By MERGA YONAS - FORTUNE STAFF WRITER

The Oromia Water Works and Design Enterprise (OWWDE) is to hand over the last of the land use management study it has been undertaking for the Oromia Special Zone Land Administration and Environmental Protection Office this January 2010.

The enterprise, which was paid 5.8 million Br for the study, has been working on the study since late 2008 covering all eight zones of Dukem, Sebeta, Burayu, Galan, Sululta, Holeta, Sendafa and Legetafo. The study was financed by the Finfinne Surrounding Forest Development Enterprise and the Oromia Regional Government. The special zone has a total area of 480,000ht. Studies for Holeta, Burayu and Dukem have already been submitted.

The study has 377 socioeconomic variables regarding the eight towns, which will be evaluated by a committee of 10 experts from various offices of the Special Zone Administration as well as from the zone’s Land Administration and Environmental Protection Office, Taye Alemayehu, general manager of OWWDE told Fortune. The Committee will also consult with various stakeholders including investors and academic professionals, said Awal Abdi, head of the zone’s Land Administration and Environmental Protection Bureau.

The study, which considered residential areas as well as industrial, agricultural and service sector areas, focuses on the creation of a safe and healthy living environment, the protection of biodiversity, the provision of a legal basis for the participation of the public in land use management matters as well as the resolution of conflicts between different land users, Awal Abdi explained to Fortune.

The studies for the five zones will be delivered one at a time, according to Taye, depending on the pace of the committee’s evaluation of each document submitted to it.

The Special Zone Administration has to date leased 4,000ht of land for investment, which is less than one per cent of the zone’s land cover.

“The land we have given for investment is small, but the industry, service and agriculture sectors in the zone can potentially create jobs for 116,000 people,” Awal said. Awal hopes that more land will be leased to investors once the studies have all been completed.

By MERGA YONAS
FORTUNE STAFF WRITER
http://www.addisfortune.com/Oromia%20Land%20Use%20Study%20Handed%20Over%20to%20Gov%E2%80%99t.htm

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Ethiopia’s “Silently” Creeping Famine

Alemayehu G. Mariam - January 11th, 2010

“Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet. Is there “famine” in Ethiopia, or not? Are large numbers of people “starving” there, or not? Is convulsive hunger a daily reality for the majority of Ethiopians, or not?

No one wants to use the “F” word to describe the millions of starving Ethiopians. In August 2008, the head of the dictatorship in Ethiopia flatly denied the existence of famine in a Time Magazine interview. Meles Zenawi explained, “Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long, it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch – emergencies, but no famines.” Last week, the dictatorship’s “Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development”, Mitiku Kassa, reacting defensively to the latest Famine Early Warning System projections, was equally adamant: “In the Ethiopian context, there is no hunger, no famine… It is baseless [to claim famine], it is contrary to the situation on the ground. It is not evidence-based. The government is taking action to mitigate the problems.” This past October, Kassa claimed everything was under control because his government has launched a food security program to “enable chronic food insecure households attain sufficient assets and income level to get out of food insecurity and improve their resilience to shocks… and halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.”

But there is manifestly a “silent” famine and a “quiet” hunger haunting the land under Zenawi’s “watch.” In April, 2009, Zenawi gave an interview to David Frost of Al Jazeera in which he openly admitted that famine is rearing its ugly head once again in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. Frost asked: “Is there any danger that as a result of this [current] crises there could be famine like there was famine in 1984?” Zenawi responded:

Well, the famine of 1984 was precipitated by drought in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in general. The famine that could emerge as a result of this [current] crises is likely to be silent across the continent in terms of not swaths of territory that are drought affected but people suffering hunger quietly across the continent. That is the most likely scenario as I see it.

So, if the famine Horseman of the Apocalypse is haunting Ethiopia and the continent, “silently” and “quietly”, why are we not sounding the alarm, ringing the bells and hollering for bloody help? Why are we quiet about the “quiet” hunger and silent about the “silent” famine enveloping Ethiopia today? Why?
It is mind-boggling that no one is making a big deal about the fact that famine and hunger are back in the saddle once more in Ethiopia. Ethiopians need help, and they need a lot of it fast and now. Of course, nothing more depressing than the sight, smell and experience of famine and hunger. For the second part of the 20th Century, much of the world believed the words “Ethiopia” and “famine” were synonymous. But it is unconscionable and criminal for officials to avoid using the “F” word to describe the forebodingly bleak food situation in Ethiopia today because they are concerned it would cast a “negative image” on them. Even the international experts have joined the local officials in boycotting the use of the “F” word. Just last week, the U.S.-funded FEWSNET declared that the majority of Ethiopians will be facing “food insecurity” (not hunger, not starvation, not famine) in the next six months. According to FEWSNET, because of poor harvests from the summer rains in 2009

