Somalia: One dead as double bomb blasts occur in the capital overnight

Aweys Osman Yusuf Mogadishu 29, May.07 ( Sh.M.Network) At least two bomb explosions occurred in north of the Somali capital overnight. Witnesses told Shabelle that they heard double bomb blasts that took place minutes of each other. Both blasts were targeted at Somali government police forces in Heliwa neighborhood, north of Mogadishu. Ahmed Jama, a resident, said several people including armed guards whose weapons have been licensed by the government have been apprehended. Meanwhile unknown gunman armed with a pistol shot dead the chairman of Baled Weyne, the main town Hiran province, central Somalia. The victim was shot twice in the chest at a junction near Mogadishu’s largest bazaar, Bakara, where government police were stationed. The police cordoned off the area after the incident which happened around 5:25 pm local time. Since the Ethiopian backed government seized control of the insurgent strongholds in north Mogadishu, several bombings were launched on the foreign troops including the vanguard Ugandan forces from the AU. The government asks the African Union member states to send the rest of the peacekeeping forces to the war-torn country, but security and funding concerns have discouraged other African countries from sending troops to Somalia. President Yusuf promised to hold the national reconciliation conference by June despite the ongoing turmoil. The chairman of the conference, Ali Mhadi Mohammed, indicated recently that the number of attendees has been reduced from 3,000 to 1,300 because of lack of funding. Shabelle Media Network Somalia

Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

Saturday, May 26, 2007
Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

What have we Ethiopian achieved that we are rushing to celebrate the ‘Ethiopian new millennium’-2000? Whose millennium is it any way? These are questions that inquisitive minds are likely to ask when observing the rushes and the extraordinary government preparation to celebrate the new millennium in September 2007 Gregorian calendar or known to ‘Ethiopian’ as September 2000, ‘the new millennium’. That comes almost eight years later than the millennium that was celebrated on most of the world’s continents. It is the odd one out I guess. This is perhaps the only millennium of its kind in Africa to be celebrated at this time.


Let us come to the meat of the argument to attempt to answer the questions. The facts scream that Ethiopia’s 76,511,887 population according to CIA (2007) are leaving in abject poverty, major epidemic diseases such HIV/AID are spreading at alarming rates with diverse consequences, the country is involved in major wars and conflicts both internally and externally. Economy-wise there is no story worth telling; those notorious adjectives and pictures which describe the economy are still there - ‘poverty-stricken’ for instance. There is nothing false about the description because it is fact that more than 80 % of its population are unemployed. But sometimes statistics is generous; it takes from the ruling party companies and some people who can afford and says that the per capita GDP is $ 100 ‘giving’ the money to the 80 % unemployed people who do not even have that $ 100. The cause for all major cause for all these appears to be the unending wars and conflicts within and neighbouring countries because of lack of freedom and democracy to mobilise it people. Government’s war spending has even devastated the non- exiting economy for most of its people, BBC. Over 10 big rebel movements are active including the Oromo liberation front and the Ogaden Liberation Front are struggling for freedom because the government has proved that peaceful dialogues is not possible as long as it there.


To me as person who has observed and experienced the pains of this country, most people have more reason to mourn, to cry, and to curse the millennium, 2000, than celebrate it. The government has started the campaign for the celebration at the beginning of this year. A so called ‘millennium celebration secretariat’ (the whole millennium plan is found in the ruling party’s press) has offices in every region and cities in the country to coordinate the effort. EPRDF’s surrogates parties are rushing to spend ‘donors’ money and to achieve publicity internationally. That is because the government wants the world to forget the massacres on all the three de facto elections that took place from 1992-2005 where tanks and helicopters were deployed on protesting civilians to silence them from speaking against injustices of immeasurable magnitude.


