People's Daily Online -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Monday held talks with a delegation led by General Bryan Brown, head of US Special Operations Command, on military and security cooperation between Ethiopia and the United States.
Meles and Brown held discussion particularly on security situations in eastern African countries and other related issues, said a senior government official who attended the discussion.
The discussion stressed the need of strengthening cooperations between the two countries in fighting terrorism, said the official.
The two sides also stressed the need to foster military and security cooperations which the two countries have long established, he said.
Ethiopia has been central to US anti-terrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa on both the security and fiscal fronts. It has stepped up its border control efforts and helped the US freeze financial assets of suspected terrorists.
The United States was providing military logistics to Ethiopia in addition to the training of its military officers.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Coffee: A Dark History
canada.com -- As they contemplate that bracing cup of hot java every morning, probably few people reflect on the history of their favourite drink.
That's a shame because, even though coffee came on the scene relatively recently compared to beverages such as beer and wine, its story is fascinating.
In his book Coffee: A Dark History, Antony Wild offers a torrent of fact and fable about his topic and, true to the title, takes a decidedly dark approach to the tale.
Rather than coddle readers by drawing them in with some history or anecdotes, Wild charges forth in Chapter 1 to detail the plight of the underpaid and exploited millions whose livelihood depends on raising coffee beans while large marketers reap huge profits.
Only then does he turn to the history of coffee, its first appearances in Ethiopia and Yemen -- where the city of Mocha gave its name to the beverage -- and its growth as a popular drink in the 16th century.
Wild offers fascinating tales of coffee's history on the remote island of St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final years in exile; reports that German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe inspired Swiss chemist Gustav von Runge's discovery of caffeine; and tells of Franz Georg Kolschitsky, who is said to have used beans left behind by a retreating Turkish army to open the first coffeehouse in Vienna.
But the dark side is never far below the surface as Wild stresses how coffee followed sugar in promoting the international slave trade. And he ends up back where the book started, stressing the poverty of today's coffee farmer and the Fair Trade effort to guarantee the small grower at least a decent price, an effort he deems "laudable but ultimately inadequate."
Coffee: A Dark History, by Antony Wild (Norton)
That's a shame because, even though coffee came on the scene relatively recently compared to beverages such as beer and wine, its story is fascinating.
In his book Coffee: A Dark History, Antony Wild offers a torrent of fact and fable about his topic and, true to the title, takes a decidedly dark approach to the tale.
Rather than coddle readers by drawing them in with some history or anecdotes, Wild charges forth in Chapter 1 to detail the plight of the underpaid and exploited millions whose livelihood depends on raising coffee beans while large marketers reap huge profits.
Only then does he turn to the history of coffee, its first appearances in Ethiopia and Yemen -- where the city of Mocha gave its name to the beverage -- and its growth as a popular drink in the 16th century.
Wild offers fascinating tales of coffee's history on the remote island of St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final years in exile; reports that German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe inspired Swiss chemist Gustav von Runge's discovery of caffeine; and tells of Franz Georg Kolschitsky, who is said to have used beans left behind by a retreating Turkish army to open the first coffeehouse in Vienna.
But the dark side is never far below the surface as Wild stresses how coffee followed sugar in promoting the international slave trade. And he ends up back where the book started, stressing the poverty of today's coffee farmer and the Fair Trade effort to guarantee the small grower at least a decent price, an effort he deems "laudable but ultimately inadequate."
Coffee: A Dark History, by Antony Wild (Norton)
Bleach Used in Racist Attack
news24.com -- A 25-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly throwing bleach on a black girl in an apparent racist attack in the north of the Netherlands, said police.
Peter Boomsma of police said the suspect, whose name was not released, was believed to have yelled "this will make you whiter" before throwing the bleach.
The girl, 16, was not seriously hurt.
Boomsma said the attack occurred on Monday in the city of Buitenpost, about 180km northwest of Amsterdam.
He said the man was arrested on suspicion of assault and hate speech, and the case had been turned over to public prosecutors.
Boomsma said the girl was born in Ethiopia and had been adopted by a Dutch couple. She was walking in front of a library with two friends when the attack happened.
The Dutch government this week announced that it would crackdown on white racists, Islamic radicals and extremist environmental activists.
Peter Boomsma of police said the suspect, whose name was not released, was believed to have yelled "this will make you whiter" before throwing the bleach.
The girl, 16, was not seriously hurt.
Boomsma said the attack occurred on Monday in the city of Buitenpost, about 180km northwest of Amsterdam.
He said the man was arrested on suspicion of assault and hate speech, and the case had been turned over to public prosecutors.
Boomsma said the girl was born in Ethiopia and had been adopted by a Dutch couple. She was walking in front of a library with two friends when the attack happened.
The Dutch government this week announced that it would crackdown on white racists, Islamic radicals and extremist environmental activists.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Climate Change Marks Dawn of Man
 Prehistoric algae lived in vast East African lakes millions of years ago |
Scientists have identified extensive lake systems which formed and disappeared in East Africa between one and three million years ago.
The lakes could be evidence that global climate changes occured throughout this pivotal period in human evolution.
The findings, reported in the journal Science, suggest that humans evolved in response to a variable climate.
Dr Martin Trauth of the University of Potsdam and his team were able to identify and date the prehistoric lakes by studying layers of soil along the Rift Valley in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.
Exploring ancient lakes
Layers containing microscopic algae skeletons, called diatoms, reveal the depth and composition of the ancient lakes.
Volcanic ash in nearby layers provides an estimate of the lakes' ages. Radioactive elements in the ash act as time stamps because they decay in a predictable way with time.
By examining soil layers at seven sites throughout East Africa, Dr Trauth and his collaborators were able to identify three distinct periods during which extensive lakes covered the region and grew to depths of hundreds of metres.
They argue that the growth of these lakes resulted from a moist local climate. The regional wet periods, which may have persisted for up to 100,000 years, occured as much of Africa became increasingly dry.
The periods of wet weather in East Africa might reflect fluctuations of the Earth's climate as a whole. At the time when the lakes grew - roughly 2.6, 1.8, and 1 million years ago - glaciers and the atmosphere were also going through major transformations.
Emergence of humankind
The Science paper states that if the lakes were temporary features related to the global climate, as the data suggest, they provide strong support for theories in which early human species evolved and spread out in response to a rapidly changing environment.
"These episodes could have had important impacts on the speciation and dispersal of mammals and hominins," the researchers write.
Chris Stringer, a leading researcher on early humans in the department of palaeontology at London's Natural History Museum, praised the quality of the data, saying that it provides "very good evidence" of climate change in East Africa.
However, he stressed that more detailed work was necessary to positively link these environmental changes to the emergence of man.
"What this is showing is that there are fluctuations of the climatic belts moving up and down," he said. "But if early humans are able to move around, the effect of varying environment is reduced. The key issue now is how mobile are these people?"
Museum Finds Its Rare Book in Merkato
allAfrica.com -- The Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) of Addis Ababa University (AAU) recently discovered that a rare and unique pictorial book was missing from its archives after it was tipped that the book was seen elsewhere, sources disclosed.
The Institute was able to recover Goglia Luigi's Storia Fotografica Dell Impero Fascista through a member who accidentally came across the book as it was put on sale in Merkato --the country's largest open market.
The exact date of theft is not known. Sources within IES confirmed that the last time it displayed during an exhibition staged in the institute under the theme "Ethiopian History in Black and White."
The member according to sources who spoke with The Daily Monitor is said to have bought the book and handed it back to IES.
The book contains a collection of well over 400 original photographs and explanatory notes depicting pictorial facts during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia.
Among the rare photographs of the collection for the period between 1935 to 1941, are the demolished Menelik II statue and a replica of the Axum Obelisk erected around the present day Arat Kilo.
Some archival experts say that while theft is a common criminal act affecting libraries, IES however is full of collections that are either unpublished or published with one or two original copies suggesting that loss of any kind would be tantamount to losing history itself.
They are of the opinion that the museum ought to consider installing modern security systems rather than "relying on a single guard and the good conscience of its employees."
Currently IES boasts over 100,000 texts, unpublished journals and articles and is said to be the largest Ethiopian collection ever in the globe.
Wrt. Elsabet W.Giorgis, Director of the Institute declined to comment on the issue, she however is said to have ordered an immediate inventory of the collection of the library.
The Institute was able to recover Goglia Luigi's Storia Fotografica Dell Impero Fascista through a member who accidentally came across the book as it was put on sale in Merkato --the country's largest open market.
The exact date of theft is not known. Sources within IES confirmed that the last time it displayed during an exhibition staged in the institute under the theme "Ethiopian History in Black and White."
The member according to sources who spoke with The Daily Monitor is said to have bought the book and handed it back to IES.
The book contains a collection of well over 400 original photographs and explanatory notes depicting pictorial facts during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia.
Among the rare photographs of the collection for the period between 1935 to 1941, are the demolished Menelik II statue and a replica of the Axum Obelisk erected around the present day Arat Kilo.
Some archival experts say that while theft is a common criminal act affecting libraries, IES however is full of collections that are either unpublished or published with one or two original copies suggesting that loss of any kind would be tantamount to losing history itself.
They are of the opinion that the museum ought to consider installing modern security systems rather than "relying on a single guard and the good conscience of its employees."
Currently IES boasts over 100,000 texts, unpublished journals and articles and is said to be the largest Ethiopian collection ever in the globe.
Wrt. Elsabet W.Giorgis, Director of the Institute declined to comment on the issue, she however is said to have ordered an immediate inventory of the collection of the library.
Floods Displace Thousands in the South
Reuters AlertNet.com -- Floods left one man dead and several thousand people homeless after heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks in southern Ethiopia, an official said on Wednesday.
The Awash River - the longest in the country at 1,200 km - burst its banks, flooding farmland and homes in the country's largest region, Oromiya.
"The Awash and Meki rivers have overflowed and engulfed the surrounding farmland," Chala Horodow, the head of emergencies in the region, said. "We have helped transport people from the area that was flooded. One man was washed away in the floods."
He said more than 3,000 people had fled their homes to escape the flooding, which took place in the Gara Leman area, some 225 km south of the capital, Addis Ababa.
"The water is subsiding now," he said, adding that the situation was being brought under control.
In April, flooding killed around 155 people in eastern Ethiopia's Somali region. A month later, flash floods killed at least 32 people in the country's second largest city, Dire Dawa.
The Awash, used by farmers to regenerate soils, often floods its banks.
Africa Needs Free Trade, Not Charity
Daily Times -- The changes needed — in rich and poor countries alike — to lift millions of people out of poverty have nothing to do with charity. They are about fairness. They are about seeing our fates as one human family being increasingly interconnected. They are about granting all people the right to a decent livelihood
The leaders of the G-8 nations made some progress in fighting global poverty at the Gleneagles Summit in July through new commitments to increased aid and debt relief. No previous G-8 meeting has done as much to support development in the world’s poorest countries, particularly in Africa.
But while the G-8’s steps were welcome, they are insufficient to ensure that all developing countries fulfil the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. A major stumbling block continues to be the reforms needed to create a more just world trade system.
If the world’s wealthiest nations are committed to supporting African efforts to foster sustainable development and good governance, they must also be prepared to reform trade rules so that Africa can do more to secure its own future, rather than relying solely on aid.
If poor countries could increase their share of world exports by just one percent, they could lift 128 million people out of poverty. In Africa alone, this would generate US$70 billion — more than five times what the continent receives in aid.
In recent months, I have visited two African nations, Mali and Mozambique, to better understand the critical role of cotton and sugar trade in fostering economic and social development. The success or failure of these two industries — the Mali cotton industry and the Mozambique sugar industry — is directly linked to current and future US and EU trade policies.
Experts generally agree that the current regimen of US cotton subsidies has adversely affected world cotton prices — down by 30 percent between 2004 and 2005 — resulting in substantially reduced income to West and Central African cotton growers, like those in Mali. Estimates from Iowa State University’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute suggest that since 2001, the four West and Central African cotton producers (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali) have suffered export losses of around US$382 million due to US policies.
This slump has had a terrible impact on African countries. More than 10 million people in West and Central Africa depend on cotton for their livelihoods. There are few alternatives for generating income for social services, such as education and healthcare, and for maintaining macro-economic stability. For these countries to escape the poverty trap and move away from foreign aid dependence, improving their ability to trade — on fair terms — in products which they can produce competitively is crucial. Cotton producers in Mali want to work their way out of poverty, not to receive development handouts.
The situation for sugar producers, like Mozambique, is similar. Mozambique is third from the bottom on last year’s UN human development index. Three out of four people live on less than US$2 a day. An HIV/AIDS infection rate of 15 percent coincides with a high incidence of malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis. Infrastructure is virtually nonexistent — only one decent road runs up the edge of the country — but the land is fertile and could develop quickly with more agricultural production and trade.
The sugar industry currently employs at least 22,000 people and supports many thousands more. Estimates suggest that Mozambique could double its sugar production by 2007, given support and time to grow. The women in a village near the sugar factory I visited had benefited from their cash crop, but feared this was about to change. They questioned me closely about what exactly I would do about it. “We need a tractor,” they said. “We need money to sow a new crop of sugar cane. We need to continue to sell our sugar at good prices in Europe.”
But the future of the industry in Mozambique and other sugar-producing African countries, including Malawi, Zambia, and Ethiopia, is under threat. WTO rules require the EU to bring its sugar regime into line with world commodity trade rules. A complex and long-standing system of price support, tariffs, and quotas, must be reformed to stop overproduction and dumping. Managed properly, these changes could benefit many poor countries. Managed badly, they will protect the biggest and richest EU producers at the expense of small farmers, both in Europe and the developing world.
Current proposals include a 39 percent price cut for sugar in Europe by 2008. This sudden and dramatic change would hurt both fledgling industries, like Mozambique’s, and small farmers in Europe. The proposals would not even eliminate Europe’s surplus, which is being challenged at the WTO. The least developed countries will get unlimited access to the EU market for their sugar from 2009, but the value of this access would be seriously compromised by the proposed price cut.
Fairer trade policies comprise only one component necessary for lasting and sustainable development in Africa. Equally important is increasing the level of domestic and foreign investment in local economies, as well as steps towards good governance to which many African countries are committed — from fighting corruption to building up effective institutions such as the courts, police, and public services.
Improving the status of women is also vital. Women already provide up to 80 percent of household food production in sub-Saharan Africa. Still, in too many countries, the continued denial of women’s rights to land and property, in addition to unequal wages and working conditions, is holding back efforts to improve living standards and achieve sustainable development.
Trade is a key engine of development, and American and European policymakers must consider the impact of their trade policies on people in the developing world. It will not be easy to design a fairer system that pleases everyone; I am acutely aware of the political difficulties involved in reforming agricultural policies in the US and EU.
Support for domestic agriculture — for instance, subsidies that promote environmentally friendly farming and rural development — is certainly justified. But the current system is simply unfair. It concentrates payments on large-scale commercial agri-business while failing the vast majority of domestic small-scale farmers and consumers, at the same time harming millions of people in the world’s poorest countries. We need to bring home the fact that trade is not only a key engine of development; it is also a crucial factor in economic justice. Trade policies can directly affect people’s access to fundamental rights — to an adequate standard of living, health, food, and education. Trade ministers should wake up every morning with this in mind.
In the lead-up to the UN World Summit in September and the WTO Ministerial in December, a real opportunity exists to achieve the further reforms needed to make 2005 a truly historic moment in the fight against global poverty. What must be at the forefront of our thinking is the notion of shared responsibility. The changes needed — in rich and poor countries alike — to lift millions of people out of poverty have nothing to do with charity. They are about fairness. They are about seeing our fates as one human family being increasingly interconnected. They are about granting all people the right to a decent livelihood and a sustainable future.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative www.realizingrights.org. This article appeared in YaleGlobal Online (www.yaleglobal.yale.edu), a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and is reprinted by permission. Copyright (c) 2003 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
The leaders of the G-8 nations made some progress in fighting global poverty at the Gleneagles Summit in July through new commitments to increased aid and debt relief. No previous G-8 meeting has done as much to support development in the world’s poorest countries, particularly in Africa.
But while the G-8’s steps were welcome, they are insufficient to ensure that all developing countries fulfil the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. A major stumbling block continues to be the reforms needed to create a more just world trade system.
If the world’s wealthiest nations are committed to supporting African efforts to foster sustainable development and good governance, they must also be prepared to reform trade rules so that Africa can do more to secure its own future, rather than relying solely on aid.
If poor countries could increase their share of world exports by just one percent, they could lift 128 million people out of poverty. In Africa alone, this would generate US$70 billion — more than five times what the continent receives in aid.
In recent months, I have visited two African nations, Mali and Mozambique, to better understand the critical role of cotton and sugar trade in fostering economic and social development. The success or failure of these two industries — the Mali cotton industry and the Mozambique sugar industry — is directly linked to current and future US and EU trade policies.
