Godina addaa Finfinnee Sulultaa Keessatti Hojjettootii fi Barattooti Lammii Oromoo Ta’an Irratti Qormaati Addaa Akka Gaggeefamaa Jiru Gabaafame.Sababa Kanaan Barattooti Lamas Hidhaman.

Qeerroo godina addaa naannowaa Finfinnee magaalaa Sulultaa irraa Bitootess 13/2014 gabaasee jiruun kanaan dura sochiilee mirga abbaa biyyummaa fi Oromommaa falmachuun Oromiyaa keessatti baldhinaan deemaa jiranii fi Yuuniversitiilee fi manneen barnootaa garagaraa keessatti FDG qabatee jiru hanga ammaatti wal harkisee itti fufaa kan jiru gabaasaan isaa bakka karaa adda addaatiin dhiyaataa jira. Gama kaaniin diddaaleen Qeerroon ona Sulultaa gaggeessaa ture addattis aanaalee Akaakoo,Gullee fi kkf gabaafamaa ture.

Kanumaan wal qabatee yeroo ammaa mootummaan Wayyaanee hojjetoota waajirtoota adda addaa irraa hojjetan kanneen lammiin Oromoo ta’an qorannaa cimaa irratti adeemsisaa ture ammas bifa hin beekamneen itti jira. Torbeewwan kana keessaa Bitooteessa gaafa 12 fi 1aanaa Galaanoo Sabooraa; mana barumsaa Galaanoo Sabooraa kutaa 11 fi 12 baratan top-ten(barattoota sadarkaa qaban) kana jechuun barattoota barumsaan dandeettii qaban kan sadarkaa qaban guyyoota lamaan kana irratti dhimma barumsaan kan wal qabate wal gayii isaan waliin adeemsisani turaniiru.

Barattootni lakoofsaa mana barumsaa kana irraa wal gayii kanaaf carraa argatan hanga nama 52 yoo ta’an barattootni dhimma wal gayii sanii ykn ajandaa jalee Wayyaanee kanaa diiguu fi akkasuma carraa argatan kanatti gaaffii gaafatamuu qaban rakkoolee mootummaan wayyaanee ilmaan Oromoo irraan gahaa jiru, saaminsa lafaa,ariyamuu barataa,hoj-dhabdummaa irratti qixa godhachuudhaan gaaffiwwan kanneen kaasuun guyyaa jedhame kana irratti barattoota kanaan gaaffii kanaan wal qabatee diddaa guddaan ka’e, barattoota kana keessaas baratoota hedduu cimoo ta’an nama lama yeroodhaaf qorannee barumsa keessaniitti deebitu jedhuudhaan mana hidhaa magaalichaatti darbamani jiru,

1. Barataa Dhugumaa Ifaa-kutaa 11ffaa
2. Barataa Geetuu Kaffaalee-kutaa 12 ffaa iraa baratan kanneen lamaan gaaffii ABOn amma fudhatee ka’ee jiru gaafachaa jirtu isintu adda dureedha jedhanii qorannoodhaan dhiyeessanii hanga ammaatti mana hidhaa keessatti akka qoratamaa jiran Qeerroon magaalaa godina addaa Finfinnee Sulultaa irraa gabaasee jira.

=>qeerroo

Oromo Demonsteretion on March 14, 2014 in Hamar, Norway

How Western Aid Money Is Inadvertently Funding Human Rights Abuses In Ethiopia

by Philippa Baines

Ethiopia currently has claim to the fastest growing economy in Africa, but corruption and controversial forced-resettlement programmes still mar the country's progress...

The Lower Omo valley is a ‘prehistoric site’ near the border with Kenya in southwestern Ethiopia. It is home to nearly half a million people from eight of the key tribal groups including the Suri, Mursi, Bodi, Kwegu, Karo, Nyangatom, Daasnach and Turkana. A significant number of them rely on flood retreat cultivation for their livelihood, a tradition that’s been practiced for hundreds if not thousands of years. This fertile soil has caught the eye of corporations looking to use the land for sugar plantations.

