Tedros Adhanon vs Ethiopian refugees in Yemen

DjibTalk Nouvelles internationales
(Djoubti Talk) — On March 30, over 45 Ethiopian refugees were killed in a Saudi-led airstrike on Mazraq camp in Hajjah province of Yemen. The refugees were living in a camp run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said Grum Teklehaimanot, an Ethiopian journalist in Yemen. Reuters news agency also confirmed the deaths of ‘dozens of displaced people’ in a camp now in the hands of the Yemeni Shiite rebels known as Hauthis.

The Ethiopian government never said a word about the tragedy. Instead, Tedros Adhanom, the foreign minister, said on April 3 that the embassy in Sana’a had come under attack earlier in the day. He said no one was injured. Tedros Adhanom’s story was a surprise for many Ethiopian residents in the Yemeni capital, according to Nebiyu Sirak, a respected Ethiopian journalist resident in Saudi Arabia.

As if posing for a picture with a 14-year-old girl winner of a false $20 million prize was not enough, why did Tedros lie again about an embassy or a consular office that was never attacked? His cover-up invites many questions. Was it a cover to divert public attention from the tragedy that befell the refugees that perished at Mazraq Camp? Or it is to justify to the rest of the people that even the embassy was unable to defend itself let alone to save the thousands of Ethiopians stranded in Yemen?
As Yemen continued to sink into civil war, foreign nationals were making frantic appeals to be saved from the violence. A frigate from the Chinese navy rescued some 220 foreign nationals and took them to Djibouti. Of those, about 30 were Ethiopians. Though Tedros Adhanom’s government had secretly appealed for the Chinese help, he didn’t mention that in public. Why?

Once Ethiopia’s Red Sea Port of Assab, now under Eritrean sovereignty, is only a stone’s throw away from the southern Yemeni city of Eden. Ethiopia had its own naval force before Meles Zenawi, an ultra Eritrean mercenary nationalist who died in 2012, and his retarded TPLF chieftains, turned Ethiopia into a landlocked nation in 1991. When the TPLF cadre Tedros Adhanom evaded the truth that TPLF had asked the far-away Chinese for a rescue operation in Ethiopia’s neighborhood, was he scared to stoke the fires still burning within the hearts of many Ethiopians?

“Dr Tedros also expressed his gratitude to the Ethiopian diplomatic staff in Yemen for their bold courage and commitment to support the speedy registration and safe evacuation of Ethiopian citizens residing in Yemen,” according to the Foreign Ministry’s website.

The staff are determined to help about 2000 Ethiopians evacuate Yemen? Really, Tedros? The staff known to have no courage to help Ethiopian nationals in peace time are ‘determined’ to help in war time? Forget about Ethiopian nationals, how are you to save your own staff? Or your response is the usual EPRDF staff, “Who cares if the staff perish in the inferno of the Yemeni war!”


Whatever the reason, Ethiopians duly know that they have fallen on bad times. They duly know they are under an enemy rule. An enemy that treats an Ethiopian journalist, a staunch peace activist, as a terrorist, and condemns him to 18 grueling years in prison. Google the name Eskinder Nega, and the facts are all over the wall for all to see. Ethiopians in the first place become stateless refugees as they run away from their number one enemy – the TPLF/EPRDF – a cruel enemy that creates and uses hunger to weaken and subdue the Ethiopian people to eternal slavery.


=>ayyaantuu

Is Ethiopia's building boom masking poverty?

By Lerato MbeleBBC Africa Business Report, Addis Ababa

Whenever we set up our camera and flapped open our sun reflectors in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, passers-by became curious and eager to help.

But getting them to talk on camera was another matter as in general residents of the city are reticent and keep their views to themselves.

We were filming in Addis Ababa for a programme charting the changes in the country, yet it was only on the flight back to South Africa that I met an Ethiopian willing to be candid.

I found myself seated next to an inquisitive elderly Ethiopian woman, who was chatty despite the early morning departure.

However, she was not so open as to be willing for me to mention her name here.

She wore a green twin-set, leggings and woollen socks with her loafers. After the rigorous security checks, she took the socks off, saying she only wears them to keep her feet clean at the end of the security protocols.

She reminded me a bit of my mother, both caring and bossy all in one person.

During the flight, she cut me a portion of her fruit and insisted that I eat every morsel; her stern gaze suggested that I had no choice.

'Foregone conclusion'

We talked about a lot of things, including my impressions of Nigeria, especially following the ground-breaking presidential election there when the incumbent lost.

She was proud of the manner in which Nigerians had used their vote to make a strong statement about their government.

I replied that perhaps if Ethiopians have strong views about the ruling party - the EPRDF, in power since 1991 - then they could also do the same when elections are held in May.

The EPRDF under the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi won a massive majority in 2010

My neighbour dispelled that notion very quickly and whispered that she believes the result is a foregone conclusion.

I argued that surely Ethiopia's democracy is deeper than that, and that many support the government as they are grateful for the development in recent years.

She smirked and told me to open my eyes wider during my next visit.

Beggars

I was urged to investigate the economic statistics.

They show an economy growing in near double-digits, but about 40% live below the poverty line.

