Madda Walaabuu Media Foundation is to Launch a New Program to Oromia

October 18, 2013 (ayyaantuu.com) — In September 2013, after extensive consultation, over several months, with various segments of Oromo society, a group of community leaders, human rights activists, feminists, journalists and attorneys who are committed to the principle of democracy, human rights, freedom and justice, formed the Madda Walaabuu Media Foundation (MWMF).

The name “Madda Walaabuu” encapsulates the deepest meaning enshrined in Oromo democratic values as manifested in its democratic institutions – Gadaa, Qaalluu, Ateete, Jaarsummaa. In Oromo language, the word Madda means “source” and the word Walabuu means “independence” and hence, the founders of MWMF adopted the name Madda Walaabuu to embody the essence of these values in this new critical initiative.

MWMF is a non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-profit organization, incorporated and registered in Washington, D. C., USA.  It is operated by board of directors and administrative staff under the direction of Executive Director.  The MWMF media outlets are run by experienced journalists. It is a membership based organization, which seeks the support and participation of all interested and committed Oromo and all persons of goodwill who have the desire to empower the Oromo, so that they can confront the 21^st century in their own terms.

The Oromo, although constitute the most populace nationality in the Horn and Sub-Saharan Africa,  - there are about 50 million Oromo in the region – have remained the invisible majority due to the legacy of conquest, colonization, and continued marginalization.  At the present time, the Oromo people do not have access to any source of independent media, which has the capacity to inform, educate them about their basic needs and their fundamental rights. MWMF believes that having access to independent media is an essential requirement for the survival of any indigenous nation in the 21^st Century.

MWMF is committed to creating relevant media outlets (website, radio, TV, etc.) for the purpose of elevating knowledge about the Oromo people and its neighbors in the Horn of Africa. The MWMF media outlets will specifically focus on the flagrant human right violations – past and present – against the Oromo people and other marginalized nationalities in the region. It will also work towards  making people aware of their environment and social concerns like education, health and others. It proposes to engage the Oromo at home and abroad relative to the issues, which will have profound impact on their future.  In addition, it proposes to engage Oromo neighbors regarding common interests and common strategies in facing the 21^st century.  It will engage Oromo community leaders, human rights activities, journalists, feminists and scholars in promoting Oromummaa and Oromo national unity.

Thank you,

Madda Walaabuu Media Foundation

=>ayyaantuu

Wallaggaa,Aanaa Hawaa Galaan Keessatti Ayyaana Masqalaan Wal Qabatee FDG Gaggeefameen Oromooti Hidhaman.

Onkoloolessa 18,2013 Dambi Doollo

Gabaasaa godina Wallaggaa annaa  Qellem,Hawwaa Galaan irraa boodana nu dhaqabe akka addeessuttti Fulbaana 27,2013 ayyaana masqalaa sababeeffachuun uummanni Oromoo jiraattota Hawaa Galaan ta’an walitti dhufuun sirboota aadaa Oromoo fi  qabsoo dhageessisuudhaan tokkummaa uummataa fi sochii warraaqsaa deemsisaa waan turaniif dabballootaa fi bulchitoota Wayyaanee naannichatti argaman garaa gubaa akka turan gabaafamee jira.

Haalli Oromoon ittiin ayyaana ayyaanefatuu fi sochii guyyaa masqalaa kana irratti taasise milishoota Wayyaanee biratti yakka waan jedhaniif sabboontota Oromoo kanneen ayyaana masqalaa kana irratti argaman walitti qabuudhaan reebichaan ummataq miidhuu fi namoota 40 ta’an gara mana hidhaa Dambidoollootti akka geessan gabaasi naannicha irraa nu dhaqabe addeessa.

Haala kanaan namoonni yerositti mana hidhaatti geeffaman keessaa hammi tokko akeekachiisaan gadhiifamanii kanneen hafan sochii ABO duubaan jirtu isa jedhuun yakkamuun hanga ammaa mana hidhaa diinaa keessatti argamu. Namootni gariin deggertoota ABO jedhamuudhaan hidhamanii jiran keessaa hamma tokko:-

1. Kabbadaa
2. Tamam Qana’aa
3. Eebbisaa Jiraataa
4. Balachoo Aalamuu
5. Surraa Sanbatoo
6. Gadaa Mangistuu
7. Tolinaa Tafarii
8. Mangistu Morodaa
9. Chuuchaa Shifarraa
10. Taaddasaa Tasammaa

Kanneen jedhaman aanaa Hawaa Galaan irraa mana hidhaa Dambi Doolloo keessatti kan argaman ta’uu Qeerroon godinichaa gabaasa.

=>qeerroo

Ethiopia: Political Detainees Tortured: Police Abuse Journalists, Opponents to Extract Confessions

(Nairobi) – Ethiopian authorities have subjected political detainees to torture and other ill-treatment at the main detention center in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian government should take urgent steps to curb illegal practices in the Federal Police Crime Investigation Sector, known as Maekelawi, impartially investigate allegations of abuse, and hold those responsible to account.

