Ethiopian journalist on prison odyssey needs medical care

By Tom Rhodes/CPJ East Africa Representative

Berhane Tesfaye and her son, Fiteh, try to visit Woubshet Taye every week. (CPJ)

"When I grow up will I go to jail like my dad?" This was the shattering question that the five-year-old son of imprisoned Ethiopian journalist Woubshet Taye asked his mother after a recent prison visit. Woubshet's son, named Fiteh (meaning "justice"), has accompanied his mother on a wayward tour of various prisons since his father was arrested in June 2011.

Authorities have inexplicably transferred Woubshet, the former deputy editor of the independent weekly Awramba Times, to a number of prisons. From Maekelawi Prison, authorities transferred him to Kality Prison in the capital, Addis Ababa, then to remote Ziway Prison, then Kilinto Prison (just outside Addis Ababa), back to Kality, and in December last year--to Ziway again.

It is at Ziway, an isolated facility roughly 83 miles southeast of the capital, where heat, dust, and contaminated water have likely led to a severe kidney infection in Woubshet. The award-winning journalist was meant to receive medical treatment while at Kality Prison in Addis Ababa, Woubshet's wife, Berhane Tesfaye, told me, but it never took place. Suffering in such pain in his ribs and hip that he cannot sleep, Woubshet has not even received painkillers, according to local journalists who visited him.  

CPJ's attempts to reach Ethiopian government spokesman Shimeles Kemal by phone call and text message were unsuccessful.

Despite high transport costs and more than four hours of travel each way, Berhane and Fiteh try to visit Woubshet every week. Fiteh routinely becomes ill from the dust, Berhane said, and prison guards prevent Woubshet from hugging his son. Prison visits are often brief and canned, local journalists told me, as even discussions over Woubshet's health are restricted by guards assigned to monitor the conversation.

What terrible misdeeds could have triggered such a fate? Authorities sentenced Woubshet to 14 years in prison on charges lodged under Ethiopia's broad anti-terrorism law. The evidence includes email exchanges he had with Elias Kifle, exiled Ethiopian editor of the Washington-based opposition website Ethiopian Review, Berhane said. An email to Woubshet's brother in America was also cited as evidence against him, she said. After Woubshet's brother asked about their ailing father's eye operation, his reply that "the operation was done successfully" was used as an example of his terrorist activities.

Local journalists suspect the real reason lies in Woubshet's critical reporting at Awramba Times. Two weeks prior to his arrest, Woubshet published a column critical of the ruling party's performance in its two decades of rule. Another column, written in 2009, that questioned the whereabouts of former opposition party members after the 2005 elections may have also triggered his arrest, Berhane said.

While debates over the reasons for Woubshet's arrest may persist, there is one point on which all sides should agree: Woubshet must be allowed access to medical treatment. Ethiopia is a signatory to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and thus duty-bound to ensure the health of its citizens as a fundamental human right.

=>cpj

South Sudan peace talks stall in Ethiopia

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

January 8, 2014 (ADDIS ABABA) – Direct peace talks taking place in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, between the South Sudanese government and rebel representatives have stalled, dashing hopes of a speedy ceasefire agreement.

South Sudanese president Salva Kiir holds discussions in his office in Juba with his Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, on Boxing Day ahead of peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa (Photo: AFP)

The two sides failed to make any progress after they were unable to break the deadlock over the release of political prisoners being held by the government in connection with an alleged fail coup attempt.

The detainees include senior figures from South Sudan’s ruling Sudan people’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), including former secretary-general Pagan Amum.

The breakdown in talks comes amid renewed fighting between government and renegade soldiers in strategic towns of the country, threatening to plunge the world’s newest nation in to an all-out civil war.

MORE UGANDAN TROOPS

The spokesman for the rebel delegation in Ethiopia, Brigadier General Lul Raui Kong, said neighbouring Uganda has deployed more troops to South Sudan to protect major installations, including the airport.

He said the troops were deployed to South Sudan on Monday and Tuesday following a request by president Salva Kiir.

Violence broke out in South Sudan on 15 December after clashes between rival factions of the presidential guard.

Kiir has implicated his former deputy Riek Machar in the plot, with violence spreading throughout the country and dividing along tribal loyalties.