as well as poor water availability and pasture regeneration in northern pastoral zones” [and coupled]with two consecutive poor belg cropping seasons… high staple food prices, poor livestock production, and reduced agricultural wages, [there will be an] elevated food insecurity over the coming six months [particularly in the] eastern marginal cropping areas in Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia, pastoral areas of Afar and northern and southeastern Somali region, Gambella region, and most low-lying areas of southern and central SNNPR…. In most areas of the country, food insecurity during the first half of 2010 is projected to be significantly worse than during the same period in 2009… Food security in eastern marginal cropping areas will likely deteriorate even further between July and September 2010. Overall, humanitarian assistance needs are expected to be very high.

Is it not a low-down dirty shame for international organizations, political leaders, officials and bureaucrats use euphemisms to hide the ugly truth about famines and mass-scale hunger? These heartless crooks have invented a lexicography, a complete dictionary of mumbo-jumbo words and phrases to conceal the public fact that large numbers of people in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa are dying simply because they have nothing or very little food to eat. They talk about “food insecurity ”, “food scarcity”, “food insufficiency”, “food deprivation”, “severe food shortages”, “chronic dietary deficiency”, “endemic malnutrition” and so on just to avoid using the “F” word. FEWSNET has invented a ridiculous system of neologism (new words) to describe hungry people. Accordingly, there are people who are generally food secure, moderately food insecure, highly food insecure, extremely food insecure and those facing famine (see map above). Translated into ordinary language, these nonsensical categories seem to equate those who eat once a day as generally food secure, followed by the moderately secure who eat one meal every other day, the highly insecure who eat once every three days, the extremely insecure who eat once a week, and those in famine who never eat and therefore die from lack of food.

For crying out loud, what is wrong with calling a spade a spade!? Why do officials and experts beat around the bush when it comes to talking about hunger as hunger, starvation as starvation and famine as famine? Do they think they can sugarcoat the piercing pangs of hunger, the relentless pain of starvation and the total devastation of famine with sweet bureaucratic words and phrases?

As officials and bureaucrats quibble over which fancy words and phrases best describe the dismal food situation, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians are dying from plain, old fashioned hunger, starvation and famine. The point is there is famine in Ethiopia. One could disagree whether there are pockets of famine or large swaths of famine-stricken areas. One could argue whether 4.9, 6, 16 or 26 million people are affected by it. But there is no argument that there is famine; and this is not a matter for speculation, conjecture or exaggeration. It can be verified instantly. Let the international press go freely into the “drought affected” and “food insecure” areas and report what they find. For at least the past two years, they have been banned from entering these areas. Is there any doubt that they would reveal irrefutable evidence of famine on the scale of 1984-85 if they were allowed free access to these areas?

Obviously, it is embarrassing for a regime wafting on the euphoria of an “11 percent economic growth over the past 6 years” to admit famine. It is bad publicity for those claiming runaway economic growth to admit millions of their citizens are in the iron grip of a runaway famine. If the “F” word is used, then the donors would start asking questions, relief agencies would be scurrying to set up feeding stations, the international press would be demanding accountability and all hell could break loose. That is why the dictatorship in Ethiopia reacts reflexively and defensively whenever the “F” word is mentioned. They froth at the mouth condemning the international press for making “baseless” claims of famine, and castigate them for perpetuating “negative images” of the country merely because the international press insists on finding out verifiable facts about the food situation in the country. The fact of the matter is that unless action is not taken soon to openly and fully admit that large swaths of the Ethiopian countryside are in a state of famine, we should soon expect to see splattered across the globe’s newspapers pictures of Ethiopian infants with distended bellies, the skeletal figures of their nursing mothers and the sun-baked remains of the aged and the feeble on the parched land.

Denial of famine by totalitarian and dictatorial regimes is nothing new. During 1959-61, nearly 30 million Chinese starved to death in Mao’s Great Leap Forward program which uprooted millions of Chinese from the countryside for industrial production. Mao never acknowledged the existence of famine, nor did he make a serious effort to secure foreign food aid. Ironically, the Chinese Revolution had promised the peasants an end to famine. The Soviet Famines of 1921 and 1932-3 are classic case studies in official failure to prevent famine.

Why is it so difficult for dictatorships and other non-democratic systems to admit famine, make it part of the public discussion and debate and unabashedly seek help? Part of it has to do with image maintenance. Official admission of famine is the ultimate proof of governmental ineptitude and depraved indifference to the suffering of the people. But there is a more compelling explanation for dictators not to admit famine conditions in their countries. It has to do with a fundamental disconnect between the dictators and their subjects. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen argued,

The direct penalties of a famine are borne by one group of people and political decisions are taken by another. The rulers never starve. But when a government is accountable to the local populace it too has good reasons to do its best to eradicate famines. Democracy, via electoral politics, passes on the price of famines to the rulers as well.