Not one to miss a good moneymaking opportunity, the Ethiopian government has been evicting tribal groups, without consent, forcing them to live in camps in a process known as ‘villagisation’. Once resettled, locals have to give up their traditional way of life and survive off government aid. The process of resettlement has been carried out by the Ethiopian military. ‘Those who oppose their demands often have their grain reserves and valuable pastoral land destroyed’ according toSurvival International’s expert Elizabeth Hunter. The activity has come hand in hand with reports of human rights violations, including ‘beatings, killings, rapes, imprisonment, intimidation, political coercion and the denial of government assistance’.

‘When the government came here they brought us only bad things…. When they got out their vehicles, they were carrying guns in a threatening manner… They went all over the place and they took the wives of the Bodi – and raped them… They then came and they raped our wives here.’ Said a Mursi tribesman to an investigator from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

This 2012 investigation was launched after public concern that US and UK foreign aid money was being used to support forced and the related human rights abuses. As one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of just $410 per annum, Ethiopia currently receives the second largest amount of aid in Africa at $3.5 billion in 2011, with $791 million from the US. Funding has been directed at development projects to improve the country’s education, healthcare and industry. Unfortunately for the tribes of the Omo, some of the money is being manipulated to support the government’s resettlement process.

In a report called ‘Waiting Here For Death,’ Human Rights Watch noted that foreign donors in the east of Ethiopia in Gambella are ‘…paying for the construction of schools, health clinics, roads and water facilities in the new [resettlement] villages. They are also funding agricultural programmes directed towards resettled populations and the salaries of the local government officials who are implementing the policy.’ Survival’s Elizabeth Hunter says, ‘it’s a similar story in the Lower Omo valley, development money is helping to fund the villigisation process and the human rights violations that accompany it.’ The World Bank’s Pastoral Community Development Project in the Lower Omo for example, has been funding the infrastructure for the villigisation programme of tribal groups.

Luckily, on 27th January US Congress took an unprecedented stand against the resettlements in Ethiopia. It passed an Appropriations Bill to ensure aid going to the country won’t be used to kick Lower Omo tribespeople off of their land. This means development projects can only be funded when they’re supporting the livelihoods of indigenous groups, not destroying them. It’s been called a ‘landmark decision’ and campaigners hope that it will inspire other governments – particularly the UK’s – to follow suit.

Whilst this bill is good news, it could well be the case of too little too late. The driver of the resettlement schemes is the Ethiopian government’s hell-bent ‘Growth and Transformation Plan’. It aims to increase the country’s agricultural growth by 8.1% every year between 2010-2015 and to improve the country’s economy. Between 2007-2013, Ethiopia’s GDP has skyrocketed with a 93% growth in just 6 years. It’s why some people have started calling the Ethiopian economy ‘African Lion’ and explains how the country is currently ‘creating millionaires at a faster rate than any other country on the continent.’ Superficially, this is great news but the human and environmental cost of such fast growth is alarming.

To achieve targets, the government needs more fertile land with an irrigation source and there’s plenty of that in the Lower Omo valley. The forced resettlements in the region are also intrinsically linked to other nearby development projects. The controversial Gibe III dam is Ethiopia’s largest investment project to build a hydroelectric dam across the Omo river. It will have a two-fold effect, 1) double Ethiopia’s electricity capacity and 2) regulate water for industrial agriculture downstream. This dam will eventually transform the UNESCO heritage Lower Omo valley into a plethora of sugarcane and biofuel farms.

Back in 2010, the former Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi famously declared he would finish the dam ‘at any cost’ and his successor is staying true to the former PM’s word. The government violated its own domestic and environmental laws to begin construction and since the start of the project in 2006, it has recently reached 75% completion. Another factor sealing the Lower Omo tribes’ fate is the availability of investments from countries with scant regard for human rights. Chinese funding bodies and Indian banks are reported to have shown interest in plantations in the region. Already a Malaysian company has created a sugarcane plantation on tribal land in Koka. Their operation has come hand in hand with reports of ‘massacres’ of local tribespeople.

Whether the US bid to help indigenous groups of the Lower Omo valley will have much effect against the corrupt forces driving Ethiopia’s economy is yet to be determined, but the outlook is bleak. Back on the ground, the tribal groups remain determined. In the words of a Mursi ‘If my land is taken, I’m going to die fighting for it’.

Photo credit: Eric Lafforgue

=>sabotagetimes

Egypt, Ethiopia at loggerheads over Nile River

WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE / AFP/GETTY IMAGES/FILE PHOTO

Ethiopia has begun diverting the Blue Nile as part of a giant dam project that is creating tension with Egypt

Cairo worries Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a $4-billion hydroelectric project, could choke the downstream flow of Nile River.

