ETHIOPIA DETAINS JOURNALISTS COVERING OROMO PROTESTS

BY CONOR GAFFEY

A woman and her child await medical attention in Oromia, Ethiopia, January 31. A severe drought and anti-government protests in Oromia have increased restrictions on press freedom in Ethiopia, according to a journalists' association.EDMUND BLAIR/REUTERS

(Europe.newsweek) Press freedom in Ethiopia is dwindling in light of recent anti-government protests and the severe drought in the Horn of Africa state, according to a journalists’ association.

Two journalists and a translator were arbitrarily detained for 24 hours on Thursday when reporting on the protests in Oromia, according to a statement issued by the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of East Africa (FCAEA) on Monday. Bloomberg correspondent William Davison and freelance journalist Jacey Fortin, along with their translator, were not given any reason for their detention. Their phones and identification cards were taken during the arrest.

Protests among the Oromos, who constitute Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, have been ongoing since November 2015 and were originally directed against plans by the federal government to expand the capital Addis Ababa. At least140 protesters were killed between November 2015 and January, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The Addis expansion plans were dropped in January but the protests—which have morphed into a general expression of dissatisfaction with the government among Oromos—have continued and demonstrators are still being subjected to “lethal force,” HRW said on February 22. The Ethiopian government has said that “destructive forces” —including some from neighboring Eritrea—have hijacked the protests and would be dealt with decisively.

Davison told Newsweek that the risks of reporting on certain topics in Ethiopia is too high because of the threat of detainment. “It was a shock to be held overnight in a prison cell and not be given any explanation of what we were being held for,” says Davison. The “very heavy and militarized response” to the Oromo protests “raises the chance that reporters are going to be obstructed from doing their work,” he says.

The FCAEA said that the detentions marked “a worrying escalation” in Ethiopia, which already has a poor record for allowing journalists to operate freely. Ethiopia was ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom in 2015 by non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders, which recorded six newspapers closing and more than 30 cases of journalists fleeing abroad in 2014. “Ethiopia is well-known for its tough stance on journalists but this is a worrying spike of arbitrary detention of media workers at a time of increased interest in Ethiopia,” says Ilya Gridneff, chairman of FCAEA. “Journalism is not a crime and those in Ethiopia should not be treated as criminals.”

Newsweek contacted the Ethiopian Embassy in London but was yet to receive a reply at the time of publication.

Coupled with the Oromo protests, Ethiopia is currently experiencing its worst drought in around 50 years, partly due to the El Nino weather pattern. Up to 15 million people in the country require emergency humanitarian food assistance and the United Nations is appealing for $50 million to help the government cope with the crisis.

Ethiopia — March 2016 Update

(Crisis.acleddata) Ethiopia has been subject to a wave of political violence and protest for the past three months. Demonstrations against the Ethiopian government’s ‘Addis Ababa and the Surrounding Oromia Special Zone Integrated Development Plan’ — a program designed to expand the capital, Addis Ababa, into the neighbouring hinterland — is the reason for this unprecedented civil unrest (Africa Confidential, 18 December 2015). Violence against protesters and civilians by security forces accounts for 50% of fatalities in 2016. In spite of the severity of the actions of the security forces, the demonstrators have generally not reacted with violence. Over 90% of recorded demonstrations have involved peaceful protesters.

This proposed expansion would come at the expense of the surrounding territory which is currently under the jurisdiction of the Oromo state; this has provoked widespread demonstrations from students and farmers in the Oromo region. The protests started in Ginci where students demonstrated against the sale of Ginci stadium and the clearing of local forest for the proposed expansion (Africa Confidential, 18 December 2015). The protests soon spread to most major towns across the Oromo region (see Figure 1). This in turn spurred a crackdown by security forces.

Political contestation and violence in Ethiopia has generally been limited to clashes, primarily between weakened ethnonational rebel movements such as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) or Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLA). These events are 40% and 70% of annual activity for nearly every year between 1999 and 2015 (with the exception of 2006). While these insurgencies can be costly in terms of fatalities, attacks have been sporadic and no insurgent group has mounted a serious challenge to the state.

In contrast, the demonstrations challenge the constitutional arrangement of land, identity and ownership in modern Ethiopia. The 1991 constitution declares land as common property of the nations and nationalities of Ethiopia, in short, no part of the land in Ethiopia belongs to a particular ethnic group though the state owes compensation to the owner of any land seized (Andargie, 2015). Nevertheless, the scale and distribution of the protests across the Oromo region (see Figure 3) and the composition of the protesters (primarily Oromo students and farmers) has shown the state that much of the public feels differently.

In spite of attempts to cast the protesters as terrorists or agents of the OLF, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its local Oromo coalition partner, the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), have had to acquiesce to the demonstrators demands and cancel the Masterplan (HRW, 2016; BBC News, 13 January 2016). OPDO has often been perceived as a tool of indirect rule through which the EPRDF can impose its will on Ethiopia’s most populous region (Gudina, 2007). However, these protests may reverse this relationship with OPDO operating as an intermediary between the government and the Oromo people.

This report was originally featured in the March ACLED-Africa Conflict Trends Report.