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

Kenya: Uhuru Should Discuss Ethiopia's Gibe Dam

PRESIDENT Uhuru Kenyatta has been in Ethiopia for a state visit where he has held extensive meetings with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

He has discussed activating the Lapsset corridor and reiterated Kenya's commitment to shared development with Ethiopia.

However there has been no official reference in the joint communiques to the Gibe III dam, perhaps the single most important issue in Ethiopia as far as Kenya is concerned.

For the next five years Lake Turkana will receive virtually no water at all as the dam Gibe slowly slowly fills up. Then Ethiopia will divert 50 percent of the River Omo to irrigate 250,000 hectares of sugar plantations.

Lake Turkana will gradually dry up and reduce to two small lakes with a devastating impact on 300,000 Turkana people. The ecological disaster could spread further if dried salt from the lake is blown by the wind onto agricultural land.

It is too late to stop the Gibe dam but there is still time to mitigate the effects.

While he is in Addis, Uhuru should push Ethiopia to scale back its plans for irrigation and request them to fill up the Gibe dam over a longer period than five years.

=>allafrica

Obliterating Sidama Nation’s Culture is a Cultural Genocide.

Whilst I was surfing online looking for today’s news related to Ethiopian empire, I was bumped into todays’ ETv and horrified with what I saw. To my utter dismay and indignation, I saw how deliberately and systematically Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) led Ethiopian regime is diluting the essence of Sidama national cultural heritage by fabricating their own version of Sidaamu Faarro. I saw it on their show aimed at attracting tourism on which the artificial Sidama culture was shown as one of. The Sidama music was being played by purely non-Sidama actors and actresses. The said actors and actresses play in a bizarre way which doesn’t have 5% similarity with the Sidama nation’s actual Faarro. I can’t comprehend why they regime which claims to be allowing cultural freedom fabricates the Sidama culture by avoiding its genuine stakeholders.

It’s so disappointing and extremely saddening to see that about 830 Sidama pseudo-parliamentarians and others Sidama Zone’s 22 districts cadres are not able to say at least ‘this is incorrect’. I reasonably think that no one blames them if they make some relative corrections as long as they refrain from saying a word about the regime’s inhumane actions in Sidama land against its people. Their entire failures to make the necessary corrections on such glaring inaccuracies show the Sidama nation, the fact about an unpalatable truth about the current regime’s deliberate plans to dilute the identity of the Sidama nation contrary to its claims. Equally, it also reveals that the entire Sidama cadres don’t have knowhow on the issues so important to the nation under whose names they trade; while their nations’ cultural futurity is at stake.

As this is my first encounter of this kind, the feeling of indignation is much worse than ever, for the reason I’m writing this brief article.   

The ‘Sidama Faarro’ is one of the Sidama nation’s traditional plays whereby girls and boys in pairs are involved. The unmarried boys line up in line; their one hand holding their spear or cylinder bamboo tree (in lowland areas cylindrically shaped oak sticks) decorated with special colours and their other hand on the shoulder of their next friend or any play mate. By doing so they make up large line where all lined-up boys rhythmically hum their music following one song leader at a time. Their lyrics and rhythms are such intricate one which no one without experience will be able to perform. In their music, the boys appreciate and praise the beauty and nobility of individual girl or girls, the legacy of their nation and its heroism, their cultural values and heritages and others - all becoming part and parcel of their Faarro.

The special poetic lyrics they play must be relevant to the particular occasion concerned. Both girls and boys play Faarro during Sidama New Year ‘Fichchee’ and its’ following festivity date known as ‘Cambalalla’, when the Sidama men undergo Circumcision ritual known as ‘Barciimaa’, when wedding ceremony known as ‘Goshshattoo’ takes place, when new houses are being blessed (Miinu Maasso), when girls are being circumcised just before or during their weeding (Seene offooshiishaa), and others various ceremonies. Therefore, their musical lyrics must reflect such particular ceremonies although on some occasions both the boys and girls use similar lyrics on nationally significant issues.

The musical lyrics they play also serve as a means of communication of any cultural practices taking places in another districts and areas, whereby all involved reflect their life experiences, share love and affection, show their determination to defend their cultural heritages and so on and so forth- throughout the Sidama region. In some cases Faarro reflects limited regional connotations, if the ceremony is about one individual.  

While the well-dressed boys play in a lined up manner, the girls decorated with traditional clothes and fragrances play in circles about roughly 10 to 12 meters away from the boys. The girls’ musical play is known as ‘Horree’, being played with clapping their henna decorated beautiful hands, one of the girls leading turn by turn according to their abilities; their heads held high up to show their beauty and confidence in themselves, their families, their clans, their culture and praising the Sidama heroes and heroines. Sometimes both girls and boys improvise their musical lyrics on the spot or often use the usual ones’.

