|
Dr. Ahmed Nazief, Prime Minister of the
Arab Republic of Egypt, made an official working visit to Ethiopia
this week, from December 29th to 30th. He was accompanied by a
number of high-level government officials and Egyptian
businesspeople from various sectors of industry. The Prime
Minister’s visit was intended to explore opportunities and avenues
of cooperation for trade and investment between the two countries.
During the visit, the Egyptian Prime Minister paid a courtesy call
on President Girma Wolde-Giorgis, and held bilateral talks with
Prime Minister Meles. The two Prime Ministers reviewed the
implementation of existing economic and other areas of cooperation
between Ethiopia and Egypt, and underlined the huge potential
benefit for both sides that would arise from enhanced cooperation.
They exchanged views on ways to expand the process of cooperation,
and agreed to increase this on the basis of common interests and
realistic assessment of the concerns of the two peoples and
countries. With a view to advancing cooperation in all areas, they
agreed the existing mechanism of the Joint Ministerial Commission
should be revitalized.
Ethiopia and Egypt have many joint
interests. As Prime Minister Meles said the Blue Nile is a bond
between the two countries and should not be looked at in any way
as a source of misunderstanding. Ethiopia has always expressed its
readiness to address the issue of the Nile on the basis of a
win-win result for the mutual benefit of all the peoples and
countries of the Nile Basin. It believes the ongoing Nile Basin
Initiative is on the right track and is convinced that all member
countries will do their utmost to make the establishment of the
Nile Basin Commission a reality. Prime Minister Meles also noted
that the period we are in requires both countries to speed up
co-operation in all areas based on the realistic assessment of the
interests of the two peoples and the challenges they face. He
assured the Egyptian Prime Minister that Egypt would find Ethiopia
a ready and able partner in marching forward together guided by
the signposts of their common interests. Dr. Ahmed Nazief said the
Egyptian Government would do everything possible to further
enhance trade and investment ties between the two countries.
Several areas of future co-operation had been identified,
including investment, agriculture and construction. He said the
National Bank of Egypt would be involved in developing 20,000
hectares in the Afar Regional State, and five Egyptian drug
companies were preparing to invest in Ethiopia’s health sector.
Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan were also expected to reach agreement
soon, he said, on the installation of electricity transmission
cables to connect the three countries.
A joint Ethiopian-Egyptian business
forum also met during the Prime Minister’s visit. This gave an
opportunity to the business communities of both countries to
interact and explore trade and investment prospects on both sides.
The two Premiers were present at the opening of the meeting,
attended by a total of some 150 business people from both
countries, and they encouraged the private sectors of the two
countries to take advantage of the huge opportunities currently
available in the economic sphere for their mutual benefit without
allowing themselves to be distracted by any difficulties and
misunderstandings that might occur from time to time from either
side. According to official sources from the Ministry of Trade and
Industry, the volume of trade between Ethiopia and Egypt has been
growing by 20% per annum. To facilitate a more regular interaction
between the two business communities a Memorandum of Understanding
on the Establishment of a Joint Business Council was signed
between the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association
and the Egypt Business Association.
During his stay in Ethiopia, Prime
Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazief and his delegation visited the El-Sewedy
Cable Factory, owned by an Egyptian investor, at Dukem just
outside Addis Ababa; and on his way back to Cairo, the Prime
Minister landed at Bahar Dar in the Amhara Regional State to visit
the Blue Nile falls and to attend a ground-breaking ceremony for
the Golden Trading Company, which is being established as a joint
venture with an Egyptian investor.
*************
top |
Yesterday, Sherif Hassan Sheikh Aden,
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Somalia’s
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) met with Ethiopia’s Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Ato Seyoum Mesfin. The Deputy Prime Minister
briefed Minister Seyoum on the current situation in Somalia,
noting that continued Ethiopian support to Somalia in the areas of
security, diplomacy, politics and capacity building was beginning
to bear fruit. The Deputy Prime Minister told Minister Seyoum that
the level of current international diplomatic support for the TFG
was higher than ever before. He evidenced the last International
Contact Group meeting held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as well as
last week’s UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on
Eritrea because of its “spoiling” efforts in Somalia and its
efforts to overthrow the TFG. He said he was very encouraged by
the expressions of support from the Security Council and its
backing for AMISOM.