An examination of the history of famine in Ethiopia lends support to Sen’s theory. Emperor Haile Selassie lost his crown and life over famine in the early 1970s. He said he was just not aware of it. The military junta’s (Derg) denied there was famine in 1984/85 while it waged war and experimented with the long-discredited practice of collectivized agriculture. That famine accelerated the downfall of the Derg. The current dictators have opted to remain willfully blind, deaf and mute to the “silent” famine and “quiet” hunger that are destroying the people.

The official response to famines in Ethiopia over the past four decades has followed a predictable pattern: Step 1: Never plan to prevent famine. Step 2: Deny there is famine when there is famine. Step 3: Condemn and vilify anyone who sounds the early alarm warning on famine. Step 4: Admit “severe food shortages” (not famine) and blame the weather, and God for not sending rain. Step 5: Make frantic international emergency calls and announce that hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians are dying from famine. Step 6: Guilt-trip Western donors into providing food aid. Step 7: Accuse and vilify Western donors for not providing sufficient food aid and blame them for a runaway famine. Step 8: Tell the world they knew nothing about a creeping famine until it suddenly hit them like a thunderbolt. Step 9: Put on an elaborate dog-and-pony show about their famine relief efforts. Step 10: Go back to step 1. This has been the recurrent pattern of famine response in Ethiopia: Always too little, too late.

The fact of the matter is that famines are entirely avoidable as Sen has argued with substantial empirical evidence. “Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence … they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and … a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have.”

There is another question that needs to be answered in connection with the “severe food shortages” in Ethiopia. Why are millions of fertile hectares of land under “lease” or sold outright to foreigners to feed millions continents away when millions of Ethiopians are starving? To paraphrase Sen, such a thing would be unthinkable in a functioning multiparty democracy!

With no pun intended, the “breadcrumbs” of famine (or as they euphemistically call it the “early warning signs”) are plain to see. There have been successive crop failures and poor rainfall; water availability is limited and staple food prices are soaring; livestock production is poor as is pasture regeneration. Deforestation, land degradation, overpopulation, pestilence and disease are widespread in the land. If it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and walks like a duck, it is famine!

If those whose duty is to sound the alarm and get help are not willing to do their part, it is the moral responsibility and duty of every Ethiopian and compassionate human being anywhere to create public awareness of Ethiopia’s creeping famine and call for HELP! HELP! HELP!

“There has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy.” Amartya Sen

Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on Pambazuka News and New American Media.

http://ecadforum.com/News/2311

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Strategic foe of Ethiopia is rewarded with Fertile Ethiopian Land 

By Tatu

By Admin On January 10, 2010

The current buzz word that comes out of Ethiopia is the government’s desperate attempts to cheaply (as low as 1.50USD per hectare) sale Ethiopian land to anyone who has a foreign currency. (Ethiopian Farms Lure Investor Funds as Workers Live in Poverty, Bloomberg.com). Be it a corrupted leader like Nigerian Obasanjo, or a friend indeed like Djibouti’s leader Guelleh, and Saudis king, it seems land for tit-for-tat. Among all the news which caught my attention and worth more analysis is the land awarded to Egyptian government. As all Ethiopians in abroad and at home know Egypt is a strategic enemy of Ethiopia and Ethiopian people.

As a person very familiar with the hydro-politics of Nile (I will call Abay henceforth), I have read extensive literature on this regard. I don’t support any political view, but revealing the facts that benefit the people to make a rational decision is one of my moral obligations. I understand the sensitivity of the issue since I have been working on the Nile river water and exposed with the situation for more than a decades.

Anyone who reads this article may posit “how is Egypt a strategic foe of Ethiopia?”. I will try to concentrate on the facts that help me prove this claim.

First, we need to know that without Abay River, Egypt is a desert land. The life and civilization of Egypt is located on the river of Abay. Almost 96 % of Egypt land is worthless desert and inhabitable. Since the dawn of civilization, the primary emphasis of Egypt is to secure the river flow at all cost. Hence the strategic national security of Egypt is to secure the smooth flow of Abay water to its territory. To do so, so far it has created different onerous mechanism towards Ethiopia and its people. One which has worked for long period of time is to weaken Ethiopian economy in all its comparative advantage and help to create instability so that the focus of Ethiopia diverted away from developing Abay River. Let see examples.