After playing in separate groups for some time whilst surreptitiously looking at their targets, the girls choose individual boy that pleases them most and known for his expertise in playing such an intricate Faarro music. All of the girls choose their targets. The girls can pick up any person with whom they think can play well without being coerced to pair up. And it’s only called Faarro when after the boys and girls pair up to play together and start the said intricate rhythms with extraordinarily flexibility and dexterity.

When the individual girl pairs up with the boy (others also lining up with her to pair up with others boys); the boy leaves his friend on whose shoulder primarily he had placed his one hand whilst the other still holding his spear or stick, to hold the upper girls’ arm or shoulder so that he can keep her steady whilst she moves her head and neck back and forth in an extraordinarily flexibility, their chins methodically moving in unison without causing any friction and harm to either party. The boy follows and guides her keeping his legs about roughly 40 to 50 cm apart to keep his balance right; connect their chins now and again by following each other’s rhythms.

When someone who doesn’t know this musical intricacy observes the Sidama nations’ original Faarro, he/she can automatically assume this is impossible and feels lost by thinking how on earth they don’t collide with each other. This is the culture the current regime is deliberately diluting and the cadres are watching as it goes by. The freedom of girls in choosing their play mate who pleases them without being told to do so, equally reveal the Sidama nations’ traditional  democratic values and the extents of the rights of women in traditional Sidama society.

Sometimes, the girl might pair-up with someone who can be her lifelong husband if the luck is with both of them; provided that their families are of different clan. In Sidama culture similar clan never intermarry. If I’m from clan A, I must marry the girl from clan B, C or D, one of the main reasons for rarity of congenital disability in Sidama nation. 

Sidama girls and boys playing Faaro.

The Sidama nations’ others cultural attributes and its New Year ‘Fichchee’ should be one of the internationally recognised heritages by UNESCO and the regime in power must stop diluting the Sidama culture. The sons and daughters of the Sidama nation must, like our Oromia brothers and sisters, think in a manner on how they can revive their disappearing noble cultural heritages. The sons and daughters of the nation must think realistically and engage with Sidama traditional music by ignoring fallacious claims of all shapes and forms. The artificial way of delivering the Sidama culture by non-Sidama people never makes genuine sense, thus must be stopped!

The Scottish Ceilidh (Scotland’s traditional Music and dance) is being correctly played by Scots and those who are properly trained to perform in such way it is over 90% compatible with Scottish tradition. The same is true with Japanese, Indian, Latin Americans, and the entire Asians whose peoples maintain their traditions and cultures intact.

Moreover, during the British invasion of Siri Lanka in 1818s (see Keppetipola rebellion of 1818), the colonisers 100% refrained from interfering in their cultural and religious affairs. One can imagine as vicious as the then British colonial rulers’ gave concessions whilst actually expropriating their resources, the reasons Buddhism remain intact in this part of the world. The acts of the current and previous Abyssinian rulers show how they are worse than the then British brutal colonisers as the later are obliterating the cultures of others to impose theirs. TPLF’s regime can’t fabricate a new culture for the Sidama nation with its own version of music or artificiality to claim it, it is the Sidamas’. The Sidama nation also shouldn’t allow this to continue. It must be the Sidama original dancers who must perform Sidaamu Faarro.

The equivalent to Faarro is ‘Haano’ which is being played by grown up (married) Sidama men and women during the circumcision rituals. I’ll hopefully have another look at it sometime very soon, God willing, (kalaqi kaliiqi fajiero).

Keeruni Keeshshee! Stay in Peace!   

=>siadamanationalregionalstate

No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the cruelty of the TPLF/EPRDF regime

By Roba Pawelos

Roba Pawelos

A country is not about its leaders but of its people. It goes without saying that the people are the symbolic mirror of their nation. That is exactly why foreigners particularly the development partners assess and evaluate a nation through its people. In other words, happy people are citizen of not only a peaceful and happy nation but one which accepts the principles of democracy, rule of law and human and people’s right. On the contrast, heartbroken, timid and unhappy people are subjects of dictatorial, callous and brutal regimes. Such people are robbed of their humanity and identity through systematic harassment, intimidation, unlawful detention, extra judicial killing and disappearance by the leaders who transformed themselves into creators of human life or lords. The largest Oromo nation in Ethiopia through the 22 years of TPLF/EPRDF repressive leadership has turned into a nation sobbing in the dark. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. All it takes is a closer look at any Oromo in the face. The story is the same on all the faces: fear, uncertainty, and an unquenchable thirst for freedom. The disturbing melody of the sobs, in the dark echo the rhythmic, desire to break free from TPLF dictatorial shackles.