However, the Deputy Prime Minister made
it clear that apart from vocal political and diplomatic support,
the international community had not yet responded positively, for
example, in fulfilling the promises made at the last donors’
conference held in Brussels in April 2009. The result was a
fundamental shortcoming of any concrete and meaningful support for
the TFG, and the TGF was therefore under severe financial
constraints in its efforts to overcome the security challenges it
faced from both internal and external extremist elements. These,
he added, were elements that posed a threat not just to Somalia
but to the region as a whole.
The Deputy Prime Minister gave details
to Minister Seyoum about the support the TFG was getting from
other regional states. He made it clear he appreciated the support
the TFG has been receiving from the Government of Djibouti in
capacity building for the TFG security forces, and for the pledge
Djibouti has made to contribute troops for AMISOM. Similarly, he
said, the Government of Yemen had continued to offer assistance to
the TFG for capacity building for TFG security forces. He was also
grateful to the Government of Kenya for its continued support and
the training being given to TFG forces. He noted that because of
such concrete assistance from neighboring and regional countries,
the TFG security forces had been significantly improved. He said
the TFG was currently trying to assist Ahlu Sunna wal-Jamaa (ASWJ)
to hold a planned conference. This, he said, would allow the TFG
and ASWJ to engage seriously in talks, and plan joint operations
to face the challenges posed by Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam
extremists.
Minister Seyoum for his part made it
clear Ethiopia appreciated the political will and commitment shown
by the TFG leadership in tackling the security challenges Somalia
is facing. He also welcomed President Sheikh Sherif’s continued
efforts to reach out to those opposition elements which were
prepared to renounce violence, and his attempts to bring them into
the reconciliation process. The Minister also emphasized the
critical importance of TFG engagement and cooperation with Ahlu
Sunna wal-Jamaa and said he had been encouraged by the attitude of
Ahlu Sunna wal-Jamaa towards the TFG and its current progress. He
also underlined the need for the two to cooperate fully. Minister
Seyoum made it clear he agreed with the Deputy Prime Minister on
the need for the international community to come up with more
concrete assistance for the TFG and to disburse its promised, if
much delayed, funding. He added that at the last IGAD Council of
Ministers meeting in Djibouti, IGAD member States had agreed to
try to start to mobilize key members of the international
community to come forward with immediate and substantial financial
and budgetary assistance to the TFG. He stressed that the TFG
itself also needed to undertake similar efforts at necessary
mobilization to support its requests for budgetary assistance.
*************
top |
The 12th meeting of the Ethiopian
Sudanese Joint Border Development Commission convened this week in
Mekelle, the capital of Tigrai Regional State. The Ethiopian
delegation, headed by the President of Tigrai Regional State,
Tsegay Berhe, also included the Presidents and other senior
officials from Gambella, Benishangul Gumuz and Amhara Regional
States. The 135-strong Sudanese delegation, which arrived at
Mekelle’s Allula Abanega international airport on Monday for the
four day meeting, was headed by General Salah Abdela, National
Security Adviser to President Omar el Bashir. The Sudanese states
represented at the discussions were Upper Nile, Blue Nile, Sennar
and Gedaref. The Sudanese delegation also included a musical team,
and an Ethiopian cultural group joined in its performances in
Mekelle during the week. Also present at the meeting were Ato
Getachew Assefa, Director of Ethiopia’s National Intelligence and
Security Services, and General Eng. Abudruman Abdalla, Sudan’s
Minister of Federal Affairs, who represented their respective
federal governments.
