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A
Preparatory meeting in London for next month’s UK Conference on
Somalia
The UK is hosting an international conference on Somalia on February
23rd, with the aim, in Prime Minister Cameron’s words, of
pulling together the international effort. A preparatory meeting was
held in London last week attended by most interested countries
including representatives from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and the
African Union as well as Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Qatar,
Sweden, Turkey, the UAE, the UK, the US and the European Union. The
meeting considered a host of issues ranging from the political
process, security, local stability, piracy, counter-terrorism and
international coordination to humanitarian assistance. It emphasized
the importance of Somali ownership, the need for implementation of
the Roadmap, the Kampala Accord and the Garowe Principles, and
necessity of keeping to the transition timelines.
On local stability, the importance of keeping the political and
military processes linked and of maintaining the military gains of
AMISOM, the TFG and neighboring countries was stressed. The raising
of the numbers of AMISOM and obtaining clear and reliable funding
for it was discussed. The roles of the Core Group, the International
Contact Group and its various working groups were considered. The
need to fight piracy on land as well as at sea was emphasized, as
was the setting up of a judicial program in Somalia and the tracking
of financial flows from piracy. The meeting noted the UAE’s
counter-piracy conference last year and the conference Kenya will
host next month to give input for the London conference. Turkey is
also holding a conference on Somalia in June.
The preparatory meeting also discussed terrorism and the shared
threat it poses to the region and the international community. It
recognized the need for close co-operation and partnership to fight
terrorism, and there was general rejection of any idea of starting
dialogue with extremist groups. On the humanitarian side, there was
agreement for continued needs-based support and basic social
services for refugees as well to find durable solutions for the
crisis.
The Ethiopian delegation was led by Ambassador Berhane Gebrechristos,
State Minister for Foreign Affairs, who stressed the Political
Roadmap, the Kampala Accord and the Garowe Principles had been
agreed by a wide spectrum of the people of Somalia and endorsed by
IGAD member states. They were the best options to expedite the
political process and the security situation. He emphasised that
local stability could be achieved by accommodating all those who
renounced violence but the notion of giving political space to
Al-Shabaab or holding dialogue with it amounted now to giving a
lifeline to an organization on the run. Al-Shabaab remained opposed
to peace or cooperation and was still a serious threat to the region
and more widely. This was a view shared by the US, Turkey, the UAE
and others.
Ambassador Berhane also emphasized the necessity of supporting the
decision of the AU’s Peace and Security Council to expand AMISOM
urgently. He noted that the training programs for TFG security
forces outside Somalia had not produced the desired results and
emphasized the need to undertake these inside the country in the
future with country-specific programs. On piracy he stressed that
the ports currently under pirate control should be brought under TFG
and local administrative control. The revenues from these ports
should be redirected to benefit the TFG and local administrations.
On the humanitarian side, Ambassador Berhane stressed that
intervention needed to include reconstruction and reintegration of
the Internally Displaced People. He also suggested that refugee
hosting countries, including Ethiopia and Kenya, should be assisted
to tackle the multitude of additional challenges they now faced,
including environmental degradation.
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Five
tourists killed in terrorist attack near Eritrean border
Last Monday night an armed group of between thirty and forty men
attacked a group of tourists who were camped on the slopes of the
Erta Ale volcano in the Afar Regional State. The attack took place
some 30 kms from the Eritrean border and the attackers, who came
from Eritrea, retreated back across the border after their attack.
Following the incident, the Government issued a press statement.
“On Monday, January 16th, a group of 27 tourists
travelling in the Afar Regional State were attacked by gunmen. It
was an act of open terrorism resulting in the death of five people
with others injured and kidnapped. Those killed were two Germans,
two Hungarians and an Austrian. The injured included people from
Italy, Belgium and the UK. Two Germans and two Ethiopians were
kidnapped.