The Horn African region of Ethiopia is home to just 90 million people, it is also home to one of the world’s most ruthless, and eccentric, tyrannical regime. TPLF/EPRDF is ruling the nation particularly the Oromo with an iron fist for the past two decades and yet moving on. Today dissents in Oromia are frequently harassed, arrested, tortured, murdered and put through sham trials, while the people are kept in a constant state of terror through tight media control, as repeatedly reported by several human rights groups.  It has been long time since the Woyane government bans most foreign journalists and human rights organizations and NGOs from operating in the country for the aim of hiding its brutal governance from the world. While the people in Ethiopia are being in terrorized by TPLF gangs, the western powers are yet looking at the country as a very strategic place to fight the so called terrorism in horn African region.  But In today’s Ethiopia; as an Oromo, No one can speak out against the dictatorship in that country. You can be killed. You can be arrested. You can be kept in prison for a long time. Or you can disappear in thin air. Nobody will help. Intimidations, looting Oromo resources   and evicting Oromo from their farm lands have become the order of the day everywhere across Oromia.

No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the killing machinery of the TPLF securities. The recent murdering of Tesfahun Chemeda in kallitti prison is a case book of the current circumstance.

The So called EPRDF constitution, as all Ethiopian constitutions had always been under the previous Ethiopian regimes, is prepared not to give legal protections to the Oromo people, but to be used against the Oromo people. Prisons in the Ethiopia have become the last home to Oromo nationalists, human right activists or political opponent of the regime. Yet the international community is either not interested or have ignored the numerous Human Right abuses in Ethiopia simply because, they think there is stability in the country. Is there no stability in North Korea? I don’t understand why the international community playing double standard with dining and wining with Ethiopian brutal dictators while trying to internationally isolate other dictators. For crying out loud, all dictators are dangerous to humanity and shaking their hands is even taboo much more doing business with them.

Without the support of the USA and EU, major pillars of the regime would have collapsed. Because one reason why TPLF is sustaining in power is through the budgetary support and development funding of the EU, the United States and offered diplomatic validation by the corrupted African Union. Foremost, the US and EU as the largest partners are responsible for funding the regime’s sustainability and its senseless brutality against ordinary citizens. They would have the capacity to disrupt the economic might of this regime without negatively impacting ordinary citizens, and their failure to do so is directly responsible for the loss of many innocent lives, the torture of many and other grievous human rights abuses. Helping dictators while they butcher our people is what I cannot understand. What I want to notify here is, on the way of struggling for freedom it is very essential to call on the western powers to stop the support they are rendering to dictators in the name of fighting the so called terrorism in Horn Africa, otherwise it will remain an obstacle for the struggle.

Holding elections alone does not make a country democratic. Where there is no an independent media, an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), an independent central bank, an independent electoral commission (for a free and fair vote); neutral and professional security forces; and an autonomous (not a rubber stamp) parliament, no one should expect that the pseudo election will remove TPLF from power. The so-called “Ethiopian constitution” is a façade that is not worth the paper which it is written on. It does not impose the rule of law; and does not effectively limit governmental power. No form of dissent is tolerated in the country.

As my understanding and as we have observed for more than two decades, it is unthinkable to remove TPLF regime without a military struggle or without popular Uprisings. They are staying, staying, and staying in power – 10, 20, 22 and may be 30 or 40 years. They have developed the mentality of staying on power as their own family and ethnic property. So that they are grooming their clans, their wives, sons, cats, dogs and even goats to succeed them. They are simply the worst mafia regime and the most politically intolerant in the Africa. It is impossible to remove them electorally because we have been witnessing that the electoral system is fundamentally flawed and indomitably skewed in favor them. Every gesture and every words coming from TPLF gangs in the last several years have confirmed that to remove them by election is nothing but like to dream in daylight.

The late dictator “Meles Zenawi” had once said that TPLF “shall rule for a thousand years”, asserting that elections SHALL NOT remove his government.  He also said: “the group who want the power must go the forest and fight to achieve power”.   Therefore, taking part in Pseudo election will have no impact on reducing the pain of the oppressed people. Evidently, the opposition and civil societies have been rendered severely impotent, as any form of dissent attracts the ultimate penalty in Ethiopia. Furthermore, we are watching that this regime is intensifying its repression of democracy each day, and ruling strictly through the instrument of paralyzing fear and the practice of brutality against ordinary citizens.