Will thousands of families who lost someone to conflicts, wars, hunger even put smile, to the maximum, let alone celebrate the so called ‘Ethiopian millennium-2000’? That is impossible when everyone is aware that the government is trying to project a positive image about itself regardless of the screaming facts about what they have made that country to be. There seem to be many more reasons to mourn than celebrate. My attempt is not to finish all of them but to show that the Ethiopian government is using the millennium propaganda to campaign for acceptance amongst world leaders. The millennium is planned with a ‘great run’ event on which they want to force 30, 000 people out to run to attract the attention said.


Deconstructed, the Ethiopian millennium will be, as the preparations show, celebration of a minority ruling class and affiliates who have amassed the wealth of the poor unjustly. On the millennium date, stories will be told that ‘Ethiopia has never been colonised’. This is completely controversial areas where all people of the country have not yet formed the country by their consent that is agreed to be ‘Ethiopia’. The cultural and linguistic expression of the ruling group has been imposed on rest of the country. Excuse me if you think this is outrageous and not true. Of course I’m a lot patriotic than you think I may not be. May be I love my country better than you do. I am only describing that there is not yet a national identity or a just national state formed since the nations 100 years history by the consent of its people. Ethiopian is an empire which was born and we opened our eyes to see it clamp down on us. Yet, we are ‘Ethiopians’. The year does not matter, it can be 3000 thousand as some historians would flippantly love to write. But where are we in those hundred or 3000 thousand years pretending that history is true. It is painful to and violent to physically fight, but I am only talking, just conversation so that you can question what there really is to celebrate. As rational beings thinking is what precedes doing. Let us think and do something…


Without achieving any freedom and democracy, and as we daily see the all-rounded meltdown of the Empire (oh sorry, I forgot it is now called the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia), it is hard to celebrate but mourn, but cry, but sob, but think that our own land is not ours. What millennium with a pack of 77 million dying people. Ok, I have forgotten the ruling tyranny is not amongst the dying. It leverages the millennium celebration to cover up the stinks in its backyards to stay in power for some more years. This government off people to itself, by itself, and against people is never tired of duping donors to convince them to vote for the cancellation of its debts. The debts were used on military spending not on the bread that people desperately need as the facts suggest. And it will use the new millennium whistles for the same attraction.



Qeerransoo Biyyaa

Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

Saturday, May 26, 2007
Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

What have we Ethiopian achieved that we are rushing to celebrate the ‘Ethiopian new millennium’-2000? Whose millennium is it any way? These are questions that inquisitive minds are likely to ask when observing the rushes and the extraordinary government preparation to celebrate the new millennium in September 2007 Gregorian calendar or known to ‘Ethiopian’ as September 2000, ‘the new millennium’. That comes almost eight years later than the millennium that was celebrated on most of the world’s continents. It is the odd one out I guess. This is perhaps the only millennium of its kind in Africa to be celebrated at this time.


Let us come to the meat of the argument to attempt to answer the questions. The facts scream that Ethiopia’s 76,511,887 population according to CIA (2007) are leaving in abject poverty, major epidemic diseases such HIV/AID are spreading at alarming rates with diverse consequences, the country is involved in major wars and conflicts both internally and externally. Economy-wise there is no story worth telling; those notorious adjectives and pictures which describe the economy are still there - ‘poverty-stricken’ for instance. There is nothing false about the description because it is fact that more than 80 % of its population are unemployed. But sometimes statistics is generous; it takes from the ruling party companies and some people who can afford and says that the per capita GDP is $ 100 ‘giving’ the money to the 80 % unemployed people who do not even have that $ 100. The cause for all major cause for all these appears to be the unending wars and conflicts within and neighbouring countries because of lack of freedom and democracy to mobilise it people. Government’s war spending has even devastated the non- exiting economy for most of its people, BBC. Over 10 big rebel movements are active including the Oromo liberation front and the Ogaden Liberation Front are struggling for freedom because the government has proved that peaceful dialogues is not possible as long as it there.