Peace talks, brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), began on Tuesday, but have already been plagued by a series of delays since the negotiating teams arrived in Addis Ababa a week ago.

Rebel representatives have insisted that all prisoners be released before truce negotiations can begin - a demand repeatedly rejected by South Sudan’s government.

The two warring sides are facing mounting international pressure to resolve the conflict

.

REBEL DEMANDS REJECTED

However, South Sudan maintains it is not willing to accept any rebel preconditions detrimental to negotiations seeking an end to the conflict.

South Sudan’s information minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, reiterated his government’s stance ahead of the closed-door talks, saying “We are ready for talks without conditions”.

He stressed that political detainees aligned with Machar would be required to answer the allegations as required under South Sudanese law.

Ethiopian officials said on Wednesday that the regional bloc had sent a special envoy to South Sudan for talks with government leaders on the possible release of the remaining nine political prisoners.

Meanwhile, Kong alleges that Ugandan military jets are bombing rebel-controlled areas, but Kampala denies the claims, saying its troops are not involved in the fighting.

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, a close ally of Kiir, has warned Machar against rejecting the ceasefire offer, raising questions of bias.

He said if Machar failed to reach an agreement on the cessation of hostilities, IGAD member states would unite to defeat him.

The UN estimates at least 1,000 people have been killed and nearly 200,000 displaced in South Sudan’s worst-ever post-independence conflict.

(ST)

=>sudantribune

Ethiopia: Deported From Saudi Arabia, Ethiopian Migrants Find Dilemma At Home

Addis Ababa — They went in a bid to escape poverty, but few really succeeded, even if they did find work. Many were abused by their employers. Now, 144,000 Ethiopians have returned home, deported from Saudi Arabia, which began a crackdown on undocumented foreign workers in November 2012.

The authorities in Ethiopia were expecting migrants to return, but, anticipating a mere 30,000, they set aside just US$2.6 million to help with reintegration.

"The assistance they are receiving now is short-term, but once they get back to their homes, they will need long-term assistance, like finding jobs and reintegrating into the community, and the government must work towards these goals," Sharon Dimanche, from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told IRIN.

The government has also banned its citizens from travelling to the Middle East, a move migration expert say will not only lead people to head for new destinations, such as Sudan, but could flout international laws on freedom of movement.

According to Chris Horwood, of the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS), the main drivers of migration from Ethiopia are "endemic poverty caused by economic inequality, poor education and training options."

He added, "We also know about pressures on access to natural resources and the impact of climate change making some areas very fragile. So people migrate as a coping strategy to poverty and lack of opportunity, and some migrants from Ethiopia particularly identify political oppression (particularly the Oromo)."

In 2010, Ethiopia came up with its Growth and Transformation Plan, a five-year blueprint for economic growth. "Four million jobs have been created in the first three years... We hope, if this trend continues, we will have a substantially reduced number of migrants going out of the country very soon," Abdulfetah Abdulahi, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, told IRIN.

Yitna Getachew, of IOM, agreed that such initiatives could help stem migration, but said that the effects were unlikely to be immediate.

"It takes time before people can begin to feel comfortable with economic prospects at home. The early stages of economic growth - the World Bank estimates that it will exceed 7 percent in Ethiopia between 2013 and 2015, while in 2012, its economy was the 12th fastest growing economy globally - currently being experienced in Ethiopia are likely to increase cases of migration," said Getachew. "People who hitherto had no money [are] begin[ning] to get [an] income, which they can invest in migration by... bribing smugglers, migration officials and buying fake documents."

IRIN met some of the deported migrants, who spoke of the reasons they left home, of what life was like in Saudi Arabia, and of their hopes and their fears now that they have had to return to Ethiopia.

Sophia Mekuria, 36

Sophia Mekuria, 36, left Ethiopia for Saudi Arabia four years ago, risking long treks on foot and dangerous sea crossings in often overloaded boats to escape poverty back home.

Mekuria's parents sold the only cows they owned to raise the 8,000 birr [$417] smugglers charged for her passage to Saudi Arabia. The journey by sea took her to Yemen. From there, she travelled by truck to the Saudi Arabian city of Jiza, where she found a job as a maid.