Opening the meeting, President Tsegay
welcomed the Sudanese delegation and explained the significance of
the occasion and the importance of mutual collaboration between
Ethiopia and Sudan. He said the efforts of the two countries to
bring about durable peace and expedite economic integration would
play a pivotal role for the entire region. He underlined the
readiness of the Ethiopian side for increased collaboration and
for consolidation of people-to-people relations. In response,
General Salah noted that relations between Sudan and Ethiopia were
growing stronger all the time. He commended Ethiopia’s efforts to
alleviate poverty and accelerate development, and said the joint
meeting would help to further consolidate mutual collaboration on
development and security. He also hailed Ethiopia’s efforts to
help solve the problems in Darfur through deployment of
peacekeepers.
The meeting evaluated the implementation
of agreements reached in previous sessions of the Commission, and
advised on the best strategies to overcome any shortcomings that
have become apparent. It considered, inter alia, matters of
security, education, trade, control of illegal border trade,
health and ways of preventing communicable diseases, and
agriculture, reaching a number of new agreements. Culture,
tourism, youth and sports were included on the agenda for the
first time. The two parties agreed to enhance co-operation to
encourage legal border trade and limit illegal activity. They
agreed to come up with new proposals for acceptable commodities
for the next meeting, and strongly recommended closer customs
co-operation to minimize the problem of contraband. Agreement was
reached to reinforce quarantine services along the border to
improve cooperation over control of animal and human diseases. The
meeting can be seen as another milestone in making the common
border areas a center of development for the benefit of both
countries. Both governments are doing their best to expand social
services in the border areas, so citizens of both Sudan and
Ethiopia could have access to the same social services
irrespective of their nationality.
Security was an important issue in the
discussions and there was a broad understanding that the upcoming
elections in both countries might offer Eritrea an opportunity to
try and cause problems. In fact there are indications that Eritrea
is making preparations to use the long common border between
Ethiopia-Sudan to smuggle terrorists and anti-Ethiopian forces
into Ethiopia. General Salah said the two states would work
closely together, noting that securing peace and stability in
either country meant securing it in both. He expressed Sudan’s
readiness to cooperate fully with Ethiopia to achieve regional
peace and security. The two parties agreed to further reinforce
and scale up their co-operation to deal with the illegal
circulation of light weapons, in dealing with ‘anti-peace
elements’, and with the illegal expansion of farming in border
areas as well as human trafficking and related issues. It was
agreed that the next meeting of the Joint Border Development
Commission will be held in Sennar, Sudan.
*************
top |
The United Nations Security Council
recently imposed targeted sanctions on the military and political
leadership of Eritrea with a view to pressing that country to
adhere to international laws and norms governing relations amongst
states. The UN Security Council Resolution (Resolution 1907, 2009)
particularly refers to Eritrea’s behavior towards Somalia and
Djibouti. It also makes it clear the Council is prepared to adjust
the measures specified in the resolution if Eritrea complies with
the Security Council’s demands. In the discussion on the
resolution, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the Council
emphasized the measures proposed were not comprehensive but
targeted and corrective, and he hoped Eritrea would take
sufficient actions to enable the Council to positively review the
measures imposed on December 23rd. Other members of the Council
underlined the point that the intention of the resolution was to
persuade Eritrea to behave in a peaceful and civilized manner in
the future. Such behavioral adjustment might appear to be a simple
proposition for most states, but this is hardly the case for the
Eritrean Government which has consistently displayed contempt
towards international legality ever since it came into existence
as a de facto sovereign state in 1991.
Eritrea has, in fact, displayed a
recurrent propensity to use force to resolve any differences it
might have with its neighbors. Such an attitude has, indeed,
become the defining feature of the regime in Asmara, amounting to
clear and repeated violations of the cardinal principle of
peaceful settlement of disputes, a principle enshrined in the UN
Charter. This violent behavior by the Eritrean Government has
played a major role in perpetuating most of the instability in the
Horn of Africa, and whatever the supposed justification might have
been, Eritrea’s behavior has been tolerated for far too long. One
effect, inevitably perhaps, has been to reinforce its Government’s
contempt for international laws and norms. The regime in Asmara
began to assume it could act as it liked with impunity as the
normal way of conducting international relationships.
