Sudan Armed
Forces finally redeploy from Southern Sudan
Donald Payne and
Human Rights in Eritrea
Visits by a UAE
minister and a Dutch parliamentary delegation
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of
the People's Republic of China, Yang Jiechi, arrived in Addis Ababa on
Thursday for a two-day official visit to Ethiopia at the invitation of
H.E. Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the FDRE. Mr. Jiechi
was on the last leg of a four nation African tour, which has taken him
to South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi as well as
Ethiopia. The Minister was welcomed by Minister Mesfin and other senior
officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A large Chinese
contingent was also present to welcome the Minister and his delegation
at the airport. H. E. Mr. Yang Jiechi said on arrival that he wished to
take the opportunity to convey the warm greetings and best wishes of the
Chinese government and people to the Government and people of Ethiopia.
He stressed their long-standing friendship and the sound and steady
growth of the relationship. Now, he said, the all-round cooperative
relationship between the two has entered a new phase of growth, and he
looked forward to advancing the bilateral relationship. H.E. Mr. Jiechi
and members of his delegation paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister
Meles. Their exchange of views focused on bilateral relations, and
regional and international issues of common concern. The Prime Minister
commended Chinese support in enhancing development in Africa and
elsewhere. He urged the Chinese Government to further strengthen its
development assistance. Relations between Ethiopia and China in the
areas of trade, investment, economic and capacity building have shown
significant growth in recent years. By the end of last December, there
were 464 projects in which China has directly invested some $6.5 billion
Ethiopian Birr. Once fully operational, these investment ventures will
generate over 33,000 new jobs. Ninety-one of the companies have already
reached the production phase. Recently, the Chinese Government has
provided a loan amounting to 1.5 billion dollar for the expansion of the
telecommunications services in the country. Mr Yang Jiechi, said
Ethiopia was China’s major cooperative partner in Africa and pledged to
further enhance its prevailing good relations. Mr. Jiechi also held
bilateral discussions with Minister Seyoum concentrating on ways to
deepen and expand the existing partnership; the talks also covered
regional peace and stability including Sudan and Somalia. At the
conclusion of their discussions, the ministers signed two agreements.
One provides a grant of 30 million Rmbs for the construction of rural
schools. The other, one million Rmbs was for improving the capacity
building activity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During his visit,
Mr. Jiechi also met with Ato Sufian Ahmed, Minister of Finance and
Economic Development, and with African Union Commissioner, Dr. Alpha
Oumar Konare. In his discussions with Dr. Konare, he stressed that China
placed great importance on relations with Africa, and said that one aim
of his visit was to boost follow-up action to the 2006 summit of the
China-Africa Forum. He promised that China would continue to play an
active role in Sudan. [Minister Seyom’s speech at today’s luncheon in
honor of H.E. Yang Jiechi can be found in full on the MFA website.]
The Transitional Federal Parliament
of Somalia yesterday approved the new cabinet of Prime Minister Nur
Hassan ‘Adde’. The Prime Minister had earlier presented his plans for
the remainder of the transitional period and gained the full support of
parliament. He reiterated government policies on national security,
reconciliation and the facilitation of humanitarian aid. He told
parliament that the transitional government recognized every citizen,
whether they supported or opposed the government. He said that he
himself believed that in the interest of securing peace it was the duty
of the government to speak with the opposition. He then presented the
names of fifteen ministers to Parliament. Three portfolios in the new
slim-line cabinet have yet to be filled. The cabinet is significantly
smaller than its 31 member predecessor, and it includes a number of new
faces half of whom are from outside parliament. One notable new face, as
Minister of Information and Deputy Prime Minister, is Ahmed Abdisalam
Aden, a co-founder of the HornAfrik media group. The Director and other
co-founder of HornAfrik, Ali Iman Sharmarke, was assassinated by Al-Shabaab
in August last year. Parliamentary approval was given by a show of
hands. Out of the 230 parliamentarians present, 223 voted in support of
the proposed cabinet members. Five opposed the names, while two
abstained. The vote provides a major boost to Prime Minister Nur Hassan
as he starts to move forward to implement his vision for Somalia. He
said he very much appreciated the acceptance of the new government and
hoped that he and the members of parliament could now face the country’s
difficulties together. Last Saturday, the Prime Minister met with an EU
delegation led by the French Ambassador to Kenya. The delegation, which
included the ambassadors of the UK, Italy, Norway, and the Czech
Republic to Kenya, also met the Speaker, Adan Madobe. The EU has
promised to pay the salaries of MPs, providing that they are available
for parliamentary sessions.