To me as person who has observed and experienced the pains of this country, most people have more reason to mourn, to cry, and to curse the millennium, 2000, than celebrate it. The government has started the campaign for the celebration at the beginning of this year. A so called ‘millennium celebration secretariat’ (the whole millennium plan is found in the ruling party’s press) has offices in every region and cities in the country to coordinate the effort. EPRDF’s surrogates parties are rushing to spend ‘donors’ money and to achieve publicity internationally. That is because the government wants the world to forget the massacres on all the three de facto elections that took place from 1992-2005 where tanks and helicopters were deployed on protesting civilians to silence them from speaking against injustices of immeasurable magnitude.


Will thousands of families who lost someone to conflicts, wars, hunger even put smile, to the maximum, let alone celebrate the so called ‘Ethiopian millennium-2000’? That is impossible when everyone is aware that the government is trying to project a positive image about itself regardless of the screaming facts about what they have made that country to be. There seem to be many more reasons to mourn than celebrate. My attempt is not to finish all of them but to show that the Ethiopian government is using the millennium propaganda to campaign for acceptance amongst world leaders. The millennium is planned with a ‘great run’ event on which they want to force 30, 000 people out to run to attract the attention said.


Deconstructed, the Ethiopian millennium will be, as the preparations show, celebration of a minority ruling class and affiliates who have amassed the wealth of the poor unjustly. On the millennium date, stories will be told that ‘Ethiopia has never been colonised’. This is completely controversial areas where all people of the country have not yet formed the country by their consent that is agreed to be ‘Ethiopia’. The cultural and linguistic expression of the ruling group has been imposed on rest of the country. Excuse me if you think this is outrageous and not true. Of course I’m a lot patriotic than you think I may not be. May be I love my country better than you do. I am only describing that there is not yet a national identity or a just national state formed since the nations 100 years history by the consent of its people. Ethiopian is an empire which was born and we opened our eyes to see it clamp down on us. Yet, we are ‘Ethiopians’. The year does not matter, it can be 3000 thousand as some historians would flippantly love to write. But where are we in those hundred or 3000 thousand years pretending that history is true. It is painful to and violent to physically fight, but I am only talking, just conversation so that you can question what there really is to celebrate. As rational beings thinking is what precedes doing. Let us think and do something…


Without achieving any freedom and democracy, and as we daily see the all-rounded meltdown of the Empire (oh sorry, I forgot it is now called the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia), it is hard to celebrate but mourn, but cry, but sob, but think that our own land is not ours. What millennium with a pack of 77 million dying people. Ok, I have forgotten the ruling tyranny is not amongst the dying. It leverages the millennium celebration to cover up the stinks in its backyards to stay in power for some more years. This government off people to itself, by itself, and against people is never tired of duping donors to convince them to vote for the cancellation of its debts. The debts were used on military spending not on the bread that people desperately need as the facts suggest. And it will use the new millennium whistles for the same attraction.



Qeerransoo Biyyaa

Amnesty International Report 2007

News


Amnesty International Report 2007
ETHIOPIA

FEDERAL DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ETHIOPIA

Head of state: Girma Wolde-Giorgis
Head of government: Meles Zenawi
Death penalty: retentionist
International Criminal Court: not ratified
There were a number of political trials of opposition party leaders, journalists and human rights defenders. A parliamentary commission reported that the security forces did not use excessive force when they killed 193 demonstrators in 2005, but defecting commission leaders said there had been excessive use of force but that their findings had been changed by the government. Scores of people were detained and some reportedly tortured for opposition activities. Civilians were detained and some were tortured or killed in the armed conflicts in the Oromia and Somali regions, and also in Gambella region. Thousands of political detainees arrested in late 2005 were released but several thousand others still remained in detention without charge or trial. The "genocide" trial of the former Dergue government (1974-1991) ended in December after 12 years with convictions of 33 members in court and 25 others in their absence, including former President Mengistu Hailemariam. Several death sentences were passed by courts but there were no executions.

Background
Five million people were dependent on emergency food aid, especially in the drought-affected Somali region.

The government continued to face armed opposition from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), both based in Eritrea. Ethiopia supported the armed Sudan-based Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA).