Arun Elhance (Hydro-politics in the 3rd world, 1999, p. 66) states the situation as “Egypt has on occasion been accused of fermenting dissent and helping rebellions in Ethiopia.”

The current president who will be awarded to thousand hectares of fertile land from Ethiopia, Hosni Mubarak says, “If Ethiopia plan to build dam in Abay River, Egypt will bomb it”.

Moreover, the former Minister of foreign Affair of Egypt and former UN Secretary General says, “The next war in our region will be over the water of Abay.”

Strategically speaking, Egypt has been in war with Ethiopia all the time to protect its national interest. In addition, it is our recent memory that Egypt is officially supporting a military attack against Ethiopia through Somalia, Eritrea and helping armed opposition within the country. Creating instability and a chaos of any kind within Ethiopia is the prime national interest and function of the Egyptian government. Those who have a common sense can judge that this is the government, unfortunately, who will be awarded a fertile land in Ethiopia.

Next, Egypt’s prime emphasis is collapsing the financial capability and political strength of Ethiopia at all expenses. For instance development loan and grant from the World Bank and other institutions have been blocked by Egypt. One which was a big success for Egypt is making Ethiopia a landlocked country. If a country is landlocked, it economic advantage and development effort would be on the hand of other country. Hence this homework was done through supporting Woyane, the current Ethiopian government, who now pays the debt it owed while in struggle.

All the plots of Egypt have been worked in a third party. But we now come to realize, it is given the opportunity to finish the homework of eradicating Ethiopia once for all so that it can get the Abay water without any further wary. This helps Egypt to harvest the blessing of Abay River and the fertile soil it carries. The shocking reality is that in addition to the soil carried by Abay, this nation is on the way to get thousands hectares of fertile land from Ethiopia. On the other side, the poor, helpless farmer of our citizen is cursed with owning even less than one hectare of land. What type of government is this, which awarded the enemy and cursed its own citizen?

When it comes to international relation, Egypt has played a big role in controlling the regional economy and politics so that it can get the unfair share of Abay Nile. In 1959 along with other enemy of Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt signed “Full utilization of Abay water.” The two countries who don’t contribute a single drop of water claim “full utilization of Abay water” by allocating amlsot 60 billion metric cube (bmc) of water for Egypt and the remaining 18 bmc to Sudan. In order to protect this claim in the international forum, Egypt presents a “reality on the ground”. This means the status quo water allocation of the 1959 agreement have to be respected through creating facts that help to convince negotiation. One of the claim is that Egypt import food and energy. Now Egypt will produce food for its own people and import from Ethiopia. So respect the current water allocation!!!!!

It is a shame that a produce from Ethiopia is presented to Saudi king while the government is busy begging wheat from the western. It is shame that farmers are deprive of their right to own a land while Djiboutian are fed with wheat from Ethiopia. It is shame that Ethiopian pays nearly a billion birr for port while Djibouti enjoys a fertile land with zero cost. It is disgraceful to give Ethiopian comparative advantage to those who plot our destruction and weakness.

Unfortunately almost 10 million people a year is starved to death in Ethiopia for almost a century. The Ethiopian government is busy in begging food and other aid, and it announces the occurrence of famine with great honor. Instead of the government of Egypt produces food in Ethiopia, Why not the Ethiopian government produces food for its own people? When does Ethiopia establish a government whose prime concern is its own citizen. How will save Ethiopian people?

It is difficult to mention the entire ploy made by Egypt against Ethiopia and its citizen. When Ethiopia is librated and become a country of Ethiopians, not only the Egypt who maneuvers our destruction, but also the Ethiopia government should face justices. Who should go to jail, Birtukan Medeksa, an innocent citizen or the Egyptian whooficially dodge war against Ethiopia?

I am a strong supporter of investment. Investment creates capital, wealth, employment, knowledge and other important component of economic benefits. But investment should be compromise with the need of its people, national interest and the future of the country as a whole. A country without a national interest is a country without people. With a farmer struggling with less than a hectare of land, it is mindboggling to award thousand of hectare to its enemy.

Hence all Ethiopian in the country and around the world should condemn this irresponsible investment. Ethiopian enemy shouldn’t deserve Ethiopian land, instead justice. Land to the poor farmer who struggle to feed his/her family. Land to the tiller. We need to speak at every angle and stop awarding Ethiopian land to the strategic enemy who wage war against Ethiopian.

Make no mistake that Woyan came to power through the help of Egypt. So woyan stop paying your 17 years of war debt by using Ethiopian (our) land. It is an outrageous. Every Ethiopian loving citizen should condemn and make sure his/her voice heard.
Our land is not for our enemies.

http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=13048&print=1

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Egypt-Ethiopia: Egypt becomes biggest commercial land acquisitor in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is set to grant 20,000 hectares of land to Egypt, making the latter the biggest foreign acquisitor of agricultural land in Ethiopia.