The new Somali cabinet was presented
to parliament in the absence of President Abdullahi Yusuf who returned to
the UK this week to continue the medical treatment he had interrupted to
consider cabinet nominations. He is expected to be there for three weeks.
He has denied reports that his health has deteriorated, and said that his
visit to London had been previously scheduled. En route to the UK,
President Abdullahi shared a plane with President Riyale Dahir, the
President of the unrecognized state of Somaliland. Although both were in
the first class cabin of the plane, according to President Abdullahi, the
two did not take the opportunity to hold discussions over the relationship
of Somalia and Somaliland. In London this week, when President Abdullahi
was asked whether he would be standing in the presidential election due in
2009 when the TFG’s mandate runs out, he said it was too early to discuss
the possibility.
Meanwhile, in Mogadishu, TFG security
forces have had another significant success of their own in the operations
against Al-Shabaab. In an attack on TFG forces around Gubeta, Al-Shabaab
lost 16 of its militants, as well as a number of weapons, including an
RPG, and some sophisticated communication equipment. Al-Shabaab
acknowledged the losses on its website by noting that its martyrs had been
taken to heaven. One TFG fighter died in the clash. The incident was
another indication of the improving capacity of the TFG forces to deal
successfully with extremists by itself. TFG security forces have been
getting training from Rwanda and Ethiopia and from AMISOM units. They are
now demonstrating considerable expertise in dealing with those who are
bent on trying to destroy the Transitional Federal Institutions by force.
Prime Minister Meles has expressed his sadness over the current
situation in Kenya and over the loss of life that has occurred there in
recent days. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he believes
stability in Kenya is an important, indeed a necessary, factor for
stability in Ethiopia and in the Horn of Africa. Over the weekend,
Professor George Saitoti, the then Minister of Higher Education,
brought a message from President Kibaki to Prime Minister Meles, and
briefed the Prime Minister on events in Kenya. The Prime Minister
underlined the long-standing relationship that the two countries
enjoyed, and noted that Ethiopia was, of course following the current
developments closely. He made his concern clear and stressed he was
prepared to help in any way that might be useful. In the wake of the
eruption of the post-election crisis, Prime Minister Meles telephoned
both President Kibaki and Raila Odinga and appealed to both for calm,
urging them to resolve the crisis peacefully by respecting the rule of
law.
The National Government in Khartoum
has pulled out all Sudan Armed Forces’ troops from the country's
semi-autonomous south. The redeployment of thousands of northern troops
from the south was provided for in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA), the 2005 peace deal that ended the protracted north-south
Sudanese civil war. Northern troops had originally been intended to
leave the south last July and hand over control of southern oil fields
to joint patrols of the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement, under the SPLM command. In October, in protest over
the delays in implementing this and other elements of the CPA, the
southern government withdrew its ministers from participation in the
national unity government. Following further negotiations and an
agreement between President al-Bashir and Vice-President Salva Kiir, the
ministers returned to the national government in December. On January 9
th,
the third anniversary of the signing of the CPA, the armed forces
finally completed the redeployment of thousands of troops to the north
of the 1956 border line. At a ceremony at Rabkona, in Unity State,
Sudanese Defense Minister, Lieutenant General Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein
described the redeployment as an "historic event" and expressed
confidence in the good will of the parties to implement the peace
agreement fully. Cabinet Affairs Minister and Secretary-general of the
SPLM, Pagan Amum, who was present, announced that the SPLM forces had
similarly withdrawn from areas north of the 1956 line. This, he said,
represented a major step in the establishment of peace. The oil
production areas in Unity State will now be patrolled by joint units of
southern and northern soldiers. Ethiopian Foreign Ministry officials
have described this as an encouraging development and hope that the
momentum will be maintained.