Ethiopia sent military assistance to Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), contravening a UN arms embargo, to support it against the forces of the "Islamic Courts", which captured the capital, Mogadishu, in June and extended control over most of central and southern Somalia. In October, Ethiopia increased military assistance to the TFG after the Council of Somali Islamic Courts (COSIC) declared jihad (holy war) against Ethiopia. After increasing clashes with COSIC forces, the large Ethiopian force defeated COSIC in several days of fighting in December, and took control of Mogadishu. It placed the TFG force in power and pursued fleeing COSIC fighters to southwestern Somalia.

The UN Security Council extended until January 2007 the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) but criticized the stalemate in negotiations over the contested border. Ethiopia said it accepted the International Boundary Commission's judgment following the 1998-2000 armed conflict, but refused to implement it.

The National Human Rights Commission, legally established in 2004, held a first workshop for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in mid-2006. It had not started operating by the end of the year.

Political trials
Following the disputed May 2005 elections and mass arrests of opposition party activists, leaders of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), journalists and civil society activists were brought to trial in May. They faced charges including treason, outrage against the Constitution and other capital charges. The 76 defendants included Hailu Shawel, the CUD president, Berhanu Negga, an economics professor, and Mesfin Woldemariam, a retired geography professor. In addition, 34 prominent Ethiopians in exile were charged in their absence. Five Voice of America radio journalists who were US citizens were among nine defendants discharged before the trial started.

All but three defendants refused to defend themselves on the ground that they did not expect a fair trial. The trial had not concluded by the end of 2006. AI considered they were prisoners of conscience and sent a trial observer in October.

Four other CUD-related trials on similar charges were not completed at the end of the year. In the trial of Kifle Tigeneh, an elected member of parliament, and 32 other people, some defendants complained in court that they had been tortured to make false confessions. Berhane Mogese, a lawyer, was on trial with 22 others.

A separate trial of Mesfin Woldemariam and Berhanu Negga continued. They were accused of instigating violence during demonstrations at Addis Ababa University in 2000.

Journalists
Fourteen independent press journalists arrested in November 2005 were tried with the CUD leaders. Kifle Mulat, president of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association, was charged in his absence and sought asylum abroad. Two other journalists, Solomon Aregawi and Goshu Moges, were tried in separate capital cases.

All private newspapers which had criticized the government in connection with the elections remained shut down. Many journalists fled the country.

• Frezer Negash, a reporter for a US-based website, was arrested in February when three months pregnant, but released on bail two weeks later.

At least four journalists were charged under the Press Law in connection with alleged offences committed some years previously.

• In March, Abraham Gebrekidan of Politika magazine was jailed for a year for allegedly publishing false information.

A new Press Law, proposed by the government in 2003 to replace the 1992 Press Law, was still under debate. Combined with provisions in the new Criminal Code of May 2005, it could lead to further legal restrictions on the freedom of the media and imprisonment of journalists.

Human rights defenders
Among defendants in the CUD trial were four human rights defenders: Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, former president of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council; Daniel Bekelle, a lawyer and staff member of ActionAid; Netsanet Demissie, chair of the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia; and Kassahun Kebede, an Ethiopian Teachers Association (ETA) official.

Two ETA officials were arrested in October without explanation but released on bail after some days. Three other officials were arrested in December and allegedly tortured. The ETA, Ethiopia's longest-established trade union, continued to contest court actions by the Ministry of Justice to ban it and replace it by a pro-government organization bearing the same name.

Political arrests
Dozens of people were arrested in Addis Ababa in late 2006 for possession of a book secretly written in prison by Berhanu Negga or a calendar containing images of the CUD prisoners and calling for civil disobedience.

• Yealemzawde Bekelle, a lawyer working for the European Commission in Addis Ababa, was arrested in October, reportedly after being named by a tortured prisoner. She was released on bail after eight days' incommunicado detention.

Several thousand opposition supporters detained in different parts of the country after the November 2005 demonstration were released on bail after some weeks or months in detention without charge. However, some thousands were believed to be still detained without charge or trial during 2006.

