General Samora Yunis in Las Vegas
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1173 18/03/2006
The Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian army, Lieutenant General Samora Yunis went to Las Vegas on 2 March accompanied by an American official, Robert Orth, and General Ayalew. He had just visited the Nellis Air Force Base, a base situated north of Las Vegas. General Yunis took advantage of the visit to meet five selected Ethiopians in the restaurant Merkato. Other Ethiopians who tried to speak with him on this occasion were prevented from doing so by Robert Orth. General Yunis then went to Washington before returning to Addis Ababa.
Forthcoming mission to Ethiopia
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1173 18/03/2006
After the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) which has just sent a delegation to Addis Ababa (ION 1170), it is now the turn of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to do likewise. This Brussels-based association has already criticised certain decisions taken by the Ethiopian government, notably concerning legislation of the media which had been controversial in Ethiopia. The IFJ delegation is to go on a fact-finding mission to Ethiopia in the coming weeks to investigate condition of imprisoned journalists.
The reasons behind an expulsion
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1173 18/03/2006
After the expulsion of the Italian Ambassador in 2001 and the sidelining in December 2005 of several Italian NGOs including Mani Tese (linked to the Vatican), Eritrea has once again made a move hostile to Rome. The First Secretary of the Italian Embassy in Asmara, Ludovico Serra, was declared persona non grata at the beginning of March and was given 24 hours to leave the country. He had been previously arrested at Massawa near the entrance to the villa Melotti despite his diplomatic status. He was held for a week-end in an Eritrean police barracks and his car confiscated. The Italian diplomat had gone to Massawa to see that the personal bodyguards of President Issayas Afeworki were occupying this magnificent colonial style villa with swimming pool, built in the 1930s and owned by the Italian Melotti family. The Eritrean President had wanted to take hold of it for some years.
ISS beefs up its team
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1173 18/03/2006
Just as the former Ethiopian Ambassador to Germany, Hiruy Amanuel Gebreselassie has taken up the head of the project to fight terrorism in the Horn of Africa, based in Addis Ababa (ION 1171), Commander Abebe Muluneh has become training coordinator in this same project played out by the South African Institute for Security Studies (ISS). A graduate of the Ethiopian Police College (1993), Abebe Muluneh worked for thirteen years as an instructor in this same police academy and has undergone training at the Rhinelandpfalz Police College in Germany and the FBI national academy in the United States. The Nairobi bureau of ISS has also been strengthened with the arrival of Augusta Muchai at the Arms Management Programme. She had previously worked for six years at the Security Research and Information Centre (SRIC), an NGO based in Nairobi. Mary Moraa Nyaoso joined ISS’s Nairobi bureau as programme assistant and office manager. ISS has recruited other people in South Africa, beginning with Guy Lamb who will head the Arms Management Programme. A specialist on security matters in Africa for a decade, he has been a researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Sweden. For his part, Cecil Aptel Williamson, who previously worked for the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services in Nairobi, has joined the ISS Peace Missions Programme. Poelo Rangoako has now become the ISS director of human resources, while Chandré Gould has joined the Crime and Justice Programme, and Wafula Okumu has taken up the lead of the African Security Analysis Programme and Trusha Reddy has become a researcher with the Corruption and Governance Programme based in Cape Town.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Ethiopian Customs Authority at it again
Nothing defines Ethiopian bureaucracy better than the Ethiopian Customs Authority (also known as Gumruk..."Moronic" in Latin?), and they're at it again. This time, they are refusing to release a cargo donation of almost a tonne of clothes, toys and school equipment collected in five Belgian cities and destined to orphanages in Ethiopia. Custom authorities point to Ethiopia's import ban on second hand clothes, but how is it possible donated items can be classified the same as goods imported for-profit? Single-mindedness, that's how! This same authority has in the past disposed of donated school books and pharmaceutical supplies when unable to extort import taxes, and the same fate awaits the Belgian cargo. What does this say to the world? The fiasco is already a news item in Belgium. Even the ever so politically friendly Chinese state news outlet, Xinhua, could not help post a not so friendly article.... The cargo was blocked by the Ethiopian authorities on its arrival at Addis Abeba airport [since January] and has remained in customs ever since despite negotiations with the Ethiopian minister responsible, the report said.