This photo is from 2007, but homeless people are still seen on the streets of Addis Ababa

She reminded me of the beggars who are on the streets of Addis Ababa.

Then I recalled our filming around the city.

There is a clear image of frantic construction taking place, with a monorail, new roads and apartment blocks all being built.

But I also noticed that many of the buildings are empty.

I asked my new friend why she thought this was.

Building work dominates the skyline in Ethiopia

A new monorail is one of the big building projects

But many of the new office and apartment blocks are empty

She reckons the Ethiopian middle-class cannot afford the rents, and that professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, have resorted to using parts of their home as consulting rooms, because they cannot pay for office space.

'Prestige'

I wondered why the government was intent on driving capital into these construction projects.

She answers simply that it is about the prestige.

Ethiopia is proud to host the African Union headquarters

She thinks that as a political and diplomatic leader on the continent, Ethiopia needs to show the economic signs of that position.

And Ethiopia needs to bear the hallmarks of this new-found economic prowess.

These are the thoughts of one individual, but someone who has seen a lot. She lived through the aftermath of the country's Italian occupation, the Marxist Derg regime and now the move towards a free market system and the introduction of democracy.

Her hope is that eventually Ethiopians will speak up and challenge their leaders to ensure that their economic dreams will lead to tangible change.

=>bbc

The Politics of Denial

By Geresu Tufa

“A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refusesto know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life ashandicapped as the blind mute.” Tobsha Learner

Last week I partook in a panel discussion about the ongoing Finfinne/Addis land grab with my fellow Oromos on OMN TV. I believe this time is very critical for all peoples in that country  to stand together and condemn the injustices inflicted upon poor farmers surrounding Addis. Therefore, most of the talks focused on the impact of Addis expansion to neighboring Oromia region on our farmer's livelihood, healthy environments and overall political-economy of Oromia in Ethiopian Empire. As to any sensible discussion, I gave a little introductory remark  about the background of Addis expansion starting from its foundation.

All of us are products of particular historical process. If we want to understand cleary what is happening today, we need to put it into appropirate historical context.  In line with this indisputable fact of life, I could only be right for mentioning major historical factors that have contributed to place us where we found ourselves today. Instead of condemning both historical and ongoing injustices on our farmers, I am surprised to see the reaction of a few individuals that come out of their shell to deny historical injustices in the aforementioned area. The intention of this short pieceis not to divert public attention from focusing on current injustices or to wrangle over the past that is gone, it is only to undress this denial politics with some historical facts and  give a rationale behind this kind of mindset.

Inquiring the sources of these historical facts is very healthy and should be a way forward for our future dialogues. This kind of evidence-based argument is very essential to save us from making/being evidence-nude society that bases arguments on eitherof ‘hearsay’ or ‘I think’ or even the worst ‘I am sure’ kind of argument without citing any credible source of information. Therefore, I praise those who asked for my evidences that are deliberately kept away from public consumption by elites who harvest various kinds of profits from the politics of denial. It appears that those people who deny historical injustices will obviously do the same or worse if they happen to mastermind the atrocities thatwe see today in the name of development. For those groups, it is not the cruel action that matters much, it is who do those cruelties to whom. If they do it,it is a norm and the order of our time, if others do it, it is fascism,apartheid, racism…you name it. It is a sad reality, but it is what it is. If anyone thinks about convincing those groups by logic, it could only be futile effort that will never bear a fruit. This piece of evidence about the atrocities during and after creation of Finfinne/Addis Ababa is written for sensible minds only.

As to the characteristics of atrocities that happened in Finfinne, I am shocked how people easily and conveniently forget or distort the recent Ethiopian political history. In case one forgets the quest of Oromos and people in the Southern nations which led  to 1974 Ethiopian revolution was a struggle to reclaim their land that is appropriated to settler Neftegnas by reducing them into tenants and servant on their own land. I hope no one forgets Land to Tiller. Oromo farmer’s land grab by settlers did notstart during the Hailesilassie regime as some people try to convince us, it has deep roots in the formation of the modern Ethiopian empire. Of course the intensity increased where the settlers establish themselves in the form of cities. Finfinne/Addis is a case in point.



Herein under, I enlist some of the major historical facts and policy guidelines thatwere put in place to execute an eviction of Oromo farmers for the last century with evidences so that a reader can have his/her own judgment.

Fact 1.  
As an oral society, Oromo folk living in and around Finfinne has very popular song in which they narrate most of the happenings they see/hear. This song has been in public memory for the last 150 years,
Afaan Oromoo
Inxooxoo dhabatanii
Caffee gad ilaalun haafe,
Finfinnee loon geessani,
hora obaasuun hafe
Tullu Daalatti irratt
Yaa’iin Gullallee hafee
Gafarsatti dabrani
qoraan cabsuun hin hafee
Hurufa Bombi irratti,
jabbilee yaasuun hafee
Bara jarri dhufani,
Loon keenyaas ni dhumani
Edda Mashashan dhufee
Birmaadummaan hinhafee.
(Source: Wolde Yohannes Warqineh and Gammachu Malkaa: Oromiyaa: Yetedebeqew yegif Tarik, 1994)

(English translation
No more standing on Intottoo,
to look on meadows blow,
No more taking cattle to Finfinnee,
to water at the mineral springs.
No more gathering on Daalattii,
where the Gullallee assembly used to meet
No more going beyond Gafarsaa,
to chop firewood.
No more pasturing calves,
on the meadows of Hurufa Bombi.
The year the enemy came
our cattle were consumed.
Since Mashasha came,
freedom has vanished.)