Detentions and killings in the regions
In the Oromia region, there were large-scale arrests in different areas during anti-government demonstrations, particularly by school and college students. Some protesters called for the release of Diribi Demissie, a Mecha Tulema Association community leader on trial since 2004. He and his co-defendants were charged with supporting the OLF, but AI considered them prisoners of conscience. Hundreds of Oromo people detained in November 2005 were reportedly still held during 2006 without charge or trial, as well as others detained in previous years for alleged OLF connections.

Numerous people accused of ONLF connections were reportedly detained in the Somali region, and many political prisoners arrested in previous years were still held without charge or trial. Extrajudicial executions were also reported.

In Gambela region in the southwest, there were scores of arrests of members of the Anuak ethnic group. Hundreds of people arrested during mass killings in Gambela town in December 2003 were still detained without charge or trial.

Some 60 peaceful demonstrators belonging to the Sidama ethnic group in the southern region were arrested in Awassa and other southern towns in March. They were all released on bail by May.

Commission of inquiry
In March parliament established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the killings during the 2005 demonstrations. The Commission, headed by a judge, took evidence from the public and NGOs and interviewed CUD leaders in prison. In July, the Commission's chairperson fled the country and his replacement did the same in September. They alleged that the Prime Minister had instructed them to change their finding - that the security forces had committed excessive force - which they were not willing to do.

In November the report presented to parliament stated that the Commission had found no evidence of excessive use of force by the security forces. The list of people killed numbered 193, including six police officers, far more than the 78 reported by police. The Commission found that 765 people, including 99 women and several children, had been wounded, almost four times the police figure.

Victims had been shot by army or police bullets, some in the back while escaping and others possibly targeted by snipers. At least 17 people imprisoned earlier in Kaliti prison, mostly on remand for ordinary criminal offences but also some political prisoners, were shot dead in their cells at the same time on suspicion of supporting the demonstrations and trying to escape.

Torture and ill-treatment
Torture was reported by methods including electric shocks and beatings on the feet while tied upside down. The victims were political prisoners, particularly those detained on suspicion of supporting armed political groups such as the OLF and ONLF.

• Alemayehu Fantu, an engineer and supermarket owner in Addis Ababa, was reportedly tortured in October to make him admit to publishing or distributing the CUD calendar, and to name others. He was taken to court with visible injuries, which the judges did not investigate, but released on bail on November.

Several of the CUD leaders held in Kaliti prison in Addis Ababa were at first denied medical treatment for illnesses contracted as a result of harsh and unhygienic prison conditions. Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, aged 76, was refused physiotherapy for back and leg complaints. There were fears for his health as a result of his hunger strikes in December 2005 and February 2006. He recovered quickly, however, after being treated in hospital for pneumonia in September. There were serious delays in provision of medical treatment for Hailu Shawel for eye surgery, and Berhanu Negga for a heart complaint.

• Serkalem Fasil, a journalist who was seven months pregnant, was taken to hospital to give birth, but denied intensive care treatment for her baby son. She was returned to prison soon after the birth, taking the baby with her.

Four prisoners of conscience were moved as punishment to the Central Prison (Karchele), which was in the process of demolition. CUD leaders Muluneh Eyuel and Amanuel Araya and journalists Eskinder Negga and Sissay Agena were kept for over two months in dark underground cells in solitary confinement.

Dergue trial
The trial of members of the 1974 military government known as the Dergue ended in December after 12 years. Of the 72 people originally charged, 33 had been in custody since 1991, 14 others had died in custody and 25 were tried in their absence, including former President Mengistu Hailemariam, who had asylum in Zimbabwe. All were found guilty of capital offences including genocide and mass killings, with sentencing due in 2007. The long series of other trials of officials of the former government for killings during the "Red Terror" campaign against "anti-revolutionaries" in 1977-79 was nearly completed. Many defendants were jailed for long periods (which most had already served, leading to their release) and several death sentences were imposed. Many convictions went to appeal.