Dirk Vandervelden, who organized the collection and delivery of material aid, wanted to distribute the cargo between four local projects mainly to help poor, often orphaned, children.
A decision is yet to be made as to whether the material aid may leave Ethiopia. If not, it will be destroyed by the customs officers, Vandervelden said.
Ethiopia rejects Belgian 2nd-hand donations (Xinhua) March 15, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
Kenenisa unbeatable on any terrain
Kenenisa Bekele became the first athlete to win world titles on three surfaces (outdoors, indoors and cross-country) when he took the men's 3,000 meters crown at the Moscow World Indoor Championships on Sunday. A day earlier, Olympic 5,000 meters gold medalist Meseret Defar successfully retained her 3,000 meters title. In tribute to these great Ethiopian athletes, I'll be running the Los Angeles Marathon this weekend...In my dreams!...The 3,000 was one of the most anticipated events of the three-day meet, pitting Bekele against world steeplechase champion Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar (formerly of Kenya) and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, a former 5,000 outdoor world champion.
Bekele's patented finish left his challengers no chance, however, and he won in 7 minutes, 39.32 seconds. Shaheen was 1.96 seconds behind. Kipchoge was third.
Bekele Wins 3,000 at World Indoor Meet (Washington Post) March 12, 2006
Sunday, March 12, 2006
D.C. cab driver
A Washington Post journalist spends a day hopping in and out of D.C. taxi cabs, a profession in which he finds native born drivers far outnumbered by foreign émigrés. The article is similar to a memorable episode produced by PBS called Taxi Dreams, a story of five new immigrant taxi drivers in New York City on the road to the American dream. Not surprisingly, there are those who dislike the changing cultural demographics....Alfred "Big Al" Price has driven a cab for close to 29 years. He's not too keen on the foreign-born drivers.
"It used to be Nigeria. Now the Ethiopians done took over. They don't know nothing about this city. All they want to know is 'Airport.' When I got in, you had to know all the precincts, all the hospitals, all the places downtown. You had to know Northwest and Northeast, Southwest and Southeast.
"They don't know nothing about Southeast."
Driving Around the World in D.C. (Washington Post) March 10, 2006
ION update: 03/12/06
Lencho Letta has met Meles Zenawi
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1172 11/03/2006
The former chairman of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Lencho Letta, acting in his capacity as advisor to this organisation’s chairman Daoud Ibsa, twice met Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in the latter half of 2005. Their first meeting took place at the beginning of September 2005 in Oslo, when Meles Zenawi came to collect a prize conferred on him by a foundation connected to the firm Yara. The second meeting was held during the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s visit to Germany at the beginning of October 2005. It is true that the two men know each other, having worked together to draw up the transitional charter for Ethiopia at the beginning of the 1990s. However, their discussions in 2005 did not result in any convergence of views. In fact, a source inside the OLF confirmed to The Indian Ocean Newsletter this week that there had been no formal agreement to negotiate between his organisation and the EPRDF (governing coalition).
Moges Chemere, removed as Chairman of DBE
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1172 11/03/2006
Moges Chemere, who has been the Chairman of the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) for twelve years, has just been removed without further ado at the end of February. He was immediately replaced by Wondwossen Teshome, 45, who had hitherto been in charge of the finances of the rural credits division of this Ethiopian State bank. Teshome has a degree on accountancy from Addis-Ababa University (AAU) and has worked at the DBE for two decades.
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1172 11/03/2006
The former chairman of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Lencho Letta, acting in his capacity as advisor to this organisation’s chairman Daoud Ibsa, twice met Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in the latter half of 2005. Their first meeting took place at the beginning of September 2005 in Oslo, when Meles Zenawi came to collect a prize conferred on him by a foundation connected to the firm Yara. The second meeting was held during the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s visit to Germany at the beginning of October 2005. It is true that the two men know each other, having worked together to draw up the transitional charter for Ethiopia at the beginning of the 1990s. However, their discussions in 2005 did not result in any convergence of views. In fact, a source inside the OLF confirmed to The Indian Ocean Newsletter this week that there had been no formal agreement to negotiate between his organisation and the EPRDF (governing coalition).