Fact 2.
“The Chronicler of the reign of Menelik states that Menelik quoted his grandfather the Negus Sahle Selassie: Oland today, you are full of Gallas but one day my grandson will build here a house and make of you a city; About 1886 large areas of land on the site were distributed; the recipients among others were the Empress, Rasmkael, Ras Darge,Afe Negus Nasibu, The Echege, Dejazmatch Girmame, Balambaras Mekonnen ete:- andareas were set aside such as that for the quarters of the place guard”.   Richard Greenfield Ethiopian New Political History 1965, Page 102

Facts 3.
‘‘In 1843 Sahle Sellasie went onone of the predatory raids, he usually conducted twice and often three times ayear, into the Tuulama Oromo territory bordering on kingdom of Shawa. Major W.C. Harris, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to Shawa leading a British delegation and followed Sahle Sellasie on several of his raiding expeditions against the Oromo during the 18 months he stayed in the country, reported whathe witnessed in his book The Highlands of Aethiopia (1844, Vols. I-III).”

“Hundreds of cattle grazed intempting herds over the flowery meads [meadows]. Unconscious of danger, the unarmed husband man [herdsman] pursued his peaceful occupation in the field;his wife and children carolled blithely over their ordinary household avocations; and the ascending sun shone bright on smiling valleys, which, long before his going down, were left tenanted [occupied] only by the wolf and the vulture.”
Harris noted that, after conferring for a while with an Orthodox priest acting as his father confessor,Sahle Sellasie ordered the expectant army to “carry fire and sword through the land.” What followed was exactly what the king ordered his forces to do.

“Rolling on like the mighty waves of the ocean, down poured the Amhára host among the rich glades and rural hamlets, at the heels of the flying inhabitants—tramping under foot the fields of the ripening corn, in parts half reaped, and sweeping before them the vast herds of cattle which grazed untended in every direction. When far beyond the range of vision, their destructive progress was still marked by the red flames that burst forth in turn from the thatched roofs of each village; and the havoc committed many miles to the right by the division of Abagáz Maretch, who was advancing parallel to the main body, and had been reinforced by the detachment under Ayto Shishigo, became equally manifest in numerous columns of whites moke, towering upwards to the azure firmament in rapid succession.”
 The Highlands of Aethiopia (1844, Vols.I-III). Vol. II (p. 185-198) of Harris’ book

Fact 4
 What Tedla Haile, who was a minister of Education in late 1920 proposed at early 1920 as it quoted in Bharu Zewidie“Tedla  goes back to Classical Rome to demonstrate how the army has always been a factor for assimilation, be it through the intermarriage of garrison troops with local women or the recruitment of subjects people into the imperial arm. Likewise, all other facts of government policy- adminstration, justice, economic organization- should be  regulated by the policy of assimilation. Provincial boundaries need to be redrawn to facilitate the policy. Oromo numerical predominance in the southern provinces should be tempered by a policy of Amhara settlement. Tigreans, too should be encouraged to settle in the southern provinces, as they are great assimilator by virtue of their religious fervour and their inherent weakness in learning non-semtic language.”
 Bhiru Zewede Pioneers of Change 2002 Page,132-133

Fact 5:
Ethiopian Constitution of 1931 1
Chapter I
The Ethiopian Empire and the Succession to the Throne Art. 1. The territory of Ethiopia, in its entirety,is, from one end to the other, subject to the government of His Majesty the Emperor. All the natives of Ethiopia, subjects of the empire, form together the Ethiopian Empire.
Fact 6: The imposition of Amharicon non- Amharias and the Amharization strategy became an almost open government policy in 1955/6. It was enshrined in the statute to establish the Ministry of National Community Development  and Social Affairs. It is clearly stated in Article 7 of the statute that members of the police and security forces should be recruited from the  Amhara ethnic group and those assigned to conquered regions should be provided with special privileges “”The details ofthose privileges are listed in Article 15 as follows:

“በመንግስት ሥራ በጸጥታ ጥበቃ በአገር አገዛዝ በፖሊስነት ወደነዚህ አገሮች የሚሄዱት አማሮች በዚያ አገር ውስጥ ለመኖርና ለመቆየት ምክንያት እንድኖራቸው በጠፍነት የሚለካው የጋላ መሬት በየአቅራቢያቸው እንደመንግስት ችሮታ መጠን ኢንድያገኙና ለማልማትም የሚረዱበት ልዩ ዘዴ እንድደረግላቸው።”
 Getahun Benti  Addis Ababa Migration and The Making of A Multi Ethnic Metropolis1941-1974, Page 176


Now, I leave the judgement for someone who reads and understands what is presented here.
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
Carl Gustav Jung
Thanks!

`=>facebook

Ethiopians badly burned in South Africa anti-foreigner violence

Johannesburg (AFP) - Two Ethiopian nationals suffered serious burns when their shop in a South African township was set alight by a mob, police said Saturday, as violence against foreign immigrants spread.