A branch of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD), in charge of commercial farming, has agreed to accept Egypt’s proposal. "We are in the process of providing the farm land," said a source who demanded anonimity.

The land is in the Afar Regional State.

Egypt’s request was submitted through its National Bank which is expected to sign the deal by the end of the month.

Ethiopia’s policy shift made last year, allowing foreign entities to grab huge commercial farmlands, has attracted a lot of attention from both foreign companies and countries.

The Government of Djibouti was the first to obtain 3,000 hectares of farmland in Bale, a suitable agricultural zone in the Oromia region located some 400 kilometers south of Addis Ababa.

Karaturi, an Indian company, and Saudi Star, established by Sheik Mohamed Al Amudi, a Saudi national billionaire, have equally obtained lands with the aim of growing export crops for their respective countries.

The land deals were made directly with the central government.

Ethiopia has no specialised institutions charged with the promotion of commercial farming despite the country’s new land policies.

But with a growing demand from many foreign entities, the Ethiopian "Government is in the process of establishing a federal body under MoARD" to handle such demands, the source said.

Last week, an Egyptian delegation headed by their Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif, visited Ethiopia.

The 26 member delegation made up of Ministers and heads of agricultural companies met with Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi and expressed both the Egyptian government’s and private companies’ interest to invest in Ethiopia.

According to Ahmed Nazif, the National Bank of Egypt will invest at least 40 million in the agricultural sector. He also said that five Egyptian drug companies were also preparing to invest in the Ethiopian health sector.

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Ethiopia-Egypt accords, a danger to Nile Basin negotiations?

Ethiopia and Egypt have moved a significant step, this week, towards leveling their bumpy relations. The two countries have agreed to strengthen their economic collaborations to enhance their overall relations in a backdrop of a longstanding disagreement over the Nile’s water resources. Whether or not this agreement stands to disrupt ongoing negotiations within the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative, the answers remain vague.

Leading a delegation of ministers and companies during his visit last week to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Egyptian Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif appended his signature to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 to establish an Ethiopia-Egypt Council of Commerce.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who chaired the meeting said that the relationship between the two countries has turned from distrust to a friendly cooperation.

The Nile River resource has been a bone of contention between the two countries for over a decade.

For over a decade now, the nine riparian countries of the Nile River have been involved in numerous rounds of negotiations within the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative [1] aimed at solving their disagreements over the river’s resources, and also to establish the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework for the establishment of a permanent river basin commission.

With 38 articles established to date within the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative, Egypt and Sudan are the only countries (among member countries) to oppose a final but essential article that proposes equal sharing of the Nile water resource. The two countries have rather recommended an assertion that will protect their current water quota.

A shift

This partnership agreement comes despite the two countries’ seemingly strong disagreement over the Nile issue, which has led to considerable tensions in Ethiopia-Egypt relations. There has been no official announcement as to whether or not Egypt has changed its stance on the water sharing issue.

Analysts at the Ministry of Water Resources in Ethiopia believe that Egypt’s new strategic relations with Ethiopia will most likely lead to a shift in Ethiopia’s position [#3] on the water sharing subject.

Observers have also said that a suggestion by the Ethiopian PM during the MoU ceremony, which indicated that the two countries will, from henceforth, develop the Nile Basin jointly through the Nile Basin Initiative, confirms a future shift. Egyptian Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif also announced that the two nations had reached a consensus to work together, while insisting that the Egyptian government would do everything possible to enhance the trade and investment ties between the two countries.

Member of the visiting delegation, Mohamed Allam, Irrigation Minister of Egypt also threw some light on the Nile basin issue ahead of the visit. He revealed that Ethiopia has proposed building three medium-sized dams on the Blue Nile to generate electricity for industrial purposes. "We have agreed to the offer as long as it does not affect Egypt’s Nile water quota," Mr. Allam said.

Huge investments

The first Egyptian delegation headed by Mrs. Fayza Aboulnaga, Minister of International Cooperation was in Ethiopia in October last year. The delegation, which included Amin Abaza, Minister of Agriculture & Land Reform and more than 90 owners, leaders and representatives of nine giant Egyptian companies, met with various Ethiopian officials, including Minister Tefera Derebew of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development who promised agricultural plots to the business delegates.

Among the delegation headed by Mr.Ahmed Nazif were 26 agriculture companies who aspired to inspect the land proposed by Tefera. Most of them have expressed their interest to grow sugar cane and also engage in meat exportation

Before meeting with PM Meles, PM Nazif visited Elsewedy, an Egyptian cable factory that inaugurated its Ethiopian branch two months ago in Dukem 37 kilometres East of Addis Ababa in the Oromia region. The cable company has also submitted a proposal to Girma Birru, Minister of trade and industry, requesting a huge plot of land for the construction of an industrial zone. This demand should be approved in the coming week.