Experts generally agree that the current regimen of US cotton subsidies has adversely affected world cotton prices — down by 30 percent between 2004 and 2005 — resulting in substantially reduced income to West and Central African cotton growers, like those in Mali. Estimates from Iowa State University’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute suggest that since 2001, the four West and Central African cotton producers (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali) have suffered export losses of around US$382 million due to US policies.
This slump has had a terrible impact on African countries. More than 10 million people in West and Central Africa depend on cotton for their livelihoods. There are few alternatives for generating income for social services, such as education and healthcare, and for maintaining macro-economic stability. For these countries to escape the poverty trap and move away from foreign aid dependence, improving their ability to trade — on fair terms — in products which they can produce competitively is crucial. Cotton producers in Mali want to work their way out of poverty, not to receive development handouts.
The situation for sugar producers, like Mozambique, is similar. Mozambique is third from the bottom on last year’s UN human development index. Three out of four people live on less than US$2 a day. An HIV/AIDS infection rate of 15 percent coincides with a high incidence of malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis. Infrastructure is virtually nonexistent — only one decent road runs up the edge of the country — but the land is fertile and could develop quickly with more agricultural production and trade.
The sugar industry currently employs at least 22,000 people and supports many thousands more. Estimates suggest that Mozambique could double its sugar production by 2007, given support and time to grow. The women in a village near the sugar factory I visited had benefited from their cash crop, but feared this was about to change. They questioned me closely about what exactly I would do about it. “We need a tractor,” they said. “We need money to sow a new crop of sugar cane. We need to continue to sell our sugar at good prices in Europe.”
But the future of the industry in Mozambique and other sugar-producing African countries, including Malawi, Zambia, and Ethiopia, is under threat. WTO rules require the EU to bring its sugar regime into line with world commodity trade rules. A complex and long-standing system of price support, tariffs, and quotas, must be reformed to stop overproduction and dumping. Managed properly, these changes could benefit many poor countries. Managed badly, they will protect the biggest and richest EU producers at the expense of small farmers, both in Europe and the developing world.
Current proposals include a 39 percent price cut for sugar in Europe by 2008. This sudden and dramatic change would hurt both fledgling industries, like Mozambique’s, and small farmers in Europe. The proposals would not even eliminate Europe’s surplus, which is being challenged at the WTO. The least developed countries will get unlimited access to the EU market for their sugar from 2009, but the value of this access would be seriously compromised by the proposed price cut.
Fairer trade policies comprise only one component necessary for lasting and sustainable development in Africa. Equally important is increasing the level of domestic and foreign investment in local economies, as well as steps towards good governance to which many African countries are committed — from fighting corruption to building up effective institutions such as the courts, police, and public services.
Improving the status of women is also vital. Women already provide up to 80 percent of household food production in sub-Saharan Africa. Still, in too many countries, the continued denial of women’s rights to land and property, in addition to unequal wages and working conditions, is holding back efforts to improve living standards and achieve sustainable development.
Trade is a key engine of development, and American and European policymakers must consider the impact of their trade policies on people in the developing world. It will not be easy to design a fairer system that pleases everyone; I am acutely aware of the political difficulties involved in reforming agricultural policies in the US and EU.
Support for domestic agriculture — for instance, subsidies that promote environmentally friendly farming and rural development — is certainly justified. But the current system is simply unfair. It concentrates payments on large-scale commercial agri-business while failing the vast majority of domestic small-scale farmers and consumers, at the same time harming millions of people in the world’s poorest countries. We need to bring home the fact that trade is not only a key engine of development; it is also a crucial factor in economic justice. Trade policies can directly affect people’s access to fundamental rights — to an adequate standard of living, health, food, and education. Trade ministers should wake up every morning with this in mind.
In the lead-up to the UN World Summit in September and the WTO Ministerial in December, a real opportunity exists to achieve the further reforms needed to make 2005 a truly historic moment in the fight against global poverty. What must be at the forefront of our thinking is the notion of shared responsibility. The changes needed — in rich and poor countries alike — to lift millions of people out of poverty have nothing to do with charity. They are about fairness. They are about seeing our fates as one human family being increasingly interconnected. They are about granting all people the right to a decent livelihood and a sustainable future.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative www.realizingrights.org. This article appeared in YaleGlobal Online (www.yaleglobal.yale.edu), a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and is reprinted by permission. Copyright (c) 2003 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
Music: Afrobeat Star Isn’t Shy About Politics, Sex
African music star Femi Kuti isn’t afraid to have an opinion—about Africa, AIDS, politics or sex.
MSNBC.com -- Born in London in 1962, Femi Kuti has long been considered a driving force in African music. Son of legendary Nigerian Afrobeat king Fela Kuti, he’s been touring the world since the late 1970s, inspiring audiences with both his smooth blend of soul, jazz and funk and his politically aware lyrics. Because of his strong opinions—as well as his father’s death from AIDS-related illnesses in 1997—Femi has become something of a spokesman for his continent. He recently took time out of his tour schedule to speak about the Western push for African awareness with NEWSWEEK’s Malcolm Beith before a concert at New York’s Central Park Summerstage. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: How’s the political situation in Nigeria right now?
Femi Kuti: The basic things are not being given to the people yet. Everything is corrupt, so the youth are really angry.
Your music has always been pretty politically aware. Is there anything you’re focusing on right now?
Politics in Africa, mainly. Hopefully, in our time, Africa will get better. Hopefully we’ll have a peaceful death. Maybe we can organize Africa, make Africa a good continent.
This is the so-called Year of Africa, with the G8 and Live8 trying to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis and other issues on the continent. Do you think this sudden push is sincere?
I really don’t know. I’m not a judge. But when I go back to Lagos after five years, or even the next few months, and I don’t see any change, and the people are still writing about the corruption of the government or I’m watching CNN and it’s telling me that Nairobi is still blah blah blah, or Rwanda, Somalia or Ethiopia, and all these problems are still existing, then we will see. If somebody says he wants to organize awareness and tell the world there are problems in Africa, it’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Do you worry that this awareness is one big immediate push, but that people might forget about Africa just as quickly?
I’m an African, so I will not forget. I live in Lagos, I’ve spent my whole life there, so I will know the effect. Personally, I will always use my music to speak against AIDS. And I will continue my life until my death in this pursuit. And if I see things improving, then I will have more [things] to sing about—more love, more personal issues.
A lot of your lyrics are very sexual. Do you feel that contradicts current messages about AIDS?
We were born to have sex. There are many venereal diseases. Unfortunately there is AIDS. That doesn’t mean people should not have fun. I am not against sex in any way whatsoever. To be against sex is [going] against the Creator and the right to feel sexy. I can’t discriminate against sex. So in my music I have to have it. The Bible says, “Go forth and multiply.” According to the Bible, no matter how many babies we have, we will never overpopulate this world.
Are you a religious man?
No. [Laughs.]
So you just quote the Bible when you feel like it?
No, no, no. [Laughs.] Wherever you go there are so many discussions about which path to follow in your life. But at the end of the day, you are supposed to be happy. And man is supposed to find happiness. If you find happiness in your job, that’s important. Ninety percent of people have sexual feelings. In movies, magazines, they show a sexy girl—what is a young man going to feel? So you have to find a path in all this.
The Bush administration promotes abstinence. What’s your feeling about that?
I don’t believe that’s very good. Who isn’t going to have sex? What were they doing when they were young?
“They”?
Bush and everybody. They never had sex in their 20s? How did they have their children? What were they doing at parties? They didn’t chase girls?
Would it be better if they suggested using condoms?
They can say whatever they want to say. I’m not a world leader. Anybody can listen to what they want to. Let them tell me why they are dealing with corrupt governments. Let them tell me why there is a war going on. Why are your people being made to go to war? Why is there a war? Why, in our time, does terrorism exist, after all these years? I don’t want to bring children into this world to go to war. I want to bring up my son to play music and be happy. Why is Africa so bad, after all these years, after slavery—why do we still have problems? Why don’t we have life? Why do some people have the best education? Why are there so many homeless children? Those are the things that are most important. If people are working for a drug for HIV, and there is a drug to sustain life, or health, why should it not be free? Is it not man that makes money? Why are you making money? I don’t listen to people like that, I’m sorry. I never have done in all my life.
Do you worry that other people listen to them?
That’s their business. I don’t even tell my son what to do.
What do you think of celebrity efforts to raise awareness of Africa?
They are doing Live8, concerts, and they are doing it to educate themselves—so why should I be annoyed? But they are not educating me. I’ve lived in poverty all my life. So you cannot tell me I’m suffering. And you cannot pull me out of my suffering, I’m living in it.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
 |
NEWSWEEK: How’s the political situation in Nigeria right now?
Femi Kuti: The basic things are not being given to the people yet. Everything is corrupt, so the youth are really angry.
Your music has always been pretty politically aware. Is there anything you’re focusing on right now?
Politics in Africa, mainly. Hopefully, in our time, Africa will get better. Hopefully we’ll have a peaceful death. Maybe we can organize Africa, make Africa a good continent.
This is the so-called Year of Africa, with the G8 and Live8 trying to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis and other issues on the continent. Do you think this sudden push is sincere?
I really don’t know. I’m not a judge. But when I go back to Lagos after five years, or even the next few months, and I don’t see any change, and the people are still writing about the corruption of the government or I’m watching CNN and it’s telling me that Nairobi is still blah blah blah, or Rwanda, Somalia or Ethiopia, and all these problems are still existing, then we will see. If somebody says he wants to organize awareness and tell the world there are problems in Africa, it’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Do you worry that this awareness is one big immediate push, but that people might forget about Africa just as quickly?
I’m an African, so I will not forget. I live in Lagos, I’ve spent my whole life there, so I will know the effect. Personally, I will always use my music to speak against AIDS. And I will continue my life until my death in this pursuit. And if I see things improving, then I will have more [things] to sing about—more love, more personal issues.
A lot of your lyrics are very sexual. Do you feel that contradicts current messages about AIDS?
We were born to have sex. There are many venereal diseases. Unfortunately there is AIDS. That doesn’t mean people should not have fun. I am not against sex in any way whatsoever. To be against sex is [going] against the Creator and the right to feel sexy. I can’t discriminate against sex. So in my music I have to have it. The Bible says, “Go forth and multiply.” According to the Bible, no matter how many babies we have, we will never overpopulate this world.
Are you a religious man?
No. [Laughs.]
So you just quote the Bible when you feel like it?
No, no, no. [Laughs.] Wherever you go there are so many discussions about which path to follow in your life. But at the end of the day, you are supposed to be happy. And man is supposed to find happiness. If you find happiness in your job, that’s important. Ninety percent of people have sexual feelings. In movies, magazines, they show a sexy girl—what is a young man going to feel? So you have to find a path in all this.
The Bush administration promotes abstinence. What’s your feeling about that?
I don’t believe that’s very good. Who isn’t going to have sex? What were they doing when they were young?
“They”?
Bush and everybody. They never had sex in their 20s? How did they have their children? What were they doing at parties? They didn’t chase girls?
Would it be better if they suggested using condoms?
They can say whatever they want to say. I’m not a world leader. Anybody can listen to what they want to. Let them tell me why they are dealing with corrupt governments. Let them tell me why there is a war going on. Why are your people being made to go to war? Why is there a war? Why, in our time, does terrorism exist, after all these years? I don’t want to bring children into this world to go to war. I want to bring up my son to play music and be happy. Why is Africa so bad, after all these years, after slavery—why do we still have problems? Why don’t we have life? Why do some people have the best education? Why are there so many homeless children? Those are the things that are most important. If people are working for a drug for HIV, and there is a drug to sustain life, or health, why should it not be free? Is it not man that makes money? Why are you making money? I don’t listen to people like that, I’m sorry. I never have done in all my life.
Do you worry that other people listen to them?
That’s their business. I don’t even tell my son what to do.
What do you think of celebrity efforts to raise awareness of Africa?
They are doing Live8, concerts, and they are doing it to educate themselves—so why should I be annoyed? But they are not educating me. I’ve lived in poverty all my life. So you cannot tell me I’m suffering. And you cannot pull me out of my suffering, I’m living in it.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
Stormy Election Concludes in Ethiopia
CNN.com -- JIJIGA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Voting in Ethiopia's eastern Somali region ended peacefully Sunday, but the delayed elections, which have been denounced by a separatist group, were dogged by chaos and irregularities, officials said.
Voters in the mostly ethnic Somali region, some of them armed with assault rifles, gathered at sunrise at polling stations to elect 23 federal lawmakers and 168 regional legislators. Some voters said they hoped the election would bring a way out of poverty for the region.
General elections were held in the rest of the country on May 15. But voting in the Somali region was made difficult by heavy rains, poor communications, the region's nomadic lifestyle and the presence of separatist rebels. Elite forces, pro-government militia and police patrolled streets to secure Sunday's delayed vote.
In a sign that tensions were high Sunday, police fired shots into the air to disperse voters who had rushed a polling station in the regional capital, Jijiga, to protest delays in voting. One woman was injured in the stampede.
Minutes later, hundreds returned to cast ballots as troops, police and militiamen kept watch.
"Overall the voting has gone smoothly," said Kemal Bedri, chairman of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, adding that a few polling stations remained open after polls closed to allow people who were lining up to cast their ballots.
The elections were not trouble free. A Western electoral observer noted that voting in the remote Somali region "has been very chaotic, although relatively calm, and lots of irregularities."
The observer, who did not want to be identified because of tensions with Ethiopian authorities, refused to provide further details before an official report is released.
The May elections were followed by days of violence as protesters angered by allegations of fraud faced off with security forces in deadly clashes.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, which wants an independent state for ethnic Somalis, denounced Sunday's elections as a ploy to maintain federal control of the of the impoverished region.
The group said in a statement that polls were being held "in an environment where freedom of assembly is habitually denied, freedom of expression punishable by detention and homegrown independent Somali media denied operating rights effectively silencing dissenting political opinion."
"Ballots are being held in military compounds and in some cases these same compounds have been designated as venues for casting voting ballots, creating ample opportunity for coercion and intimidation," the statement said. "Voting ballots are readily available on the black market and there is no indication that a vast majority of polling stations will have any kind of independent monitors present."
The elections have also revealed a split within opposition parties after candidates ignored calls for a boycott by party leaders who alleged vote tampering in Sunday's vote. Party leaders also accused the military of interference and said their supporters had been harassed.
Still, farmer Ahmed Mohamoud Bedi, 30, was eager to vote at the Dud Afi village, 760 kilometers (472 miles) east of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
"We hope our vote can bring greater development and prosperity to the region," said the father of 10 who has no electricity or running water at his thatched hut. "We have lived with poverty for too long and now is the time for change."
Polls opened at 6 a.m. and closed at 6 p.m. Results are expected September 5.
On Sunday, electoral authorities were also holding a repeat of elections in 20 parliamentary constituencies where the ruling party complained of irregularities in the May vote and in 11 districts where the opposition filed challenges.
Both Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and the opposition have said that massive irregularities took place across the country.
Protesters angered by alleged fraud in the May vote took to the streets, and human rights groups say 42 people were killed by security forces trying to disperse the crowds.
Results from the May voting show the ruling coalition won 296 seats in the 547-member assembly and its allied parties won 22 seats. The election board said the opposition won 161 seats. Opposition parties only won 12 seats during the last elections, in 2000.
Some of the repeat votes being held are in the constituencies of senior government officials, including Information Minister Bereket Simon. He was narrowly defeated, according to provisional results, but lodged complaints of voter intimidation.
Ethiopian city of Kabridahar for malnutrition and tuberculosis. The United Nations called on international donors not to let the food crisis in Niger lead them to forget the grave humanitarian situation in Ethiopia.(AFP/File/Joel Robine)
More Than 3 Million Face Hunger in Ethiopia - UN
Planet Ark -- With hunger in Niger grabbing world attention, the United Nations urged donors on Wednesday not to forget Ethiopia, where it said more than 3 million people need emergency food aid this year.
In a country notorious for the famine that killed 1 million people 20 years ago, the UN World Food Programme said repeated droughts meant again children with bloated stomachs were sitting listlessly at feeding centres as gaunt parents toiled arid land.
"Scenes at some of the supplementary feeding centres, established and run by the government in southern Ethiopia, show the worst side of a hunger that remains depressingly familiar," said WFP's Ethiopia director Mohamed Diab.
In a statement released in Nairobi, Diab said the situation was not as bad as 2003, when more than 13 million people needed food aid, but that the agency and its partners were monitoring 40 "hunger spots".
Erratic rains caused small harvests this year in the Horn of Africa country of 70 million people, almost 1 million of whom WFP said would still need food aid after December's main harvest.
Before that, up to 3.3 million Ethiopians are expected to need donations to survive, it said, pushing the country's emergency food needs this year to more than 600,000 tonnes.
"Ethiopia has had five major droughts in just two decades, causing untold deaths, suffering and hardship," Diab said.
"Many families never have time to recover from one calamity before another befalls them, wiping out crops, animals and what few assets they may have managed to scrape together."