The men were in the shop in Umlazi, south of Durban, when it was petrol bombed on Friday night.

"They suffered severe burn wounds and are being treated in hospital," police spokesman Thulani Zwane said.

Three people including one foreigner had been killed in violence between residents and foreign nationals that has been raging for the past two weeks in townships south of Durban.

Seventeen people have been arrested over the recent attacks.

"The situation is still tense in all affected areas, and police are out in force to prevent further clashes," Zwane said.

The unrest erupted two weeks ago in Isipingo and Chatsworth, where several grocery shops owned by foreign nationals were looted and vandalised.

View gallery

Foreign nationals are escorted to safety by members of the South African Police Service after a xeno …

It has now spread to KwaMakhutha and Umlazi, also in the south of Durban, forcing over a thousand mostly African foreign nationals to flee their township homes.

Some of those who have fled are being housed in community halls and tents pitched in sports grounds.

Police said the reason for the current outbreak in xenophobic violence was unclear.

However clashes between immigrants and locals are not uncommon in South Africa, as impoverished residents often accuse foreigners of taking their jobs.

President Jacob Zuma Friday spoke out against the attacks, saying "no amount of economic hardship and discontent will ever justify attacking foreign nationals".

He said the government was "deeply concerned" about the violence.

Meanwhile, Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, who recently came under fire for suggesting that immigrants should "pack their bags and leave" the country, has rejected the comment as a distortion.

In a statement issued Friday, the king said the attacks were "taking our continent backwards".

"A mere suggestion that people who were looting were doing that under the king's instruction is disingenuous," said the king, who commands respect in the Durban region that is mostly inhabited by Zulus.

Some foreigners have begun to fight back, with a group protesting against the violence in an illegal march on Wednesday that was broken up by police who fired tear gas.

The latest round of xenophobic violence came just months after similar attacks around Soweto, south of Johannesburg.

Foreign shopkeepers in and around the township were then forced to vacate their premises after violence and looting broke out.

In 2008, 62 people were killed in similar violence in Johannesburg townships

=>yahoo news

"Negotiated Surrender" : ODF's Fundamentally Flawed Approach to Conducting Oromo Struggle

A political group can follow a method of struggle that it deems can help accomplish its goals or political program, but that method can be fundamentally flawed when the context of the struggle and power relations (asymmetry) between groups are overlooked, misunderstood or misapplied for any reason.  When this happens, individual leaders can take a struggle in radically impossible direction compromising the well-being, security and existence of a nation. 

The recent rejection of the Oromo Democratic Front by Ethiopia's EPRDF regime highlights the fundamental flaw, not in principle, but in reality of the impracticality of the so-called "peace talks"  in an environment where there is an astronomical power imbalance between the ruling group and rebels or opposition.  The first duty of a well-meaning organization should be to alter that power imbalance and force a dictatorship to the table. The group's leaders are no strangers to miscalculations and poor planning.  

 Why does not Lenco Lata and ODF learn from the failure of OLF-EPRDF/TPLF "peace talks"  of the 1990s, which forced them to leave the Transitional Government of Ethiopia in the first place ?  This is a particularly important question because the group is repeating the same approach that they know does not work in the context of the current power imbalance. What is the point of being called a "veteran politician" and the founder of this and that if one fails to learn from the past and keeps taking people on the path to another collective loss? 

A statement issued by the ODF leadership shows the ODF "delegation"  headed by Lenco Lata was expelled from Ethiopia after several days in Finfinne. Some people say there was delegation at all; just the president of the organization who was stopped and refouled from the airport. TPLF was not even interested in the "negotiated surrender" ODF leaders were offering it in the name of kick-starting phantom "stalled peace talks"--stalled for 23 years?!   Being rejected when one willfully travels 7000 miles to surrender is by itself an extremely humiliating experience, but that is beside the point because they don't feel humiliated at all.  But, the point is the methods of struggle pursued by ODF is less grounded in the reality of Ethiopia's cruel Realpolitk and more planted in utopia about what is possible and what is impossible.   

Even if we judge the group by the method of struggle it has chosen ( undefined "peaceful struggle"), it does not meet the standards for legitimate peace talks: the presence of a deadlock between parties, neutral location, and third party brokers. The move was more like a friend visiting a friend over a weekend or Lenco going to a belated Meles Zenawi wake/ funeral. In this situation, peace talks or negotiations were  obviously the wrong move because  EPRDF has little incentive to talk to anyone given the power asymmetry.  Scholars of non-violence struggle comment that when major non-negotiable principles and interests of a group are likely to be sacrificed, including the group's identity, and the right to self-government, negotiations are dangerous and irrelevant: 

When the issues at stake are fundamental, affecting religious principles, issues of human freedom, or the whole future development of the society, negotiations do not provide a way of reaching a mutually satisfactory solution. On some basic issues there should be no compromise. Only a shift in power relations in favor of the democrats can adequately safeguard the basic issues at stake (emphasis added). Such a shift will occur through struggle, not negotiations. This is not to say that negotiations ought never to be used. The point here is that negotiations are not a realistic way to remove a strong dictatorship... When the dictatorship is strong but an irritating resistance exists, the dictators may wish to negotiate the opposition into surrender under the guise of making “peace.” The call to negotiate can sound appealing, but grave dangers can be lurking within the negotiating room (Sharp 2010: 10-11).    