“The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia would
like to express its deep condolences to the families of those killed
in this cruel attack. It will do everything possible to try and get
those taken prisoner released as soon as possible. It is already
clear that the attack was carried out with the direct involvement of
the Eritrean Government. There is concern that the people who have
been kidnapped might be taken across the border into Eritrea. On
previous occasions when tourists have been kidnapped, the Eritrean
government had tried to use the prisoners as a bargaining chip in
its diplomatic activities.
“Monday’s incident is yet another indication of how determined the
regime in Asmara is to continue its destabilizing activities in the
region. Indeed, it is an indication of the failure of the
international community to rein in the regime. The Government of
Ethiopia believes that this terrorist act is intended to coincide
with the upcoming African Union Summit being held in Addis Ababa at
the end of the month. It might be recalled that it was almost
exactly a year ago that a major bombing plot was foiled in Addis
Ababa, intended to disrupt the African Union Summit last January.
“It is an open secret that the regime in Asmara focuses its
‘diplomatic’ efforts on trying to intimidate and terrorize the
international community rather than operate through normal
diplomatic norms. It is also becoming obvious that the international
community's failure to take serious action against the regime is
effectively reinforcing Eritrea’s recalcitrant behavior.
“The Government of Ethiopia is of the view the time is overdue for
the international community to become serious about the
destabilizing role of the Eritrean regime in the region. This
latest cowardly attack against innocent tourists clearly shows
Asmara’s contempt for the notions of law and customs.
“The Ethiopian Government's tolerance towards a regime that openly
supports terrorist activity is inevitably wearing thinner by the
day. The Government cannot and should not sit idly by while the
regime in Asmara continues to sponsor acts of terror within
Ethiopia's territory with impunity. It will be obliged to take
whatever action is necessary to stop the activities of the Eritrean
regime once and for all unless the international community assumes
its responsibilities and takes the necessary steps to bring this
abominable behavior to an end. The Ethiopian Government believes
that it is still not too late for international action. At the same
time, the Government would like to reiterate that the international
community has never been the last line of defense against Eritrea’s
destabilizing activities. It should be made clear that Ethiopia has
the right to defend itself and it will do so if necessary.”
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EAL
rejects the Lebanese report into the crash of ET409
On
Tuesday, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Works finally released the
investigation report into the crash of ET409 nearly two years ago on
January 25th 2010. The report was expected to reveal the
cause of the crash which occurred shortly after the Ethiopian
Airlines plane took off from Beirut airport, killing all 90 people
on board. The report claims that the probable cause of the crash was
“the flight crew’s mismanagement” and a “failure in basic piloting
skills.” It suggested that chronic fatigue might have affected the
captain’s performance and that the crew might have been affected by
a meal they ate in Beirut. It noted that the plane had taken off in
heavy rain and icing conditions but said it did not encounter any
severe turbulence or lightening strike.
Ethiopian Airlines immediately rejected the report pointing out that
the final report had disappointingly ignored a significant number of
important facts and reached wrong conclusions. Ato Tewolde
Gebremariam, the Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines said
that the investigation process over the previous two years had
merely been used to justify the original speculation of pilot error
made by the Lebanese authorities even before the investigation
started. The Lebanese Minister of Transport had speculated a day
after the crash that the cause was the pilot’s failure to follow
instructions from the airport control tower and ruled out sabotage.
This indicated that the outcome of the investigation had been
prejudged: “The investigation process was guided and was monitored
to prove and justify the speculations made by the officials.” Ato
Tewolde said the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority had added its
comments to the report expressing its disagreement with the
investigation process and with the final report.
Ato Tewolde said the final report was biased, lacking in evidence,
incomplete and did not present a full account of the accident. It
contained numerous factual inaccuracies, internal contradictions and
hypothetical statements that were not supported by the evidence. He
pointed out that significant eyewitnesses, including Air Traffic
Control officers and other airline pilots, had witnessed a ball of
fire on the aircraft. All recordings of the Digital Flight Data
Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder had stopped at 1300 feet and
the aircraft had disappeared from radar at that point. The last
sound on the cockpit voice recorder was also a loud noise like an
explosion. All this clearly indicated the possibility that the plane
had disintegrated due to an explosion in the air related to other
causes than pilot error. Indeed, such an explosion could have been
caused by “a shoot-down, sabotage or lightening strike.”