Through her salary of 2,000 Saudi Riyal [$530] a month, she was able to support her parents back home in Dessie town, in the Amhara Regional State in northern Ethiopia. Still, she had no savings by the time she was arrested by Saudi authorities and sent home in late December 2013.

"My main aim was to go there and earn more money, since I have seen a number of people from our locality that traveled there and changed their lives. My status was actually illegal since I [did not] have proper documents to live and work there," Sophia told IRIN.

Her parents used the money she sent home "mainly to buy food," she said.

She told IRIN she would not consider returning to Saudi Arabia.

"I will work here in my country because I have seen enough suffering in the past month alone. They kept us in camps in an inhumane way until our arrival here."

Mursan Ali, 36

Mursan Ali, a 36-year-old father of two, travelled to Saudi Arabia two years ago. His journey involved walking to the coast of Djibouti, on the Gulf of Aden, surviving only on the food he carried and a bottle of water, and sleeping unprotected on the ground at night for five days. From there, his smugglers put him on the boat to Yemen.

But the boat was wrecked off the coast of Yemen; Ali was among 35 people rescued. He and the other migrants were taken to a Yemeni prison, where they spent six months before being transferred to a camp to await deportation.

"A number of us managed to escape out of it [the camp] and joined the workforce," Ali told IRIN.

After his escape, he trekked overland to Saudi Arabia.

"I was working as a metal worker and was earning [about] 1,500 Saudi riyals [$400] at the time. I cannot make that much money here in Ethiopia."

To pay his smugglers, he had saved 4,000 birr [$209] out of the 50 birr daily wage he earned as a construction worker in the capital, Addis Ababa.

"My family is poor, and all I have known is poverty. I wanted to earn enough money to help my family, and people told me about jobs in Saudi Arabia which were paying [better] than what I earned as manual laborer in Ethiopia," he told IRIN.

He hopes that the Ethiopian government's promise to create more jobs can help halt irregular migration to the Middle East.

Tassew

Tassew lives with his sister, Negash, a 35-year-old cleaner and mother of one, and another sibling Mesfin in a tiny tin-walled shack in Addis Ababa.

Tassew and Mesfin were among those deported from Saudi Arabia. Negash now supports both of them.

"They could support me when they were there," Negash told IRIN, "but now, I will use my small salary to support the four of us. It is hard because they came with nothing, and they will take a long time to get jobs here. They will burden me, but I can't send them away."

She added, "I saved a little of what they sent me to start a business, but now I can't [save money] because I will use it to provide for them and myself."

Tassew does not rule out looking for opportunities outside again. "If it is hard to go to Saudi Arabia, I will look out for other countries where I can find work. I can go to Sudan or somewhere, because here, it is hard to be employed," he said.

According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Ethiopia "remains one of the world's poorest countries. About 29 per cent of the population lives below the national poverty line".

Fatima, 23

Fatima,* 23, stayed in Saudi Arabia for just six months before she was deported.

She told IRIN, "I haven't finished paying my smugglers, and now they will want their money. I still owe them 5,000 birr [$260], and they will now auction my parents' property" through their agents in Addis Ababa, where her parents live.

"I was to pay them when I arrived and found a job in Saudi Arabia. I was deported before I could get enough money," she said.

=>allafrica

Ethiopia's model families hailed as agents of social transformation

Claire Provost

Ethiopia is boosting its healthcare statistics by enouraging rural households to adopt and disseminate a range of good habits

A model family in rural Ethiopia, part of the government's so-called health development army. Photograph: Lauren McKown/Pathfinder International

Wudinesh Demisse raises her hand above her head, showing off the matchstick-sized birth-control implant embedded just beneath the skin of her upper arm.

Demisse, 28, is a farmer in rural West Arsi, in Ethiopia's central Oromia region. With three children already, Demisse says it is time to stop. "For me, three is enough," she says, through a translator. "If they are too many, they are too expensive."

Demisse, who lives in a small village 200km south of the capital, Addis Ababa, is one of millions of Ethiopian women who have gained access to modern forms of birth control over the past decade. Today, her local health post stocks a range of products, from condoms and pills to longer-acting injections and implants.