Moges Chemere, removed as Chairman of DBE
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1172 11/03/2006
Moges Chemere, who has been the Chairman of the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) for twelve years, has just been removed without further ado at the end of February. He was immediately replaced by Wondwossen Teshome, 45, who had hitherto been in charge of the finances of the rural credits division of this Ethiopian State bank. Teshome has a degree on accountancy from Addis-Ababa University (AAU) and has worked at the DBE for two decades.
Laureate Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (1936-2006)
...Born in the small mountain town of Boda, near Ambo, Mr. Tsegaye
became one of his country's most prominent literary figures as well as an international emissary for its culture. Considered by some to be Ethiopia's greatest playwright, Mr. Tsegaye (pronounced say-GAY) wrote more than 30 plays, most in Amharic, Ethiopia's official language, and translated many Western works into Amharic, including those of Shakespeare, Brecht and Molière.
..."In order to bring about a better future, one must learn from the past," Mr. Tsegaye said in 1993 interview with The Ethiopian Review. "You cannot build a future based on hatred because hatred is the enemy of hope."
Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Ethiopian Poet Laureate, Dies at 69 (New York Times) M
arch 9, 2006
A Short Walk Through His Literary Park, by Professor Negussay Ayele
became one of his country's most prominent literary figures as well as an international emissary for its culture. Considered by some to be Ethiopia's greatest playwright, Mr. Tsegaye (pronounced say-GAY) wrote more than 30 plays, most in Amharic, Ethiopia's official language, and translated many Western works into Amharic, including those of Shakespeare, Brecht and Molière...."In order to bring about a better future, one must learn from the past," Mr. Tsegaye said in 1993 interview with The Ethiopian Review. "You cannot build a future based on hatred because hatred is the enemy of hope."
Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Ethiopian Poet Laureate, Dies at 69 (New York Times) M
arch 9, 2006A Short Walk Through His Literary Park, by Professor Negussay Ayele
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
In pictures: A dignified Ethiopia
Images of daily life in Ethiopia, by Aida Muluneh. A world apart from what foreign media depicts as the only norm. My favorite photo is of the little girl in the back seat of her Dad's car.In pictures: A dignified Ethiopia (BBC) March 8, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Three explosions hit Addis
Three explosions rocked the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa around noon on Tuesday, severely injuring four people, police said.One blast hit the Lalibela restaurant in the southern part of the city, extensively damaging the structure. Restaurant manager Asnketch Makaonnen said the explosion was caused by a bomb planted in a flower pot outside.
...The other explosion struck a market, also in the south of the city. Police said the device was hidden in a rubbish bin. There were no injuries.
A third blast later occurred outside the gate of a hotel and tourism training center in the center of the city. No one was injured in the blast, which damaged a small guard shack at the gate...
Three explosions hit Ethiopian capital (Reuters) March 7, 2006
Monday, March 06, 2006
Trail of tears
It is a smelly, offensive and debilitating condition in which women injured in childbirth uncontrollably leak a trail of urine or feces.The condition, known as fistula, all but disappeared in the Western world in the late 19th century, when Caesarean section births became widely available.
But in sub-Saharan Africa, the condition remains widespread, sentencing as many as 3 million women to a life of abandonment and enforced solitude....
Ethiopia's trail of tears (The Washington Times) March 5, 2006
Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital
Friday, March 03, 2006
ION update: 03/03/06
Lobbying for the families of Ethiopian political prisoners
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
A group formed by the relatives and friends of the imprisoned leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP, Ethiopian opposition) have called on the services of an American lobbying company. This group is called Advocacy Ethiopia and is based in Silver Springs, Maryland. It has just hired the lawyer Harold Boyd from the Boyd & Brown practice to help them get their voice heard by the American administration. This law practice is based in Maryland and also has a branch in Washington.