In this context, the Ethiopian Civil Aviation comments note that the
investigation failed to follow its own procedures properly,
including allowing joint technical reviews and analysis work. In
terms of the report’s rejection of possible sabotage it also noted
that 92% of the wreckage remained on the sea bed and no attempt was
made to raise it. The bodies which were recovered were buried
without medical examination or autopsy. Lebanon also refused access
to passenger profiles, baggage screening records, or airport CCTV
records all of which could have provided checks on the possibilities
of sabotage.
The Chief Executive noted that while the report alleged the
captain’s actions, statements and performance were the result of
spatial disorientation and loss of situational awareness, in fact
the Voice and Data Recorders showed that the pilot was making inputs
in an effort to control the aircraft. This contradicted the
assertions of the report that he was incapacitated. Ato Tewolde also
noted that both pilots were properly trained and qualified and the
captain had over 20 years experience and the crew pairing was in
accordance with approved policy. The crew duty and rest time was
also in accordance with regulations. Ato Tewolde said that any
characterization of the pilots contrary to this was “pure
fabrication that cannot stand any scrutiny.”
The history and experience of Ethiopian Airlines provides an
unequalled record of 65 years as one of Africa’s leading carriers
unrivalled for its efficiency, safety and operational success. It
can with justice pride itself on the high standards of its workforce
including its pilots, technicians and other professionals. The
investigation report should have taken note of this and concentrated
on uncovering the real causes of the crash rather than apparently
trying to hide the facts.
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The 3rd Ethio-Saudi Joint Ministerial
Commission meeting in Addis Ababa
The 3rd Ethio-Saudi Joint Commission Meeting was held here on
Tuesday with the respective ministers of Agriculture representing
their countries during the two days of discussions. During the
opening session, Ethiopia’s Agriculture Minister, Ato Tefera Deribew,
expressed his satisfaction at the existing level of bilateral
cooperation between Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia which is steadily
gaining momentum. The Minister recalled that Ethiopia and Saudi
Arabia had signed a general agreement covering economic, trade,
investment, technical, cultural, youth and sports issues in October
2002. He added that in order to follow up implementation of this
General Agreement which had been ratified by the parliaments of the
respective countries, they had agreed to establish a joint
ministerial commission to meet every third year. The first and
second Joint Ministerial Commission meetings had been held in 2004
and 2009, and based on the outlined areas of cooperation, various
project proposals had been submitted to Saudi Arabia and had been or
were in process of implementation. Among these were the Azezo-Metema,
Assosa-Kurmuk and Gedo - Menebegna road projects and the
Jijiga-Degehabur rural electrification project which had been
launched with soft loan support from the Saudi Fund.
The 3rd Joint Ministerial Commission meeting outlined further areas
of future cooperation between the two countries, and the Minister
said it also enabled Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia to identify
possibilities of medium term cooperation for implementation through
on-going dialogue with the Saudi Fund. The Minister noted that Saudi
Arabia is one of the main importers of Ethiopia’s coffee, pulses,
oil seeds, fruits and vegetables, live animals, meat and meat
products, cereals, spices and natural gum. Ethiopia’s main imports
from Saudi Arabia include most of its fuel requirements, paper,
textile products and carpets. There is an agreement on avoidance of
double taxation which will help to facilitate the activities of both
airlines as well as increase demand for the movement of goods and
people between the two countries.