Ethiopia is increasingly touted as a family planning success story. The government, which has made maternal and child health national priorities, is proud of its statistics – the country's contraceptive prevalence rate, for example, jumped from 15% in 2005 to 29% in 2011 – and says efforts to reach remote, rural areas lie at the heart of its success.

Along with trained, salaried health extension workers – all of whom are female, a step to make families more comfortable with door-to-door visits – thousands of volunteers have been enlisted nationwide in the government's "health development army".

At the centre of this are people like Demisse and her husband, who head one of the government's celebrated "model families" and are footsoldiers in a massive social engineering project to redefine healthy behaviour.

"They are role models and change agents for social transformation in each village across the country," says Kesetebirhan Admasu, Ethiopia's health minister, who explains that the project is based on a theory of how innovations spread that assumes change happens step by step. The idea is that there are "trendsetters" in every community, and that others can be persuaded to admire and, eventually, copy their behaviour.

To become a model family, a household has to adopt most if not all of the government's 16 priority interventions – from vaccinating their children and sleeping under mosquito bednets to building separate latrines and using family planning.

Model families get certificates, are celebrated at village ceremonies and are asked to support five other households in adopting the priority interventions.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country, is overwhelmingly rural and this has hampered the expansion of formal healthcare services and infrastructure. Estimates from 2009 suggest there was only one doctor for every 50,000 people. The government's health extension programme is a strategy to bridge the gap and build capacity while expanding the services.

The NGO Marie Stopes International has urged rich countries to adopt some of Ethiopia's techniques, saying they could save millions of dollarsif they too trained up frontline health workers, nurses and midwives to carry out tasks – such as the fitting of implants – otherwise done by doctors.

For Admasu, the biggest successes have come from targeting "cultural and attitude-related bottlenecks", which limit rural women from taking up services even when they are available.

In one region, Admasu says the health development army helped the government understand why women were not giving birth in health facilities. The army discovered women were fearful of the traditional stretchers used to carry them to hospital (which had become associated with bad luck) and did not want to go without the traditional coffee and religious ceremonies they could get at home. This led to changes including a newly-designed stretcher and plans to bring coffee beans, traditional food, and religious leaders to health facilities.

"All these innovations and interventions, they seem to be simple but it is changing the way services are perceived," Admasu says. In the case of family planning, he says products like implants were not popular before but are now being used by a significant number of rural women. "It's all because of the information that they get from their neighbours, from their friends and so on," he says. "That is how they break all those cultural norms."

Many African countries have set up extensive community healthworker schemes to reach rural areas. Understanding why people behave the way they do, and structuring projects accordingly, is also an increasingly popular approach in development, and a response to the failures of many expert-led schemes. The World Bank, for example, is working on a major report on the behavioural and social foundations of economic development, expected this year.

The military metaphors in Ethiopia's programme set it apart from many others, however. "Such a movement would not be successful without the discipline of the army," insists Admasu. "We said this is the way we really want to mobilise the community – they participate in the meetings, they work with the discipline of an army, and they address the critical bottlenecks."

Admasu says it is the government's policy to ensure women are not coerced into taking up health interventions. But some are suspicious of the development army model, which is also being pursued in agriculture with a nationwide network of "model farmers".

Ethiopian journalist Henok Reta has reported, for example, that model farmers who boast of their results seem to have been coached by extension workers and are unwilling to talk about failures, challenges such as the price of seeds, and what they want the government to do next. A recent paper from the Overseas Development Institute thinktank in London notes that community mobilisation efforts in Ethiopia, including the development army, can provide the ruling party with new mechanisms to monitor its citizens.

Teferi Abate Adem, former chairman of the department of sociology and anthropology at Addis Ababa University, argues that the agriculture extension programme has "reinforced the rural presence and authoritarian powers of the ruling party while largely failing to improve smallholder agriculture".

=>theguardian

Ethiopia Rejects Egypt Proposal on Nile as Dam Talks Falter

By William Davison and Ahmed Feteha

Ethiopia rejected a proposal that would guarantee Egypt the rights to most of the Nile River’s water, as disagreements cast doubt over future talks about Africa’s biggest hydropower project.

The 6,000-megawatt Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Ethiopia’s Blue Nile River, set to be completed in 2017, has raised concern in Cairo that it will reduce the flow of the Nile, which provides almost all of Egypt’s water. The Blue Nile is the main tributary of the Nile.