If EPRDF/TPLF accepted ODF's offer to perform  a ritual for "negotiated surrender", we could say a negotiated surrender happened, but luckily it did not. If it did, it could just legitimize the dictatorship. It is still a proof that ODF is unreliable in the Oromo struggle since the intention to surrender was there.  The perks Lenco Lata got out of the trip to Finfinne was a couple of editorial articles in The Ethiopian Reporter where he tried to sell himself as as a "moderate" with alternative political program and downgraded the Oromo aspiration to collective self-determination to a cultural and linguistic problem.   

 By rising above region, religion and politics, the Oromo people need to understand political groups and leaders that are willing to surrender their interests for personal power and glory . As for peaceful struggle, ODF is just a redundant organization since the home-grown Oromo Federalist Congress can do a better job of peaceful struggle. 

However,  ODF has the right to compete to become OPDO number two. The Oromo people can choose not to support an unstable organization with a fundamentally flawed method of struggle. Being informed is important to make those crucial choices.  

=>oromopress

Ethiopia expands surveillance capacity with German tech via Lebanon

Authors: 

Claire Lauterbach

Date: 

23 March 2015

German surveillance technology company Trovicor played a central role in expanding the Ethiopian government's communications surveillance capacities, according to a joint investigation by Privacy International and netzpolitik.org.

The company, formerly part of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), provided equipment to Ethiopia's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in 2011 and offered to massively expand the government's ability to intercept and store internet protocol (IP) traffic across the national telecommunications backbone. Trovicor's proposal was to double the government's internet surveillance capacity: two years' worth of data intercepted from Ethiopian networks would be stored.
Trovicor's predecessor in intelligence solutions, Siemens Pte worked closely with its British partner Gamma Group International via an offshore company in Lebanon to expand lawful interception in the east African country. Gamma Group's highly intrusive FinFisher malware suite was used to target Ethiopian dissidents. Forensic traces of FinFisher malware have also been traced back to one of Gamma's Lebanese operations.

Together, the companies and their Lebanese offshore subsidiaries helped one of Africa's most repressive governments spy on one of its largest populations.

Backdoors to the backbone
Since 1991, Ethiopia has been governed by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF), a coalition of ethnically-based political parties that has severely restricted freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Police has and security forces have been accused of torture. The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), an Ethiopian intelligence agency has used intercepted communications data to identify and punish targets it perceives as opposed to the government. Journalists, activists and average citizens widely assume that their communications are extensively monitored. Phone records and transcripts have also been used to extract confessions under torture, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Information Network Security Agency (INSA), created in 2011, consolidated and extended the state's surveillance and censorship of internet traffic. It is reported to have used 'deep packet inspection' which allows for the inspection and rerouting of internet traffic as it passes an inspection point and fulfils certain criteria defined by the inspecting agent. In 2012, it blocked access to the anonymous browsing service Tor, further restricting safe spaces for communication. INSA is alleged to be the agency responsible for using offensive malware from Italy-based Hacking Team in 2013 and 2014 to target journalists.

Ethio Telecom runs the country's phone and internet services as a state-owned monopoly. In 2010, the Ethiopian government contracted France Telecom to manage the company, changed its former name and embarked on a serious expansion of the country's infrastructure. While good news for rural Ethiopians who have much less access to quality communications services, the government also expanded its surveillance capacities to match.

Trovicor was central to this expansion plan. The Munich-headquartered company sells monitoring centres to government and law enforcement clients worldwide to capture, monitor, analyse and store all data acquired during investigation activities transmitted on a wide spectrum of networks. Trovicor technicians work to integrate interception gateways provided by Trovicor or partner companies into network infrastructure of service providers to funnel communications data to the monitoring centres.
Trovicor continues the work of Nokia Siemens Network (NSN), a Helsinki-based joint venture of German conglomerate Siemens AG and Finnish telecoms company Nokia. In 2009, NSN sold its intelligence wing 'Siemens Intelligence Solutions' to Perusa Partners Fund 1 LP, a private investment firm, amid controversy that it supplied of surveillance systems to Iran. Perusa renamed its new acquisition 'Trovicor.'

In January 2010, two representatives of the company presented an Ethiopian customer with a detailed operational plan to massively expand the government's capacity to monitor IP traffic, according to a document obtained by netzpolitik.org.

Ethiopia's fiber optic backbone carries the country's mobile and internet traffic. Signals travel across Ethiopia through many different traffic routers including local and regional routers and international gateways. IP traffic originating or travelling abroad, for example to and from Gmail's US-based storage servers, would pass through internet gateways at three sites. In 2010, the existing fiber optic cable routes radiated from Addis Abeba along the country's roadways to key towns including Gonder and the Sudan border to the northwest, Mek'ele to the North, Nekemte to the West, Awassa to the south, Dire Dawa to the East and out to the Red Sea via Djibouti. That year, the government planned to add 37 new fiber routes covering a distance of around 10,000 kilometers and reaching further into rural Ethiopia.