Voters in the mostly ethnic Somali region, some of them armed with assault rifles, gathered at sunrise at polling stations to elect 23 federal lawmakers and 168 regional legislators. Some voters said they hoped the election would bring a way out of poverty for the region.
General elections were held in the rest of the country on May 15. But voting in the Somali region was made difficult by heavy rains, poor communications, the region's nomadic lifestyle and the presence of separatist rebels. Elite forces, pro-government militia and police patrolled streets to secure Sunday's delayed vote.
In a sign that tensions were high Sunday, police fired shots into the air to disperse voters who had rushed a polling station in the regional capital, Jijiga, to protest delays in voting. One woman was injured in the stampede.
Minutes later, hundreds returned to cast ballots as troops, police and militiamen kept watch.
"Overall the voting has gone smoothly," said Kemal Bedri, chairman of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, adding that a few polling stations remained open after polls closed to allow people who were lining up to cast their ballots.
The elections were not trouble free. A Western electoral observer noted that voting in the remote Somali region "has been very chaotic, although relatively calm, and lots of irregularities."
The observer, who did not want to be identified because of tensions with Ethiopian authorities, refused to provide further details before an official report is released.
The May elections were followed by days of violence as protesters angered by allegations of fraud faced off with security forces in deadly clashes.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, which wants an independent state for ethnic Somalis, denounced Sunday's elections as a ploy to maintain federal control of the of the impoverished region.
The group said in a statement that polls were being held "in an environment where freedom of assembly is habitually denied, freedom of expression punishable by detention and homegrown independent Somali media denied operating rights effectively silencing dissenting political opinion."
"Ballots are being held in military compounds and in some cases these same compounds have been designated as venues for casting voting ballots, creating ample opportunity for coercion and intimidation," the statement said. "Voting ballots are readily available on the black market and there is no indication that a vast majority of polling stations will have any kind of independent monitors present."
The elections have also revealed a split within opposition parties after candidates ignored calls for a boycott by party leaders who alleged vote tampering in Sunday's vote. Party leaders also accused the military of interference and said their supporters had been harassed.
Still, farmer Ahmed Mohamoud Bedi, 30, was eager to vote at the Dud Afi village, 760 kilometers (472 miles) east of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
"We hope our vote can bring greater development and prosperity to the region," said the father of 10 who has no electricity or running water at his thatched hut. "We have lived with poverty for too long and now is the time for change."
Polls opened at 6 a.m. and closed at 6 p.m. Results are expected September 5.
On Sunday, electoral authorities were also holding a repeat of elections in 20 parliamentary constituencies where the ruling party complained of irregularities in the May vote and in 11 districts where the opposition filed challenges.
Both Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and the opposition have said that massive irregularities took place across the country.
Protesters angered by alleged fraud in the May vote took to the streets, and human rights groups say 42 people were killed by security forces trying to disperse the crowds.
Results from the May voting show the ruling coalition won 296 seats in the 547-member assembly and its allied parties won 22 seats. The election board said the opposition won 161 seats. Opposition parties only won 12 seats during the last elections, in 2000.
Some of the repeat votes being held are in the constituencies of senior government officials, including Information Minister Bereket Simon. He was narrowly defeated, according to provisional results, but lodged complaints of voter intimidation.
Ethiopian city of Kabridahar for malnutrition and tuberculosis. The United Nations called on international donors not to let the food crisis in Niger lead them to forget the grave humanitarian situation in Ethiopia.(AFP/File/Joel Robine)
More Than 3 Million Face Hunger in Ethiopia - UN
Planet Ark -- With hunger in Niger grabbing world attention, the United Nations urged donors on Wednesday not to forget Ethiopia, where it said more than 3 million people need emergency food aid this year.
In a country notorious for the famine that killed 1 million people 20 years ago, the UN World Food Programme said repeated droughts meant again children with bloated stomachs were sitting listlessly at feeding centres as gaunt parents toiled arid land.
"Scenes at some of the supplementary feeding centres, established and run by the government in southern Ethiopia, show the worst side of a hunger that remains depressingly familiar," said WFP's Ethiopia director Mohamed Diab.
In a statement released in Nairobi, Diab said the situation was not as bad as 2003, when more than 13 million people needed food aid, but that the agency and its partners were monitoring 40 "hunger spots".
Erratic rains caused small harvests this year in the Horn of Africa country of 70 million people, almost 1 million of whom WFP said would still need food aid after December's main harvest.
Before that, up to 3.3 million Ethiopians are expected to need donations to survive, it said, pushing the country's emergency food needs this year to more than 600,000 tonnes.
"Ethiopia has had five major droughts in just two decades, causing untold deaths, suffering and hardship," Diab said.
"Many families never have time to recover from one calamity before another befalls them, wiping out crops, animals and what few assets they may have managed to scrape together."
'The Other Jihad'
USA Today.com -- The mosque stood empty beside the road in a Christian town in Kenya. Funded by Saudis, it wasn't meant for worshippers. It was meant to stake a claim.
The mosque annoyed the locals. Windows were broken. A goat grazed in the garbage-speckled yard. Yet that shabby mosque was part of an extremist campaign that threatens widespread strife in the years ahead.
On a trip to Kenya and Tanzania last month, I saw recently built mosques wherever I went. Even along the predominantly Muslim coast, there were far more mosques and madrassahs than the worshippers needed. I counted seven mosques along one street in a Mombasa slum - most of them new but neglected.
The construction boom is part of what my personal observation convinces me is "the other jihad," the slow-roll attempt by fundamentalists from the Arabian Peninsula to reclaim East Africa for the faith of the Prophet. We dismiss
Osama bin Laden's dream of re-establishing the caliphate, Islam's bygone empire, as madness. But Saudis, Yemenis, Omanis and oil-rich Gulf Arabs are every bit as determined as bin Laden to reassert Muslim domination of the lands Islam once ruled.
No region is as vulnerable as Africa. The differences between the Saudi ruling family and bin Laden aren't so much about goals as about methods. The Saudis were furious over the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam not because of the viciousness of the acts, but because the attacks threatened to call the West's attention to quiet subversion by fundamentalist Wahhabis in the region.
Lengthy ties
For the Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula, ties to Africa's Indian Ocean coast go back more than a millennium. By the 14th century, trading cities such as Kilwa (now a ruin) and Mombasa were opulent outposts of Islam. One dream shared by the House of Saud and Islamist terrorists is the reclamation of the old Swahili Coast, where their ancestors grew rich trading ivory, gold and slaves.
Arabs still regard black Africans as inferior, fit only to be subjects. As a result, their charities don't fund clinics, universities or sanitation systems. They just keep on building mosques, staking graphic claims to a once and future empire of faith.
Even in the United States, Saudi-funded Quranic schools encourage religious apartheid. While events have forced their mullahs to tone down public hate-speech directed toward the West, Saudi madrassas never encourage young people to integrate into their host society. They praise rigid separation.
In East Africa, this takes the form of pressuring the young to devote themselves to studying the Quran. This prevents Muslims from getting a practical education. As a result, they remain unqualified for the best jobs, which are taken by Christians with university degrees, further exacerbating antagonism.
The Saudis and their accomplices know exactly what they're doing. They don't want a "separate but equal" system. Separate and unequal does the trick, creating a sense of deprivation, of being cheated, among Muslims and driving a wedge down the middle of fragile societies. The last thing the bigots of the Arabian Peninsula want to see would be prosperous, patriotic, well-integrated Muslim communities in Africa.
Nor is this slow-motion jihad confined to the coast. It takes still uglier forms in the interior. Saudi money and arms smuggled from Yemen keep tribal strife alive in northern Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and, of course, Somalia.
During my stay in Kenya, nearly a hundred tribal people were massacred near the Ethiopian border. The religious undertone of the slaughter - which included the executions of schoolchildren - was played down. The Kenyan government fears a wider conflagration and quietly accepts its inability to control its northern borders. But extremist sentiment is growing, while Kenya's policy of benign neglect collapses.
East Africa not immune
The jihad in eastern Africa stretches from the butchery in Sudan down to Tanzanian villages where poverty was exacerbated by decades of socialism. It takes multiple forms, from a name-calling contest with émigrés returning to Somaliland from the West to support for separatist movements on Zanzibar and Pemba islands.
No one has called the Saudis or their partners to account. This matters. Kenya and Tanzania have largely avoided the succession of tragedies that crippled Africa in the post-independence era. But the tension between Kenya's Christian majority and Muslim minority, or between Tanzania's roughly equal factions, never quite disappeared. Now, Arab money threatens to undermine the fragile unity of these struggling, yet hopeful states.
Religious freedom goes only so far. Building mosques and madrassas would be tolerable were their purpose not frankly subversive. A strong society such as our own can overcome such hate-based shenanigans. But the stakes could not be higher and the danger could not be greater for the struggling states of eastern Africa.
The violent jihad waged by those who hijacked Islam in the Middle East is our immediate challenge. Even so, terrorists from the Horn of Africa have already been implicated in the London subway bombings and other attacks. The time for engagement is now - not after widespread radicalization has destroyed the future for millions of Africans and drawn still more states into the maelstrom of terror.
Ralph Peters is the author of the just-released book New Glory, Expanding America's Global Supremacy. He's also a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
The mosque annoyed the locals. Windows were broken. A goat grazed in the garbage-speckled yard. Yet that shabby mosque was part of an extremist campaign that threatens widespread strife in the years ahead.
On a trip to Kenya and Tanzania last month, I saw recently built mosques wherever I went. Even along the predominantly Muslim coast, there were far more mosques and madrassahs than the worshippers needed. I counted seven mosques along one street in a Mombasa slum - most of them new but neglected.
The construction boom is part of what my personal observation convinces me is "the other jihad," the slow-roll attempt by fundamentalists from the Arabian Peninsula to reclaim East Africa for the faith of the Prophet. We dismiss
Osama bin Laden's dream of re-establishing the caliphate, Islam's bygone empire, as madness. But Saudis, Yemenis, Omanis and oil-rich Gulf Arabs are every bit as determined as bin Laden to reassert Muslim domination of the lands Islam once ruled.
No region is as vulnerable as Africa. The differences between the Saudi ruling family and bin Laden aren't so much about goals as about methods. The Saudis were furious over the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam not because of the viciousness of the acts, but because the attacks threatened to call the West's attention to quiet subversion by fundamentalist Wahhabis in the region.
Lengthy ties
For the Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula, ties to Africa's Indian Ocean coast go back more than a millennium. By the 14th century, trading cities such as Kilwa (now a ruin) and Mombasa were opulent outposts of Islam. One dream shared by the House of Saud and Islamist terrorists is the reclamation of the old Swahili Coast, where their ancestors grew rich trading ivory, gold and slaves.
Arabs still regard black Africans as inferior, fit only to be subjects. As a result, their charities don't fund clinics, universities or sanitation systems. They just keep on building mosques, staking graphic claims to a once and future empire of faith.
Even in the United States, Saudi-funded Quranic schools encourage religious apartheid. While events have forced their mullahs to tone down public hate-speech directed toward the West, Saudi madrassas never encourage young people to integrate into their host society. They praise rigid separation.
In East Africa, this takes the form of pressuring the young to devote themselves to studying the Quran. This prevents Muslims from getting a practical education. As a result, they remain unqualified for the best jobs, which are taken by Christians with university degrees, further exacerbating antagonism.
The Saudis and their accomplices know exactly what they're doing. They don't want a "separate but equal" system. Separate and unequal does the trick, creating a sense of deprivation, of being cheated, among Muslims and driving a wedge down the middle of fragile societies. The last thing the bigots of the Arabian Peninsula want to see would be prosperous, patriotic, well-integrated Muslim communities in Africa.
Nor is this slow-motion jihad confined to the coast. It takes still uglier forms in the interior. Saudi money and arms smuggled from Yemen keep tribal strife alive in northern Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and, of course, Somalia.
During my stay in Kenya, nearly a hundred tribal people were massacred near the Ethiopian border. The religious undertone of the slaughter - which included the executions of schoolchildren - was played down. The Kenyan government fears a wider conflagration and quietly accepts its inability to control its northern borders. But extremist sentiment is growing, while Kenya's policy of benign neglect collapses.
East Africa not immune
The jihad in eastern Africa stretches from the butchery in Sudan down to Tanzanian villages where poverty was exacerbated by decades of socialism. It takes multiple forms, from a name-calling contest with émigrés returning to Somaliland from the West to support for separatist movements on Zanzibar and Pemba islands.
No one has called the Saudis or their partners to account. This matters. Kenya and Tanzania have largely avoided the succession of tragedies that crippled Africa in the post-independence era. But the tension between Kenya's Christian majority and Muslim minority, or between Tanzania's roughly equal factions, never quite disappeared. Now, Arab money threatens to undermine the fragile unity of these struggling, yet hopeful states.
Religious freedom goes only so far. Building mosques and madrassas would be tolerable were their purpose not frankly subversive. A strong society such as our own can overcome such hate-based shenanigans. But the stakes could not be higher and the danger could not be greater for the struggling states of eastern Africa.
The violent jihad waged by those who hijacked Islam in the Middle East is our immediate challenge. Even so, terrorists from the Horn of Africa have already been implicated in the London subway bombings and other attacks. The time for engagement is now - not after widespread radicalization has destroyed the future for millions of Africans and drawn still more states into the maelstrom of terror.
Ralph Peters is the author of the just-released book New Glory, Expanding America's Global Supremacy. He's also a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Open Your Eyes Zimbabwe
allAfrica.com -- Zimbabweans should open their eyes to what is happening to them, through attempts by the metropolitan powers to use them as pawns in pursuit of metropolitan interests like they did in Ghana in 1966 when they engineered economic hardships to overthrow Kwame Nkrumah, says Editor of the New African magazine, BAFFOUR ANKOMAH who was the rapporteur at the just ended Zimbabwe International Book Affair (ZIBF). The following is an excerpt of his speech.
The Americans and British so happen to be the same people who are the most vociferous in preaching human rights to the African.
African human rights are not respected by those who claim to teach us human rights; historically, they have demonstrated time and again that they don't care about our human rights.
They only care when they want to use us as pawns in pursuit of their national interests.
Just look at this irony. There is a Prime Minister in Ethiopia called Meles Zenawi. His government held elections two months ago and, as I speak, they have not been able to announce the final results. And when people went into the streets to protest, over 30 of them were shot dead in Addis Ababa.
And what did the champions of human rights, democracy and good governance do? They rewarded him with an invite to the G8 summit in Gleneagles! Did they shake his hand when he arrived? Did they wine and dine with him?
The same people would not shake the hand of President Robert Mugabe! Imagine - you just imagine - if elections had been held here in Zimbabwe, and for two months the Government had not been able to announce the final results, and when people went into the streets to protest, over 30 of them had been shot dead in Harare!
Imagine how American cruise missiles would by now be falling on Harare from Fort Bragg in the United States and all these other places in the name of protecting democracy, human rights and good governance! But in Addis Ababa, they reward the Prime Minister with an invite to the G8 summit!
I have always wondered where human rights had gone - on holiday perhaps - when nearly five million people died directly and indirectly from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo - a war that would not have been possible if America and Britain had not given copious political, financial and military support to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
The Americans even sent African-American soldiers to go and fight on the side of Uganda and Rwanda - the invaders.
All this is documented officially in Congressional testimonies!
Interestingly, have you ever heard the champions of African human rights ever chastise the Ugandans and Rwandese for violating the human rights of the five million Congolese who died in the war?
They don't care because Uganda and Rwanda were supposed to serve Western interests in the Congo. Rather, the Zimbabweans who were invited by the legitimate government of Congo to come and help them repel the Ugandan and Rwandese invasion, became the ones to be vilified internationally and punished via the imposition of economic sanctions.
I have been looking at the British and American national archives in recent weeks.
On December 27, 1957 - only nine months after Ghana's independence - the US foreign espionage arm, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), did an assessment on Ghana for the American intelligence community, and admitted that: "The fortunes of Ghana - the first tropical African country to gain independence - will have a huge impact on the evolution of Africa and Western interests there."
So they knew even from those early days, that if Ghana achieved economic independence - a human right due to the African - other African countries would follow suit.
So what happened?
This is where I would like to call upon Zimbabweans to open their eyes to what is happening in their country today, and the attempt by the metropolitan powers to use them as pawns in the pursuit of metropolitan interests.
It happened in Ghana in the period 1960-66, and all that the Ghanaians did was to put the blame on Nkrumah alone. The economy had collapsed; there were hardships, so it must be Nkrumah's fault. Alone!
In 1999, the Americans declassified their documents on Ghana pertaining to this era, and please allow me to take you through some of the highlights.
One of the documents shows that on February 6, 1964 - two full years before the coup that overthrew Nkrumah's government - the then American Secretary of State Dean Rusk and the CIA director John McCone had met in Washington and hand-picked Ghanaian General J. A. Ankrah as the man to take over from Nkrumah.