Another woman in Paris
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
The current Ambassador of Ethiopia to Paris is to return soon to Addis Ababa. She will be replaced in France by another woman, who is currently on post in the Ivory Coast.
Finally, Wubishet Demissie T/.Mariam (ION 1166) will not be replacing Ms Sahle-Work Zewde in the post of Ambassador to Paris. It is Ms Tadelech Haile-Mikael who is to be the new representative of Ethiopia in France. Haile-Mikael, 52, is currently the Ethiopian Ambassador to the Ivory Coast and has been the Minister for Women’s Rights from 1995 until she went to Abidjan at the beginning of 2002. A former activist in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP, opposition), she has spent more than a decade (1979-1991) in prison while her husband, who was also a member of the EPRP, was killed by the troops of the then President Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1979. Tadelech Haile-Mikael then escaped the death penalty because she was pregnant, later giving birth to a girl in prison. Her daughter then lived with her mother during the whole of her imprisonment. Before her time in prison, the future Ethiopian Ambassador to France studied journalism at the University of Friebourg in Switzerland. As The Indian Ocean Newsletter had announced, Sahle-Work Zewde will go to Addis Ababa to run the Africa department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and become her country’s Ambassador to the African Union.
Eritrea: A chargé d'affaires in France
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
The Ambassador of Eritrea to Paris has been recalled to Asmara. She has been replaced by her counsellor who has been made a chargé d'affaires.
On post since the beginning of 2001, the Eritrean Ambassador to Paris, Hanna Simon has been recalled to Asmara and replaced by her counsellor, Ahmed Dehli. The latter hence becomes the chargé d’affaires of the Eritrean embassy in Paris until a new Ambassador is appointed. Dehli had lived and studied in France for many years before returning to Eritrea several years ago. He notably held the post of director of the Centre d’Etudes Stratégiques in Asmara. He returned to Paris last year as counsellor to the embassy. With the departure of Ms Simon, the balance of the number of women ambassadors to France from African countries has shifted slightly. Their number had stood at six and the recent replacement of the ambassador of Uganda by another woman (ION 1161) did not change the ratio. No more than will the replacement of Sahle-Work Zwede (Ethiopia) by another woman Ethiopian diplomat. But with the departure of Hanna Simon, there are now only five.
From Ambassador to consultant
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
The Ethiopian Ambassador to Germany has left the diplomatic service and returned to Addis Ababa to work for an institute studying security.
The Ethiopian Ambassador to Germany left his diplomatic functions at the beginning of the month to take charge of a project to fight terrorism in the Horn of Africa, based in Addis Ababa. This project is an initiative by the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) of South Africa. ISS had originally advertised this post in August 2005 and eventually selected Hiruy Amanuel Gebresellasie. Furthermore, Amanuel signed on behalf of the Ethiopian government in September 2005 in Berlin an agreement with International Conferences, Workshops and Exhibitions (ICWE) and Hoffman & Reif Consultants (HRC) to hold an annual conference on information and communication technology in Ethiopia. The first edition of this conference, “eLearning Africa” will be held from 24 to 26 May in Addis Ababa with financial support from the European Commission. Although he has now left the Ethiopian diplomatic service, Amanuel is on the eLearning Africa honorary committee, alongside Andreas Eshete (Dean of Addis Ababa University) and the Ethiopian Minister of Education Wondwossen Kiflu. Born in 1952, married to Mehret Kidanu and the father of two children aged 18 and 20. Amanuel is a graduate in librarianship from the Addis Ababa University, in political science from the California Lutheran University and in communication, radio and television from Syracuse University. He began his career as a radio producer in Ethiopia at the beginning of the 1970s and later worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Information before joining the Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the beginning of the 1990s. Amanuel has held several posts in this ministry’s Europe department, before becoming head of the department in 1992 and later director general for Europe and America (1994-2000). In 2000 he was sent to France as chargé d’affaires and was made Ambassador to Germany two years later.
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
A group formed by the relatives and friends of the imprisoned leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP, Ethiopian opposition) have called on the services of an American lobbying company. This group is called Advocacy Ethiopia and is based in Silver Springs, Maryland. It has just hired the lawyer Harold Boyd from the Boyd & Brown practice to help them get their voice heard by the American administration. This law practice is based in Maryland and also has a branch in Washington.