Violence against women
According to Ethiopian women's organizations, violence against women through domestic violence, rape and harmful traditional practices, including female genital mutilation and early marriage, remained widespread. Female genital mutilation was prevalent among many ethnic groups of different faiths in remote rural areas and abductions of girls were associated with early marriages.

Death penalty
Ten death sentences for ordinary crimes were commuted by presidential clemency in September. Several other death sentences for alleged politically related violent crimes were still in force. There were no executions.

AI country reports/visits
Report
• Ethiopia: Prisoners of conscience on trial for treason - opposition party leaders, human rights defenders and journalists (AI Index: AFR 25/013/2006)

TPLF and Tigrean Identity politics

TPLF and Tigrean Identity politics
Kallacha Dubbi



The TPLF dominated Ethiopian leadership holds the view that the Eritrean government plays the most destabilizing role in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian opposition forces and Eritrea on the other hand believe that it is the TPLF led Ethiopian government that is severely destabilizing the region. And yet the US foreign office is concerned by a "rising extremism of Islam", accusation which rests pointedly at Somalia and perhaps somehow at the Sudan.

I argue that the TPLF's politics has been a source of material, political, community, and intellectual development of the Tigrean ethnic class over the last 16 years, and thus created an identity which has been the primary source of instability in the region. The genesis and consequences of this identity politics vis-à-vis the rest of Ethiopia have been bashed repeatedly but not put in an argued perspective of a short format.

On Eritrea's role: Eritrea's role in the region has often been grossly exaggerated by promoting the human rights abuse in Eritrea into the forefront of the regional politics. Given that Eritrea's human rights records are inherent results of the perpetual state of war in which it is forcedly placed by Meles, and given that there is no ethnic cleansing in that country, Meles' has clearly tipped the scale of human rights abuse for the region if not for the world. No matter how intensely human rights are abused in Eritrea, these abuses simply do not constitute a regional agenda capable of destabilizing the Horn. This is by no means to argue that Eritrea does not have its share of human rights burden in satisfying the mood of an emerging middle class and rewarding aspirations of a population that may be growing impatient of life under perpetual cloud of war, anticipating the unknown. While legitimately critiquing Eritrea's human rights records, one must bare in mind Eritrea's unruly neighbor who has vested interest in making things go wrong in Eritrea. Simply stated, the Eritrean has to temporarily choose either a full blown human rights or compromise its hard-earned freedom. Here, I am sure I am opening a Pandora's Box - a tired debate of the Eritrean community in the hope that a complete stranger may offer un-invested view point. But I know for sure, that Eritrea's friendship with the majority of the Ethiopian population including the oppressed carries a strategic weight for peace and prosperity in the region, including the oppressor.

On Extreme Islam: In the past many writers have argued that the rise of extreme Islam in the Horn was a designed panic or a bogus goat for Ethiopia's venture into Somalia, and even more likely, a scheme to facilitate the US's recoup in the region. This seems consistent with the creation of a new U.S. Africa Command headquarters, AFRICOM, to coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent. Although there were extreme Islamic attacks to US establishments in the Horn, it is simply not known if these attacks could have precipitated into a powerhouse capable of overtaking Somalia and launching precipitous attacks to US interests there or anywhere. The US simply chose not to take a risk, no matter what the cost of siding with an unpopular regime in Ethiopia would be. So, there is a funny logic to the US interest in the Horn - it doesn't want to place the Ethiopian opposition on a hopeless bench, but it also doesn't want to demote Meles in which case it would have to deal with Somalia in person. Thus, the current US policy in east Africa is a result of the mishmash of its disapproval of Meles' abuse of human rights and its desire to guard what it perceives as US strategic interest in the Horn. In this policy, one can clearly read into the level of neglect the US demonstrates towards the genesis and potential impact of the Tigrean hegemony, the potential destruction of the Ethiopian state as a consequence, and the critical role of the TPLF towards this precarious end. The cost of this destruction could be much higher than the feared rise of Islamists in Somalia, which many believe had orderly manifestations and localized tendencies.