The 70-page report, “‘They Want a Confession’: Torture and Ill-Treatment in Ethiopia’s Maekelawi Police Station,” documents serious human rights abuses, unlawful interrogation tactics, and poor detention conditions in Maekelawi since 2010. Those detained in Maekelawi include scores of opposition politicians, journalists, protest organizers, and alleged supporters of ethnic insurgencies. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 35 former Maekelawi detainees and their relatives who described how officials had denied their basic needs, tortured, and otherwise mistreated them to extract information and confessions, and refused them access to legal counsel and their relatives.

“Ethiopian authorities right in the heart of the capital regularly use abuse to gather information,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director. “Beatings, torture, and coerced confessions are no way to deal with journalists or the political opposition.”

Since the disputed elections of 2005, Ethiopia has intensified its clampdown on peaceful dissent. Arbitrary arrest and political prosecutions, including under the country’s restrictive anti-terrorism law, have frequently been used against perceived opponents of the government who have been detained and interrogated at Maekelawi.

Maekelawi officials, primarily police investigators, have used various methods of torture and ill-treatment against those in their custody. Former detainees described to Human Rights Watch being slapped, kicked, and beaten with various objects, including sticks and gun butts, primarily during interrogations. Detainees also described being held in painful stress positions for hours upon end, hung from the wall by their wrists, often while being beaten.

A student from Oromiya described being shackled for several months in solitary confinement: “When I wanted to stand up it was hard: I had to use my head, legs, and the walls to stand up. I was still chained when I was eating. They would chain my hands in front of me while I ate and then chain them behind me again afterward.”

Detention conditions in Maekelawi’s four primary detention blocks are poor but vary considerably. In the worst block, known as “Chalama Bet” (dark house in Amharic), former detainees said their access to daylight and to a toilet were severely restricted, and some were held in solitary confinement. Those in “Tawla Bet” (wooden house) complained of limited access to the courtyard outside their cells and flea infestations. Investigators use access to basic needs and facilities to punish or reward detainees for their compliance with their demands, including by transferring them between blocks. Short of release, many yearn to be transferred to the block known as “Sheraton,” named for the international hotel, where movement is freer.

Detainees held in Chalama Bet and Tawla Bet were routinely denied access to their lawyers and relatives, particularly in the initial phase of detention. Several family members told Human Rights Watch that they had visited Maekelawi daily but that officials denied them access to their detained relative until the lengthy investigation phase was over. The absence of a lawyer during interrogations increases the likelihood of abuse, and limits the chances for documenting abuse and obtaining redress.

“Cutting detainees off from their lawyers and relatives not only heightens the risk of abuse but creates enormous pressure to comply with the investigators’ demands,” Lefkow said. “Those in custody in Maekelawi need lawyers at their interrogations and access to their relatives, and should be promptly charged before a judge.”

Human Rights Watch found that investigators used coercive methods, including beatings and threats of violence, to compel detainees to sign statements and confessions. These statements have sometimes been used to exert pressure on people to work with the authorities after they are released, or used as evidence in court.

Martin Schibbye, a Swedish journalist held in Maekelawi in 2011, described the pressure used to extract confessions: “For most people in Maekelawi, they keep them until they give up and confess, you can spend three weeks with no interviews, it’s just waiting for a confession, it’s all built around confession. Police say it will be sorted in court, but nothing will be sorted out in court.”

Detainees have limited channels for redress for ill-treatment.  Ethiopia’s courts lack independence, particularly in politically sensitive cases. Despite numerous allegations of abuse by defendants, including people held under the anti-terrorism law, the courts have taken inadequate steps to investigate these allegations or to protect defendants complaining of mistreatment from reprisals.

The courts should be more proactive in responding to complaints of mistreatment, but that can happen only if the government allows the courts to act independently and respects their decisions, Human Rights Watch said.

Ethiopia has severely restricted independent human rights investigation and reporting in recent years, hampering monitoring of detention conditions in Maekelawi. The governmental Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has visited Maekelawi three times since 2010 and publicly raised concerns about incommunicado detention. However, former detainees told Human Rights Watch that Maekelawi officials were present during those visits, preventing them from talking with commission members privately, and questioned their impact.

Improved human rights monitoring in Maekelawi and other detention facilities requires revision of two repressive laws, the Charities and Societies Proclamation and the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. These laws have significantly reduced independent human rights monitoring and removed basic legal safeguards against torture and ill-treatment in detention.

Ethiopia’s constitution and international legal commitments require officials to protect all detainees from mistreatment, and the Ethiopian authorities at all levels have a responsibility both to end abusive practices and to prosecute those responsible. While the Ethiopian government has developed a three-year human rights action plan that acknowledges the need to improve the treatment of detainees, the plan does not address physical abuse and torture; it focuses on capacity building rather than on the concrete political action needed to end the routine abuse.

“More funds and capacity building alone will not end the widespread mistreatment in Maekelawi and other Ethiopian detention centers,” Lefkow said. “Real change demands action from the highest levels of government against all those responsible to root out the underlying culture of impunity.”