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Fahd bin Abdulrahman
Balghunaim, emphasized that cooperation between Ethiopia and Saudi
Arabia was continuing to grow particularly in the Foreign Direct
Investment sector. The Minister stressed that meetings of this kind
contributed to further strengthen the existing bilateral cooperation
in all areas. Since the establishment of the Joint Ministerial
Commission he noted that there had been successful achievements on
both sides, and further and fruitful progress every year in
cooperation. During his visit the Minister also met with Prime
Minister Meles and held talks on bilateral relations and on ways and
means to further consolidate Ethiopia/Saudi Arabian relations. He
said that his government was keen to be engaged in the
agro-investment sector, especially in agro-processing. Following
agreements between the two governments, several Saudi Arabian
investors had engaged in the agriculture and other sectors, he said.
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Resettlement and HRW’s unsound and shoddy
methodology
This
week, Human Rights Watch produced yet another of its deliberately
emotive reports on Ethiopia, this time claiming the government under
its villagization program was forcibly relocating some 70,000
‘indigenous’ people in the Gambella Regional State to new villages
that lack adequate food, land for farming, health care or
educational facilities. In its report entitled “Waiting here for
Death: Forced Displacement and Villagization in Ethiopia’s Gambella
Region”, HRW also claimed villagization was intended to clear the
way for large -scale commercial land investment and that donors, at
least indirectly, were funding the program.
In fact, the Government resettlement program is part of its strategy
to ensure pastoralist areas of the country benefit from development
and are provided with the necessary socio-economic infrastructures.
So far some 125,000 households have been resettled in Gambella,
Benishangul and Somali regions, and out of these 20,000 are in
Gambella region. The Gambella Regional State action plan for the
region provides for infrastructural development, including schools,
health posts, water schemes and roads. The program has a three year
life-span and the inhabitants were fully consulted before any action
was taken. Under the program according to the Federal Affairs
Ministry in Gambella region alone, 22 health posts, 19 schools, 18
veterinary clinics and 30 grinding mills have been built, over 70
irrigation schemes set up, more than 400 water pumps supplied and
some 128 kms of road constructed. The success of the program can be
seen in the willingness of people to be included in it.
HRW’s latest report is one of a series over several years either
written by HRW itself and by other organizations to which HRW has
given its imprimatur, unsuccessfully trying to attack the policies
of the Ethiopian government, claiming the use of aid for political
purposes, enforced villagization or similar activities. These have
even gone so far as to call on the international community to end
developmental and humanitarian aid to the country. These reports
have been successively and comprehensively demolished by donors and
their embassies in Ethiopia and by NGOs operating in the areas where
these alleged activities have been taking place. Last year, the UK’s
Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell,
even felt it necessary to emphasize that he rejected Human Rights
Watch’s methodology as “unsound”; earlier, his department had been
obliged to insist that the BBC’s Newsnight program broadcast a
correction to a report to emphasize that “DfID officials in Ethiopia
did make regular field visits to look into allegations of aid
distortion. Those field visits – and dozens of similar visits by
other donor agencies – made clear that there was no systemic
distortion for political reasons in the distribution of aid.” In
response to earlier HRW allegations, the Donor’s Development
Assistance Group (DAG) underlined that it did “not concur with the
conclusions of the HRW report regarding widespread systematic abuse
of development aid in Ethiopia”. Individual donors and NGOs have
repeatedly felt it necessary to disassociate themselves from
unfounded and spurious HRW allegations.
Despite these constant
and consistent refutations of HRW’s reports, and Ethiopia’s own
detailed rebuttals of HRW’s claims, HRW’s sole response has
typically been to ignore any criticisms, and suggest, as in this
latest report, that any other evidence, from whatever source,
however reputable, should be disregarded when it disagrees with HRW:
“In early 2011 as the program got underway, several donors were
concerned and commissioned their own assessments of villagization.
While these assessments underscored concerns with poor planning and
issues relating to food insecurity, donors were not overly alarmed
with what they found, and deemed the processes, as noted below, to
be voluntary. This finding is inconsistent with Human Rights
Watch’s field research.” Again and again, this is the only
argument HRW employs in response
to the fact that government, donors or other independent bodies have
repeatedly investigated these issues and been satisfied. It merely
repeats: “this finding is inconsistent with HRW’s field research”.