On the Tigrean hegemony: There is a thesis among Ethiopian historians that Tigrean nationalism has been historically belligerent and more intolerant than the rest. The Ethiopian historian Bahiru Zewde writes about the last Tigrean emperor, Yohannes, as follows: "The Muslims of Wallo were told to renounce their faith and embrace Christianity or face confiscation of their land and property. Thus, two prominent converts were Muhammad Ali, baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Mikael, and Abba Wataw, who became Hayle-Maryam. Others confirmed outwardly, praying to the Christian God in the daytime and to the Muslim Allah at night. . There was no room for Islam in his (Yohannes) ideological world. The thrust of his repression directed against Wallo forced some of them to flee to other areas. an Argobba Muslim leader by the name Sheik Talha fled to the Sudan with his followers."

Coming from Tigrean leaders, there is a parallel to be drawn between Yohannes' attempt to exterminate Islam from Ethiopia and Meles' decision to invade Somalia to suppress unarmed Islamists emerging in a country where international embargo has virtually dried any war machinery.

The TPLF started its guerilla resistance with a simple motto: initially to create independent Tigray, but later to free Tigray/Ethiopia from invidious governance of the Derg, by running a political ideology that openly claimed to be more Marxist than the Marxists who then ruled the country with a vicious duty to kill. The combination of its leftist claim through and by which the current Tigrean-based Ethiopian leadership usurped power, with its ethnic identity which it used to galvanize mass support and cleanse out the EPRP from the Asimba hills of Tigrean territory, give the TPLF its ethno-political distinctiveness.

The TPLF's distinctiveness sharply contrasted the ethno-political composition of the Derg; the somewhat inclusive but Amhara dominated Derg army was suddenly replaced by an exclusively Tigrean army, reigning over the entire country. This unexpected collapse of the sense of Amhara polity, though camouflaged as Ethiopian, created a retreated void in the military role of the rest of Ethiopia, especially the south whose modest share was in the rise. Within a growing Tigrean ruling class, this void was marked by diacritic presence of the xPDOs whose role simply legitimized Tigrean supremacy than dilute its pronounced exclusivity as intended. It was clear Meles and the TPLF have fussily calculated that Tigray elites will be assured and guaranteed of continued rule of Ethiopia so long as this new army remained exclusively Tigrean, or so long as its command is not challenged militarily. The exclusivity of the TPLF army now turned into "Ethiopian army" has been morphed the same way as the civic landscape was morphed - unchallenging and obedient members of the southern societies were recruited into the army and kept at low ranks and also at bay. A few handpicked non-Tigrean military personnel with little capacity were appointed as Generals but they were controlled by Tigrean captains operating from the same office as the General. The level of mistrust and the unconventionality of this military hierarchy are similar to that of racist South Africa where an ordinary white soldier gave orders to black army officers. For this reason, the non-Tigrean Ethiopian army has low moral, and it can be safely argued, that there is indeed no Ethiopian army but Tigrean. A recent opposition report states that 90% of the Ethiopian Generals are Tigreans, 80% for the Colonels. For a Tigrean population constituting only about 6% of Ethiopia's population, this ratio offers a grim reality of the Ethiopian political perspective.

This passed November the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense suspended three generals: Maj-Gen Alemshet Degefe, ex-Ethiopian air force commander, Brig-Gen Kumer Asfaw and Brig-Gen Asamenew Tsege. This suspension comes after the defection of several high ranking officers including Gen. Kemal Gelchu who joined the OLF. This has effectively rid the top army echelon of non-Tigreans unless the very few left whose loyalty is assured through their excessive brutality or shared racketeering.

The TPLF has therefore plainly demonstrated that it uses Tigrean identity politics as a tactic - to manipulate the Ethiopian political power blocks based on self-identification as an eminent supra-ethnic group that shall enjoy the innate of being and becoming above the crowd. With such manipulation, the TPLF has effectively marginalized the Tigrean people who are now perceived to be outside of the mainstream society. The Tigreo-ethiopian common basis has broken down, and there seem to be no real opportunities in the near sight for peacefully ending this marginalization.