From that meeting, the action snowballed into America recruiting Britain and France to help break the back of Ghana's economy by manipulating it from afar, in order to create disaffection among the Ghanaian people and hasten Nkrumah's downfall.
And what did they use? The cocoa price. I have checked - in 1961, cocoa was selling on the world market at £748 per tonne, by 1965 the price had collapsed to £80 per tonne. Ghana was a mono-crop economy, dependent on cocoa. With the price gone, Nkrumah's dream of achieving the human right of economic independence for Ghana and, by extension, Africa went with it.
Many years later, the BBC did a documentary on Ghana in which they interviewed the then governor of the Bank of Ghana, Frimpong Ansah. He told the BBC on camera that at one meeting, the finance minister told Nkrumah how much foreign reserves Ghana had at this very difficult time.
Foreign exchange, has it got any resonance with Zimbabwe today?
But you wait. Ansah told the BBC that Nkrumah turned round to him, as the governor of the central bank, and said:
"Frimpong, the finance minister says we only have this much, but I think he has forgotten some zeros at the bank, isn't it."
Ansah said he told Nkrumah: "Mr President, the finance minister is right. That is all that we have as a nation."
Ansah said Nkrumah then excused himself, left the room, went to the adjacent room, and wept!
Any time I tell this story tears well up in my eyes. This is a man who had his nation and continent at heart. And his back was deliberately broken by the same people who now preach human rights, democracy and good governance to us.
In January 2000, The Times (of London) did an article on the release of the papers of Viscount Montgomery in which the kind viscount, after touring Africa 30 years previously, had insisted that the African, being a savage, had no capacity to rule himself. Challenging that notion, The Times admitted, perhaps for the first time, that "Nkrumah was brought low by the cocoa price". And who did it?
Let's go back to the declassified American documents. One of them shows - again on February 6, 1964 - the then director of the State Department's West African Desk, one William C. Trimble, had written a memo entitled: "Proposed Action Programme for Ghana" and sent it to the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, G. Mennen Williams, saying:
"Although Nkrumah's leftward progress cannot be checked or reversed, it could be slowed down by a well conceived and executed action programme. Measures which we might take against Nkrumah would have to be carefully selected in order not to weaken pro-Western elements in Ghana or adversely affect our prestige and influence elsewhere on the continent."
Trimble continued: "US pressure, if appropriately applied, could induce a chain reaction, eventually leading to Nkrumah's downfall. Chances of success would be greatly enhanced if the British could be induced to act in concert with us."
Trimble recommended that: "Intensive efforts should be made through psychological warfare (and I want all of us here this afternoon, especially the Zimbabweans among us, to note these two words - 'psychological warfare' - and other means to diminish support for Nkrumah within Ghana and nurture the conviction among the Ghanaian people that their country's welfare and independence necessitate his removal."
On February 12, 1964, a high-powered American and British meeting on Nkrumah was held at the White House in Washington, attended by: on the American side - President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of State Rusk, Under-Secretary of State Harriman, and the Special Assistant to the President on National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy.
On the British side were Prime Minister Alec Douglas Home and Foreign Secretary Butler.
The minutes of the meeting show Butler saying after the meeting: "One could not be sure how long Nkrumah would last."
On February 26, 1964, another meeting on Nkrumah was held at the White House. Present this time were the CIA director McCone, his close friend Edgar Kaiser (the same man who was helping Nkrumah build the Akosombo Dam in Ghana was helping plan a coup against him), and William P. Mahoney, the US ambassador in Ghana. The declassified documents record McCone as having said at the meeting: "I asked Ambassador Mahoney if he felt that the CIA was operating independently of his office (in Accra). . . Mahoney answered absolutely and positively no."
Mahoney then returned to Accra after the meeting and went to see Nkrumah on March 2, 1964. According to the declassified documents, he reported back to Washington in these words:
"I said (told Nkrumah) that I am in full control of all US government actions in Ghana. I could assure him without hesitation that during my incumbency absolutely nothing has been done by any US agency which could be construed in any way as being directed against him or his government. Nkrumah replied with words to the effect: 'I will take your word for it'."
Mahoney continued: "I repeated that there had been no conceivable activity on our part to subvert or overthrow him. I pointed out how inconsistent our entire aid effort, aimed at assisting and strengthening his government is, with wild accusations in (the) Ghanaian Press that the US (is) acting against him. I added that, speaking frankly, our main intelligence effort is to keep an eye on his Soviet and Chinese friends, whose activities are really large-scale. . . (A) beginning has been made in an effort to dispel some of Nkrumah's misconstruals on (the) role of CIA, (but) pressure should be kept up."
On March 23, 1964, Mahoney again sent a telegram to Washington from Accra, saying: "I believe someone has to keep hammering him (meaning Nkrumah)."
On April 9, 1964, acting on Mahoney's advice, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, G. Mennem Williams, wrote an action memo to Under-Secretary of State Harriman, saying the US should "keep continuing pressure (on Nkrumah) to maintain his relations with the US on a tolerable basis. . . We shall consult with the British in the next few days to discuss what contribution they may be able to make in this area."
On March 11, 1965, CIA director McCone and others, including Ambassador Mahoney, met again in McCone's office to take the "Nkrumah project" a step further. According to the declassified documents, the topic that day was "Coup d'etat in Ghana".
The minutes of the meeting show Mahoney telling McCone that Western pressure was working against Nkrumah. "Popular opinion is running strongly against Nkrumah," Mahoney reported, adding, "the economy of the country is in a precarious state."
However, Mahoney was "not convinced that the coup d'etat now being planned by Acting Police Commissioner J.W.K. Harley, and Generals Otu and Ankrah would necessarily take place".
Yet, on the other hand, Mahoney was sure that "one way or another, Nkrumah would be out within a year". That was March 11, 1965.
According to the minutes of that meeting, the CIA director asked Ambassador Mahoney: "Who would most likely succeed Nkrumah in the event of a coup?" Mahoney responded that "initially, at least, a military junta would take over".
He was supported by Robert W. Komer who had replaced McGeorge Bundy as President Johnson's National Security Adviser. An old CIA hand (at the meeting), Komer said:
"We may have a pro-Western coup in Ghana soon. Certain key military and police figures have been planning one for some time and Ghana's deteriorating economic condition may provide the spark. The plotters are keeping us briefed and State Department thinks we are more on the inside than the British.
"While we're not directly involved, I am told we and other Western countries, including France, have been helping to set up the situation by ignoring Nkrumah's pleas for economic aid . . . All in all, looks good."
Soon after the New Year in 1966, having finished his job of softening the ground in Accra, Ambassador Mahoney was recalled home. In his place, Washington sent a black man, Franklin H. Williams, an African-American who was Nkrumah's schoolmate at Lincoln University (the class of 1941).
Williams was barely two months in Accra when the coup happened on February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was on his way to Hanoi via Beijing on a peace mission to mediate in the Vietnam War, a trip that President Johnson himself had blessed.
Years later, John Stockwell, a former CIA officer, told the BBC in a documentary on Ghana:
"Howard Banes, who was the CIA mission chief in Accra, engineered the overthrow of Nkrumah. Now, obviously, you can look at it in different ways. A Ghanaian might say: 'I thought we did it.' Inside the CIA, though, it was quite clear: Howard Banes had a double promotion and an Intelligence Star for having overthrown Nkrumah in Ghana.
"The magic of it, what made it so exciting for the CIA, was that Howard Banes had enough imagination and drive to run the operation without ever documenting what he was doing, and to sweep along his bosses in such a way they knew what he was doing, tacitly they approved, but there wasn't one shred of paper that he generated that would nail the CIA hierarchy as being responsible."
So where was the Ghanaian's human rights in all this, our right to economic independence?
At the time of the coup, Nkrumah had built 68 state-owned factories producing virtually everything we needed. Forty years after his overthrow, almost all the factories have died; they were first either privatised or left to go to ruin.
Today, except perhaps wives and husbands, Ghana imports almost everything it needs. In the process, the country has been exporting employment, because the more we buy from abroad, the more the countries we buy from create employment for their own people. Our own factories which Nkrumah built that should have expanded over the last 40 years and created employment in Ghana for our ever-expanding population, are all dead.
Ghana has had the added disgrace of declaring itself a "Highly Indebted Poor Country" (HIPC) before getting aid and debt cancellation. We are now beggars, expecting crumbs from the high tables of the metropolitan powers who did not help us develop after using us to overthrow Nkrumah!
Can you see any echoes in Zimbabwe today?
What are we doing about it as Zimbabweans? Are we waiting 40 years into the future to say, like Ghanaians are now saying: "Had we known"?
The Americans and British so happen to be the same people who are the most vociferous in preaching human rights to the African.
African human rights are not respected by those who claim to teach us human rights; historically, they have demonstrated time and again that they don't care about our human rights.
They only care when they want to use us as pawns in pursuit of their national interests.
Just look at this irony. There is a Prime Minister in Ethiopia called Meles Zenawi. His government held elections two months ago and, as I speak, they have not been able to announce the final results. And when people went into the streets to protest, over 30 of them were shot dead in Addis Ababa.
And what did the champions of human rights, democracy and good governance do? They rewarded him with an invite to the G8 summit in Gleneagles! Did they shake his hand when he arrived? Did they wine and dine with him?
The same people would not shake the hand of President Robert Mugabe! Imagine - you just imagine - if elections had been held here in Zimbabwe, and for two months the Government had not been able to announce the final results, and when people went into the streets to protest, over 30 of them had been shot dead in Harare!
Imagine how American cruise missiles would by now be falling on Harare from Fort Bragg in the United States and all these other places in the name of protecting democracy, human rights and good governance! But in Addis Ababa, they reward the Prime Minister with an invite to the G8 summit!
I have always wondered where human rights had gone - on holiday perhaps - when nearly five million people died directly and indirectly from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo - a war that would not have been possible if America and Britain had not given copious political, financial and military support to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
The Americans even sent African-American soldiers to go and fight on the side of Uganda and Rwanda - the invaders.
All this is documented officially in Congressional testimonies!
Interestingly, have you ever heard the champions of African human rights ever chastise the Ugandans and Rwandese for violating the human rights of the five million Congolese who died in the war?
They don't care because Uganda and Rwanda were supposed to serve Western interests in the Congo. Rather, the Zimbabweans who were invited by the legitimate government of Congo to come and help them repel the Ugandan and Rwandese invasion, became the ones to be vilified internationally and punished via the imposition of economic sanctions.
I have been looking at the British and American national archives in recent weeks.
On December 27, 1957 - only nine months after Ghana's independence - the US foreign espionage arm, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), did an assessment on Ghana for the American intelligence community, and admitted that: "The fortunes of Ghana - the first tropical African country to gain independence - will have a huge impact on the evolution of Africa and Western interests there."
So they knew even from those early days, that if Ghana achieved economic independence - a human right due to the African - other African countries would follow suit.
So what happened?
This is where I would like to call upon Zimbabweans to open their eyes to what is happening in their country today, and the attempt by the metropolitan powers to use them as pawns in the pursuit of metropolitan interests.
It happened in Ghana in the period 1960-66, and all that the Ghanaians did was to put the blame on Nkrumah alone. The economy had collapsed; there were hardships, so it must be Nkrumah's fault. Alone!
In 1999, the Americans declassified their documents on Ghana pertaining to this era, and please allow me to take you through some of the highlights.
One of the documents shows that on February 6, 1964 - two full years before the coup that overthrew Nkrumah's government - the then American Secretary of State Dean Rusk and the CIA director John McCone had met in Washington and hand-picked Ghanaian General J. A. Ankrah as the man to take over from Nkrumah.
From that meeting, the action snowballed into America recruiting Britain and France to help break the back of Ghana's economy by manipulating it from afar, in order to create disaffection among the Ghanaian people and hasten Nkrumah's downfall.
And what did they use? The cocoa price. I have checked - in 1961, cocoa was selling on the world market at £748 per tonne, by 1965 the price had collapsed to £80 per tonne. Ghana was a mono-crop economy, dependent on cocoa. With the price gone, Nkrumah's dream of achieving the human right of economic independence for Ghana and, by extension, Africa went with it.
Many years later, the BBC did a documentary on Ghana in which they interviewed the then governor of the Bank of Ghana, Frimpong Ansah. He told the BBC on camera that at one meeting, the finance minister told Nkrumah how much foreign reserves Ghana had at this very difficult time.
Foreign exchange, has it got any resonance with Zimbabwe today?
But you wait. Ansah told the BBC that Nkrumah turned round to him, as the governor of the central bank, and said:
"Frimpong, the finance minister says we only have this much, but I think he has forgotten some zeros at the bank, isn't it."
Ansah said he told Nkrumah: "Mr President, the finance minister is right. That is all that we have as a nation."
Ansah said Nkrumah then excused himself, left the room, went to the adjacent room, and wept!
Any time I tell this story tears well up in my eyes. This is a man who had his nation and continent at heart. And his back was deliberately broken by the same people who now preach human rights, democracy and good governance to us.
In January 2000, The Times (of London) did an article on the release of the papers of Viscount Montgomery in which the kind viscount, after touring Africa 30 years previously, had insisted that the African, being a savage, had no capacity to rule himself. Challenging that notion, The Times admitted, perhaps for the first time, that "Nkrumah was brought low by the cocoa price". And who did it?
Let's go back to the declassified American documents. One of them shows - again on February 6, 1964 - the then director of the State Department's West African Desk, one William C. Trimble, had written a memo entitled: "Proposed Action Programme for Ghana" and sent it to the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, G. Mennen Williams, saying:
"Although Nkrumah's leftward progress cannot be checked or reversed, it could be slowed down by a well conceived and executed action programme. Measures which we might take against Nkrumah would have to be carefully selected in order not to weaken pro-Western elements in Ghana or adversely affect our prestige and influence elsewhere on the continent."
Trimble continued: "US pressure, if appropriately applied, could induce a chain reaction, eventually leading to Nkrumah's downfall. Chances of success would be greatly enhanced if the British could be induced to act in concert with us."
Trimble recommended that: "Intensive efforts should be made through psychological warfare (and I want all of us here this afternoon, especially the Zimbabweans among us, to note these two words - 'psychological warfare' - and other means to diminish support for Nkrumah within Ghana and nurture the conviction among the Ghanaian people that their country's welfare and independence necessitate his removal."
On February 12, 1964, a high-powered American and British meeting on Nkrumah was held at the White House in Washington, attended by: on the American side - President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of State Rusk, Under-Secretary of State Harriman, and the Special Assistant to the President on National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy.
On the British side were Prime Minister Alec Douglas Home and Foreign Secretary Butler.
The minutes of the meeting show Butler saying after the meeting: "One could not be sure how long Nkrumah would last."
On February 26, 1964, another meeting on Nkrumah was held at the White House. Present this time were the CIA director McCone, his close friend Edgar Kaiser (the same man who was helping Nkrumah build the Akosombo Dam in Ghana was helping plan a coup against him), and William P. Mahoney, the US ambassador in Ghana. The declassified documents record McCone as having said at the meeting: "I asked Ambassador Mahoney if he felt that the CIA was operating independently of his office (in Accra). . . Mahoney answered absolutely and positively no."
Mahoney then returned to Accra after the meeting and went to see Nkrumah on March 2, 1964. According to the declassified documents, he reported back to Washington in these words:
"I said (told Nkrumah) that I am in full control of all US government actions in Ghana. I could assure him without hesitation that during my incumbency absolutely nothing has been done by any US agency which could be construed in any way as being directed against him or his government. Nkrumah replied with words to the effect: 'I will take your word for it'."
Mahoney continued: "I repeated that there had been no conceivable activity on our part to subvert or overthrow him. I pointed out how inconsistent our entire aid effort, aimed at assisting and strengthening his government is, with wild accusations in (the) Ghanaian Press that the US (is) acting against him. I added that, speaking frankly, our main intelligence effort is to keep an eye on his Soviet and Chinese friends, whose activities are really large-scale. . . (A) beginning has been made in an effort to dispel some of Nkrumah's misconstruals on (the) role of CIA, (but) pressure should be kept up."
On March 23, 1964, Mahoney again sent a telegram to Washington from Accra, saying: "I believe someone has to keep hammering him (meaning Nkrumah)."
On April 9, 1964, acting on Mahoney's advice, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, G. Mennem Williams, wrote an action memo to Under-Secretary of State Harriman, saying the US should "keep continuing pressure (on Nkrumah) to maintain his relations with the US on a tolerable basis. . . We shall consult with the British in the next few days to discuss what contribution they may be able to make in this area."
On March 11, 1965, CIA director McCone and others, including Ambassador Mahoney, met again in McCone's office to take the "Nkrumah project" a step further. According to the declassified documents, the topic that day was "Coup d'etat in Ghana".
The minutes of the meeting show Mahoney telling McCone that Western pressure was working against Nkrumah. "Popular opinion is running strongly against Nkrumah," Mahoney reported, adding, "the economy of the country is in a precarious state."
However, Mahoney was "not convinced that the coup d'etat now being planned by Acting Police Commissioner J.W.K. Harley, and Generals Otu and Ankrah would necessarily take place".