Everybody else’s evidence is to be disregarded. Only HRW’s claims
should be accepted!
In fact, as Andrew Mitchell indicated, there are very serious
questions to be asked over HRW’s methodology and these must
seriously affect how its reports are considered. HRW, for example,
always refuses to provide details of its interviewees, their names
or their background, to identify where either interviews have taken
place or give any details of when and where alleged incidents occur.
It claims this is for the safety of informants, and while this may
have some validity in certain circumstances, it does, of course,
have the very useful effect for HRW of making it impossible for
others to check its findings. It also makes it difficult if not
impossible for the authorities to investigate, verify or respond to
alleged criminal or illegal activities, which in turn allows HRW to
complain about government failures to respond.
It also makes it impossible to check whether HRW is covering a
random or representative sample of population, of relevant issues or
indeed of areas involved. It claims it tries to interview a wide
range of people across gender, age, ethnicity, urban and rural, and
geographic lines but there is no evidence of this. Indeed although
HRW claims to have carried out over a hundred interviews altogether
in the Gambella region as well as in the Dabaab refugee camp in
Kenya and in Nairobi, in May and June last year, it is clear from
footnotes that well over half of these were carried out in the
Dabaab camp in Kenya. So less than fifty interviews were carried out
in Gambella to evaluate a program that HRW claims is dealing with
70,000 people and less than half the districts involved were
covered. It is not a level of investigation than can support HRW’s
claims.
In some respects, the surprise is that HRW found so few critics. It
is no secret that there were some problems as the program got under
way and some organizational hiccups. There were some cases where
facilities weren’t fully in place before arrival, and others had
difficulty over water supplies. Not everybody was satisfied when
they arrived at the new villages. There was no concealment.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the majority is settling in their new
homes and it is clear that problems have been neither widespread nor
systematic. Despite all its efforts HRW has simply failed to provide
evidence that this is the case. Its statements on government policy
as usual are based less on known actions or actual research than on
previously reached positions, frequently related to opposition
claims. It is very clear from the pattern of reports HRW has
produced in recent years, and indeed from the admission of former
HRW researchers, that HRW has long decided that the government of
Ethiopia is “bad”. Everything in terms of villagization and other
development programs is to be interpreted in terms of this
assertion. It is hardly coincidental that time and again, donors,
NGOs and other independent visitors have consistently failed to find
any of the evidence that HRW claims is easily available.
HRW never allows independent witnesses to its activities nor is it
prepared to accept the normal academic process of ‘peer review’,
always demanding that its own allegations be taken on trust. It
refuses to accept the evidence of any other organizations,
continuing to accept its own claims, even if everyone else disagrees
with it. It refuses to give details of its interview techniques
which frequently seem to involve asking leading questions and making
very clear what answers are expected. Hectoring, even threatening,
are words that leap to mind.
Significantly, HRW never appears to investigate the political
persuasion of its alleged sources, or consider the possibility that
its informants might have political motives or provide information
for others to do so. It never appears to consider whether its own
informants might have been pressured nor does it evaluate its own
local employees, including interpreters, for political interests or
vulnerability. In fact, HRW simply never bothers to relate its
‘evidence’ to the political situation. This is an extraordinary
omission, particularly as a recent academic paper described the
Gambella Regional State as one of the most conflict-ridden regions
in Ethiopia. The paper actually claims that “the dominant pattern of
inter-group relations in the region is conflict”. This may well be
an exaggeration but the fact remains that HRW totally ignores
long-standing stresses within the society all of which impacts on
the information people are prepared to provide. Equally relevant is
the existence of certain opposition elements in the region that have
been both armed and supported by Eritrea at various times.
HRW claims it finds “significant differences between interviews
conducted outside of Ethiopia, where people are free to speak
without fear of retribution, and interviews conducted in Ethiopia,
where fear and intimidation limit the freedom to speak openly”.
