The Rotten Foundation of Ethiopia’s Economic Boom

(Diretube) Brutal repression was the secret to the country's rapid rise. It could also bring it crashing down again. For those who would speak frankly about politics in this landlocked East African country, the first challenge is to find a safe space.

But on a recent evening in Adama, a city in the heart of a region reeling from the largest protest movement Ethiopia has faced in decades, most people seemed at ease. University students poured out of the city’s main campus, spilling into claustrophobic bars and pool halls. Others crowded around a cluster of aging taxis, jostling for a quick ride home.

Though it is one of the largest cities in Oromia — where members of Ethiopia’s Oromo ethnic group have taken to the streets in recent months in unprecedented numbers to protest their political and economic marginalization — Adama has remained mostly quiet.
Hidden beneath the casual veneer of daily life, however, lurks a deep-seated suspicion of the government, which has built a massive surveillance apparatus and cracked down violently on its opponents. Citizens feel they have to watch what they say, and where they say it. At the hangouts where crowds have gathered, a political statement might be overheard. Out on the sidewalks, government spies could be on patrol. Inside the university campus, security officials are on the lookout for suspicious behavior.

In a way, the recent unrest is rooted in Ethiopia’s rapid economic rise. The federal government claims to have notched double-digit GDP growth rates over the past decade, but its rigid, top-down approach to developing industry, and attracting foreign investment, has resulted in mass displacement and disrupted millions of lives. This, in turn, has heightened ethnic tensions that today threaten Ethiopia’s reputation for stability.
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Image:Families of those who killed in the Oromia Protest morns to their relatives

Dhimmi Dabbasaa Guyyoo Mana Murtii Keeniyaatti Laallame

Obboo Dabbasaa Guyyoo

(VOAafaanoromoo) NAAYROOBII — 

Manni murtii Keeniyaa nama Dhabamuu Obbo Dabbasaa waliin walqabatee himatame irraatti ragaa dhaggeeffate. Obbo Dabbasan nama ganna 70ti, keeniyaa erga jiraachuu jalqabanii waggaa 30 ol yoo tahu, fulbaana 27 erga ayyaana Irreechaa miseensota hawaasa baqattoota Oromoo as Naayiroobii jiraatanii waliin kabajanii booda, bakka buuteen isaanii dhabame. Ergasiis maatiin isaanii mootummaa keeniyaaf kan beeksisan yoo ta’u, haga yoonaa garuu maanguddoon kuni eessa akka jiran baruun hin dandaa’amne. Dhimma kana ka hordofaa jiru Poolisii Keeniyaa yoo ta’u, nama dhimma kanaan wal qabatee shakke jedhu irrattis Mana Murtii Naayiroobii Makadaraatti bitootessa gaafa 16/2016 ragaa dhaggeeffattee sanaan booda ammas ragaa hafe dhaggeeffachuuf beellama onkoloolessa 13, bara 2016 tti qabatee jira.

Haa ta’uyyuu malee hawaasni baqattoota Oromoo Naayiroobii jiraatan, Obbo Dabbasaa Guyyoo barbaachuudhaaf sochii gahaan hin godhamne jechuun komatu.

Obbo Dabbasaan mana obbo Shaamil Aliyyiitii bahanii dhabamani, Dhaddacha kan-irrattis akka ragaatti uffanni fi meeshaaleen aadaa Obbo Dabbasaan gaafa ayyaana irreechaa uffatanii fi qabatanii turan ka dhiyaatani yoo ta’u, dhimma kanaan wal qabatee abukaatoo obbo shaamil yoo gaafannu ‘meesholiin kuni mana obbo Shaamilitti argamuun ragaa guutuu ta’ee Obbo Shaamiliin yakkamaa hin taasisuu’ jechuun waraabbii sagaleetiin ala nuuf himanii jirani.

Maanguddoon kun Lafa Keeniyaa keessa waggaa 30 ol jiraataniiru, irra caalaas baqattoota Oromoo as Naayiroobii jiraatani duukaadha baayyee walitti siqu turani. Hawaasa baqattoota Oromoo Naayiroobii jelatti gumii aadaa fi seenaa Oromoo baqattoota barsiisu tokko kan maqaan isaa isaa Argaa fi Dhageettii jedhamu keessatti, barsiisaa fi gaggeessaa akka turan miseensi gumii kanaa kan maqaan isaanii akka dhahamu hin feene tokko nuuf himaniiru.