To its credit, the first organization to
react against the destabilizing role that Eritrea assumed in the
region was the regional organization, the Inter-Governmental
Authority for Development (IGAD), from which Eritrea suspended
itself in 2007. Certainly, there was good reason for IGAD to
respond to Eritrean activity. Apart from covert and even overt
support for extremist and terrorist groups working to overthrow
the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia through
violence, the Eritrean president publicly called for the removal
of both the TFG and of AMISOM. It should also be borne in mind
that Eritrea suspended its membership of IGAD because the
organization refused to endorse Eritrea’s support for armed
extremist forces in Somalia and its efforts to remove the TFG.
Even after this, IGAD made every effort to persuade Eritrea to
listen to the views of all the other members of the regional
organization, sending a Ministerial delegation to Asmara to try to
convince the Eritrean leadership to take a more constructive view
and rejoin the organization.
Not for the first time, President
Issayas refused to respond to IGAD's goodwill gesture or even take
it seriously. He rejected a number of fact-finding missions from
the UN and other organizations as well as from IGAD. Far from
re-evaluating Eritrean policy, he intensified Eritrea’s aggressive
behavior. Even though IGAD had failed to bring Eritrea back into
the fold, no one expected the Eritrean Government to take the line
it did, intensifying its onslaught against the TFG and AMISOM. To
the surprise, and disappointment of IGAD and indeed of the rest of
the international community, the Eritrean Government not only
rejected all IGAD’s efforts, and continued its active support for
armed extremist groups, it went further and launched an invasion
of Djibouti territory. Subsequently, in spite of calls from the
United Nations, the African Union, IGAD, the League of Arab States
and other regional and international bodies, Eritrea refused to
withdraw from Djibouti or enter into any dialogue with Djibouti,
even refusing to acknowledge there was any problem arising from
its aggression, and completely disregarding the principle of
peaceful settlement of disputes.
Eritrea’s complete and continued
disregard for common sense as well as for all the rules of normal
international behavior, eventually forced the IGAD countries,
whose populations have to bear the brunt of Eritrea's
destabilizing activities in the region, to take the unprecedented
step of calling on the UN to impose sanctions on Eritrea. This
request was unanimously endorsed after detailed consideration by
the AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) and then by the African
Union Summit, supporting the call from one of its building blocks
and tasking, for the first time, the extraordinary measure of
asking the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on one of its
own members.
The whole process amounts to a
significant example of the sort of cooperation between the United
Nations and regional organizations provided for under Chapter VIII
of the UN Charter. Such synchronized efforts are in fact vital for
the future of international peace, security and stability. It is
to be hoped that they will occur with increased regularity.
Equally, of course, it must be emphasized that it is imperative
that any such actions are followed up with realistic and prompt
implementation if they are to be effective.
*************
top
|
It has been a little over 15 years since
the first ever press law was introduced in Ethiopia, a development
which sparked off an unprecedented level of growth in the number
of press and media outlets. These have, over the years, promoted a
significant variety of views on a broad range of issues. They have
provided full opportunities for people to exercise freedom of
expression without fear of censorship or any form of government
interference. They continue to provide the same opportunity today.
Certainly there were originally problems
in the development of the private press. There was an
all-too-frequent lack of professionalism, and some papers failed
to play the role that might have been expected to advance the
basic tenets of democracy and good governance, deliberately
encouraging violence and illegal activity. Despite this, the
Government’s response towards these outlets was very careful. It
made no effort to implement most of the legal measures it could
have taken in these circumstances, and exercised considerable
self-restraint towards even the most recalcitrant media outlets in
order to encourage and support the concepts of freedom of speech
and expression.
