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On Somalia
On 3 September 2009, the so-called Amir of Al-Shabab Sheikh Muktar Abdirahaman (Abu Zub air) also known as Ahmed Godane was reported to have warned Somaliland for its relations with Ethiopia. He also called on the people of Somaliland to rise up against the administration of President Riyale Kahin.
The point is not so much Godane's statement and what he can do against Ethio-Somaliland relations or the excitement he tried to cause in Somaliland as it is about Al-Shabab's leadership’s stand against mutual relations between people of the same region and interest.
The peace and stability of Somaliland is in the best interests of Ethiopia, and the kind of statements and incitements of Ahmed Godane need to be attentively followed. The timing chosen by Godane is understandable given the problems in Somaliland around issues of election and he must have felt that this was an opportune moment to wreak havoc in Somaliland. Detached from the reality on the ground, he wants to use Ethiopia's relations with Somaliland as a pretext to unsuccessfully damage the brotherly relationship. That certainly is not going to be acceptable to both Ethiopia and Somaliland both at political leadership as well as people's level.
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Exchange of High-level Government Official's Visits between Ethiopia and Israel
It is to be recalled that a high-level government delegation led by Ato Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia made an official visit to the State of Israel from July 12 - 13/2009. In his trip to the Middle East, Minister Seyoum also met with leaders of the Palestinian authority and held talks over issues of mutual concern.
Following the visit of the Ethiopian delegation headed by Ato Seyoum Mesfin to the State of Israel, a high level delegation led by Mr. Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the state of Israel, made an official visit to the F.D.R. of Ethiopia from September 2-3 /2009.
The delegation arrived on September 2/2009 as part of its visit to five African countries including Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. The delegation was received by Ato Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
On its first leg of visit, the delegation had the opportunity to take part on an Ethio-Israeli Economic Forum, on whose opening Mr. Avigdor Lieberman, delivered a keynote address. On the Ethiopian side too, Ato Alemayehu Tegenu, Minister of Mines and Energy, and Ato Tadesse Haile, State Minister of Trade and Industry made keynote addresses. Members of the Israeli delegation had also participated at the business meetings held at Sheraton with their Ethiopian counterparts.
The Israeli delegation had also a meeting with Ato Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and discussed issues of bilateral and regional concerns. The two Foreign Ministers have reached to a common understanding to further strengthen their technical cooperation and vowed to enhance economic activities particularly that of trade and investment and exchanged views on how essential it is to encourage the business community and promote the participation of the private sector in enhancing their relationship.
The Israeli delegation had also inaugurated a horticultural development pilot project in Butajira- one that is a center of excellence and a tripartite project of Ethiopia, Israel and the US.
Mr. Avigdor Lieberman, before departing Addis Ababa made courtesy calls to PM Ato Meles Zenawi, where they discussed issues of bilateral and regional concerns and exchanged views on how to overcome the challenges of peace, security and development. They have also stressed the need to enhance bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment and capacity building and related issues.
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The ICG and Ethiopia
This week, the International Crisis Group (ICG) produced a new report-cum-propaganda piece on Ethiopia, entitled 'Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and its Discontents'. Starting, as the title suggests, from a position of open antagonism towards Ethiopia's federal structure, this is a disturbing and disappointing report, even a dangerous one, containing a significant number of extremely serious errors and taking an entirely negative tone towards government policies. Frankly speaking, it is not even worth commenting on. But we have no choice, for many take, mistakenly, the ICG more seriously than it deserves. But the ICG is dangerous as a peddler of crisis. The title indeed gives the game away, and raises a number of questions over the appearance of such a partial document at this juncture as the run-up to next year's federal and state elections is beginning. These doubts are reinforced by the report's call to the Government to consider a power-sharing arrangement with the opposition, and for the international community to put on pressure on the Government over the issue of governance rather than emphasize support for food security. ICG’s suggestions bear no relationship to current actuality or to the progress made in institutionalizing multi-party democracy in Ethiopia since 1991.
