn together into the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). However, successive attempts to establish a government were based on clan alliance and were inherently unstable because of the zero-sum character of the clans' competition for resources. (From TIME's archive: America's misadventure in Somalia.)

The TFG failed to transcend the predatory warlord politics that had prevailed for 15 years, and in 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist alliance that eschewed the politics of clans, seized control of Mogadishu, rapidly bringing order and economic improvement to their expanding areas of control, thanks to the enthusiastic support of the Somali business community. Thousands of men and women welcomed them, clapping and singing in joy as the ICU's victory convoy coursed through formerly warring neighborhoods.

But the movement's Islamist colors, and the fact that the ICU was said to have given shelter to a handful of wanted al-Qaeda suspects, did not sit well with the U.S. State Department's sole Somalia analyst in the region at the time. And for Washington, the ICU became an intolerable alternative.

With apparent U.S. approval, Ethiopia used funds provided by Washington to buy weapons from North Korea, smuggling them in through Somaliland — a breakaway region of Somalia desperate for international recognition. The U.S. then backed an Ethiopian invasion to restore the TFG to power. During the ensuing fighting, up to 16,000 Somalis were killed and 1 million were displaced. The Islamist leadership was driven out of Mogadishu. The ICU's armed wing, known as al-Shabab (the Youth), initiated an insurgency against the Ethiopian occupation and its Somali accomplices and used tactics seen in Iraq, such as improvised explosive devices and suicide bombings. The Shabab had been a radical faction of the ICU, but was far from dominant. The Ethiopian invasion not only ended the ICU experiment in governance but also legitimized the more militant outlook of the Shabab. (Does al-Shabab want to join terror's big league?)

The resulting instability in Somalia has been infused not just with the U.S. global agenda against al-Qaeda, but also with the agendas of regional adversaries — the proxies of Ethiopia against Eritrea and even those of Egypt, Yemen and other Arab states against Ethiopia. Those agendas further complicate Somalia's political-military landscape, propelling the country into cyclical foreign interventions. If the African Union forces pulled out, the TFG would almost certainly disappear. But if the Shabab then managed to plant its flag and declare that it was in control, the U.S. would once again find the situation intolerable. Disengagement is unlikely. And every time there has been an increase of foreign involvement, the Shabab — or its equivalent — only grows and becomes more radicalized.

Is there an exit strategy? One reason the ICU was able to take power was that it provided the best environment for business, and offered a better deal for Somalis than the warlords did. Ultimately, it may be the business communities of the various clans that will be the kingmakers, and perhaps the key to stability.

Rosen is a fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security and author of the forthcoming book Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World