This is hardly true of Ethiopia, but even more it displays
breathtaking naivety in the apparent belief that people in the
refugee camps are free to speak openly. It is well known that
opposition groups operate in all the Dabaab camps as they do in
Nairobi and in the Diaspora. This is a point known to seriously
affect earlier HRW reports where HRW has allowed itself to be used
by terrorist organizations like the so-called Ogaden National
Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front.
HRW repeatedly uses shoddy journalistic techniques, including
exaggerated and emotive headlines and phrases designed to attract
media or fund-raising attention. One example is the title of this
report - “Waiting here for Death: Forced Displacement and
‘Villagization in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region”. The ‘evidence’ in the
report scarcely supports the claim. At one point the report does
briefly, if grudgingly, acknowledge that communities which refuse to
move are allowed to stay put. This clearly underlines the voluntary
nature of the program. HRW, which has claimed the program is
involuntary, then immediately adds the un-provable caveat “thus
far”. This is typical of its deliberate, and disreputable, tactics
to mislead.
HRW is either terrifyingly naïve and often, quite frankly, stupid.
Of course, it is deliberately playing politics. None of this
redounds to its credit and it is hardly surprising that it
vociferously denies these options. However, its output shows signs
of a clear political agenda and of attempts to get foreign support
for legislative changes in Ethiopia, neither within the purlieus of
HRW’s ostensible aims. Significantly, in its ‘recommendations’ to
the Government of Ethiopia and to the international community, HRW
harks back to its repeated efforts to get several pieces of
Ethiopian legislation repealed including the Charities and Societies
Proclamation, the Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation
and the Anti-terrorist Proclamation, all legislation to which HRW
has taken violent exception. None of it has, of course, any
relevance to villagization in the Gambella Regional State, but the
first has very specific relevance to HRW as it insists that
organizations like HRW when operating in Ethiopia have to be
annually audited and licensed. This is something to which HRW has
vigorously objected, apparently believing it should be above any
such ‘petty’ regulations.
In sum, this report is a shoddy and prejudicial piece of work,
written to buttress HRW’s previously rejected efforts to try to
persuade international donors to cut developmental and humanitarian
aid to Ethiopia despite its position as one of the poorest countries
in the world. In its arrogance, the hallmark of what is in fact a
highly controversial approach to human rights, HRW does not bother
to try to defend or even explain itself. It merely repeats,
parrot-like, that HRW’s research “does not bear this out”. It
consistently refuses to provide any opportunity to investigate the
reality of its own claims, and has yet to produce any acceptable
reasons why it should be believed. Despite HRW assertions,
repetition does not render false allegations any more accurate or
acceptable.
It is hardly surprising that an article in the liberal UK newspaper,
the Guardian, a little over a year ago suggested that human rights
had become an excuse for anyone who wanted “to depose the government
of a poor country with resources? … to bash Muslims? …to undermine
governments that are raising their people up from poverty because
they don’t conform to the tastes of upper west side [New York]
intellectuals?” Human rights, it suggested, had in fact become the
catchword of a movement which had lost its way. The article noted
that Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters without
Borders, and others all promoted “an absolutist view of human rights
permeated by modern western ideas that westerners mistakenly call
“universal”. In some cases, their work, far from saving lives,
actually causes more death, more repression, more brutality, and an
absolute weakening of human rights….The problem is its narrow,
egocentric definition of what human rights are.” That succinctly
sums up the problem with Human Rights Watch’s aims, operations and
methodology. It “desperately needs a period of reflection, deep
self-examination and renewal”. That comment was written in December
2010. Judging by its recent reports, HRW still needs exactly that
today.