This report begins from a position of outright rejection of the Ethiopian experience in Federalism, equating it with one-party dominance and juxtaposing it against the ICG's own, largely imaginary and idealistic version of liberal democracy and freedom. The work is based neither on substantial fieldwork nor lengthy visits to Ethiopia but rather on short week-ends or week-long trips to Addis Ababa, and on superficial analyses of the electoral process, much of it coming from hostile sources (which indeed the report does not conceal) or other partial sources. It is impossible to judge where many of the interviewees come from, or from which different nationalities, a point of considerable importance in consideration of ethnic federalism and its critics. The only certain point is that they include virtually nobody who might possibly support the concept. There was clearly no attempt to talk to any intellectual/academic supporters of Ethiopian federalism (of which there are many) or to intellectual supporters of the Government, again hardly an invisible minority. It is relevant to ask how many different nationalities were actually considered in any detail. Certainly not all. Were any women interviewed? Apparently not. Did the author(s) travel outside Addis Ababa, and if so where? The report gives little indication of any attempt to discover views at local level except in one or two areas. The appendix on the ONLF, for example, contains serious errors, and demonstrates no understanding of the political processes of the Somali Regional State. The same is true of most of the other Regional States, including Amhara and Tigrai regions, or even Oromiya, although this is obviously a central interest and concern of the author(s). The report even uses as a basic assumption the idea that government and governance processes have remained unchanged in every particular since 1991. This allows the author(s) to quote ten or twelve year-old documentation as examples of current thinking. It lets the author(s) make a (superficial) consideration of elections from 1992 to 2008 with little effort at discriminating between any of these, lumping all together and failing to note the very substantial changes in the evolution of the political process over eighteen years, not least the institution of a multi-party system.
Indeed, the report ignores any and all progress made since 1991. There is no mention of the undisputed achievements in economic and political spheres. It is not entirely accidental that ICG’s approach bears close resemblance to Eritrea’s approach toward Ethiopian Federalism and democratization. There is no exaggeration intended when we say at present the only vocation that the Eritrean leadership has is to try to undermine Ethiopia’s stability and democracy. The only difference between the ICG and Eritrea is ICG limits itself to incitement and efforts at destabilization using the pen. The Eritrean leadership goes well beyond that. The partnership may not be formal but nonetheless real.
The author(s) consistently make claims they cannot substantiate, or defend, and indeed doesn't usually even bother to try, suggesting for example the Government is unwilling to share power or accept criticism as normal. But what elected government is willing to share power at the say-so of an opposition rejected by the voters, or of an outside non-democratic advocacy organization whose agenda, where it is not opaque, is entirely negative. The ICG has not even been smart enough to hide it. Perhaps it is the result of its arrogance to designate a former Eritrean official known for his hard line position and in charge of UNMEE affairs to cover the Horn of Africa for the ICG, and as will be made clear later, with politically motivated reason.
Criticism, of course, is one thing, but inaccurate, ill-informed, partisan and partial criticism is hardly normal. And to criticize a government for wanting to stay in power is perverse. In 2005 the EPRDF won a multi-party election. Even the ICG cannot dispute this. What followed in November that year when some members of the opposition attempted the violent overthrow of the constitution and the government was a very real tragedy. It shouldn't, and won't, be allowed to happen again. Another election is coming in June. It will again be a democratic multi-party election and not doubt it will be successful.
It gives a detailed analysis of the political parties during and since 2005 but manages to avoid almost all consideration of opposition policies. These were not always easy to discern either then or indeed now but the report makes no effort to question opposition sources or search out opposition policies, largely confining itself to criticism of EPRDF's policies.
Indeed, the report openly supports opposition policies, and persistently questions the Government's aims and intentions. It throws doubts on the Government's commitment to democracy, and the holding of a fair election. It assumes the worst possible interpretation of any government legislation irrespective of whether there is any evidence for its suggestions. It is symptomatic of the report's stance, for example, that it makes no effort to look at the reasons for the promulgation of the recent Charities and Societies proclamation, the new Press Law or the Anti-Terrorist legislation, all of which, it might be added, have taken account of similar legislation in a number of European states and the US. All of these are lumped together as examples of an alleged limitation of political space. It is clear that the author(s) have read none of these with any care, nor considered the government's aims or intentions. The report even pushes the idea of power-sharing, an idea raised by those with little commitment to the on-going project of Ethiopia’s democratization after the results had become clear in 2005. It underlines any criticisms of Ethiopian federalism that it can find and ignores any and all supporting evidence in favour of the system. It is hard to dismiss the possibility that this is a preliminary effort to try and influence the voting in 2010 and affect the outcome of the election.