One of the newspapers to exercise its
constitutional rights in connection with freedom of expression was
Addis Neger, an Amharic weekly that first appeared on the 26th of
October, 2007. The paper was well known for its scathing
criticisms of the Government, but it was not the only media outlet
critical of the Government, nor even the most outspoken. Despite
its critical political line, Addis Neger never faced anything in
the way of an official government complaint, much less any sort of
persecution, though some of its articles and editorials were
criticized by other papers. In fact, the Government did not even
take any action after Addis Neger illegally attempted to solicit
funds from various Western Embassies for its own private
fellowships without informing the Ministry of Education. There was
never any suggestion that the editors might face criminal charges
on account of their work. Indeed, the editors of Addis Neger
actually said as much on TV only a few weeks before they left the
country. In a TV documentary which included interviews with many
other editors and journalists, from both government and
independent media, Addis Neger’s Managing Editor, Mesfin Negash,
said specifically: “We have never been subject to any form of
censorship by the government nor has the government ever tried to
interfere in our press activities; no government official has ever
instructed us what the content of our paper should or should not
be.” Another member of Addis Neger’s editorial board, Tamrat
Negera, in the same documentary corroborated his managing editor’s
remarks and underlined the prevailing atmosphere under which the
press operated: “Two of the
greatest achievements of the new political order in the last 15
years [since 1993] are the freedom to form political parties and
the press.”
It is, therefore, surprising to find
these same editors claiming, one month after their ‘flight’ out of
the country, that they had been forced to close their paper down
and flee from Ethiopia because they “feared persecution and
intimidation” by the Government. Immediately after the Addis Neger
editors made these claims public, the Government launched an
enquiry into the circumstances of their departure and the reasons
for it. The investigation rapidly confirmed that the three
editors, namely, Abiy Teklemariam, Tamrat Negera and Mesfin Negash,
had left Ethiopia quite openly and legally from Bole International
Airport on September 29, October 4 and November 12 respectively,
and without difficulty. It might be noted that Abiy Teklemariam
the first to leave has now enrolled at Green Templeton College,
Oxford, UK on a scholarship. If, in fact, as they claim, the
Government had really devoted so much time and energy to
threatening them, and was planning to arrest the trio, it is hard
to understand why immigration officials at the airport, when it
came to the point, allowed the three to leave without difficulty.
Indeed, the investigation revealed that
Addis Neger, far from being an ordinary, if highly opinionated,
private newspaper, devoted to accuracy and truth as it claimed,
was rather more involved in opposition politics than it had
pretended to be and it was anything but an impartial and balanced
paper. It could indeed be identified as a paper for the opposition
as it made clear in claiming recent prison sentences as
“political” rather than legal in its editorial of August 29th,
2009, indicating the nature of the campaign of which it was a
part. This was underlined by the statements made during the
recent media campaign launched by the editors after they left
Ethiopia, in which they finally made clear their own political
interests. The set of demands put forward as pre-conditions for a
resumption of publication, including the release of “political
prisoners”, the replacement of the electoral board and what
amounted to a change of government, came straight from the more
extreme elements in the opposition.
On December 16th, the story of Addis
Neger’s self-closure took a new turn when Sweden’s Minister for
International Cooperation, Gunilla Carlsson, issued a statement
attacking the Government of Ethiopia, claiming that the closure of
Addis Neger showed that freedom of expression was becoming
increasingly limited in Ethiopia. She claimed it was a cause of
great concern that journalists were being harassed, and one of the
few independent newspapers in the country had been closed. Sweden
went even further, using its position as the recent chair of the
European Union presidency, to encourage the European Union to take
up a similar position. Two days later, the European Union adopted
a statement urging the Government of Ethiopia to ensure that
allegations of harassment and intimidation were investigated and,
if proven, those responsible should be held to account.
The Swedish statement is a serious
indictment against the Government of Ethiopia, and one based, as
already noted, on totally unfounded allegations. It’s no more than
a smear campaign attacking the Government on fallacious grounds in
connection with press freedom and democracy. The Swedish Minister
clearly raised no question over the veracity of the claim made by
the editors of Addis Neger. That the claim was made at all was
apparently all the evidence Minister Carlsson needed to make her
unsupported and groundless allegations. Such a position can only
be described as hypocritical, coming as it does from people who
have been encouraging the likes of Addis Neger to deliberately
stage the closure of their papers, facilitating their travels
abroad and financing their media campaign in recent weeks by
helping them propagate their story as a rallying cry for
anti-government elements.