The $4.2 billion dam 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Sudan’s border will benefit agricultural and power interests in the region and not cause water losses downstream, Ethiopia says. Sudan supports the hydropower project designed to produce electricity for much of East Africa that began in April 2011.

Egyptian officials at a Jan. 4-Jan. 5 meeting that also included representatives from Sudan, introduced a “principles of confidence-building” document asking Ethiopia to “respect” Sudan and Egypt’s water security, said Fekahmed Negash, the head of the Ethiopian Water and Energy Ministry’s Boundary and Transboundary Rivers Affairs Directorate. Discussing the issue would contravene an agreement signed by six Nile countries, he said in a phone interview on Jan. 6.

“We will not negotiate on this issue with any country,” Fekahmed said from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. “That is why we say take it to the right platform” that includes other members of the Nile Basin, he said.

1959 Accord

Egypt argues its 1959 agreement with Sudan that gave Egypt the rights to 55.5 billion cubic meters out of a total of 84 billion cubic meters is the governing document on the Nile’s water. The rest of the river’s flow was for Sudan or lost to evaporation. Ethiopia and other upstream nations reject the accord they were not signatories to and say Egypt’s domination of the Nile has unfairly deprived them of a vital resource.

Ethiopia also rejected an Egyptian suggestion to immediately form a panel of neutral experts to adjudicate any disputes arising from planned studies of the dam’s hydrological and environmental impact, Ethiopian Water and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu said. Experts can be hired if they’re needed, he said in an interview Jan. 5 in Khartoum.

Egypt won’t send a delegation to Addis Ababa unless Ethiopia’s government signals its intent to resolve the areas of dispute, Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted Egyptian Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel-Moteleb as saying on Jan. 6.

Talks Impasse

“We have exhausted all opportunities to negotiate with Ethiopia because of the intransigence of Addis Ababa,” Abdel-Moteleb said.

Discussions will “continue,” Ethiopia’s Alemayehu said yesterday on his official Twitter account.

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan decided on Dec. 9 to form a committee comprising four members from each country to oversee the studies. The initiative was recommended by a panel of international experts who concluded in May that insufficient work had been done on the dam’s downstream impact while the reservoir is filled and during operation.

Ethiopia has repeatedly refused Egyptian requests to pause construction of a key national project. “There is nothing that will stop it,” Gideon Asfaw, head of Ethiopia’s technical team in Khartoum, said about the dam.

Egypt “has escalatory steps to assert our historic rights to the Nile waters,” Abdel-Moteleb was quoted as saying, without elaborating.

Equitable Principles

A Cooperative Framework Agreement has been signed by Ethiopia and five other Nile nations that adopts principles of “equitable and reasonable” use of waters that do not cause “significant harm” to other states. Once ratified by six legislatures, the accord paves the way for the creation of a Nile River Basin Commission that will manage water rights and development projects on the Nile.

Egypt considers preserving its claimed rights to the Nile a matter of national security and says it needs more than its 1959 share because of its growing population. In June, in a televised meeting with former President Mohamed Mursi, Egyptian opposition politicians discussed tactics to prevent Ethiopia finishing the dam, including the use of force.

“We need 80 billion cubic meters,” Abdel-Moteleb said. “We will not let go of one drop of water.”

To contact the reporters on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa atwdavison3@bloomberg.net; Ahmed Feteha in Khartoum at afeteha@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin atasguazzin@bloomberg.net

=>bloomberg

Ethiopia’s Court Sentences Oromo Political Prisoners

January 7, 2014 (CNN iReport) — Ethiopian Federal Court gave a prison sentence to an Oromo nationalist and political prisoner from three to twelve years in prison.The defendants were arrested in 2010 and were accused of being members or sympathizers of the Oromo Liberation Front, or OLF, which the government considers to be a terrorist group.

Most of the prisoners are members of Oromo People`s Congress(OPC) and Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement(OFDM).