US
Representative Donald Payne, who made a three-day visit to Eritrea last
week, has shown great interest in the Horn of Africa, and notably in
human rights in the region. He has been one of the main architects,
together with Representative Chris Smith of the much criticized HR2003
bill which he claims will support human rights, democracy, an
independent judiciary and the freedom of the press in Ethiopia. Ethiopia
accepts its record is certainly not perfect, but it does have policies
in place to address human rights, including an Ombudsman and a Human
Rights Commission; it has implemented a Constitution and successfully
held local, federal and national multi-party elections, most recently in
2005; there is an independent judiciary and over sixty independent
newspapers and magazines appear regularly. Representative Payne will
have been able to use his visit to Eritrea to make comparisons. In his
discussions with President Issayas, he will presumably have raised his
concern about the two locally employed US embassy staff held without
charge or trial since September 2001, and the two others seized two
years later and still detained. He will no doubt have asked about the
eleven ministers and senior government officials arrested in September
2001 who have never been charged or tried. They have been held in such
appalling and grotesque conditions that several have reportedly died.
One wonders, too, if Donald Payne will have raised the fate of Wo.
Aster, the wife of Petros Solomon, one of the detained ministers. Lured
back to Asmara several years ago by a promise of safe conduct, she was
whisked away from the airport without even being allowed to see her
young children who were waiting for her. She has not been seen since.
International human rights organizations noted in November 2007 that
“thousands of people are detained incommunicado in Eritrea, in secret
and indefinitely, without charge or trial….arrested for suspected
opposition to the government, practising their religious faith as
members of banned evangelical or other churches, evading military
conscription or trying to flee the country.” As an expert in human
rights, Representative Payne will have found plenty more to interest
him. The Government of Eritrea does not allow any political parties
except for its own single ruling Peoples Front for Democracy and
Justice. There have never been any national nor multi-party elections,
though there were PFDJ local elections in 2004. The Government has
persistently refused to implement the Constitution passed in 1997. All
independent media was closed down in 2001 and many journalists arrested;
they are still held. The main element in the judiciary is a system of
Special Military Courts which does not allow for lawyers, gives no right
of defense nor even a right of appeal. No human rights organizations
have ever been allowed in Eritrea. The civil administration has been
under military control for several years. Eritrea currently has the
highest level of military spending per capita in the world, over 36% of
GDP. Mr. Payne will also no doubt have raised his concern over the
widespread and detailed evidence of torture produced by international
human rights organizations and the allegations of sustained sexual
violence against female national service conscripts. In 2006, the
Committee to Protect Journalists identified Eritrea as one of the worst
countries in the world for limitations on press freedom; last year,
Reporters Without Borders placed it bottom of its World Press Freedom
rankings. Eritrea has been identified as one of the major abusers of
religious freedom, and is classified as a country of particular concern
by the US State Department. Mr. Payne may have raised the detention of
the head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Patriarch Antonios,
controversially deposed in January 2006 following his expression of
concern over state interference in church affairs. The 80-year old
Patriarch has since been detained under strict house arrest.