The ICG author(s) do admit the EPRDF embraced multi-party politics after 1991, but only “half-heartedly”, alleging it never considered the opposition might have a legitimate right to take power via the ballot-box. It dismisses the Government's acceptance of the results in 2005 making only a passing reference to the opposition withdrawal from the political process, suggesting this was to be seen as a protest against national electoral irregularities. The author(s) of this report rely largely on opponents and critics of the government, many of whom failed in the 2005 elections in which several opposition parties and leaders deliberately turned their back on democratic procedures, refusing to take up their seats as MPs or take over the city government of Addis Ababa which they had won. It might have mentioned that many, including a majority of the opposition itself, saw this as a deliberate betrayal of the democratic process. The author(s) here and elsewhere come very close to identifying democratization with the automatic inclusion of opposition parties in representative institutions irrespective of any electoral success.
This pattern of misrepresentation is central to the ICG thesis. Whenever it is obliged to acknowledge that changes have taken place for the better, or even at all, it refuses to accept that the reasons might involve democratization for example. It does admit political diversification has taken place and that political parties have emerged, but it then immediately adds that this has nothing to do with democratization but is “rather the result of a polarization of national politics which has sharpened tensions within and between parties”. This is another clear example of twisting facts to fit the pre-conceived argument—argument that tallies with what one hears from Eritrea almost every day.
Another technique is selective exaggeration. Discussions over policy are routinely identified as serious tensions between ministers or party leaders. Disputes always lead to violent disagreements or cause serious political fallout. There's never any evidence for these claims, anymore than there is for the claim that analysts believe that the 2008 local elections were “heavily manipulated”. No evidence was given to support this contention and certainly nothing was produced at the time to suggest this, except the EPRDF's overwhelming victory. The ICG, like the critics it prefers to quote, puts the most extreme interpretation on many of its observations. Local government structures, at the level of kebele or even of neighbourhood units, are automatically interpreted as “most effective instrument(s) of local coercion,” and the electoral process of kebele officials immediately dismissed as an EPRDF control mechanism. Evidence for these propositions is not apparent, and there is no indication that the author(s) made any extensive examination of the thousands of kebeles.
Specific mention should be made of appendices on the OLF and the ONLF as these are seriously flawed, not least because of the refusal to consider the extensive published material at odds with the apparent aims and intentions of this report. Much, virtually all, of the information on the ONLF comes from the ONLF website or from a controversial recent report by Human Rights Watch. The author(s) appear not to have seen the independent report published last year in Addis Ababa which provided a detailed and accurate response to many of HRW's accusations and demonstrated HRW's own failure of methodology. There was no economic blockade in the region, no coercion of militia, no diversion of food from the regional Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency. Much of this merely repeats claims made by HRW and bears no relationship to reality. It all shows little knowledge of the history of the ONLF, of the participation of a majority of ONLF members in the political processes in the Somali Regional State after 1994/5, or of Somali political processes in general. It fails to consider ONLF terrorist activity and appears to accept all ONLF claims as accurate despite numerous and well-attested examples of exaggeration, not least in the numbers of fighters the ONLF claims to have in the field. Details over the splits within the ONLF leadership are wrong as are its account of relations with other organizations. It would be impossible to deduce from the ICG's comments that there is an elective government in the Somali Region, or that a clear majority of the population and of the regional clans (on which all Somali politics still rests) actually support the ruling Somali Peoples Democratic Party and oppose the ONLF. Phrases like “increasingly bitter confrontation” with the ONLF simply demonstrate how out of touch this report actually is. Operations against the ONLF were carried out in 2007 following the arrival of a large contingent of Eritrean-trained ONLF fighters and their murderous terrorist attack on the Abole oil exploration site at the end of April. By the end of the year operations were largely over with most of the ONLF captured or killed. Since then, despite ONLF claims, there have been only scattered small-scale terrorist incidents. The comments on the OLF are equally flawed, ignoring divisions within the movement and failing to discuss its highly significant Eritrean connection. It displays no understanding of Oromiya regional politics; clearly no one bothered to talk to members of the Oromiya regional administration, largely confining themselves to frustrated academic politicians’ manqué.
One final point: presumably in a pre-emptive effort to negate critical comment, the report claims in a footnote that “the foreign ministry responds sharply to any criticism of the government in its 'A Week in the Horn of Africa' press release” Surprisingly, and indeed unusually, it then fails to provide a link to the MFA website (for reference www.mfa.gov.et) as it does in almost every other case. In fact, we don't respond just to any criticism, or reject it all, but we do expect it to be well-founded and contain some truth. Some criticisms are certainly accurate, and we will accept them. Others are not. We respond to articles which fail to provide the accuracy and integrity we would expect to find in serious academic reports, which appear to be malicious in intent, or which seem intended to impose changes of policy on Ethiopia or interfere in our political processes. This report, regrettably, certainly falls into these latter categories.