1. Teshale Bekeshi……..
2. Tirfesa Megersa……..Oromo People`s Congress
3. Mulatu Abdissa……….
4. Wegayehu Dejene…..
5. Bulcha Sori Guyu…….Oromo People`s Congress
6. Gutu Mulisa……………Oromo People`s Congress
7. Asfaw Angaso……….Oromo People`s Congress
8. Mezgebu Debela…..
9. Itana Senbeto……..Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement
10. Taddese Gelalcha….Oromo People`s Congress
11. Waqgari lechisa…….Oromo People`s Congress
12. Gurmesa Fufa………Oromo People`s Congress and others oromo nationalist sentences from 3 to 12 years.

=>bilisummaa

The “Horn of Africa Solidarity Conference” is held in Frankfurt, Germany on Saturday.

By Ahmed Abdi

This conference,which is annually held was this time long-time invested and properly organized by Somali Communities from Ogaden Region in Germany.

This Conference, which was totally different from the previous ones was participated in different communities from Horn of Africa mainly Somali communities,Oromio Communities, Eritrean Communities and Somali communities from Occupied-Ogaden region. The aim of the Conference was to overthrow what they call an “illegal government” of Tigray People’s liberation front Regime of Addis Ababa.

The Leaders from United Horn of Africa allies of ONLF,OLF,Somali Diaspora,plus Eritreans that participated in the conference vowed to oust out the minority regime of Tigray. ”We have opened a new chapter of collaboration between us and the Horn of Africa nations that are under Ethiopian occupation and have created an umbrella that wants to overthrow the repressive regime of TPLF,”said, Hassan Moalim,an ONLF-deputy foreign secretary to Ethiopia.

Mr. Moalim spoke at length about the ONLF political developments and how importance is to ally with the nations under Ethiopian colony such as the nations of Oromia,Sidama,Afar,etc. Ethiopian Regime of TPLF continues to commit genocide against the nations under its colony including peoples in Oromia, Afar-land, Sidama, Welayta,and Somalis in Ogaden Region etc and continually intervenes Somalia domestic politics that unnerved http://waagacusub.net/articles/134/Ethiopia-is-neither-suited-to-promoting-peace-in-Somalia-nor-interested-in-fighting-of-Al-shabab Somalis inside the country as well as Somali diaspora.

The participants watched a film that changed the mood of the environment and showed human rights abuses that proved beyond doubt including rape,killing,wide-spread detentions,and torture.The material is currently investigating by Swedish prosecutors.

“The filmed-evidence suggests that the Ethiopian Army and Liyu Police militia has carried out crimes against humanity on a large scale”,said Abdullahi Hussein,now a human rights activist and former Regional President adviser ,who put himself at risk for smuggling out 100-hours film evidence.

He added the Ethiopian regime must be held accountable for its crimes.

The Regional puppet administration of Abdi Iley has been very keen to claim that the Ogaden region is developing when it comes to some water wells,roads and very few schools when his notorious Liyu police militia could not spare a single soul that encountered. Abdi Iley claims boastfully to be the truer ONLF and others are solely bandits a term carefully avoided by the former regional presidents that encouraged ONLF-supporters,but he did not stop there,he constantly aired hate speech against Amhara through the Ethiopian Somali TV(ESTV) and passes out a message from his masters,Tigray generals, and his legal adviser Col. Zegeye to spread negative stereotypes against Ahmara amid to sow a fresh enmity between Somali ethnic population and Amhara population to divert the Tigray’s human rights abuses.

“The TPLF-regime propagates lies in the name of development to divert the eyes of the diaspora about the reality on the ground.And The Regional President,Abdi Iley,keeps telling his masters’ message that the TPLF is better than it was the Derg Regime, while it is massacring the nomads and aired several times that the Amhara regime was not permitted Somalis to wear garments as if we were fighting for a right to wear garment against a regime,Derg,which was on war with garments and garment industries ,a compliment they received and accepted easily,of course got gassed”,said Jamal Diriye,a former Ethiopian parliament token that lives in Germany.

Ethiopia,which uses its power to oppress its dissents at the same time has been labeling Journalists and its main political figures as terrorists has jailed dozens of main political figures and Journalists in the world’s worst prisons in Addis Ababa and Jigjiga that met International criticism.

Eritrea, a former Ethiopian colony and in an open war with Ethiopia sees herself a friend and an ally for the oppressed and down-trodden nations in the Horn Of Africa. Somalia provided Eritrea a brotherly direct assistance during its fight for the Eritrean Independence and Eritrea wants to payback for that and repeatedly says ,”let the Somalis solve their problems through dialogue.”