Yet, on the other hand, Mahoney was sure that "one way or another, Nkrumah would be out within a year". That was March 11, 1965.
According to the minutes of that meeting, the CIA director asked Ambassador Mahoney: "Who would most likely succeed Nkrumah in the event of a coup?" Mahoney responded that "initially, at least, a military junta would take over".
He was supported by Robert W. Komer who had replaced McGeorge Bundy as President Johnson's National Security Adviser. An old CIA hand (at the meeting), Komer said:
"We may have a pro-Western coup in Ghana soon. Certain key military and police figures have been planning one for some time and Ghana's deteriorating economic condition may provide the spark. The plotters are keeping us briefed and State Department thinks we are more on the inside than the British.
"While we're not directly involved, I am told we and other Western countries, including France, have been helping to set up the situation by ignoring Nkrumah's pleas for economic aid . . . All in all, looks good."
Soon after the New Year in 1966, having finished his job of softening the ground in Accra, Ambassador Mahoney was recalled home. In his place, Washington sent a black man, Franklin H. Williams, an African-American who was Nkrumah's schoolmate at Lincoln University (the class of 1941).
Williams was barely two months in Accra when the coup happened on February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was on his way to Hanoi via Beijing on a peace mission to mediate in the Vietnam War, a trip that President Johnson himself had blessed.
Years later, John Stockwell, a former CIA officer, told the BBC in a documentary on Ghana:
"Howard Banes, who was the CIA mission chief in Accra, engineered the overthrow of Nkrumah. Now, obviously, you can look at it in different ways. A Ghanaian might say: 'I thought we did it.' Inside the CIA, though, it was quite clear: Howard Banes had a double promotion and an Intelligence Star for having overthrown Nkrumah in Ghana.
"The magic of it, what made it so exciting for the CIA, was that Howard Banes had enough imagination and drive to run the operation without ever documenting what he was doing, and to sweep along his bosses in such a way they knew what he was doing, tacitly they approved, but there wasn't one shred of paper that he generated that would nail the CIA hierarchy as being responsible."
So where was the Ghanaian's human rights in all this, our right to economic independence?
At the time of the coup, Nkrumah had built 68 state-owned factories producing virtually everything we needed. Forty years after his overthrow, almost all the factories have died; they were first either privatised or left to go to ruin.
Today, except perhaps wives and husbands, Ghana imports almost everything it needs. In the process, the country has been exporting employment, because the more we buy from abroad, the more the countries we buy from create employment for their own people. Our own factories which Nkrumah built that should have expanded over the last 40 years and created employment in Ghana for our ever-expanding population, are all dead.
Ghana has had the added disgrace of declaring itself a "Highly Indebted Poor Country" (HIPC) before getting aid and debt cancellation. We are now beggars, expecting crumbs from the high tables of the metropolitan powers who did not help us develop after using us to overthrow Nkrumah!
Can you see any echoes in Zimbabwe today?
What are we doing about it as Zimbabweans? Are we waiting 40 years into the future to say, like Ghanaians are now saying: "Had we known"?
Ethiopia Opposition Warns of a Return to Dark Days
Reuters -- Ethiopia's opposition, which has rejected election results giving the ruling party victory, warned on Thursday of a return to the dark days of the Derg military dictatorship under Mengistu Haile Mariam.
The opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) has said it would challenge the results from the May 15 poll in the courts and urged a government of national unity to be formed.
"There is a clear and distinct danger that the country may return to the dark days of the Derg regime where the use of force becomes the chosen means of suppressing political dissent or political opposition," the CUD said in a statement.
Unrest over alleged vote-rigging in Ethiopia's second real multi-party poll led to the police shooting at least 36 people and arresting thousands more in June in Africa's top coffee producer.
The 53-member African Union has appealed to political parties in Ethiopia to settle any disputes through the courts and through dialogue.
However, the CUD said the major obstacle blocking any resolution was a "complete lack of trust" towards Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The EPRDF is expected to form a new federal government by the end of next month.
The opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) has said it would challenge the results from the May 15 poll in the courts and urged a government of national unity to be formed.
"There is a clear and distinct danger that the country may return to the dark days of the Derg regime where the use of force becomes the chosen means of suppressing political dissent or political opposition," the CUD said in a statement.
Unrest over alleged vote-rigging in Ethiopia's second real multi-party poll led to the police shooting at least 36 people and arresting thousands more in June in Africa's top coffee producer.
The 53-member African Union has appealed to political parties in Ethiopia to settle any disputes through the courts and through dialogue.
However, the CUD said the major obstacle blocking any resolution was a "complete lack of trust" towards Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The EPRDF is expected to form a new federal government by the end of next month.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Ethiopian Journalist Sent to Jail for Not Identifying Source
CPJ News -- Ethiopia's Supreme Court has sentenced a newspaper editor to one month in jail on a contempt charge after the editor refused to identify an unnamed source who criticized an earlier court ruling. The editor of a second paper was fined in a related case.
Tamrat Serbesa, editor-in-chief of the private Amharic-language weekly Satanaw, was sentenced Friday in connection with the paper's coverage of a Supreme Court verdict in a case involving the National Election Board. The court rejected the opposition CUD party's claim that the election board improperly announced provisional results of the May 15 parliamentary elections before the final count was determined.
On July 7, the Supreme Court ordered Serbesa and Andualem Ayle, editor-in-chief of the private Amharic-language weekly Ethiop, to reveal the sources of anonymous quotes published in their newspapers criticizing the verdict, including one in Satanaw attributed to an unnamed lawyer who deemed the verdict "shameful."
Ayle was ordered to pay a fine of 2,000 birr (US$220) in Friday's decision.
"In pursuing this contempt case, the court was clearly intent on punishing those who would dare criticize its rulings. It sends a chilling signal to the entire Ethiopian press corps that the court will not tolerate public scrutiny," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We call on Ethiopian authorities to release Tamrat Serbesa immediately and unconditionally."
The charge was brought amid a government crackdown on Ethiopia's private press following the disputed election. Since deadly clashes between government security forces and opposition supporters erupted in early June, authorities have pressed criminal charges against more than 10 editors from the Amharic-language press in connection with their coverage of the election's aftermath. Many other journalists report being harassed or otherwise intimidated for their coverage.
One of those facing criminal charges stemming from coverage of this period is veteran journalist Amare Aregawi, editor of the English- and Amharic-language Reporter. Two local sources told CPJ that state media in Ethiopia have also run a smear campaign against The Reporter, accusing it of inciting the population to revolt against the government.
Tamrat Serbesa, editor-in-chief of the private Amharic-language weekly Satanaw, was sentenced Friday in connection with the paper's coverage of a Supreme Court verdict in a case involving the National Election Board. The court rejected the opposition CUD party's claim that the election board improperly announced provisional results of the May 15 parliamentary elections before the final count was determined.
On July 7, the Supreme Court ordered Serbesa and Andualem Ayle, editor-in-chief of the private Amharic-language weekly Ethiop, to reveal the sources of anonymous quotes published in their newspapers criticizing the verdict, including one in Satanaw attributed to an unnamed lawyer who deemed the verdict "shameful."
Ayle was ordered to pay a fine of 2,000 birr (US$220) in Friday's decision.
"In pursuing this contempt case, the court was clearly intent on punishing those who would dare criticize its rulings. It sends a chilling signal to the entire Ethiopian press corps that the court will not tolerate public scrutiny," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We call on Ethiopian authorities to release Tamrat Serbesa immediately and unconditionally."
The charge was brought amid a government crackdown on Ethiopia's private press following the disputed election. Since deadly clashes between government security forces and opposition supporters erupted in early June, authorities have pressed criminal charges against more than 10 editors from the Amharic-language press in connection with their coverage of the election's aftermath. Many other journalists report being harassed or otherwise intimidated for their coverage.
One of those facing criminal charges stemming from coverage of this period is veteran journalist Amare Aregawi, editor of the English- and Amharic-language Reporter. Two local sources told CPJ that state media in Ethiopia have also run a smear campaign against The Reporter, accusing it of inciting the population to revolt against the government.
Bowled Over by Idli, Dosa and SRK
Times of India -- Our ears shall list thy story From bards who from thy root shall spring And proudly tune their lyres to sing Of Ethiopia’s glory...
Dressed in white, rows of ebony-skinned men and women move their shoulders to the rhythmic beats of the traditional ‘gharba keyaaki’.
Momentarily, they are transported to their faraway homeland — Ethiopia. But soon, it’s back to reality for the 100 plus Ethiopian student community in Bangalore, all pursuing dreams to empower their countrymen when they return home.
'Bangalore way guruhbadan'as they say in Amharic, Bangalore is beautiful, says 23-year-old Nasra Ahmed Horoso, who studying business management at a private college. Compared to other cities in India that she has visited so far, Nasra feels Bangalore’s cosmopolitan nature is a welcome environment. "Nobody bothers us here and it is easy to mix with the locals while maintaining our identity."
Emerging localities of Bangalore South with an added attraction of malls and multiplexes are the natural choice of residence for these students, comfortable in western outfits. "Most people living in Koramangala and J.P. Nagar have lived in other parts of the world and they are quite accepting when it comes to foreigners," says a bubbly Sarah Tadase. On the entertainment front, there seem to be no complaints. "We enjoy watching Hindi movies, especially Shah Rukh Khan movies," says Sarah.
The word-of-the-mouth reputation about Bangalore’s educational infrastructure has invited more students here. For instance, Nasra followed her sister’s footsteps three years ago. As the numbers increased, they formed their own Ethiopian Students Association, providing the sole support system to the young community members.
"With subjects as diverse as computer science, biotechnology, pharmacy, medicine, microbiology and business management, students have a varied choice. Good education is affordable here and we believe that education is the key to progress for any country. Our aim is to return to Ethiopia, armed with professional degrees," says Huda Ahmed.
"Everything would be perfect if only we had some Ethiopian restaurants for some home food," feels Kahamal Mohammud. "We don’t get our masala here," he continues.
Their favourite dishes include 'daafi'(dosa like stuff, made with wheat), 'shuura'(made with corn) and desserts such as 'halwa’, 'dahmiya’ and 'harisa’. Since these dishes aren’t available here, these students relish.
Previous Post: Vikram Chatwal's Big Break with the Big B
Dressed in white, rows of ebony-skinned men and women move their shoulders to the rhythmic beats of the traditional ‘gharba keyaaki’.
Momentarily, they are transported to their faraway homeland — Ethiopia. But soon, it’s back to reality for the 100 plus Ethiopian student community in Bangalore, all pursuing dreams to empower their countrymen when they return home.
'Bangalore way guruhbadan'as they say in Amharic, Bangalore is beautiful, says 23-year-old Nasra Ahmed Horoso, who studying business management at a private college. Compared to other cities in India that she has visited so far, Nasra feels Bangalore’s cosmopolitan nature is a welcome environment. "Nobody bothers us here and it is easy to mix with the locals while maintaining our identity."
Emerging localities of Bangalore South with an added attraction of malls and multiplexes are the natural choice of residence for these students, comfortable in western outfits. "Most people living in Koramangala and J.P. Nagar have lived in other parts of the world and they are quite accepting when it comes to foreigners," says a bubbly Sarah Tadase. On the entertainment front, there seem to be no complaints. "We enjoy watching Hindi movies, especially Shah Rukh Khan movies," says Sarah.
The word-of-the-mouth reputation about Bangalore’s educational infrastructure has invited more students here. For instance, Nasra followed her sister’s footsteps three years ago. As the numbers increased, they formed their own Ethiopian Students Association, providing the sole support system to the young community members.
"With subjects as diverse as computer science, biotechnology, pharmacy, medicine, microbiology and business management, students have a varied choice. Good education is affordable here and we believe that education is the key to progress for any country. Our aim is to return to Ethiopia, armed with professional degrees," says Huda Ahmed.
"Everything would be perfect if only we had some Ethiopian restaurants for some home food," feels Kahamal Mohammud. "We don’t get our masala here," he continues.
Their favourite dishes include 'daafi'(dosa like stuff, made with wheat), 'shuura'(made with corn) and desserts such as 'halwa’, 'dahmiya’ and 'harisa’. Since these dishes aren’t available here, these students relish.
Previous Post: Vikram Chatwal's Big Break with the Big B
Niger is Dying, and the World is Merely Watching
Yahoo! News -- Imagine if your local fire department had to petition the mayor for money every time it needed water to douse a raging fire. That's the predicament faced by anguished humanitarian aid workers when they seek to save lives but have no funds to pay for the water - or medicine, shelter, or food - urgently needed to put out a fire.
Niger is but the latest example of this lethal predicament. Last year, a locust invasion devoured its crops. What the locusts didn't eat, a drought then scorched. For one of the world's poorest countries, already plagued by environmental degradation, this twin calamity is catastrophic.
Immediate aid is needed to keep 2.5 million people alive. Nearly a third of Niger's population is threatened by hunger - and about 800,000 children younger than 5 have empty bellies.
Nine months ago, Niger and the United Nations warned of an impending crisis. In May, the U.N. appealed to international donors for $16 million in emergency aid. The response: near-deafening silence.
Only now has the world at last woken up to the reality that thousands of children in Niger could soon die. Once again, it has taken horrific images of starving children to do so. This crisis could have been averted had political will and resources been available early on. We could have saved children from malnourishment for as little as $1 per child per day. Now it will cost many times more. Aid agencies are racing against time to save lives. But they may be too late, especially for the young children.
Niger's food shortage is acute but far from unique. Across the Sahel, the twin plagues of locusts and drought have left 2.5 million people at risk in Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso. Broad swaths of southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and southern Africa also face serious food shortages. We must act now in these countries, too.
Let us learn from the tragedy in Niger. Early funding and early action save lives and help prevent a deadly spiral of disease, hunger and displacement from spinning out of control.
In recent years, however, nearly half of all global humanitarian funding has come in the last quarter of the year. These delays are deadly. So, too, is the absence of a predictable pool of money to draw upon immediately in an emergency. Again, think what would happen if your local fire department had to petition for money before turning on the fire hose.
We can and must do better. To that end, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a 10-fold increase in the U.N.'s emergency fund to enable aid agencies to jump-start operations. This ramped-up $500 million grant would save both money and lives, particularly in forgotten crises such as Congo, Chad or Eritrea.
Focusing attention on these crises is not easy. Too often, it takes horrific stories or images to shock us out of complacency.
I am convinced, however, that people do respond when they know how. To that end, we must shorten the distance between crisis and consciousness, awareness and action. And we must end the tyranny of complacency that has consigned millions of people to this dehumanizing existence.
Humanitarian aid can make a lifesaving difference for so many, so quickly, for so little cost, in these acute crises. The people of Niger know this: That's why many of Niger's citizens, the poorest of the world's poor, have donated to a national fund to assist their less-fortunate neighbors.
Their generosity also transcends borders. When the tsunami struck Asia, the people of Niger opened their hearts and wallets. Niger sent $250,000 to the victims - this in a country where the average income is less than $1 a day.
At a time of unprecedented global prosperity, cannot the rich nations do as much for defenseless, starving children?
Niger is but the latest example of this lethal predicament. Last year, a locust invasion devoured its crops. What the locusts didn't eat, a drought then scorched. For one of the world's poorest countries, already plagued by environmental degradation, this twin calamity is catastrophic.
Immediate aid is needed to keep 2.5 million people alive. Nearly a third of Niger's population is threatened by hunger - and about 800,000 children younger than 5 have empty bellies.
Nine months ago, Niger and the United Nations warned of an impending crisis. In May, the U.N. appealed to international donors for $16 million in emergency aid. The response: near-deafening silence.
Only now has the world at last woken up to the reality that thousands of children in Niger could soon die. Once again, it has taken horrific images of starving children to do so. This crisis could have been averted had political will and resources been available early on. We could have saved children from malnourishment for as little as $1 per child per day. Now it will cost many times more. Aid agencies are racing against time to save lives. But they may be too late, especially for the young children.
Niger's food shortage is acute but far from unique. Across the Sahel, the twin plagues of locusts and drought have left 2.5 million people at risk in Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso. Broad swaths of southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and southern Africa also face serious food shortages. We must act now in these countries, too.
Let us learn from the tragedy in Niger. Early funding and early action save lives and help prevent a deadly spiral of disease, hunger and displacement from spinning out of control.
In recent years, however, nearly half of all global humanitarian funding has come in the last quarter of the year. These delays are deadly. So, too, is the absence of a predictable pool of money to draw upon immediately in an emergency. Again, think what would happen if your local fire department had to petition for money before turning on the fire hose.
We can and must do better. To that end, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a 10-fold increase in the U.N.'s emergency fund to enable aid agencies to jump-start operations. This ramped-up $500 million grant would save both money and lives, particularly in forgotten crises such as Congo, Chad or Eritrea.
Focusing attention on these crises is not easy. Too often, it takes horrific stories or images to shock us out of complacency.