Another woman in Paris
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
The current Ambassador of Ethiopia to Paris is to return soon to Addis Ababa. She will be replaced in France by another woman, who is currently on post in the Ivory Coast.
Finally, Wubishet Demissie T/.Mariam (ION 1166) will not be replacing Ms Sahle-Work Zewde in the post of Ambassador to Paris. It is Ms Tadelech Haile-Mikael who is to be the new representative of Ethiopia in France. Haile-Mikael, 52, is currently the Ethiopian Ambassador to the Ivory Coast and has been the Minister for Women’s Rights from 1995 until she went to Abidjan at the beginning of 2002. A former activist in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP, opposition), she has spent more than a decade (1979-1991) in prison while her husband, who was also a member of the EPRP, was killed by the troops of the then President Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1979. Tadelech Haile-Mikael then escaped the death penalty because she was pregnant, later giving birth to a girl in prison. Her daughter then lived with her mother during the whole of her imprisonment. Before her time in prison, the future Ethiopian Ambassador to France studied journalism at the University of Friebourg in Switzerland. As The Indian Ocean Newsletter had announced, Sahle-Work Zewde will go to Addis Ababa to run the Africa department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and become her country’s Ambassador to the African Union.
Eritrea: A chargé d'affaires in France
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
The Ambassador of Eritrea to Paris has been recalled to Asmara. She has been replaced by her counsellor who has been made a chargé d'affaires.
On post since the beginning of 2001, the Eritrean Ambassador to Paris, Hanna Simon has been recalled to Asmara and replaced by her counsellor, Ahmed Dehli. The latter hence becomes the chargé d’affaires of the Eritrean embassy in Paris until a new Ambassador is appointed. Dehli had lived and studied in France for many years before returning to Eritrea several years ago. He notably held the post of director of the Centre d’Etudes Stratégiques in Asmara. He returned to Paris last year as counsellor to the embassy. With the departure of Ms Simon, the balance of the number of women ambassadors to France from African countries has shifted slightly. Their number had stood at six and the recent replacement of the ambassador of Uganda by another woman (ION 1161) did not change the ratio. No more than will the replacement of Sahle-Work Zwede (Ethiopia) by another woman Ethiopian diplomat. But with the departure of Hanna Simon, there are now only five.
From Ambassador to consultant
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1171 04/03/2006
The Ethiopian Ambassador to Germany has left the diplomatic service and returned to Addis Ababa to work for an institute studying security.
The Ethiopian Ambassador to Germany left his diplomatic functions at the beginning of the month to take charge of a project to fight terrorism in the Horn of Africa, based in Addis Ababa. This project is an initiative by the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) of South Africa. ISS had originally advertised this post in August 2005 and eventually selected Hiruy Amanuel Gebresellasie. Furthermore, Amanuel signed on behalf of the Ethiopian government in September 2005 in Berlin an agreement with International Conferences, Workshops and Exhibitions (ICWE) and Hoffman & Reif Consultants (HRC) to hold an annual conference on information and communication technology in Ethiopia. The first edition of this conference, “eLearning Africa” will be held from 24 to 26 May in Addis Ababa with financial support from the European Commission. Although he has now left the Ethiopian diplomatic service, Amanuel is on the eLearning Africa honorary committee, alongside Andreas Eshete (Dean of Addis Ababa University) and the Ethiopian Minister of Education Wondwossen Kiflu. Born in 1952, married to Mehret Kidanu and the father of two children aged 18 and 20. Amanuel is a graduate in librarianship from the Addis Ababa University, in political science from the California Lutheran University and in communication, radio and television from Syracuse University. He began his career as a radio producer in Ethiopia at the beginning of the 1970s and later worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Information before joining the Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the beginning of the 1990s. Amanuel has held several posts in this ministry’s Europe department, before becoming head of the department in 1992 and later director general for Europe and America (1994-2000). In 2000 he was sent to France as chargé d’affaires and was made Ambassador to Germany two years later.
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