[1] Formally launched in 1999 by the 9 riparian countries made up of Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Egypt, Sudan, Rwanda, the Nile Basin Initiative is a partnership that seeks to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security

[2] An agreement signed in 1959 between Egypt and Sudan allowed Egypt alone to use 55.5 billion cubic meters (87% of the Nile’s flow) and Sudan 18.5 cubic metres of water each year. Ethiopia, which contributes more than 80 percent of the water to the Nile basin, and the rest of the riparian countries were left out

[3] An Ethiopian proposed article that deals with the possibility of water sharing without causing significant harm to other riparian countries has caused negotiating countries to split into two major blocks: Upper riparian countries, consisting of a host of countries under Ethiopia’s leadership including Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi; against lower riparian countries, made up of Egypt and Sudan
http://en.afrik.com/article16707.html

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Ethiopia expels Bloomberg correspondent

January 10th, 2010 | by addis portal |

MEKELLE, Ethiopia - Ethiopia has ordered a correpondent for Bloomberg news service to leave the country within 48 hours.

Bloomberg correspondent Jason McLure was given the ultimatum after he was found at the office of Arena Tigrai opposition party in Mekelle, capital of the northernmost region.

No official statement has so far been given for the expulsion but Gebru Asrat, chairman of Arena Tigrai, said the journalist arrived in Mekelle on January 6 and was taken away by security workers same day.

Gebru said, “The reporter was here to verify charges that seven individuals, some of whom are Arena founding members, had travelled to Addis Ababa to report human rights violations with international organizations. They were thrown back into jail upon their return to Tigrai.”

The Arena members were released after five of detention, and Jason was to inquire and write a story about the injustices when he was whisked away by securitymen, according to Gebru.

The Bloomberg reporter was also in the city to investigate public complaints over government abuses of SafetyNet Programs in which those who don’t support the ruling party are barred from cash- and other beneficial programs run by the World Bank and other donor groups.

Meles Zenawi denies such stories, or at best usually blames the “ignorant low-level officials.” Although the crimes are his own orders, when asked by the media, Meles would pop out his eyes, and dryly say, “Bring me the culrpit, and I will fire him.”

Gebru Asrat describes the behavior as a deeply-entrenched practice that is ’systemic’ to TPLF.

Asked at a news conference in Addis, Bereket Simon, a second-in-command government spokesperson, said he had no idea if any reporter was detained nor told to leave the country. Detained for three days, Jason McLure was in Addis on Thursday, and if the order of expulsion is carried out, he should have already left Ethiopia.

Officials reportedly told Gebru the journalist was served with the expulsion notice because he failed to notify the immigration office that he was travelling to Tigrai region.

Gebru dismissed the reason as a lame excuse since ‘Jason was already a known Bloomberg correpondent in Ethiopia,’ and he had no need to carry a special permit to travel within the country.

Tigrai is the seat of TPLF, Meles Zenawi’s Stalinist party which has kept the region off-limits to foreign correspondents for fear that they would expose the degree of repression there. Human rights violations are rampant but few dare to report.

“Foreign charities rarely criticise the government in public because their staff have been expelled from the country and barred from certain areas,” Barry Malone, a Reuters correspondent wrote recently when stories of long-standing government use of food aid as a political weapon caught the attention of the international community.

Jason McLure is largely known for covering fields of strategic importance to the ruling party that other reporters keep at bay.
Recently, the Bloomberg correspondent wrote: Guna, owned by Ethiopian ruling party, eyes coffee-export share, and Ethiopian Farms Lure Investor Funds as Workers Live in Poverty, stories that rarely come out of countries like Ethiopia.

Earlier in 2008, an American law professor, Abigail Salisbury, was ordered to leave the country within 48 hours after her razor-sharp article published on the web narrated the lack of academic freedom at Mekelle University and how students live in the fear-ridden society.

http://addisportal.com/comment/?p=2282

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Somalia and the cost of state failure
January 7, 2010

Speech by Nuradin Dirie at the Centre for African Studies.
University of Copenhagen.
Mr Chairman,

It is a great pleasure for me to be here today in the University of Copenhagen – the largest learning institution in Denmark. Up until recently, my exclusive knowledge and what I know about Denmark was limited to my former boss, Christian Balslev-Olesen, who is sitting with us here today. But since then, I have learned quite few things about Denmark.