I am convinced, however, that people do respond when they know how. To that end, we must shorten the distance between crisis and consciousness, awareness and action. And we must end the tyranny of complacency that has consigned millions of people to this dehumanizing existence.
Humanitarian aid can make a lifesaving difference for so many, so quickly, for so little cost, in these acute crises. The people of Niger know this: That's why many of Niger's citizens, the poorest of the world's poor, have donated to a national fund to assist their less-fortunate neighbors.
Their generosity also transcends borders. When the tsunami struck Asia, the people of Niger opened their hearts and wallets. Niger sent $250,000 to the victims - this in a country where the average income is less than $1 a day.
At a time of unprecedented global prosperity, cannot the rich nations do as much for defenseless, starving children?
Bekele Busts 10,000-Metre Move
Eurosport -- Kenenisa Bekele kicked past an all-star 10,000-metre field to win gold at the Helsinki-hosted world championships Monday, the Olympic champion clocking 27 min 8.33 sec to best his Ethiopian countryman Sileshi Sihine. Kenya's Moses Mosop brought in the bronze.
After convincingly defending his world title, Bekele thwarted pundits' predictions that he would attempt a prestigious -- and leg-searing -- 10,000- and 5,000-metre double.
"No. I'm tired. I will not run the 5,000," the 23-year-old Bekele said, before adding, "It's been a very difficult year for me since the death of my fiancee."
The Ethiopian's season was nearly stillborn, Bekele shocked in January when his 18-year-old fiancee died during a training run.
Bekele took a few-weeks hiatus from training, but returned stronger than ever, notching wins at both the long- and short-course cross-country world championships.
RAIN GAMES
Wicked weather rolled into for Day 3 of the Helsinki world championships Monday, the Finland track soaked by intermittent spits of rain, which made things tricky for the evening's competitors.
"It was a very hard race because of the rain and we [the Ethiopian runners] weren't able to work together as much as we would have liked," Bekele said.
"I'm happy we got two medals."
Moses Mosop prevented an Ethiopian stranglehold on the race, the Kenyan out kicking Ethiopia's Abebe Dinkesa Negera for the bronze medal.
Negera, who set the pace for much of the race, eventually faded to seventh.
With both the men's and the women's 10,000 metres wrapped, Ethiopia claimed a stunning five of the six total medals available.
The African nation's women scored a clean sweep in the event on Saturday, with Tirunesh Dibaba, Berhane Adere and Ejegayehu Dibaba tallying gold, silver and bronze respectively.
Egypt: Trade with Ethiopia up 21%
Arabic News.com -- Bilateral trade with Ethiopia registered an increase of 21 per cent in 2005. The trade presentation office at the Egyptian embassy in Addis Ababa showed that Egyptian exports to Ethiopia within the first six months of the present calendar year are at $22 million, a rise from $17 million.in 2004.
Meanwhile, Egyptian imports from Ethiopia are $77,000 in 2005 against $848,000 in 2004.
In a related development, in order to assist Ethiopia with its current food problems, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit instructed the Egyptian Fund of Technical Cooperation to send 70 tons of Egyptian foodstuffs, flour, rice and oil to Ethiopia to help them avoid starvation.
Meanwhile, Egyptian imports from Ethiopia are $77,000 in 2005 against $848,000 in 2004.
In a related development, in order to assist Ethiopia with its current food problems, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit instructed the Egyptian Fund of Technical Cooperation to send 70 tons of Egyptian foodstuffs, flour, rice and oil to Ethiopia to help them avoid starvation.
UN Fears Epidemic as Malaria Sweeps Ethiopia
Reuters AlertNet -- A sharp increase in malaria cases and deaths across Ethiopia has raised fears of an epidemic in the east African country, the United Nations said on Monday.
Health experts say most of the one million deaths caused annually by malaria occur in Africa, costing the continent more than $12 billion every year.
In one region in the north of Ethiopia, authorities recorded 20,000 cases in June, a 10-fold increase from the same month last year, accompanied by 21 deaths.
The most worrying figures were from the Tigray, Amhara, Oromiya, Afar, Somali, Benshangul-Gumuz, and Southern Nations Nationalities and People's regions, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities (OCHA) said.
More than 2.5 million doses of malaria-battling drugs have been imported and almost 900,000 doses distributed to the worst-hit areas, OCHA said.
Most malaria infections in Ethiopia are contracted between the months of June and October. The disease is prevalent in 75 percent of the Horn of Africa nation, with five million cases reported per year, according to Ethiopia's ministry of health.
The U.N.'s World Health Organisation is carrying out an assessment of conditions in the affected regions and is working with UNICEF to provide the government with logistical support.
Ethiopian health authorities say they fear supplies of drugs and insecticide-treated mosquito nets will fall short of demand if there is an epidemic.
The widow of a victim of malaria near Bedele, Ethiopia, in 2004. A massive rise in the number of malaria cases in Ethiopia has raised fears of a major epidemic, the United Nations said(AFP/File)
Health experts say most of the one million deaths caused annually by malaria occur in Africa, costing the continent more than $12 billion every year.
In one region in the north of Ethiopia, authorities recorded 20,000 cases in June, a 10-fold increase from the same month last year, accompanied by 21 deaths.
The most worrying figures were from the Tigray, Amhara, Oromiya, Afar, Somali, Benshangul-Gumuz, and Southern Nations Nationalities and People's regions, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities (OCHA) said.
More than 2.5 million doses of malaria-battling drugs have been imported and almost 900,000 doses distributed to the worst-hit areas, OCHA said.
Most malaria infections in Ethiopia are contracted between the months of June and October. The disease is prevalent in 75 percent of the Horn of Africa nation, with five million cases reported per year, according to Ethiopia's ministry of health.
The U.N.'s World Health Organisation is carrying out an assessment of conditions in the affected regions and is working with UNICEF to provide the government with logistical support.
Ethiopian health authorities say they fear supplies of drugs and insecticide-treated mosquito nets will fall short of demand if there is an epidemic.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
First Solar System Assembly Plant to Be Built in Uganda
RedNova News -- Solar Energy for Africa, a US-based organization, will build a solar system assembly plant in Entebbe, Uganda, the first of its kind in east Africa, local press reported on Saturday.
Solar power is cheaper and cleaner than diesel generators because it is from the dependable sunlight.
Managing director of Solar Energy for Africa Richard Kanyika said the plant would assemble solar panels, charge controllers, inverters, solar lights and lanterns and heater kits.
"We want to fight poverty by providing villages with affordable power. It will cost 3.4 million dollars to run the assembly lines in about two years," he said.
"We expected to grow by 10 percent annually for the first 10 years, serving Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya," Kanyika added.
For Chef, Knife is Finely Tuned Instrument
Boston Globe -- Marcus Samuelsson still owns the French Sabatier knife he got as a gift from his sister when he was 17.
Since then, Samuelsson, who was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Sweden, has become the celebrated chef and co-owner of Aquavit, a Scandinavian restaurant in New York, and the culinary director of Riingo, an American-Japanese restaurant, also in New York.
A good knife, he says by way of analogy, is as important to a chef as a violin is to a violinist.
''It's the instrument for a chef," says Samuelsson, who was recently in Milford for a taping of ''Simply Ming," the TV program hosted by local chef Ming Tsai.
Home cooks will also want good knives. While many are sold in sets, Samuelsson says you might not need everything you get.
Two basics are a chef's knife, which typically falls in the 8-inch range and is good for chopping, and a paring knife, which is smaller and used for tasks like peeling. Beyond that, ''it all comes down to how much cooking you do," he says.
Consider what you like to cook. Fish is central to Scandinavian cuisine, Samuelsson notes, so he uses flexible knives that are good for fileting. For him, a serrated bread knife is also essential (serrated knives are also good for tomatoes).
Cleavers might once have been considered a staple -- Samuelsson's grandmother used one -- but these days, grocery stores and butchers cut meat for you.
Samuelsson, who says he likes to give knives as gifts, says many knife stores will be ready with suggestions. Stoddard's, the Boston cutlery store, recommends four basic knives to customers, says owner David Marks: a long, flexible blade for slicing, a chef's knife for chopping, a small knife for paring, and a serrated edge for bread.
Knives can be pricey. Popular brands like Wusthof and Henckels easily sell for $100 or more.
While Marks likes Wusthof, he also recommends the Swiss brand Victorinox, maker of Swiss Army knives, for those seeking value. The company's paring knives sell for as little as $5, while larger cooking knives range around $30. Global is a popular Japanese brand of lighter, thinner knives with a sleek design.
In addition to his Sabatier knife, Samuelsson, whose program ''Inner Chef" will debut on the Discovery Home Network this fall, likes a brand called MAC. Their knives can sell for as much as $250, according to the company's website, but many are under $100.
Samuelsson prefers heavier knives, and recommends looking for one with a sturdy handle. The knives he likes are precise and have good steel positioning.
''When you have a good knife in your hand, you feel it," he says.
Since then, Samuelsson, who was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Sweden, has become the celebrated chef and co-owner of Aquavit, a Scandinavian restaurant in New York, and the culinary director of Riingo, an American-Japanese restaurant, also in New York.
A good knife, he says by way of analogy, is as important to a chef as a violin is to a violinist.
''It's the instrument for a chef," says Samuelsson, who was recently in Milford for a taping of ''Simply Ming," the TV program hosted by local chef Ming Tsai.
Home cooks will also want good knives. While many are sold in sets, Samuelsson says you might not need everything you get.
Two basics are a chef's knife, which typically falls in the 8-inch range and is good for chopping, and a paring knife, which is smaller and used for tasks like peeling. Beyond that, ''it all comes down to how much cooking you do," he says.
Consider what you like to cook. Fish is central to Scandinavian cuisine, Samuelsson notes, so he uses flexible knives that are good for fileting. For him, a serrated bread knife is also essential (serrated knives are also good for tomatoes).
Cleavers might once have been considered a staple -- Samuelsson's grandmother used one -- but these days, grocery stores and butchers cut meat for you.
Samuelsson, who says he likes to give knives as gifts, says many knife stores will be ready with suggestions. Stoddard's, the Boston cutlery store, recommends four basic knives to customers, says owner David Marks: a long, flexible blade for slicing, a chef's knife for chopping, a small knife for paring, and a serrated edge for bread.
Knives can be pricey. Popular brands like Wusthof and Henckels easily sell for $100 or more.
While Marks likes Wusthof, he also recommends the Swiss brand Victorinox, maker of Swiss Army knives, for those seeking value. The company's paring knives sell for as little as $5, while larger cooking knives range around $30. Global is a popular Japanese brand of lighter, thinner knives with a sleek design.
In addition to his Sabatier knife, Samuelsson, whose program ''Inner Chef" will debut on the Discovery Home Network this fall, likes a brand called MAC. Their knives can sell for as much as $250, according to the company's website, but many are under $100.
Samuelsson prefers heavier knives, and recommends looking for one with a sturdy handle. The knives he likes are precise and have good steel positioning.
''When you have a good knife in your hand, you feel it," he says.
Reservist Finds Adventure on the Road in Djibouti
Missoulian -- Army Sgt. 1st Class Roy Spain left Huson in February for the West African country of Djibouti looking for adventure.
He just didn't expect to find it while sitting in a car.
"You have to be very defensive when driving," said Spain in a telephone interview from Djibouti. "We (Americans) start driving in high school or later in life, but here people just kind of get behind the wheel, and you can tell by looking at their vehicles. It's a lot of wrecks."
What Spain, 37, didn't find much of in Djibouti is water, but that's why the Army Reserve sent him there. He drills wells for Djiboutians, who live in a country where only 20 of the 23,000 square kilometers of total land are covered by water, according to the CIA World Factbook.
"Most of it's sand and rocks," Spain said of Djibouti. "It's not a lot of green."
Djibouti is bordered by Somalia in the south, Ethiopia in the west, Eritrea in the north and the Red Sea in the east. It's slightly smaller than Massachusetts and most of the people are Muslims. The main languages spoken there are French, Arabic, Somali and Afar.
The only U.S. military base in sub-Saharan Africa is in Djibouti, which is a front-line state in the global war on terrorism, according to the Factbook.
Spain, who grew up in Superior and now lives with his wife and two children in Huson, ended up in Djibouti because he heard about an Army Reserve unit going there to drill wells last year and volunteered. It's his third deployment since joining the Army Reserve in 1990, a couple of years after finishing his commitment with the National Guard.
At home, Spain works in Missoula as a union wireman. But during his two deployments in Uzbekistan, in 2002 and 2003, he helped build and maintain a base that he only got to leave twice, he said.
That wasn't enough for Spain, so he volunteered to go to Djibouti, hoping he'd have a more adventurous experience. And after receiving training for well digging in North Dakota, he was off to Africa.
"I really wanted to get adventure, and this is it," Spain said. "This is a really good adventure. We have to go out into the countryside and I like that part. I like being able to leave the base and go see it."
There are no near-death experiences - the heat and the other drivers are the biggest dangers Spain faces - and the soldiers get along well with the Djiboutians despite the language barrier, he said. Just being out in the desert is adventure enough for him.
"You're just out in the wild," he said. "There isn't anything out there; it's just desert. You'd think there can't be anything out there, but there is. There are people out there.
"There hasn't been any real threat I've seen against us. I'm not some John Wayne character. I don't want to get involved in any of that. I'm just here to help folks."
And help them he does by providing people with water that they'd have to get out of dirty pools on the ground otherwise. The water that comes out of the wells is very salty, but the Djiboutians drink it anyway because it's the best they can find, he said.
The life expectancy for Djiboutians is 43.1 years - almost 35 years less than in the U.S. - and seeing how the Djiboutians live has been a big character-builder, Spain said.
"I can see the hardship in their faces," he said. "I know that it's a difficult life for them. One thing it has given me is I'm more grateful for what I have back in the States. We take so much for granted and we shouldn't."
Spain will be in Djibouti until February 2006 at least, since his orders say he has to spend at least a year "boots on the ground," he said. He'll get his 20-year retirement in two years and can still be deployed until then, he said. He's not sure if he'd volunteer for service again.
"If they need me, they can send me," he said. "That's part of it. You sign on the dotted line and give an oath and say, 'This is what I'll do if you need me.' "
For now, Spain talks to his family a lot, especially his wife, on the telephone and through e-mail, he said. Although he's enjoying the experience in Djibouti, he misses his family and watching his kids grow up, he said.
"That's the downside of being deployed," he said. "I'm looking forward to getting home and spending time with them. As much as I enjoy this, I enjoy my family life a lot more."
Peter Bulger is a University of Montana journalism student and an intern at the Missoulian.
He just didn't expect to find it while sitting in a car.
"You have to be very defensive when driving," said Spain in a telephone interview from Djibouti. "We (Americans) start driving in high school or later in life, but here people just kind of get behind the wheel, and you can tell by looking at their vehicles. It's a lot of wrecks."
What Spain, 37, didn't find much of in Djibouti is water, but that's why the Army Reserve sent him there. He drills wells for Djiboutians, who live in a country where only 20 of the 23,000 square kilometers of total land are covered by water, according to the CIA World Factbook.
"Most of it's sand and rocks," Spain said of Djibouti. "It's not a lot of green."
Djibouti is bordered by Somalia in the south, Ethiopia in the west, Eritrea in the north and the Red Sea in the east. It's slightly smaller than Massachusetts and most of the people are Muslims. The main languages spoken there are French, Arabic, Somali and Afar.
The only U.S. military base in sub-Saharan Africa is in Djibouti, which is a front-line state in the global war on terrorism, according to the Factbook.
Spain, who grew up in Superior and now lives with his wife and two children in Huson, ended up in Djibouti because he heard about an Army Reserve unit going there to drill wells last year and volunteered. It's his third deployment since joining the Army Reserve in 1990, a couple of years after finishing his commitment with the National Guard.
At home, Spain works in Missoula as a union wireman. But during his two deployments in Uzbekistan, in 2002 and 2003, he helped build and maintain a base that he only got to leave twice, he said.
That wasn't enough for Spain, so he volunteered to go to Djibouti, hoping he'd have a more adventurous experience. And after receiving training for well digging in North Dakota, he was off to Africa.
"I really wanted to get adventure, and this is it," Spain said. "This is a really good adventure. We have to go out into the countryside and I like that part. I like being able to leave the base and go see it."
There are no near-death experiences - the heat and the other drivers are the biggest dangers Spain faces - and the soldiers get along well with the Djiboutians despite the language barrier, he said. Just being out in the desert is adventure enough for him.
"You're just out in the wild," he said. "There isn't anything out there; it's just desert. You'd think there can't be anything out there, but there is. There are people out there.
"There hasn't been any real threat I've seen against us. I'm not some John Wayne character. I don't want to get involved in any of that. I'm just here to help folks."
And help them he does by providing people with water that they'd have to get out of dirty pools on the ground otherwise. The water that comes out of the wells is very salty, but the Djiboutians drink it anyway because it's the best they can find, he said.