The government required massively expanded powers to intercept IP traffic across the new and existing cables. The government was to add new local-level 'edge routers' (ER) to 25 new locations. At each of these ER, Trovicor proposed, the company would install its own next generation network (NGN) taps. These taps would not interfere with the transmission of the signal. Instead, they would also transmit traffic from the ER to a Trovicor aggregation switch that would transmit the signal to the government's monitoring centre – provided by Trovicor. The monitoring centre would require data from all 25 new aggregation switches to be provided to it on a single 10GbE link.

The government would double its storage and archiving capacity under Trovicor's plan. Two years' worth of data transmitted across Ethiopian networks could now be analysed. A total of 3 terabytes could be stored online and actively queried by monitoring centre analysts; a further 28 terabytes of material could be archived.

With Trovicor's plan, analysts would be able to locate a mobile caller based on his or her proximity to cell phone towers. Trovicor offered to add this geolocation capacity – a “very cheap solution in comparison to the positioning systems” – to the monitoring centre and to integrate the centre with the network architecture provided by Chinese company ZTE.

Throughout this period Ethio Telecom regularly conducted business with Nokia and Siemens companies, some of it for lawful interception, according to records obtained by Privacy International. It is not clear whether Trovicor was ultimately chosen to expand network interception capacities according to the January 2010 plan. Trovicor was, however, doing business in Ethiopia in 2011. In June 2011 the company sent a shipment to the NISS security agency from Munich to Frankfurt and onwards to Addis Abeba via an Ethiopian Airways flight, according to company records. Its exact contents are unknown. Trovicor and Siemens did not respond to requests for comment.

The Lebanese Connection

The 7th floor of Broadway Building in Beirut's fashionable Hamra district houses two surveillance technology companies – Elaman and Gamma Group, or rather, their offshore affiliates.
Headquartered in Munich, Elaman sells a range of surveillance equipment, from communications monitoring centres to specialist cameras and body-worn call interception devices. It is also a distributor and close partner of the British surveillance consortium Gamma Group. Elaman marketed FinFisher, a malware suite that allows its user to access all stored data and even to take control of the microphone and camera, before Gamma took over the promotion and leadership behind the product in the late 2000s. The Elaman-Gamma partnership had “successfully been involved over the past five years in projects and contracts worth more than 200 million euros”, according to one brochure.
Both companies provide powerful surveillance technology via Lebanon. Four joint stock companies – Elaman - German Security Solutions SAL, Gamma Group International SAL, Gamma Cyan SAL Offshore, and Cyan Engineering Services SAL – share the same registered address, above the Beirut offices of humanitarian charity Save the Children.

Siemens paid one of these companies, Gamma Group International SAL, for an “Ethiopia Lawful Interception” project sometime before July 2011. Gamma Group International SAL's business is facilitated by Nabil Imad who appears as a beneficiary on a bank account attributed to Gamma, according to information obtained by Privacy International. Lebanese law requires joint stock companies, known by the French acronym SAL, to have between three and 12 shareholders, the majority of whom must be Lebanese. Nabil 'Sami' Imad is listed as the director of both Gamma Cyan SAL and Elaman SAL while 'Sami Nabil Imad' appears as director of Gamma Group International SAL. Mohammad Farid Mattar, a lawyer representing the heir of assassinated former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, is also listed as a director of Gamma Group International SAL. The Lebanese company's only listed non-Lebanese shareholder is its chairman, John Alexander Nelson Louthean. Louthean directs Gamma Group International Ltd. Gamma Group and Mattar both declined to offer comment.

In a written response to Privacy International’s and Netzpolitik’s questions regarding the operation, a lawyer for Gamma would neither confirm nor deny the details of this report. The same lawyer, speaking on Mr. Mattar’s behalf, would neither confirm nor deny Mr. Mattar's involvement.
The “Ethiopia Lawful Interception” project could have been to integrate FinFisher into an Ethiopian Trovicor monitoring centre. Trovicor has offered to supply Gamma products to governments worldwide, including in Tajikistan in 2009. A 2010 Gamma Group newsletter celebrated a new partnership with Trovicor based on successful collaboration in joint ventures. Wikileaks has identified that Gamma employees Stephan Oelkers and Johnny Debs visited Ethiopia in 2013 and Elaman CEO Holger Rumscheidt visited in 2012.

The combination of the two companies' capabilities at the time – massive monitoring centres and the deployment of the FinFisher malware – presents a very concerning capability in the hands of a repressive government. FinFisher was used to target members of the Ethiopian political movement, Ginbot 7. Researchers at the Citizen Lab, a technology laboratory based in Canada, analyzed malware samples and determined that a FinFisher campaign originating in Ethiopia used pictures of Ginbot 7 members as bait to infect users – the corrupted files, when opened, would install the spyware onto the user's device.

FinFisher was deployed against Ethiopians living abroad as well. Tadesse Kersmo is a London-based lecturer and member of Ginbot 7. Suspecting that his device was compromised, in 2013, he submitted his computer to Privacy International which, in collaboration with a research fellow of the Citizen Lab, analysed the device and found traces of FinFisher malware. The Citizen Lab's forensic analysis of FinFisher samples obtained elsewhere have linked certificates for the samples to Cyan Engineering Services SAL. Kersmo used to use his computer to keep in touch with his friends and family and continued to advocate for democracy back in Ethiopia. With his chats and Skype calls logged, his contacts accessed, and his video and microphone remotely switched on, it was not only Kersmo that was threatened, but also every member of the movement.