This statement by the Swedish Minister
must be rejected and condemned. In addition to being inaccurate,
it is seriously misguided. There is no doubt, for instance, that
the claim made is, to say the least, certainly unhelpful for the
development of democracy in Ethiopia. It is extremely intrusive
and appears indicative of a desire to try to micro-manage
Ethiopia’s democratization process from Stockholm. It is, in fact,
an extremely ill-advised attempt by Sweden to try to deny
Ethiopia’s ownership of its own democratic processes. It cannot
succeed. It cannot be allowed to succeed. It is made clear
time and again that non-citizens and nationals of other states are
in no position to ensure the growth of a viable press in Ethiopia.
That is something that has to come from within, a natural growth
from Ethiopia’s own continuous process of press freedom and
democratization.
It might be added that although the
Swedish Minister was quick to echo unconfirmed and gratuitous
claims by Addis Neger’s editors, she didn’t acknowledge the
electoral Code of Conduct signed by ruling and opposition parties
with the aim of making next May’s national elections competitive,
peaceful, free and fair. This was in fact a development
characterized as ‘historic’ by the majority of the independent
press in Ethiopia, and it was a great pity that Sweden was
apparently not prepared even to notice such a development. Some 65
political parties agreed to the Code, developed after extensive
discussions, before it was submitted to Parliament and passed into
law last week. By any standard, it is a major step forward in
helping the parties build healthy democratic relationships and
resolve political differences through peaceful dialogue.
The recent utterance of the Swedish
minister must in fact be seen as both reckless and intemperate. It
is an unfortunate example of paternalism, out of place in this
post-colonial world. In all frankness, the position taken, and the
attack on Ethiopia, has no justification. The claim that freedom
of expression is becoming increasingly limited in Ethiopia is
purely polemical. Ethiopia continues to enjoy the presence of
dozens of private newspapers which operate freely. The quality of
the press overall may still leave a lot to be desired, but it is
baffling that Sweden should attack Ethiopia’s record.
But this approach does not appear to be
accidental. A brief perusal of a recent Swedish policy paper
entitled “Government Communication on Swedish Democracy Support”
certainly suggests something more. This policy paper is full of
details on how to “support democracy” across the developing world,
under what it calls a “Global Agenda for Freedom”. Its suggestions
including allowing Sweden the right to meddle in the internal
affairs of other sovereign countries by supporting opposition
parties, individuals, “social movements” or exile groups, which
might bring about changes in the governance of sovereign states.
The idea of democracy, firmly founded on the free choice of
people, or the concept of sustainable democracy as a home grown,
organic structure, not something imposed from outside, seems in
fact to be suspect as far as Sweden is concerned. The policy paper
specifically states: “the assumption that democratic change will
be initiated from within rather than from without should not serve
as an argument for not supporting democratic forces outside the
system” (p.50). This is both a condescending and a dangerous
ambition. The policy paper also envisages using the EU as a
vehicle to advance such an intrusive agenda: “the Government
underlines the need for more effective communication by the EU of
the content of its democracy support program which emphasizes
support for local actors” (p. 69). This perhaps explains the EU
Presidency statement issued only two days after the Swedish
Minister’s comments.
The decision of the Government of Sweden
to engage Ethiopia through media polemics can only be described as
thoughtless and injudicious, threatening to jeopardize the growing
levels of constructive engagement that Ethiopia enjoys with the
European Union. Indeed, it appears designed to sidetrack Ethiopia
into recriminations over the issue of press freedom, diluting the
present emphasis on constructive dialogue. This is clearly
detrimental to the mutual trust and understanding so essential for
a healthy bilateral relationship between states. Sweden, and
indeed other stakeholders, should recognize the danger of making
such meddlesome and intrusive statements on the basis of
fallacious and inaccurate information, particularly in the absence
of any effort to investigate their reality. They should rather
work to enhance relationships built upon the basis of mutual trust
and interest. Positions taken without verification undermine the
respect that states should have for each other, a respect normally
based on the conviction that positions are taken up in good faith,
even if they are not necessarily laudatory.
*************
top
|
 |
A
WEEK IN THE HORN WISHES ITS ESTEEMED READERS A HAPPY HOLIDAY
SEASON |
|
|
|