The life expectancy for Djiboutians is 43.1 years - almost 35 years less than in the U.S. - and seeing how the Djiboutians live has been a big character-builder, Spain said.
"I can see the hardship in their faces," he said. "I know that it's a difficult life for them. One thing it has given me is I'm more grateful for what I have back in the States. We take so much for granted and we shouldn't."
Spain will be in Djibouti until February 2006 at least, since his orders say he has to spend at least a year "boots on the ground," he said. He'll get his 20-year retirement in two years and can still be deployed until then, he said. He's not sure if he'd volunteer for service again.
"If they need me, they can send me," he said. "That's part of it. You sign on the dotted line and give an oath and say, 'This is what I'll do if you need me.' "
For now, Spain talks to his family a lot, especially his wife, on the telephone and through e-mail, he said. Although he's enjoying the experience in Djibouti, he misses his family and watching his kids grow up, he said.
"That's the downside of being deployed," he said. "I'm looking forward to getting home and spending time with them. As much as I enjoy this, I enjoy my family life a lot more."
Peter Bulger is a University of Montana journalism student and an intern at the Missoulian.
Dibaba Leads Ethiopian Sweep In The 10,000
RunnersWeb.com -- Vividly displaying their dominance in the event, Ethiopian women --led by Olympic 5000 meter champion Tirunesh Dibaba-- ran to their second podium sweep in the 10,000 meters to highlight the first day of the 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics on a cool night in the Finnish capital.
When the trio of Dibaba, defending champion Berhane Adere and Ejegayehu Dibaba broke from a 10-woman pack at the bell, the only question that remained was the finishing order. The younger Dibaba, a double winner at this year's world cross county championships, dismissed any doubts with her 58.6 last lap en route to a 30:24.02 win, easily beating back the challenge of Adere, who held on to finish second in 30:25.41, more than half a second ahead of Ejegayehu Dibaba's 30:26.00.
"We had a plan to take the top three positions, possibly even the top four," said Tirunesh Dibaba after the race. Despite her success, the still-bashful Dibaba succinctly described their simple strategy. "We decided to run the end very fast in order to take the top three positions."
As expected, Briton Paula Radcliffe led for more than half the race, bringing a substantial 11-woman lead pack through the half in 15:16.29, with Adere and Kenyan Edith Masai in tow. A lap later Radcliffe dropped back to fourth, while the next eight laps saw numerous lead switches. With seven laps remaining, the Ethiopian quartet briefly took the top-four spots, until Radcliffe fought back to resume the lead briefly with just over 2000 meters remaining, before dropping back for good a lap later. The Chinese duo of Xing Huina, the Olympic champion, and Sun Yingjie kept pace with the Ethiopian trio until their decisive break.
Tirunesh Dibaba returns to action on Wednesday in the first round of the 5000 where she’ll not only begin her title defense, but will aim to become the first woman to ever score a long distance double in a world championship or Olympic Games.
Further back behind the Ethiopian trio, Huina passed Yingjie to finish fourth in 30:27.18. Edith Masai, now 38-years-old, ran to a new Kenyan record 30:30.26, finishing fifth. Werknesh Kidane, who will also compete in the 5000, was sixth (30:32.47).
The opening round of the men’s 1500 did produce a few major surprises, instigated by U.S. national championships runner-up Chris Lukezic. In the second of three heats, the 21-year-old from Georgetown fought through heavy traffic down the homestretch to move from ninth to fifth, before elbowing his way between Kenyan Daniel Kipchirchir Komen and Kenyan-born Qatari Daham Bashir –the season’s two fastest men-- to finish third in 3:41.80. In the process, Komen finished sixth, and failed to advance. Bashir, who survived with his fifth place finish, was succinct in his post-race self-analysis: “In the next race, we will have to come up with different tactics.” Spaniard Arturo Casado won the heat in 3:41.64.
For several minutes after the conclusion of the first heat, it appeared that Alan Webb’s early-race aggressive strategy nearly backfired. At or near the front for more than two-thirds of the race, Webb faded down the homestretch to finish sixth, in a race won by defending sliver medallist Mehdi Baala of France in 3:36.56. Less than three-tenths of a second separated the top-six spots; only the top-five advanced automatically. With the other two races significantly slower, Webb got the green light into Monday’s semis.
Bahraini Rashid Ramzi, another pre-meet favorite, escaped the danger Komen and Bashir were enveloped in to comfortably win the third heat in 3:38.32, well ahead of Ivan Heshko (3:39.84) and Nick Willis (3:39.89). With Rob Myers also advancing on time, the evening marked the first time three U.S. men qualified for the semi-finals since the 1987 world championships in Rome.
The women’s 3000 meter steeplechase made its world championships debut with no major casualties resulting. Favorite Dorcus Inzikuru of Uganda was the fastest on the day with her 9:27.85 win in heat three over Jeruto Kiptum’s 9:29.21 Kenyan record. Yelena Zadorozhnaya of Russia, a world championships veteran, took heat one with ease in 9:32.96, while Pole Wioletta Janowska claimed heat two in 9:35.66. Americans Carrie Messner (9:39.68 – PB) and Elizabeth Jackson (9:45.24) advanced; Lisa Galaviz (9:47.45) did not.
No surprises emerged from the first round of the women’s 800. Russians Svetlana Cherkasova (2:00.62) and Larisa Chzhao (2:00.64) produced the day’s quickest performances, while defending champion Maria Mutola along with the American trio of Hazel Clark, Kameisha Bennett and Alice Schmidt all advancing comfortably.
Just two middle and long distance events are scheduled for the second day of competition: the first round of the men’s steeplechase and the semi-finals of the women’s 800.
Elsewhere, American Adam Nelson, a two-time Olympic and world championships silver medallist in the shot put, finally graduated from bridesmaid status in the event when he took the gold.
Gannibal Lecture
FT.com -- By what criteria should recherche historical figures be plucked from obscurity and granted a fresh lick of paint for a modern audience? Insofar as the reputation of Gannibal endures, it is chiefly because he is known for being the greatgrandfather of Russia’s national poet, Alexander Pushkin. Hugh Barnes, journalist and Russian scholar, wants to make amends for that, and succeeds brilliantly in his task.
The boy Abram Petrovich Gannibal, from humble origins in Ethiopia, became a godson to the Russian tsar Peter the Great via the unusual route of being bought as a child slave in Constantinople. He was initially regarded as nothing more than a curiosity; he was brought to Russia at a time, as Barnes records, when black people were routinely depicted as alien bogeyman figures. Very soon, however, Gannibal became much more important than that. By the age of 12, he was a soldier in the Russian army and was winning garlands for his courage in fighting in the war against Sweden. Very soon, he became Peter’s adviser and house-intellectual, as well as one of his most educated officers.
Peter hoped to introduce Russia to the outside world to create a more cosmopolitan kind of Russian, and his exotic godson became the perfect ambassador for his reformist ambitions. Gannibal became, says Barnes, “a polymath in the Enlightenment mould, a man of eclectic skills: a linguist, a diplomat, a cryptographer, a spy, and also on occasion an able military commander”.
The philosopher-soldier Gannibal was soon talking differential calculus with Leibniz and philosophy with Voltaire. His intellectual and practical career, Peter wrote proudly, “furnished the most striking proof of the injustice of that odious prejudice which assigns to the Negro race a reputation of intellectual and moral inferiority. He has immense spirit, a prodigious facility for study... [and] was blessed with a mobile and elevated character and an incorruptible probity”.
Gannibal’s chief talent, however, was for military strategy and intrigue. In a brilliant career he fought as a commissioned officer for the French against the Spanish, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-engineer.
He became the tsar’s spy in Paris, and even used his engineering genius to build a wall of fortifications around Russia from the Arctic Circle to China.
That a black slave should have shot up so high in the Russian elite is in itself a marvel. But Barnes wants to use the breadth of Gannibal’s experience as a foil for a much larger story, one which takes on everything from Russian literature to the geopolitics of Muslim slave-trading in Africa. For an essentially military man, Gannibal’s fate was supremely intertwined with Russia’s literary culture. Following his death, he seems to have pricked the conscience as well as the muse of Russian writers - his greatgrandson Pushkin, for example, wrote an unfinished and rather sentimental account of his ancestor, titled The Negro of Peter the Great. In the 20th century, Nabokov was moved to write an essay about Gannibal’s life. Even the man who first bought him from a slave market in Constantinople, the Russian ambassador Pyotr Tolstoy, was an ancestor of the novelist and author of War and Peace, Barnes points out. In an attempt to further enhance his mercurial hero, Barnes wants to make a case for him as the “Russian Othello” - a literary allusion too far, possibly. But then Gannibal’s personality, at least in Barnes’ telling, does resemble that of a Shakespearean hero - he was an insomniac who worried ceaselessly about his ancestry and his place in posterity.
Gannibal died in 1781, at the plum age of 85, in relative obscurity after having fallen foul of shifting court loyalties. His tombstone pays tribute to “a Russian mathematician, a builder of fortresses and canals”, but makes little mention of his military career.
In Barnes’ story, Gannibal appears as a self-shaper nimble enough to make a myth out of his own circumstances. It was only during his time in France, for example, that he began signing his name Gannibal, a Russian variant of Hannibal. Like other former enslaved Africans who made their way to the top of western societies, such as Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho, Gannibal was something of a canny operator - he seems to have played his colonial hosts at their own game, alternately revelling in his exoticism and suggesting the nobility of his African origins, a claim which he never managed to corroborate.
That this former slave eventually became the owner of slaves is a delicious irony for a biographer. But Barnes makes it clear that even Gannibal’s formidable presence could do little to overturn intellectual racism. Even Montesquieu, he records, who tended towards the view that Africans were lazy and immoral, was impressed by Gannibal. Among friends such as Voltaire and Richelieu, says Barnes, “it was as if Gannibal’s wit bleached the pigment of his skin”.
Barnes has dug himself up a most engaging subject. He carries his story along in an unpretentious fashion, wearing his research lightly and never failing to intrigue. Only when it descends into travelogue - when Barnes walks around the places associated with Gannibal trying to sound reflective - does the pace begin to falter. The story is so rich that it has no need of being dressed up in this way.
Gannibal’s life made for an almost unique encounter between Europe and Africa. His story is all the more relevant, Barnes argues, because of the recent resurgence of racism in post-Soviet Russia. Nowadays, he says drily, many ordinary Russians take a rather dim view of the dark-skinned Muslim peoples of Chechnya and other republics. They are known disparagingly as the chorniye, or the blacks, of Russia. Among some Russian scholars, too, it remains controversial to point out their national poet should have had a negro ancestor.
While this may sound a little worthy, what Barnes has written is an intelligent Boy’s Own story, an adventure stuffed full of encounters with history - a ripping good yarn which has the merit of being entirely true.
FOR MORE INFO
GANNIBAL: The Moor of Petersburg
Author: Hugh Barnes
Profile Books
ISBN 1861973659
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The boy Abram Petrovich Gannibal, from humble origins in Ethiopia, became a godson to the Russian tsar Peter the Great via the unusual route of being bought as a child slave in Constantinople. He was initially regarded as nothing more than a curiosity; he was brought to Russia at a time, as Barnes records, when black people were routinely depicted as alien bogeyman figures. Very soon, however, Gannibal became much more important than that. By the age of 12, he was a soldier in the Russian army and was winning garlands for his courage in fighting in the war against Sweden. Very soon, he became Peter’s adviser and house-intellectual, as well as one of his most educated officers.
Peter hoped to introduce Russia to the outside world to create a more cosmopolitan kind of Russian, and his exotic godson became the perfect ambassador for his reformist ambitions. Gannibal became, says Barnes, “a polymath in the Enlightenment mould, a man of eclectic skills: a linguist, a diplomat, a cryptographer, a spy, and also on occasion an able military commander”.
The philosopher-soldier Gannibal was soon talking differential calculus with Leibniz and philosophy with Voltaire. His intellectual and practical career, Peter wrote proudly, “furnished the most striking proof of the injustice of that odious prejudice which assigns to the Negro race a reputation of intellectual and moral inferiority. He has immense spirit, a prodigious facility for study... [and] was blessed with a mobile and elevated character and an incorruptible probity”.
Gannibal’s chief talent, however, was for military strategy and intrigue. In a brilliant career he fought as a commissioned officer for the French against the Spanish, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-engineer.
He became the tsar’s spy in Paris, and even used his engineering genius to build a wall of fortifications around Russia from the Arctic Circle to China.
That a black slave should have shot up so high in the Russian elite is in itself a marvel. But Barnes wants to use the breadth of Gannibal’s experience as a foil for a much larger story, one which takes on everything from Russian literature to the geopolitics of Muslim slave-trading in Africa. For an essentially military man, Gannibal’s fate was supremely intertwined with Russia’s literary culture. Following his death, he seems to have pricked the conscience as well as the muse of Russian writers - his greatgrandson Pushkin, for example, wrote an unfinished and rather sentimental account of his ancestor, titled The Negro of Peter the Great. In the 20th century, Nabokov was moved to write an essay about Gannibal’s life. Even the man who first bought him from a slave market in Constantinople, the Russian ambassador Pyotr Tolstoy, was an ancestor of the novelist and author of War and Peace, Barnes points out. In an attempt to further enhance his mercurial hero, Barnes wants to make a case for him as the “Russian Othello” - a literary allusion too far, possibly. But then Gannibal’s personality, at least in Barnes’ telling, does resemble that of a Shakespearean hero - he was an insomniac who worried ceaselessly about his ancestry and his place in posterity.
Gannibal died in 1781, at the plum age of 85, in relative obscurity after having fallen foul of shifting court loyalties. His tombstone pays tribute to “a Russian mathematician, a builder of fortresses and canals”, but makes little mention of his military career.
In Barnes’ story, Gannibal appears as a self-shaper nimble enough to make a myth out of his own circumstances. It was only during his time in France, for example, that he began signing his name Gannibal, a Russian variant of Hannibal. Like other former enslaved Africans who made their way to the top of western societies, such as Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho, Gannibal was something of a canny operator - he seems to have played his colonial hosts at their own game, alternately revelling in his exoticism and suggesting the nobility of his African origins, a claim which he never managed to corroborate.
That this former slave eventually became the owner of slaves is a delicious irony for a biographer. But Barnes makes it clear that even Gannibal’s formidable presence could do little to overturn intellectual racism. Even Montesquieu, he records, who tended towards the view that Africans were lazy and immoral, was impressed by Gannibal. Among friends such as Voltaire and Richelieu, says Barnes, “it was as if Gannibal’s wit bleached the pigment of his skin”.
Barnes has dug himself up a most engaging subject. He carries his story along in an unpretentious fashion, wearing his research lightly and never failing to intrigue. Only when it descends into travelogue - when Barnes walks around the places associated with Gannibal trying to sound reflective - does the pace begin to falter. The story is so rich that it has no need of being dressed up in this way.
Gannibal’s life made for an almost unique encounter between Europe and Africa. His story is all the more relevant, Barnes argues, because of the recent resurgence of racism in post-Soviet Russia. Nowadays, he says drily, many ordinary Russians take a rather dim view of the dark-skinned Muslim peoples of Chechnya and other republics. They are known disparagingly as the chorniye, or the blacks, of Russia. Among some Russian scholars, too, it remains controversial to point out their national poet should have had a negro ancestor.
While this may sound a little worthy, what Barnes has written is an intelligent Boy’s Own story, an adventure stuffed full of encounters with history - a ripping good yarn which has the merit of being entirely true.
FOR MORE INFO
GANNIBAL: The Moor of Petersburg
Author: Hugh Barnes
Profile Books
ISBN 1861973659
Previous Post: Prosecutors Investigate Pushkin 'Pornography'
Musicians Ready to Rock at Niger Aid Concert
IOL -- A month after the international Live 8 concerts were staged to raise awareness of Africa's plight, West African musicians are holding one of their own - in Niger on Sunday to raise money for millions of people facing starvation.
The concert, dubbed "Music Against Hunger", was organised by Niger's first lady, Laraba Tandja, wife of this desert nation's President Mamadou Tandja. Heavy rains forced organisers to postpone the outdoor concert by a day. It had originally been scheduled for Saturday.
"It's to bring support to people who've been victimised by the famine," said Habibou Issa, a communications ministry adviser. "It will also show how culture and art can express the solidarity" of those suffering.
The United Nations says the combined effects of drought and crop-destroying locusts have left more than three million people here facing severe food shortages. Children are most at risk, with 800 000 under the age of five who need to be fed urgently.
The concert is to be held later Saturday in the capital, Niamey. The venue is a 50 000-capacity stadium, the country's biggest.
Issa said entrance fees will be donated to a government body in charge of dealing with the food crisis and helping co-ordinate relief.
The Live 8 concerts were held around the world in early July, most notably in London and Philadelphia. They were organised by Irish rocker Bob Geldof, who raised millions for famine relief with his 1980s Live Aid concerts, which came in response to a 1984 famine in Ethiopia that left one million people dead.