Somali people in Ogaden and people of Oromia have been fighting for their identity,of course they don’t like to be called Ethiopians. And their representatives have been fighting for full independence.

---

Amajji 7, 2014

Semanaarii gamtaa kan  Oromo, Ogaden fi Eritrea gafa 04.01.2014 Magaala Frankfurt  biyyaa Germany Keessatti  Kabajaa ayanaa WBO faana gaggeeffamee.

Semnaarii kun Tokkummaa Bartootaa Ororomoo Biyyaa Jarmanii ( TBOJ) ca’aa ABO, Waldaa gargarsaa warra Ogaden Kan Adda Bilisummaa Ummataa Ogaden (ONLF) ti hidhaataa qabuu fi  Caasa “Peoples For Democracy and Justice” (PFDJ)  nannoo Frankfurtiin Magaala Frankfurt am Main bakka Haus der Jugend Frankfurt Jugendherberger,  Deutschherrnufer 12 tti qopha’ee.

Semnaara kunii  hassaa banumsaa Miseensoolii Koree Qopheesituu J/Biftu Barii TBOJn bakka bu’un, Obbo Abdrhiman Sheek Waldaa Gargarsaa Ogadeen Bakka bu’uun akkasumaas obbo Teklai Mokkonon PFDJ godhaniin eegalamee.

Semnaara kanaa irratti  J/ Dr. Shigut Geleta, Miseensi Gumii Sabaa ABO, ABO bakka bu’un,  Obbo  Hassan Ali  Miseensii Koree Gidduu ONLF, ONLF-n bakka bu’un akkasumaas  Obbo Sifaf Adem Mohammed PFDJ  bakka bu’un  Haala siyaasa nannoo ganfa Afrika fi sochii dhabbolee bakka bu’ani ilaalchissee  dabaree dabareen ibsa bal’aa keenani. Karaa dhihataan mirgaa dhalaa namaa ilaalchissee odeeffataa qabataamaa irratti  kan hunda’ee kan biyyaaa keessaa Vidiyoon Ogadeen irra obbo Abdulahi Hassan yeroo dhiheessuu akkasumaas karaa Obbo Dajane Abdissaa gabaasaa Jarmoolee mirgadhalaa namaaf falmanii irratti kan hunda’ee fi kan Oromoo irratti xiyeeffatee dhihessee.

Hirmatoonii  Barnootaa dhihatee irratti  bifaa gaffii fi deebiin ergaa maariin bal’aa gaggeffamee booda  garaa fuulduraa hujii qabatamaa waltumsuun kan hojeetamuu irratti hubii tokko kan godhatee yeroo tahu garaa fudluduraas sagantaan kunii kanaarraa bal’inaa fi qindoominaa qopha’uu koreetti galfataa keennatee jira. Waligalaa gochaa Sukkaneessaa Mootumaan Ityophiyaa kan ABUT durfaamuu Ummotootaa Impayeeraa Ityophiyaa keessaratti rawachaa jiruu fi nagaa nannoo gafa Afrikaa booreesaa jiruu kan balaleeffatee yeroo tahu. Humnootiin Cunqurfamoo Impayeeraa Ityophiyaa Keessaa jiraan akka irree walqabachuun mootummaa abbaa irree kanaa irratti ka’an waamichaa godhee jira.

Karaa biro Qabsoo bilisummaa kan of irratti hirkannoon gaggeeffamuu keesatti dhaloonii jiruu qoodaa irratti agarsiisuun filmaata uttu hintahiin dirqamaa tahuu walhubachissee jira.

Xumuraa Semnaaraa kanaa irratti  Kabajaa guyyaa WBO Amajii tokko ilaalchissee J/Abdalla Mohammed Itti gafatamaan Jarmaa Konyaa ABO Frankfurt fi J/Dr.Shigut Galata ilaalchissee ibsaa gagabaaba ergaa keennaii booda hirmatooni Tin’isaa godhanii qophichii haala nama onnachisuun ABO fi WBO farsuun xumuraamee.

IUOf!!

     

=>ayyaantuu