By: Keith Johnson Foreign Policy magazine

WASHINGTON—Egypt’s musical-chairs government faces enough challenges. So why is a construction project almost 3,000 kilometres from Cairo provoking fears over Egypt’s national survival?

Egypt and Ethiopia are butting heads over the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a $4-billion hydroelectric project that Ethiopia is building on the headwaters of the Blue Nile, near the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.

Cairo worries the megaproject, which began construction in 2011 and is scheduled to be finished by 2017, could choke the downstream flow of the Nile River right when it expects its needs for fresh water to increase.

Brandishing a pair of colonial-era treaties, Egypt argues the Nile’s waters largely belong to it and that it has veto power over dams and other upstream projects.

Ethiopia, for its part, sees a chance to finally take advantage of the world’s longest river, and says the 6,000 megawatts of electricity the dam will produce will be a key spur to maintaining Africa’s highest economic growth rate and for growth in energy-starved neighbours.

The dispute has heated up again, after a fresh effort to iron out the differences at the negotiating table collapsed. Egypt has sought to get the United Nations to intervene, and reportedly asked Ethiopia to halt construction on the dam until the two sides can work out an agreement, which Ethiopian officials rebuffed.

A former Egyptian irrigation minister said this week that Egypt is doing too little to forestall the dam, and highlighted the risks to the country’s water supply. Italy’s ambassador to Egypt has reportedly offered Italian help in mediating the showdown; an Italian firm is constructing the dam.

The dam has been a glimmer in Ethiopia’s eye since U.S. scientists surveyed the site in the 1950s. A lack of cash and Egypt’s strength forestalled any development — but that appears to have changed in the wake of the Arab Spring and Egypt’s three years of domestic political upheaval.

For most of the 20th century, Egypt and Sudan divvied up the Nile’s water between them. A 1929 treaty with British African colonial possessions gave Egypt the right to more than half the river’s flow; a 1959 treaty upped Egypt’s share to about 66 per cent. The rest was allocated to Sudan. Ethiopia, whose highlands are the fount of most of the Nile’s waters, was excluded from discussions.

“It is only Egypt and the Republic of Sudan that consider the 1929 and 1959 agreements as legally binding on all the Nile River riparian states,” John Mbaku of the Brookings Institute Africa Growth Initiative, said in an interview.

“The Ethiopians may have undertaken what appears to be unilateral action because of Cairo’s unwillingness to join other riparian states in renegotiating” those accords, he said.

Ethiopia began pushing back seriously after concluding its own water rights deal with other upstream nations, such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in 2010. It laid the first stone on the construction project in the spring of 2011 and says the dam is now about one-third complete.

“With all of the chaos in Egypt, Ethiopia caught a break. It has clearly benefitted from the distractions of the government in Cairo,” said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia.

In 2012, Sudan threw its weight behind the project, driving a wedge between the two downstream users of the river and complicating Cairo’s hopes to block construction.

Egypt’s fears stem from the dam’s possible impacts on the Nile as it flows downstream through Sudan and eventually to the Mediterranean. The Nile provides both water for Egyptian agriculture, and also electricity through Egypt’s own Aswan dam.

The big problem: there has been no public discussion of the downstream impacts of the Ethiopian project. An international panel of experts, including representatives from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, presented a report last summer to the three governments, but it has not been made public.

Leaks of the report suggested that Egyptian power generation could indeed suffer — but the lack of clarity muddies the issue even for water experts, because it is unclear just how quickly Ethiopia might move to fill the dam’s reservoir after construction is finished.

Filling it sooner would choke water flows downstream, but would enable power generation more quickly; filling it gradually would push back the potential benefits of the dam for decades.

Jennifer Veilleux, a PhD candidate at Oregon State University who has done extensive field work on the impacts of the Blue Nile dam, notes that Egyptian fretting about the dam’s impact on agriculture tends to focus on poor farmers.

But Egypt has used the abundant Nile waters to become a major exporter of water-thirsty crops, such as cotton, which in turn has given Egypt the highest level of economic development among all Nile Basin countries.

“Why does Egypt have the right to use the Nile for economic development, yet the Ethiopians don’t?” she asks.

=>thestar