Dhaddacha bitootessa 16 taa’ame kana irrattis, maatiin Obbo Dabbasaa Guyyoo argamanii jirani. Mucaan isaanii ka taate Darmii Dabbasaa Guyyoo akka jettuttii, dhimma mana murtii jiru kana irraa tarii abbaan koo argamuu…. argamuu dhabuus danda’aa ani garuu hamman danda’e kophaa koo ta’us deddeebi’ee gaafataan jira jetti.

Poolisii Keeniyaas sadarkaa barbaachi maanguddoo kanaa maal irra akka jiru baruuf gaafannus, dhimmi kuni mana murtii jira kanaaf yeroodhaaf yaada itti kennuu hin dandeenyu deebii jedhu nuuf kennan. Onkoloolessa dhufus dhaddachi waa’ee dhabamuu obbo Dabbasaaf taa’u kuni kan inni walitti deebi’u, ragaa nama dhuunfaa tokkoo fi kan poolisii tokko dhaggeeffachuudhaafi.

Dhageefachuuf as tuqaa

Unrest in Ethiopia: Grumbling and rumbling

Months of protests are rattling a fragile federation

(Economist) AN OUTBREAK of public protest unprecedented in its duration and spread since the ruling party took power in Ethiopia in 1991 is stirring a rare cocktail of discontent. Demonstrations started in November mainly by members of the Oromo ethnic group, which accounts for about a third of Ethiopia’s 97m-plus people, have refused to die down. Indeed, they have spread. The government has dropped its plan, the original cause of the hubbub, to expand the city limits of Addis Ababa, the capital, into Oromia, the largest of the federal republic’s subdivisions of nine regional states and two city-states. But the protests have billowed into a much wider expression of outrage. People are complaining about land ownership, corruption, political repression and poverty. Such feelings go beyond just one ethnic group.

Human-rights advocates and independent monitors reckon that at least 80 people and perhaps as many as 250, mostly demonstrators, have been killed since the protests began. The government says the true figure is much lower and instead lays stress, as it always does, on terrorist and secessionist threats to the country’s stability. It points out that foreign-owned factories have been attacked, churches burnt down and property looted by organised gangs during the protests. Last month seven federal policemen in the south were killed by local militiamen during a particularly violent wave of disturbances.

All the same, most of the protests have been peaceful. The Oromo particularly resent the sale or lease of land (almost all of which is state-owned) by the government to foreign investors. The government’s decision to shelve its master plan to expand Addis Ababa is regarded by the assorted opposition as a rare step in the right direction. But the protesters say the government must now allow Ethiopians to exercise their constitutional right to express dissent, or discontent could escalate.

The army was deployed to bolster the federal police in the south. Both are regularly accused of brutality and are generally deemed able to operate with impunity. Shooting at protesters and arbitrarily arresting them, especially if they are students, has a long tradition in Ethiopia, going back to the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1974 until its downfall in 1991.

The government is particularly suspicious of the Ethiopian diaspora, especially its representation in America, which fled abroad during that period. The foreign-based opposition, bolstered by social-media campaigners in America, is stirring things up for its own malign purposes, says the government. That, argues the opposition at home and abroad, is what it always says when seeking to discredit peaceful dissent.

In any event, tension is bound to persist because the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which takes China’s top-down style of authoritarian government as a model, is loth to loosen controls at the centre, despite the federal constitution. For their part, critics of the government cannot escape from the fact that it has until now succeeded in holding together a diverse collection of ethnic groups. Moreover, under the current government the economy has boomed and poverty has fallen sharply, though a severe recent drought is causing new problems. Neither the government nor the federal system, however imperfect, is under immediate threat.

Meanwhile Western governments, with America and Britain to the fore as large donors of aid to Ethiopia, have been notably silent about the turmoil. In a region battered by terrorism and violence in such nearby places as Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia, Ethiopia is still regarded as an anti-terrorist bulwark.