For exmple, I was made aware that the Danish flag is the oldest national flag in the world. According to one Danish friend of mine, the flag fell from the sky during the battle of 1215 leading to Danish victory. My friend did not tell me who you were fighting at that time, but today, I can only wish that something will come down from the sky on Somalia in order to get the country out of the mess and madness which it is in.

I learned that the Danish people have been very generous to my people. Over the years, and since the fall of the Somali state, Denmark has opened its doors to Somalis as they fled conflict and insecurity in search of safety. They settled here and despite triumphs and tribulations, 20 thousand Somalis are now citizens and residents in this great country contributing to its national life.

Danish generosity also reaches Somalia itself. Denmark is today one of Somalia’s main donors and in the last 5 years alone, has contributed about 40 million USD to support humanitarian work which has benefited vulnerable Somalis in times of drought, flood and conflict emergencies.

Before I talk about the cost of the state failure, I would like to say a bit about the state that we had in Somalia prior to its collapse. Our experience with modern statehood – the recognised system by the international community of states – is 49 years old. Within that system and within that relatively short period, we had 9 years of multiparty democracy, 20 years of military dictatorship and 20 years of anarchy.

While on one hand, international recognition of the Somali state is relatively new and chaotic; on the other Somalia itself is the product of many years of human history and human relations including 100 years of colonial history and several centuries of pastoral democracy.

We have had mixed experiences with our different governance systems in the modern Somali state. During the democratic period we enjoyed peace, security and rule of law. The freedom of expression we enjoyed was second to none in Africa: so much so, that during that time Somalia did not have a single political detainee – a novelty in Africa that time. That experience of freedom and democratic values was not only short lived but superseded by one of the most repressive and predatory regimes the world has ever seen.

The contrast could not have been greater. We went from almost complete freedom into a level of control that could only be described as paranoia. The military regime in Somalia terrorised the population. It made things like gossip a capital crime. People disappeared after being accused of gossiping against the revolution. That military regime set the stage for Somalia to become unique in the history of the modern world as the only country that was, and continues to be, a failed state for two decades.

In 2009, Somalia is still no nearer to forming a functioning central state than when it started to disintegrate in 1991.

Since 1991 the United Nations Security Council has adopted 43 resolutions about the situation of Somalia. This resulted in 15 attempts of internationally driven state-building processes, two international peace-keeping operations and a cost of 8 billion US dollars.

The current Transitional Federal Government is the latest attempt to establish the Somali state. Unfortunately, the government is severely challenged. The civilian population is trapped between the armed opposition on the one hand and the international and Somali forces on the other.

The human cost is great indeed. Since the collapse of the Somali state, one million people in Somalia died as a consequence of war, famine, and disease – a profound human tragedy. And as I speak, today we have 1.5 million people who are displaced within the country. They are essentially refugees in their own country.

Somalia has the highest levels of malnutrition in the world with up to 300,000 children acutely malnourished annually. In fact, nearly 4 million people are now in what the UN calls, ‘humanitarian crisis’ – basically going to bed hungry every night.

The fighting is also depriving civilians of basic services such as health, because medics can’t reach people and people can’t get to hospitals. Pregnant women often spend days trying to get to a hospital because there are no health facilities nearby where they feel safe. Many are still travelling when labour starts and a number have died, along with their unborn children, because they couldn’t reach help in time.

But what is more disconcerting is that the insecurity in the country today has created treacherous conditions for aid agencies trying to deliver live-saving services. Indeed Somalia is the most dangerous country in the world for humanitarian aid workers. Last year one-third of all humanitarian casualties worldwide occurred in Somalia.

In combination, the grave needs of the people on the ground and the inability of the humanitarian community to access and assist them have created the most challenging humanitarian crisis in the world.

It is well established that, conflict and security are intrinsically linked to development processes. In addition to the human cost, the instability in Somalia continues to produce worrisome statistics which make the future prospect of development even bleaker.

· Things like the child and maternal mortality – among the highest in the world

· Access to clean drinking water – only a third of the population has it

· Only one in three children that survive, will attend primary school

· An average life span of only 47 years

Somalia is not facing the consequences of the conflict on its own. The whole region is now very embroiled in the troubles.

Ethiopia has always meddled in the politics of Somalia. It is not difficult to imagine why. About one-fourth of its land area in south-eastern Ethiopia, known as the Ogaden and Haud, are inhabited by the Somali people. The two nations have a long standing history of conflict.

But its involvement culminated in an invasion of Somalia in early 2007 under the pretext of security and as part of the global war on terror. I remember very well, prior to the invasion, all analysts and observers of Somalia warned against such move. They also predicted the grave consequences would come out of it.