Meanwhile in Germany, where Trovicor is headquartered and Gamma GmbH had an office before they transformed into FinFisher GmBH, German authorities maintain that they are unaware of either company supplying surveillance equipment to Ethiopia. After an investigation prompted by mounting evidence that German companies are leaders in the sale of surveillance technology worldwide, the German export agency said in a letter to the Bundestag that it found no records of any sale of surveillance technology to Ethiopia. However, the absence of records does not mean that no sales were made; unlike the sale of arms and other military equipment that necessitate the consideration of the human rights implications of a sale by export authorities, the sale of surveillance technology was not covered by any export regulation at the time of its export, allowing companies and their customers to trade free from any public scrutiny.

Back in Ethiopia, journalists, activists and many ordinary citizens self-censor in the face of constant government surveillance of their private communications. “We use so many code words and avoid talking directly about so many topics that often I’m not sure I know what we are really talking about” said one person who spoke with Human Rights Watch.

Thousands of kilometres away, European companies and their slightly closer Lebanese entities are responsible for these silences.

The European Union is currently considering if and how to regulate exports of surveillance technologies that lead to abuses of human rights. For more information, visit Privacy International or the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports.


=>privacyinternational

TPLF, Take off Your Hands from Oromo Land

By Kassim Sheimo*

Oromo terrestrial land becomes precious commodity for the successive Abyssinian ruling classes ever since the reign of Menelik to the present day TPLF/EPRDF regime. Under the Menelik and Haile-Silassie Amhara-dominated feudal system, Oromo land was ransacked by the regime-loyalists and the Orthodox Church of Abyssinia. The Orthodox Church of Abyssinia, not only robbed the Oromo of their land, but also became an instrumental tool in enforcing the regimes’ racist policy by preaching the divinity of kings, the supremacy Amhara – the supremacy culture and language – and the inferiority of the Oromo and other nations in the South of the country. Through this coordination of the Church and the kings – and their close association, millions of Oromo farmers lost their precious land to these preys. Much fertile and coffee lands in Central, Southern and Southeastern and Western Oromia had been plundered, divided and occupied by the land tenure elements of the kings, the princes, the princesses, the Orthodox Church of Abyssinia, their Fitawarary’s, Dajazamach’s, Qangi Azthmach’s, Indaraase’s, … Ballabase’s.

The land tenure system gave these elements the opportunity to deeply embed in the land, drawing large numbers of Oromo and southern nations and nationalities out of their lands, villages and communities, thereby forcing them to fall into direct and indirect control of the regimes’ authorities at different levels of the oppressive apparatus and reducing the indigenous people of the land into servitude and slavery. The feudal institutions defined the political authority and hierarchy around the land ownership by establishing a patron-client relationship in which clients were inferior in social classes and ranks. The feudal landlord would possess greater power, wealth and prestige as to when, where, how and on what term and condition he or she controlled the land. The political arrangements were established from the local, the state, the regional to the national levels in such a way that the Amhara elites and regime-loyalists got leeway to mobilize and control large swaths of land under their control. The losses of land – along with the psychological warfare against the Oromo language, the Oromo belief, the Oromo culture; the restricted freedom of movement and association; and the unjust property ownership system – left millions of Oromo and many Southerns to suffer under the systematical and institutionalized discrimination. The regimes instituted the second-class citizenship by denying or limiting the Oromo people’s legal, civil, economic and social rights. The Oromo people were subjected to mistreatment, displacement and neglect at the hands of the putative feudal landlords. In much of the country, Oromo children were denied basic and fundamental educational opportunities. Few of those who had gotten the opportunity were indoctrinated by the Amhara culture, philosophy, belief and language to glorify the Abyssinian feudal supremacy. That influence is still evident among many educated under that system – these have assumed leadership roles among some political groups and constantly denounce the Oromo struggle for the right to self-determination and freedom. Among many of these prominent politicians are Ob. Leenco Lata and his followers. They are, I believe, the products of such institutionalized indoctrination which has made them to glorify the immiyye Ethiopia – even under the current repressive and suppressive totalitarian TPLF regime.

Many thanks to the determined prominent Oromo politicians who resisted and contributed remarkably for the overthrowing of the feudal system and the monarchy – which were preached and believed by many as divine and supreme beings that would never be challenged by a human force. The Students Movement in the early 1970’s galvanized and injected full energy into the struggle against the repressive, backward monarchy. The mass movements in urban centers – along with the peasants’ resistance against the feudal land policy – had precipitated into the downfall of the “King of Kings – The Majesty Haile Sillasse” regime.