During his visit to Asmara, Representative Payne said he believed the US
government should put pressure on Ethiopia to implement the demarcation of
the Eritrea Ethiopia border. He made no mention of the fact that Ethiopia
is fully committed to demarcation and to the need to re-establish the
integrity of the Algiers Agreements of December 2000 which have been
consistently violated by the Eritrean government’s takeover of the
demilitarized Temporary Security Zone and the restrictions imposed on
UNMEE. Demarcation remains impossible while Eritrea refuses to restore the
capacity of UNMEE or withdraw from the security zone. Representative Payne
also said the only solution to the Somali conflict was the withdrawal of
Ethiopian troops. He made no reference to the need to increase the
deployment of AMISOM or for greater support from the international
community for the recognized and legitimate government of Somalia. Indeed,
while in Asmara, Representative Payne met with leaders of the Somali
opposition group, the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia. Eritrea
currently supports the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia as well
as the Somali terrorist group, Al-Shabaab, to which the Alliance is
linked. Eritrea, of course, does not confine its support for opposition
movements to Somalia, but also backs opposition groups in Sudan and
Ethiopia. As part of persistent efforts to destabilize Ethiopia, Eritrea
has created and supports a number of Ethiopian opposition movements
involved in armed struggle, including the Oromo Liberation Front and the
Ogaden National Liberation Movement which have carried out terrorist
activities in Ethiopia, including the ONLF’s massacre of 74 Chinese and
Ethiopian workers at an oil exploration camp last April. Last week, at the
ONLF’s behest, Ogaden Communities in Europe sent an open letter to the
Malaysian company, Petronas, demanding it immediately stop all activities
in the Somali Regional State, calling any deals it had signed with the
government of Ethiopia “illegal and shady”. In Sudan, Eritrea has
organized, and consistently supported, the Eastern Front. The leaders of
many of these movements are resident in Asmara; others visit frequently.
Eritrea provides military and financial support as well as training and
weaponry, and tightly controls their activities.
As
the US Administration is now considering placing Eritrea on the list of
countries supporting terrorism, Representative Payne will no doubt have
raised Eritrea’s international activities with President Issayas. Among
these activities is also Eritrea’s support for the Ethiopian opposition
Alliance for Freedom and Democracy. This alliance, which involved both the
Campaign for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the ONLF, as well as the OLF,
is organized and funded by Eritrea. It is also an organization which has
been largely responsible for lobbying on behalf of Representative Payne’s
HR 2003 bill. A New York Times article (Giuliani’s Firm Lobbied for Bill
Considered Threat 4.12.2007) drew attention to the success of Giuliani’s
Law Office in persuading the House Foreign Affairs Committee to insert
suggestions into the bill on behalf of the Alliance and the CUD. It again
links terrorist organizations with Eritrea and with HR2003.
Representative Payne continuously and completely fails to notice
Eritrea’s activities in support of regional destabilization or its human
rights record which by any standards is easily the worst in the Horn of
Africa. His visit, and the warm welcome he received from President Issayas,
makes it difficult to accept that Representative Payne’s interest in human
rights in Ethiopia can be seen as impartial, accurate or balanced.
Sheikh Nahayan bin Mubarak Al-Nahayan,
Minister of Higher Education of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) arrived
in Addis Ababa on Tuesday for an official visit to Ethiopia. Sheikh Al-Nahayan,
who is also Chairman of the Dhabi Group, met and held talks with Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi, Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, Ato Girma Biru,
Minister of Trade and Industry, and the President of Oromia, Aba Dula
Gemeda as well as other senor government officials. Sheikh Al-Nahayan
described Ethiopia as a peaceful and secure nation where justice and the
rule of law ensured a conducive environment for investment. Commending
Ethiopia's economic growth over the past several years, he said the
opportunities created would benefit all stakeholders. His visit,
Minister Al-Nahayan said, would further bolster bilateral relations
between the UAE and Ethiopia as well as provide indications for
investment options available in the country. During his talks, the
Chairman of the Dhabi Group announced his interest to engage in various
sectors including hotels, real estate, agro-industries, leather and
leather products and agriculture, and noted that the Group had already
reached agreements over hotels and real estate.
This week, a delegation from the
Foreign Affairs Standing Committee of the Dutch Parliament has been
visiting Ethiopia. The delegation, led by committee chairman, Henk Jan
Ormel, is looking at projects financed by the Netherlands’ Government
and observing the status of democratization and political processes in
Ethiopia. The delegation has met with Ambassador Teshome Toga, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, who explained the government’s
efforts to strengthen the multi-party system and enhance the role of
political parties. Ambassador Teshome stressed that the government had
been working hard to build up the capacity of the parliamentary standing
committees. The delegation held discussions with the foreign affairs,
defense and security standing committee of the House of Representatives.
It will also be meeting senior government officials, and hopes to visit
the Somali Regional State.