On stage in Niamey will be Niger's Ka Idan Kaskiya, Goumbe Statr and Amadou Konate. Other musicians from West Africa are expected, including Ivory Coast's Alain Kouassi.
The concert, dubbed "Music Against Hunger", was organised by Niger's first lady, Laraba Tandja, wife of this desert nation's President Mamadou Tandja. Heavy rains forced organisers to postpone the outdoor concert by a day. It had originally been scheduled for Saturday.
"It's to bring support to people who've been victimised by the famine," said Habibou Issa, a communications ministry adviser. "It will also show how culture and art can express the solidarity" of those suffering.
The United Nations says the combined effects of drought and crop-destroying locusts have left more than three million people here facing severe food shortages. Children are most at risk, with 800 000 under the age of five who need to be fed urgently.
The concert is to be held later Saturday in the capital, Niamey. The venue is a 50 000-capacity stadium, the country's biggest.
Issa said entrance fees will be donated to a government body in charge of dealing with the food crisis and helping co-ordinate relief.
The Live 8 concerts were held around the world in early July, most notably in London and Philadelphia. They were organised by Irish rocker Bob Geldof, who raised millions for famine relief with his 1980s Live Aid concerts, which came in response to a 1984 famine in Ethiopia that left one million people dead.
On stage in Niamey will be Niger's Ka Idan Kaskiya, Goumbe Statr and Amadou Konate. Other musicians from West Africa are expected, including Ivory Coast's Alain Kouassi.
Ethiopia to Rerun Elections in 14 More Districts
Mail & Guardian -- Ethiopia will hold rerun voting in 14 additional constituencies where fraud and irregularities occurred in disputed May elections, bringing to 29 out of 523 the number of precincts where repeat polls will be held.
The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (Nebe) said late on Friday the decision was made after reviewing fraud complaints from 69 of 74 constituencies where results from the May 15 polls have yet to be released.
The board rejected allegations of wrongdoing in 55 of the 74, according to Nebe spokesperson Getahun Amogne.
"The election board has endorsed the preliminary results of the 55, which will be made public next week," he said.
Of the re-votes, four will involve entire constituencies while in the other 25, the new elections will take place only in specific polling stations where the board found evidence of fraud, Getahun said.
The new polls are to be held on August 21 and the board has banned campaigning in the run-up to balloting, for which voter registration will be conducted from Sunday until August 16, he said.
Preliminary results showing a ruling party victory in the May 15 polls sparked protests in the capital and clashes that left at least 36 people dead.
So far, Nebe has released results from 435 constituencies out of which the ruling party has won 263 seats against the opposition coalition's 172.
The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (Nebe) said late on Friday the decision was made after reviewing fraud complaints from 69 of 74 constituencies where results from the May 15 polls have yet to be released.
The board rejected allegations of wrongdoing in 55 of the 74, according to Nebe spokesperson Getahun Amogne.
"The election board has endorsed the preliminary results of the 55, which will be made public next week," he said.
Of the re-votes, four will involve entire constituencies while in the other 25, the new elections will take place only in specific polling stations where the board found evidence of fraud, Getahun said.
The new polls are to be held on August 21 and the board has banned campaigning in the run-up to balloting, for which voter registration will be conducted from Sunday until August 16, he said.
Preliminary results showing a ruling party victory in the May 15 polls sparked protests in the capital and clashes that left at least 36 people dead.
So far, Nebe has released results from 435 constituencies out of which the ruling party has won 263 seats against the opposition coalition's 172.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Ethiopia's Digital Dream
Guardian Unlimited -- Ethiopian government offices are austere affairs. They even lack the typical African decoration of the president's portrait on the wall. None of the furniture would fetch 10p in a British junk shop.
One detail disturbs this pattern - a large flat-screen plasma monitor, plugged into a rack of digital routers, appears to have been teleported from another universe.
The kit is here to support the world's most unexpected e-government programme: Ethiopia, one of Africa's poorest countries, is spending one tenth of its GDP every year on IT. Over the next five years, the government plans to invest more than $100m (£56m) in public sector computers. It aims to equip hundreds of government offices and schools with broadband internet connections. And by 2007, according to the plan, none of Ethiopia's 74 million people will live more than a few kilometres from a broadband access point. The nucleus of this network, 4,000km of optical fibre, has already been laid and will be fully commissioned later this year.
Ethiopia's IT programme is an extreme example of the aspiration of several African countries to leap out of their quagmire of decaying public services with the help of IT. The dream is to skip an entire generation of infrastructure by going directly to internet technology.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, talks of IT providing a short cut to development. "I want to see ICT pervade all our activities as a government, not just in the urban areas. We want to connect all our villages in two to three years. All education services, likewise. We would also like to provide a bit of telemedicine."
Telecommunication of any kind is a novelty in Ethiopia. In the 1980s, when I first visited the country to report the famine, making a phone call outside the capital meant picking up the receiver and waiting for an operator to set up a crackly radio link. Two decades on, only 1.2% of the population have a telephone. Internet usage is low even by African standards.
Meles deals briskly with talk that a country where female life expectancy is 50 and famine still threatens millions should have different priorities. IT is no luxury, he says, but rather a "crucial weapon to fight poverty".
He says the national digital network underpins two specific "pro-poor" projects, to connect schools and local government offices.
Schoolnet is an attempt to overcome Ethiopia's desperate shortage of teachers, especially in remote areas. Schools already receive video lessons broadcast for eight hours a day by satellite TV. The syllabus, based on South African material, is being digitised for transmission over the internet so that teachers at the receiving end can prepare beforehand and control the pace of lessons (so long as their electricity supply is working). Demissew Bekele, head of the government's educational media agency, says this control is essential for children moving from primary to secondary school, where the medium of instruction is English.
The education minister, Genet Zewdie, says there is no alternative to e-learning. "IT is expensive, but ignorance is more expensive."
Woredanet is the country's first step in e-government. For the first time the network connects all 600 of Ethiopia's local councils (woredas) to 11 regional capitals through internet telephone and video-conferencing. Half the links are by cable, and half by satellite. The broadband infrastructure also offers the chance for small towns to install their first payphone.
Previously, official reports would take months to reach the capital. Often early warning signs of famine, such as falling livestock prices, would not get through until a crisis had developed. Woredanet has not yet been tested in such circumstances, however it was mobilised in earnest earlier this year to train officials running the May general election - by far the most open in Ethiopia's long history.
Efficient communications between tiers of government are part of a programme of administrative reform that speaks a language strikingly similar to Tony Blair's vision of citizen-centric e-government.
"The whole purpose is to change the mindset of the civil service," says the man in charge, Tefera Waluwa, minister for capacity building. He talks of "transparency and accountability, fairness, efficiency and effectiveness" enabled by the technology.
Tefera says his reforms have already reduced the time taken to issue a foreign investment licence from 225 days to two hours. His target is one hour. It was done by looking at all the procedures and asking why they were necessary. Unlike his British counterparts, however, Tefera is not seeking to re-engineer public employees out of their jobs. "The government has a shortage of educated people. When someone is redundant in one office, they will be required in another place."
Another innovation in the programme is an information desk in every government agency. Tefera shows off an official name badge on his lapel, which he says is compulsory issue to all his civil servants.
Ministers say that, eventually, the government's networks will become community internet facilities. Today, widespread internet use is a distant dream. Even by the standards of the world's least wired continent, Ethiopian internet usage is low: less than 0.1% of the population goes online. According to Internet World Stats, this places it in the same league as Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo and way behind Kenya (1.2%), let alone South Africa (7.3%). Britain's score is 59%.
Ethiopia's digital infrastructure is being built by the national telecom operator, the publicly-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation. Its main contractors are Cisco Systems (whose guest I was) and Business Connexion, a South African-based IT services firm. The government subsidises the project with a tax break and by underwriting bonds. "We do not spend a cent of the budget per se," says Meles.
In fact, Meles says that money is by no means his main problem. "There are two things we need. One is training and manpower. So whatever technical assistance the west can give with high quality internet technology is the most important thing."
The second is hardware. "I know that people throw away computers that are two or three years old," says Meles. "We could do with five, six, seven-year-old computers that work."
Ethiopia is already receiving used hardware from a Brussels-based organisation Close the Gap. It supplies renovated corporate PCs, sorted in standard packages and with new Windows licences for between €45 and €90 per machine.
One consequence of Ethiopia's knowledge gap is reliance on Windows and other proprietary software. Meles, a former guerilla leader who overthrew the dictator Mengistu in 1991, is at ease discussing the question of open source software.
"Our position is determined by the fact that proprietary suppliers have the money to provide initial support," he says. "To implement open source needs a minimum of training and at the moment we don't have that. In five or 10 years time, we will be in a position to choose."
Whether the dream of IT helping African countries fast-track to development will become reality is impossible to predict. The worry must be that national broadband infrastructures will repeat the story of the 1960s and 1970s, in which ambitious industrial and agricultural projects proved unsustainable after lining the pockets of the African elite.
There are some signs that the new wave will be different. One is the existence of grass-roots demand for IT throughout Africa. In many big cities, cellphone networks and cybercafes have bypassed incompetent and corrupt official analogue channels of communication. In Ethiopia, mobile phones outnumber fixed lines. The phenomenon turns on its head the whole concept of "appropriate technology".
African leaders enjoy demonstrating that the latest digital router can be as appropriate to a developing country as a bullock cart or an efficient wood-burning stove. Ethiopians in particular detest the West's automatic association of their ancient country with famine and charity.
"We're not waiting for handouts," assures Genet, "but we do need partnerships."
In Ethiopia's case, it is especially hard to be objective. The country's distinctive culture and the scale of its problems make any visit an intense experience, especially for anyone who saw something of the bad years. Merely sitting in a government office brings back vivid memories of hearing officials reciting district-by-district statistics of families "affected" and "seriously affected" by famine.
The capital, Addis Ababa, looks so changed that it is easy to fall into the trap of over-optimism about an IT-enabled future. But Ethiopia is not Addis Ababa. So long as the vast majority of its people are subsistence farmers scraping a living from a hostile environment, IT can only be part of a bigger package of slow and painful reform.
That doesn't mean it is not a good investment. In any case, Ethiopians don't regard themselves as second-class human beings: no outsider is going to persuade them to have second-class ambitions.
Close the Gap
www.close-the-gap.org
Ethiopian news agency
www.ena.gov.et
Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation
www.telecom.net.et
One detail disturbs this pattern - a large flat-screen plasma monitor, plugged into a rack of digital routers, appears to have been teleported from another universe.
The kit is here to support the world's most unexpected e-government programme: Ethiopia, one of Africa's poorest countries, is spending one tenth of its GDP every year on IT. Over the next five years, the government plans to invest more than $100m (£56m) in public sector computers. It aims to equip hundreds of government offices and schools with broadband internet connections. And by 2007, according to the plan, none of Ethiopia's 74 million people will live more than a few kilometres from a broadband access point. The nucleus of this network, 4,000km of optical fibre, has already been laid and will be fully commissioned later this year.
Ethiopia's IT programme is an extreme example of the aspiration of several African countries to leap out of their quagmire of decaying public services with the help of IT. The dream is to skip an entire generation of infrastructure by going directly to internet technology.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, talks of IT providing a short cut to development. "I want to see ICT pervade all our activities as a government, not just in the urban areas. We want to connect all our villages in two to three years. All education services, likewise. We would also like to provide a bit of telemedicine."
Telecommunication of any kind is a novelty in Ethiopia. In the 1980s, when I first visited the country to report the famine, making a phone call outside the capital meant picking up the receiver and waiting for an operator to set up a crackly radio link. Two decades on, only 1.2% of the population have a telephone. Internet usage is low even by African standards.
Meles deals briskly with talk that a country where female life expectancy is 50 and famine still threatens millions should have different priorities. IT is no luxury, he says, but rather a "crucial weapon to fight poverty".
He says the national digital network underpins two specific "pro-poor" projects, to connect schools and local government offices.
Schoolnet is an attempt to overcome Ethiopia's desperate shortage of teachers, especially in remote areas. Schools already receive video lessons broadcast for eight hours a day by satellite TV. The syllabus, based on South African material, is being digitised for transmission over the internet so that teachers at the receiving end can prepare beforehand and control the pace of lessons (so long as their electricity supply is working). Demissew Bekele, head of the government's educational media agency, says this control is essential for children moving from primary to secondary school, where the medium of instruction is English.
The education minister, Genet Zewdie, says there is no alternative to e-learning. "IT is expensive, but ignorance is more expensive."
Woredanet is the country's first step in e-government. For the first time the network connects all 600 of Ethiopia's local councils (woredas) to 11 regional capitals through internet telephone and video-conferencing. Half the links are by cable, and half by satellite. The broadband infrastructure also offers the chance for small towns to install their first payphone.
Previously, official reports would take months to reach the capital. Often early warning signs of famine, such as falling livestock prices, would not get through until a crisis had developed. Woredanet has not yet been tested in such circumstances, however it was mobilised in earnest earlier this year to train officials running the May general election - by far the most open in Ethiopia's long history.
Efficient communications between tiers of government are part of a programme of administrative reform that speaks a language strikingly similar to Tony Blair's vision of citizen-centric e-government.
"The whole purpose is to change the mindset of the civil service," says the man in charge, Tefera Waluwa, minister for capacity building. He talks of "transparency and accountability, fairness, efficiency and effectiveness" enabled by the technology.
Tefera says his reforms have already reduced the time taken to issue a foreign investment licence from 225 days to two hours. His target is one hour. It was done by looking at all the procedures and asking why they were necessary. Unlike his British counterparts, however, Tefera is not seeking to re-engineer public employees out of their jobs. "The government has a shortage of educated people. When someone is redundant in one office, they will be required in another place."
Another innovation in the programme is an information desk in every government agency. Tefera shows off an official name badge on his lapel, which he says is compulsory issue to all his civil servants.
Ministers say that, eventually, the government's networks will become community internet facilities. Today, widespread internet use is a distant dream. Even by the standards of the world's least wired continent, Ethiopian internet usage is low: less than 0.1% of the population goes online. According to Internet World Stats, this places it in the same league as Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo and way behind Kenya (1.2%), let alone South Africa (7.3%). Britain's score is 59%.
Ethiopia's digital infrastructure is being built by the national telecom operator, the publicly-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation. Its main contractors are Cisco Systems (whose guest I was) and Business Connexion, a South African-based IT services firm. The government subsidises the project with a tax break and by underwriting bonds. "We do not spend a cent of the budget per se," says Meles.
In fact, Meles says that money is by no means his main problem. "There are two things we need. One is training and manpower. So whatever technical assistance the west can give with high quality internet technology is the most important thing."
The second is hardware. "I know that people throw away computers that are two or three years old," says Meles. "We could do with five, six, seven-year-old computers that work."
Ethiopia is already receiving used hardware from a Brussels-based organisation Close the Gap. It supplies renovated corporate PCs, sorted in standard packages and with new Windows licences for between €45 and €90 per machine.
One consequence of Ethiopia's knowledge gap is reliance on Windows and other proprietary software. Meles, a former guerilla leader who overthrew the dictator Mengistu in 1991, is at ease discussing the question of open source software.
"Our position is determined by the fact that proprietary suppliers have the money to provide initial support," he says. "To implement open source needs a minimum of training and at the moment we don't have that. In five or 10 years time, we will be in a position to choose."
Whether the dream of IT helping African countries fast-track to development will become reality is impossible to predict. The worry must be that national broadband infrastructures will repeat the story of the 1960s and 1970s, in which ambitious industrial and agricultural projects proved unsustainable after lining the pockets of the African elite.
There are some signs that the new wave will be different. One is the existence of grass-roots demand for IT throughout Africa. In many big cities, cellphone networks and cybercafes have bypassed incompetent and corrupt official analogue channels of communication. In Ethiopia, mobile phones outnumber fixed lines. The phenomenon turns on its head the whole concept of "appropriate technology".
African leaders enjoy demonstrating that the latest digital router can be as appropriate to a developing country as a bullock cart or an efficient wood-burning stove. Ethiopians in particular detest the West's automatic association of their ancient country with famine and charity.
"We're not waiting for handouts," assures Genet, "but we do need partnerships."
In Ethiopia's case, it is especially hard to be objective. The country's distinctive culture and the scale of its problems make any visit an intense experience, especially for anyone who saw something of the bad years. Merely sitting in a government office brings back vivid memories of hearing officials reciting district-by-district statistics of families "affected" and "seriously affected" by famine.
The capital, Addis Ababa, looks so changed that it is easy to fall into the trap of over-optimism about an IT-enabled future. But Ethiopia is not Addis Ababa. So long as the vast majority of its people are subsistence farmers scraping a living from a hostile environment, IT can only be part of a bigger package of slow and painful reform.
That doesn't mean it is not a good investment. In any case, Ethiopians don't regard themselves as second-class human beings: no outsider is going to persuade them to have second-class ambitions.
Close the Gap
www.close-the-gap.org
Ethiopian news agency
www.ena.gov.et
Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation
www.telecom.net.et
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