But the invasion went ahead with the support, blessing and financial underwriting of big powers. The conflict which followed the invasion was marked by numerous violations of international humanitarian law. The human rights violations were such that ‘Human Rights Watch’ described Ethiopia’s military actions as ‘war crimes’. Despite huge human, diplomatic and financial cost, none of the stated objectives of the invasion were achieved.

Somalia today is a much more dangerous place for Somalis, for the region and for the rest of the world than it has ever been.

Ethiopia withdrew from Somalia in late 2008 and left a trail of destruction, devastation and a huge amount of anger. Ethiopia now has a standing army on its side of the border and the conflict has followed it inside the country itself.

Eritrea also used the opportunity to cause more trouble for its arch-enemy and is now very much involved in the conflict in Somalia as a proxy war against Ethiopia. It is arming and advising insurgents, facilitating transfer of finance to them and is committed to see this conflict escalate further.

Kenya, which for very long time managed to stay away from the troubles in Somalia, is very involved now and almost its entire military and security apparatus is geared towards defending potential incursions from the south of Somalia.

Djibouti, which was for very long time described as the island of tranquillity in that troubled region, is for the first time receiving direct threats from Somalia’s Al-shabab group.

The United States is very much involved too. It is hunting down suspected terrorist individuals, identifying them and bombing them with all the consequences.

The huge anger after the Ethiopian invasion released a combination of nationalism and radicalism that no doubt radicalised a significant number of the population. So much so that for Al Qaeda and its networks, Somalia – in which had relatively little hold before 2007 – has very much become one of its key bases.

But most alarming of all, is that the anger has reached Somali youngsters in the west. To the point that a number of them have left their homes in London in UK and Minnesota in the US to be part of the Somalia conflict. These are young people who, as children, were taken from Somalia under traumatic circumstances in order to give them a better life, free from conflict. The fact that they are now returning to Somalia to kill and be killed is for me, one of the most painful costs of the conflict in Somalia.

As far as I understand, Somali youngsters leaving the west to join the fighting in Somalia has not been a significant issue here in Denmark. Hopefully the individual cases that were reported from London and Minnesota are just a passing phase that will just fade away. But these are indicative enough to illustrate how a conflict in one remote part of the world can, indeed, have global ramifications.

Perhaps nothing demonstrates this better than the piracy off the coast of Somalia that has become a menace to the global maritime community. In 2008 alone, the International Maritime Bureau recorded 111 pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa.

Almost every nation was affected by these piracy attacks in 2008 either in vessel hijackings or increased prices for oil and other goods as a result of increased insurance premiums and the costs related to risk and security precautions. Others have increased their costs by travelling around the Cape of Good Hope in order to bypass the long Somali coastline and so avoid the pirates.

According to Rand Foundation, the overall annual cost of piracy to the maritime industry is estimated to be between $1 billion and $16 billion.

The scale of these costs as a direct collapse of the Somali state is all too evident when one considers that Somali pirates can potentially impact on some 33,000 ships that transit the Gulf of Aden annually, including some 6,500 tankers which carry seven percent of the world’s daily oil supply.

It is to address that potential scale of disruption that the UN Security Council quickly issued four resolutions in 2008 to facilitate an international response to piracy off the Horn of Africa. It has triggered the deployment of perhaps the most eclectic and diverse armada of naval firepower ever assembled. And yet, despite the naval force of some thirty nations, the military presence has been unable to deter the attacks.

The failure of these counter-piracy operations reinforces that the reestablishment of government authority in Somalia is the only guarantee that piracy will not persist or re-emerge as a threat.

It is indeed true that we live in world where everything is globalised. Instability anywhere can translate into instability everywhere. The cost of state failure in Somalia has been extremely high in human terms, diplomatic terms and in terms of regional and global trade and security. We cannot afford to stand by and watch as another generation of Somali human potential is so pointlessly wasted.

Although the solution of Somalia starts and ends with Somalis, the outcome in Somalia will affect us all in one way or another. Like it or not, we all have a stake in seeing a stable Somalia.

And we should view the resilience and resourcefulness of the Somali people as characteristics which, if supported, can build a secure democratic state. But it will take sustained efforts to support the establishment of public governance systems in a country where half the population has never known peace or civil service structures.

It will take consistent global commitment and financial resources to make this happen. I hope we will all contribute to make it come about. If past evidence is anything to go by, it is our collective human capacity that gives me hope for Somalia and for the rest of the world.

Thank you very much

Nuradin Dirie

Nuradin Dirie is an independent analyst specialising in the Horn of Africa with particular interest in Somalia. He was former presidential candidate in Somalia in 2009 Puntland Elections and also served as senior special advisor to the United Nations.

http://horseedmedia.net/2010/01/somalia-and-the-cost-of-state-failure/