In March 1975 the Derge military regime issued a sweeping land reform proclamation, which brought about a complete transformation in the complex feudal system that had made the Oromo people landless. Much of the Oromo land was recovered, and millions of Oromos were allowed to take over much of their indigenous lands led by peasant associations. That ambitious land reform faced hurdles as it was taking into full effects. It was hijacked by the Socialist ideology that only allowed the land utilization in collective forms, rather than redistribution to individual Oromo farmers. Many youth revolutionists and intellectuals believed that the socialist system was the best way to handle such a difficult and sensitive issue like the land reform. The peasant associations, created by the revolutionary development administration at the local, provincial and national levels, were the powerful tools in breaking down the feudal fabrics – even though they denied the individual/private ownership of the land. However, it is fair to say that Oromo peasants have enjoyed from that collective ownership.

Beside some concrete steps like the land reform, the Derg regime failed to produce other political, economic, and social reforms in the country that was brutalized by the backward feudal system. Instead, the Derg waged expensive wars against the Oromo, the Eritrean, the Tigrean and the Ogaden national movements – and as a result of these national liberation wars, millions of people from all sides are believed to have been killed. Many prominent Oromo politicians were killed and eliminated; some of them were thrown into notorious jails. Even though some Oromos took political and military leadership under the Derg regime, the fundamental change had yet to materialize for the Oromo. The Derg regime was finally overthrown by the combined struggles of the national movements in 1991.

The land reform that took deep root during the Derg regime started to take a radical twist under the TPLF junta. The TPLF declared that the land belonged to the government. Imagine, the government is TPLF, and, therefore, it is logical to say that the land and its resources belong to them. It has instituted a very ambivalent land transformation in which the government has been declared to be the sole owner of the land whereas the farmers, and others who own businesses on the land, are nothing more than lease-owners. Broadly speaking, we can distinguish two antagonistic political discourse on the land question: (1) the discourse of fairness and state protection that argues for the state ownership, and (2) the discourse of privatization and efficiency. The TPLF government has hidden itself under such ambiguous policy cover, and has started to privatize the Oromo land by selling or leasing to whomever it sees as a potential investor – mostly to their own prominent Tigrean politicians, businessmen/women and their associates. That turns the land ownership into the hands of a few TPLF members – displacing the poor and destitute Oromo farmers and their families with no regards to their rights and livelihoods. Under the TPLF, the land became the most valuable commodity from which many powerful and corrupted TPLF politicians have amassed millions of dollars – by selling, and by building huge businesses and industries on the Oromo farmland – in short, this has re-instituted the feudal system under a neo-feudal lord, the TPLF.

Many local and international conglomerate corporates have started to ally with the TPLF regime – directly or indirectly – joining the frenzy of the illegal land grab in urban vicinity for housing, business and industrial developments, and in rural areas for large-scale crop productions, intended for bio-fuel consumption abroad – all displacing indigenous populations and leaving them for starvation. The land issue is becoming, not only the local issue, but has gained global attention and trends.

As the population growth is exploding, the demand for food and shelter is increasing every year. The climate change and the rise in temperature and extreme weather phenomena – directly related to the global warming – have become more evident and severe. This has caused low crop yields with the seasons that keep changing – making it harder for the farmers to exactly predict the rainy/right seasons to sow. Wild weather and unpredictable weather phenomena are changing what farmers can grow – even using fertilizers. The regime forces, investors, even some of the farmers looking for fertile lands as food prices keep soaring – are cutting down more and more forests. The anarchical land policy created by the regime plus the ever increasing population – along with the changing weather patterns – keep the food price higher and higher. These factors have made the land issue to be at the center of the major conflict in the Ethiopia Empire. TPLF eyes to change the demographic distribution of population so that – in the long run, no one can claim the land except the few Tigrean elites like Abay Tsehaye. His deplorable and outrageous verbal outburst shows how far TPLF has gone deep – aiming at dislodging Oromo farmers from their fertile land. I argue that the TPLF policy is the mirror-image of the South African Apartheid system – in which 5% White minority controlled 95% the land and its resources – even decades after the Apartheid regime has been overthrown. Under the so-called Addis Ababa Master Plan, TPLF is planning to forcefully kick the Oromo people out of their lands with promises of compensations that neither are adequate nor fair. Under such threats, millions of Oromo farmers living in the immediate vicinity of the capital city are under a constant nightmare that, one day, they will wake up to messy environment when TPLF tugs evict them from their lands and properties on which they have lived for centuries. This will, for sure, create destitute poverty and tenancy institutions, and forced mass rural-urban migrations of landless Oromos – who will be servants of the new conglomerate Tigrean, Chinese, Indian, Amhara and Arabian landlords. That means, it is a matter of time that the place we all call home, Oromiyaa, will have a radical transformation unless we, not only put up stiff resistance, but also fight to completely get rid of the TPLF tyrant regime. Make no mistake; the land belongs to whoever BUILDS on it. If TPLF is allowed to go with “Master Killer Plan,” it would be a game changing situation that the map of the country would be slashed into unconnected pieces of Oromiyaan lands here and there. It would be a very dangerous phenomenon that no sensible Oromo can afford to ignore. This regime does not understand the logic – it does not know the vocabulary of RESPECT for human rights and the rule of law. We need to unequivocally demand that the TPLF take off its hand from Oromo (our) land.

Thank you – “Galatooma”

* The author, Kassim Sheimo, can be reached at kibrole@gmail.com

=>gadaa