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News and Views
South Sudan’s Cabinet Affairs Minister meets Ato
Hailemariam
South Sudan’s Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Deng Alor, met
with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ato
Hailemariam, on Thursday last week. Minister Deng Alor briefed Ato
Hailemariam on the current situation in South Sudan and the efforts
being made by his government to alleviate the violent fighting
between the
Lou-Nuer
and
Murle
communities which erupted last month. He also outlined the issues
from the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that remained outstanding
between South Sudan and the Khartoum government. The Minister said
that the situation in South Sudan remained stable even though the
government of Sudan was working to destabilize it. Last week South
Sudan accused its northern neighbor of “stealing” its oil by
forcing a foreign oil company to load 650,000 barrels of crude onto
one of its vessels. Khartoum says that Juba is unwilling to pay
fees for use of its pipelines and it will therefore seize part of
the oil as payment. The Minister added that the Government of Sudan
was making trouble over the transit fees by asking for excessive
payment. Efforts to provide compromise proposals by the African
Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) chaired by former
South African President Thabo Mbeki have been rejected by both
parties. In his remarks, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister
Hailemariam emphasized that the two governments had to work closely
and amicably in order to solve the pending issues. He expressed his
hope that the AUHIP would bring solutions for outstanding problems
in general and for the issue of oil in particular. Ato Hailemariam
stressed it was better to work together to make the two states
economically viable. He underlined Ethiopia's readiness to help the
two countries to negotiate solutions to any unresolved issues.
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The debate over strengthening the Pan-African
Parliament
This week the Pan African Parliament has been holding the sixth
session of the second Parliament. The main subject of its
deliberations has been to discuss its transformation into a
legislative body for the continent. Former Ghanaian President,
Jerry Rawlings, told the assembly that difficulties at the
continental level were hampering the process as some members states
believed Africa “is not ready for a powerful pan-African
parliamentary body with full or even limited legal power.” The
majority of the members themselves believe that the transformation
will help parliaments across the continent represent Africans on a
common platform. Speaking at the opening of the session, Prime
Minister Meles underlined Ethiopia’s commitment towards the
objectives of the Pan African Parliament. He noted it has been
established, in 2004, as one of the ten organs of the African Union
in order to ensure full participation of the African people in the
process of political and economic integration of the continent and
in its efforts to overcome poverty and promote peace. He said it
had done an excellent job in this and in providing consultation and
advice to facilitate the implementation of AU policies and
programs. It had also provided a unique platform for interaction of
ideas and exchanges between national parliaments. The Speaker of
Ethiopia’s House of People’s Representatives, Ato Abadula Gemeda,
said that Ethiopia had played a significant role in the
establishment of the Pan African Parliament and would continue
support to strengthen it. The Pan African Parliament has 235
members from 47 countries with each having five MPs. It was
established in 2004 and a review process was required after five
years according to the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the
African Economic Community Relating to the Pan-African Parliament.
The review began in 2009 and the ongoing AU Summit is expected to
see major changes to the Protocol.
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Ethiopia is now the world’s third largest coffee
producera
The International Coffee Organization on Monday announced that it
now expected world coffee production for 2011-2012 to reach a total
of 134.2 million bags. Each bag is of 60 kilograms weight. This
forecast has been revised from the previous estimate of 128.6
million and the increase largely reflects a significant increase in
the expected output of Ethiopia. The ICO previously estimated
Ethiopia’s production at 6.35 million bags; it now believes
Ethiopia’s production will reach 9.8 million bags. This revision
ranks Ethiopia as the third largest coffee producer in the world
after Brazil and Vietnam, overtaking Colombia. Previously Colombia
or Indonesia have ranked third in production but both have suffered
a series of lower than usual crops due largely to excessive
rainfall. This has been blamed on the recent pattern of the La Nina
current. This runs off the coast of South America in the Pacific
Ocean but it also affects weather all across the Pacific and Indian
Oceans. This re-ranking of Ethiopia emphasizes the significance of
the 9th African Fine Coffees Conference and Exhibition
being organized here in Addis Ababa by the East African Fine
Coffees Association next month, February 12th to 14th.
The conference will be considering such issues as sustainable
production systems, climate change and market outlook, as well as
learning from the experience of Ethiopia. The exhibition is
expected to provide an important platform for the country’s best
coffees, and the event will provide opportunities for creating
trade relations and market connections.
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