=>hrw

East Africa: Ethiopian Dam Plans Spark Regional Tensions

BY REHAB ABD ALMOHSEN, 18 OCTOBER 2013

The project's potential impact on water supplies in Egypt and Sudan is causing friction, finds Rehab Abd Almohsen.

A group of Egyptian academics and experts have declared their opposition to the current plans for the US$4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - on which work has started, and which will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant when completed - because they believe it will damage their country.

Egypt's Nile Basin Group was set up to assess the possible threat from the dam, which will lie close to Ethiopia's border with Sudan. Its members warn that the structure could slash the Nile's flow, especially in Egypt and Sudan, which depend on the river's waters.

Haider Yusuf Bakheit, a Sudanese hydrologist, was reported in an article in Infrastructure News as saying that the dam "will hold back nearly one-and-a-half times the average annual flow" of the Blue Nile, one of the Nile's two main tributaries, and "drastically affect the downstream nations' agriculture, electricity and water supply".

"Given the massive size of the dam, it could lose as much as three billion cubic metres of water to evaporation each year," he warned.

Enlarged plans

There was alarm in Egypt when the plan to build the dam was announced in 2011 - with some MPs talking off the record about Egypt's right to retaliate militarily - but much of the opposition now focuses on Ethiopia's decision to increase the size of the reservoir behind the dam.

"The original plan was to create a lake that would store 14 billion cubic metres of water, which is enough to generate electricity, but then the lake's capacity was increased to 74 billion cubic metres," Nader Noureddin, a member of the Nile Basin Group and professor of soil and water resources at Cairo University, tells SciDev.Net. Planned electricity output has also risen, from 5,250 to 6,000 megawatts.

Noureddin says that when Ethiopia decided to increase the height of the primary dam from the 90 metres in the original design to 170 metres, the planners were forced to include a secondary 'saddle dam' to help confine the vast reservoir created by the main dam and prevent stored water from escaping back to the Blue Nile.

"For the first time in history, we find a secondary dam that is four times as large as the original dam, which indicates the aim behind building such a huge dam is not generating electricity, but to use the dam as a way to control Egypt," argues Noureddin. In effect, he says, it would enable Ethiopia to turn off Egypt's water supply.

He favours sticking to the dam's original height and scrapping the idea for the saddle dam.

Rapid water take

Another concern is the speed at which Ethiopia plans to fill the reservoir.

Egyptian experts say that the huge proposed reservoir would normally take up to 20 years to fill, but Ethiopia intends to achieve this in just five years, consuming about a fifth of the Blue Nile's annual flow. That, argues Noureddin, would lead to "catastrophic" impacts on Egypt's agriculture.

Mohamed Mohieddin, a social policy consultant and professor of sociology at Egypt's Menoufia University, and a member of the three-country committee that is negotiating the project's next steps, suggests asking Ethiopia to extend the time allowed to fill the main dam by five or six years.

Through the committee, Egypt would be a partner in the dam's operations and have a say in how the water is released, he tells SciDev.Net.

Tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia, the source of 85 per cent of the Nile's water, rose in June, as soon as Ethiopia started work on diverting some of the river's flow as part of the project.

Aggressive response

Both countries, as well as Sudan, see the project as affecting their national interest, which has sparked tough and aggressive comments from non-scientists.

"Egypt is always sceptical of what Ethiopia might think and do on the Nile," Tatek Kebede, the national coordinator of the Ethiopian National Youth Coalition on Climate Change, tells SciDev.Net.

He says Ethiopia is advancing economically and would not allow Egypt's diplomatic and even military pressures to deter its development ambitions, of which the dam is part.

Ethiopia's national electricity corporation has said potential buyers of electricity from the dam, scheduled for completion in 2018, include Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and maybe even Egypt.

An Ethiopian ecologist, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, tells SciDev.Net that, since construction was nearly a quarter complete, "it would be good to find common ground and it would be good for the Egyptian side to deal with their concerns by working closely with the Ethiopian government and maybe even finding a way to benefit from it".

But Noureddin blames the Ethiopian government for "raising the hope of its people to a very high level", making it hard to compromise for fear of appearing weak.

Earlier this month, Ethiopia's prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, attempted to defuse tensions by emphasising the importance of good relations with Egypt. He described the dam as a common resource that will benefit all three countries.

But with passions still running high, Ana Elisa Cascão, a programme manager at policy organisation the Stockholm International Water Institute, believes cooperation is the only solution.

"The only hope for Egypt and Sudan is to have a share in the dam by funding it, and to cooperate with Ethiopia to jointly manage the dam," she tells SciDev.Net.

The next step in this unfolding story is a meeting of the Ethiopia-Sudan-Egypt dam committee. But even that is caught up in national and regional politics: it was due to meet on 20 October but now - due to recent rioting in Sudan over the lifting of fuel subsidies - all that has been agreed is that it will take place at some point in the next few weeks.

Rehab Abd Almohsen currently holds an IDRC/SciDev.Net science journalism internship award.

=>allafrica