The ICG author(s) appear to have little understanding of the realities of Ethiopia today, taking a firmly negative tone, drawing almost entirely on hostile sources. ICG's Nairobi office which authored this report also includes ICG's senior advisor on Africa, Ambassador Andebrhan Giorghis who was Eritrea's ambassador to the EU and had, for many years, the reputation of being a 'fixer' for President Issayas. Ambassador Andebrhan has officially resigned from the Eritrean Government but unlike many of his contemporaries has given no indication of breaking with it or of criticizing it. His influence was clear in earlier ICG reports. In these circumstances it is difficult to expect a balanced report on the situation inside Ethiopia.
The Eritrean connection makes all this having been done by design. One does not, of course, exclude the possibility of the existence of other complimentary political motivations. This is perhaps not entirely surprising given that the ICG itself is, of course, an entirely non-democratic advocacy body. The report complacently accepts its own assumptions of accuracy and fails to consider other options, keeping firmly to its own agenda. This report is a partial and inaccurate summary of political process in Ethiopia over the last 18 years. Its tone is dismissive and it fails to take account of any of the progress that has been made or changes achieved. Nor does it make any apparent attempt to consider the dangers of some of the policies it advocates or the effect they might have. In this, regrettably, it follows the attitude of previous ICG reports on which we have commented before, notably the ICG's efforts to look at the situation between Eritrea and Ethiopia, in December 2005, November 2007 and June last year. All of these suffered from the same consistent methodological failings underlining the ICG's persistent commitment to a cause rather than to accuracy, balance, fairness, or academic integrity.
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More on the ICG
The recent report by the International Crisis Group was ostensibly part of its campaign to ‘prevent conflict worldwide’, as the group likes to call its mission. But this is not the first time that ICG came up with reports that purportedly mean to achieve similar goals. Despite all its claims to the contrary, virtually all of ICG’s reports in the past have not only fallen widely off the mark but also at times served to fan already existing flames. A quick perusal of some of these reports would reveal that the ICG, far from being interested in the prevention of conflict, might perhaps have been rooting for an eruption of conflicts of the sort it reminds us time and gain in its recent report on Ethiopian federalism will ‘most probably’ happen in the coming elections.
It is to be recalled that in its reports on Somalia, the ICG had always been consistent in its thinly-veiled wish for the failure of attempts to set up a functioning government authority in the war-torn country. Its pundits were busy predicting an Armageddon scenario following Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia. In fact, ICG’s Nairobi-based—they call themselves field-based—researchers have always led the charge to characterize Ethiopia’s intervention as a brazen act of invasion and a continuation of the 1977/78 Ethio-Somali wars. Reports after reports were dedicated to creating alternate reality that downplayed the danger posed by extremists in Somalia as insignificant and even at times touted the insurgency by the likes of Al Shabab as natural reaction to Ethiopian invasion. There were times when ICG also went out of its way to suggest to the US administration that Al Shabab’s name be removed from the US’s list of terrorist organizations in order for that organization to play a constructive role in the quest for lasting peace in Somalia. This conclusion was, of course, based on the absurd claim that Al Shabab was already “mutating ideologically” from a self-radicalizing national group into a moderate one. It does not matter that almost two years on such an analysis has proved fatally wrong.
It is very interesting that the only other entity that has consistently shared ICG’s view was none other than Eritrea’s leadership. The reference to Eritrea’s having a ‘moral and legal ground’ to support the likes of Al Shabab was repeated nowhere else but in ICG’s reports. The ICG even once went as far as to suggest that “Eritrea holds the key to a long-term resolution of the Somalia conflict, as well as to movement on the Ogaden issue.” The reference to Eritrea’s role in resolving the ‘Ogaden issue’ is the point in which the ICG authors clearly outdid President Isaias—on his behalf it appears—on his peace-making ambitions in the Sub Region.
It is also interesting to note that it was the ICG and cohorts who went to great lengths to sell the idea that Eritrea’s role in Somalia was a natural reaction to the international community’s siding with Ethiopia on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border commission decision. Not surprisingly, in its reports on Ethiopia and Eritrea, this same theme appears again and again to the point where Eritrea’s official statements on the issue were quoted almost verbatim.
As if these coincidences were not interesting enough, ICG’s recent report follows similar pattern with regard to Ethiopia.