As we are learning from history, Dictators are not in a business of allowing election that could remove them from their thrones. The only way to remove this TPLF dictatorship is through a military force, popular uprising, or a rebel insurgency: Egypt (2011), Ivory Coast (2011), Tunisia (2011), Libya (2011), Rwanda (1994), Somalia (1991), Liberia (1999), etc. A high time to fire up resistance to the TPLF killings and resource plundering in Oromia, is now.  To overthrow this brutal TPLF dictatorship and to end the 22 years of our pain, it is a must to begin the resistance with a nationwide show of defiance including distributing postures of resistance against their brutality across Oromia and the country. Once a national campaign of defiance begins, it will be easy to see how the TPLF regime will crumble like a sand castle. Besides, we the Oromo Diaspora need to work on strengthening the struggle by any means we can. It is the responsibility of the Diaspora to advance the Oromo cause, and at the same time to determine how our efforts can be aided by the international community. As well, it is a time for every freedom thirsty Oromo to take part in supporting our organization Oromo liberation Front by any means we can.

These days, TPLF regime is standing on one foot and removing it is easier than it appears. Let all oppressed nations organize for the final push to liberty. The biggest fear of Woyane regime is people being organized and armed with weapons of unity, knowledge, courage, vigilance, and justice. What is needed is a unified, dedicated struggle for justice and sincerity. Oromo’s are tired of the dying, the arrests, the detentions, the torture, the brutality and the forced disappearances. This should come to an end!  DEATH  FOR TPLF LEADERES , Long Live  FOR OROMIYA

ROBA PAWELOS

=>ayyaantuu

Ethiopia: Transparency Group Should Reject Membership

(New York) – A major global initiative to encourage governments to better manage natural resource revenues should reject Ethiopia’s bid for membership due to its harsh restrictions on civil society, Human Rights Watch said today.

The governing board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is expected to make a decision about Ethiopia’s candidacy at its next meeting, on March 18 and 19, 2014, in Oslo. EITI was founded in 2003 to strengthen governance by increasing transparency over revenues from the oil, gas, and mining industries. Itsmembers include countries, companies, and civil society representatives.

“The Ethiopian government has crushed activist groups and muzzled the media,” said Lisa Misol, seniorbusiness and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Ethiopia’s harsh repression of independent voices is utterly incompatible with this global effort to increase public oversight over government.”

An earlier effort by Ethiopia to join the transparency group was rebuffed in 2010 out of concerns over a draconian 2009 law, still in effect, that sharply limits the activities of independent groups. Civil society representatives on EITI’s board said that the law contravened the initiative’s standards that make thefree and active participation of independent organizations a requirement for a country to join.

The board deferred the decision, and suggested that it would not reconsider “until the Proclamation on Charities and Society Law is no longer in place.”

Supporters of Ethiopia’s membership, including Clare Short, the former United Kingdom minister who has been the group’s chair since 2011, have recently pressed the board to overturn its 2010 decision. On February 28, Short publicly endorsed Ethiopia’s candidacy and criticized those who opposed its membership in an unprecedented open letter to civil society members of the board. She argued for loosening the group’s rules and claimed that civil society in Ethiopia favored her position, even though nongovernmental organizations in the country cannot risk criticizing the government.

“It’s absurd to suggest that Ethiopia deserves to join EITI because it has civil society support after the government has systematically intimidated groups into submission,” Misol said. “EITI would become a reward for Ethiopia’s effort to dismantle and silence civil society, providing a perverse incentive for other governments to do the same thing.”

Ethiopia’s repressive laws and policies have severely undermined independent activists and organizations in the country. Many organizations have been forced to greatly reduce their activities, others engage in self-censorship, and still others have had to close down. Several of the country’s leading activists have fled the country due to threats. New government-backed nongovernmental organizations have formed. One group that supports the government’s drive to join EITI is a journalism union described as “government-controlled” by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 2009 Proclamation on Charities and Society Law curtails the independence of nongovernmental organizations in Ethiopia, particularly groups that scrutinize the government. It forbids national organizations from receiving more than 10 percent of their funds from foreign donors if they engage in human rights, advocacy, conflict resolution, or governance activities. The law also bars organizations from activities related to state policy, functioning, and accountability.

It established a regulatory body, the Charities and Societies Agency, with broad discretion to arbitrarily cancel organizations’ registration and to levy fines and criminal charges against their personnel.

To join EITI, Ethiopia should be required to repeal or substantially amend the 2009 proclamation to eliminate problematic clauses that limit foreign funding, restrict certain types of activities, and grant far-reaching powers to a government agency to regulate activities of independent groups, Human Rights Watch said. Additional preconditions should be tied to media freedom and respect for otherfundamental rights necessary for open public debate on natural resource topics.

“Admitting Ethiopia into EITI now would send a terrible signal about the initiative’s commitment to core principles about the participation of civil society,” Misol said. “The board should insist on meaningful reforms in Ethiopia so that the government demonstrates its commitment to the initiative’s principles and rules before it is admitted.”

=>hrw