The ICG is so enamored with its own revelations about an impending doom in Ethiopia that it takes the extra pain to discount every development in Ethiopia only as harbinger of worse things to come. ICG is not new and alone to erroneously predict for a violent outburst to hit Ethiopia. Ethiopia is in fact used to prophesy such as that the ICG has turned into art form. There is nothing new to report about Ethiopia in this regard. Why is the ICG rooting for a cataclysmic implosion within the Ethiopian body politic? Why now?
It would be foolhardy to even try to discredit ICG’s self-serving claim about its honorable intention of “preventing conflicts worldwide”. To make the counter claim that the ICG would rather thrive in conflicts would make a whole lot more sense. As the recent report on Ethiopia amply demonstrates, ICG’s penchant for self-fulfilling prophesy is quite phenomenal.
In a sense, the recent report is not necessarily an indictment on the entire federal arrangement. Intended or otherwise, the report even seems to appreciate—if not commend—some of the benefits that have accrued to the various ethnic groups over the years. The report’s main thrust appears to be on the sense of loss that ‘the nationalists’ attribute to the arrangement and the potential conflict this sense of loss is ‘likely’ to trigger.
According to ICG’s reading, EPRDF might as well scrap the federal formula to curry favour with disgruntled centrists lest they should raise Hell come next election. The non sequitur the report’s conclusions so typically illustrate speaks volumes about ICG’s vision of what future Ethiopia should look like. Apparently, no amount of success in political or economic governance would endear the government to some quarters in the West whose bidding the ICG appears to be doing.
Democratic or otherwise, the political process in Ethiopia could get our benediction only on terms solely ours, the authors of the report seem to believe. These doubts are reinforced by the report's call to the Government to consider a power-sharing arrangement with the opposition, and for the international community to put on pressure on the Government over the issue of governance rather than emphasize support for food security.
ICG’s targets are chosen by design, of course. Less explosive predictions, if any, are to be made in respect of ethnic tensions—no matter how volatile—in countries whose governments are in friendly terms with ICG. Its pundits would have a wholly different set of appellations to use in that case. Ethnic conflict mysteriously becomes ‘challenges of multiculturalism”. The language they use would have this strange effect of making the really bizarre seem mundane. ICG’s irresponsible predictions, however, are reserved only for the expendables. With them, the language is decidedly apocalyptic, making the mundane look really out of this world.
Reports like this, from an unelected external body, inaccurately claiming ethnic conflict is increasing, that the election will be violent and that armed struggle is becoming the only option left for opposition groups, and calling for international intervention to enforce power sharing rather than assisting with food security, are frankly disgraceful. All along, the threadbare argument that has been pushed is how potentially serious a danger ‘growing ethnic awareness’ in Ethiopia represents.
As has already been indicated, the ICG has never issued a report on conflict or other situations in the Horn of Africa which are accurate, balanced and objective. ICG’s reports have always been unhelpful making one conclude that, in effect, the organization is created to assist in the perpetuation of conflicts in Africa. The role that the ICG has played in Somalia has been downright disgraceful. Should we forget that the ICG bears part of the responsibility for scuttling the deployment of an AU peace support mission planned to be designated as IGASOM?
All negative developments including the emergence of Al Shabab could have been avoided had it not been for this historic blunder of the ICG.
On Ethiopia and Eritrea, has not the ICG been the only entity in the world, apart from Eritrea, which was opposed to dialogue between the two countries to facilitate the demarcation of their border and to ensure sustainable peace and stability between them?
In a cruel twist of irony, ICG has this habit of dropping names of respectable personalities of excellent pedigree as its board members, patrons or trustees. One could only wonder whether these people had any inkling whatsoever about the less-than-honorable activities of the ICG. All this, perhaps, makes it imperative that students of politics interested in the Horn or in Africa in general focus on ICG’s activities in these areas: these will sure make excellent topics for academic study.
Coming back to its recent report on Ethiopia, one thing is clear. Next year, Ethiopia will be holding federal and regional state multi-party elections for the fourth time. It was noteworthy both in 2005 and 2008 that several international organizations including HRW as well as ICG put out strongly critical reports on the state of the country's democracy. Despite these reports, though, it turned out the crisis they predicted apparently was not bad enough. The timing of ICG’s latest report appears to be designed to get a head start ahead of the coming elections thereby avoiding similar outcome and ensuring the next crisis is as bad and grim as ICG hopes it will be. As we said earlier, ICG thrives in chaos.
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Happy Ethiopian New Year to all readers
of A Week in the Horn! |
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