In a recent brave political gesture, the OLF created a political platform, the AFD, partly to facilitate a means by which this Tigrean marginalization can be put to an end, and all political forces of the country be integrated into a mainstream constructive policy without sabotaging discrete ethnic cultures or identities. The idea was born from an authentic concern that Tigrean intolerance is primarily responsible for this marginalization, and that the OLF should take a leading role to change the mainstream politics of the country to create a safe bridge of communication or even a forbearing pluralism, without recourse to the Tigrean oppressive homogeneity now at play. Ironically, this constructive proposal was cause for a split among some Ethiopian long-distance nationalists, and the TPLF completely rejected the initiative opting for a beefed up military offensive against the OLF instead. The initiative put the political ideologies of Ethiopia that thrive with and for a passion to dominate, in the defensive. It also exposed the tenacity of some Ethiopian elites to their passion for ethnic domination.

In a general sense, Tigrean nationalism has manifested itself as a carrier of the official state ideology of Ethiopia expressed along economic, ethnic, or cultural lines. In fact, it now seems obvious, that the Tigrean domination of Ethiopia has intoxicated the Tigrean upper and middle class transforming its ethnicity to xenophobic.

The TPLF derives its political legitimacy from the active participation of Tigreans, matched by the will of the TPLF to represent the will of the Tigreans above and beyond that of the rest. Simply stated, the TPLF is openly discriminatory in its policy. In the long run, this discrimination is as destructive to the Tigrean identity as it is to the non-Tigreans, a recipe for a collective demise. The hitherto failure of the Tigrean scholars and political elites to see this self-destruction and side with the ultimate good of the Tigrean population, should be taken as an inconceivably ill-bred and short-sighted politics, unfortunately so common in Ethiopia.

The TPLF has implied and manifested that the country is a community of Tigreans who contribute to the maintenance and strength of the TPLF, and that other ethnic groups or even the individual exist to contribute to this Tigrean goal. In the words of Mussolini: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato", meaning "everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" - and of course here the state is the TPLF.

It is also likely that the TPLF will revive irredentist claims to Eritrea to boost Ethiopian nationalism and draw aggressive attention from orthodox Ethiopia to defend against a perceived Eritrean threat or simply reclaim a sea outlet for the country. This will be driven by a will to buy more political life than a legitimate concern for Ethiopia. But in the eyes of conservative Ethiopians, the entire Eritrea, or at least Asab remains the irredenta, offering a pool of political backup. The TPLF has sufficiently proven that it indeed manifests aggressive irredentist traits by annexing parts of Gondar and Wallo to Tigrean territory, and attempting to cut a piece of Eritrean land which resulted in the death of 70,000 people.

In conclusion, given the extreme nature of the blatant ethnic inequity perpetuated by Meles in favor of Tigray, which has put Tigray and Tigreans in a presently reviled and potentially liable position, it defies logic that we do not see mass defiance of Tigrean elites to the TPLF domination. Furthermore, the cruel stance of past Tigrean leadership to Islam should have demanded caution from Meles in his venture to Somalia to squash Islam. It also defies conventional logic that the level of dislike for the TPLF which is now rampant in and among Ethiopians goes on virtually ignored and unnoticed by the TPLF. The widespread psychological rejection of TPLF as a bad thing that happened to the country, the level of popular resistance that seems to be curing into hate for Tigray, is not sensed by Tigrean elites - for the sake of Tigreans if not peace. It is mind-boggling to know that Meles spends millions of dollars to buy the support of the US government through highly placed lobbyists while doing everything to loose the respect and support of the entire Ethiopian population. This Tigrean identity politics, selfish in its value, vicious in its extent, and shortsited in its vision, is the primary destabilizing force in the Horn of Africa.

May 25, 2007

KD

Somalia: Four Somali government officials kidnapped

Somalia: Four Somali government officials kidnapped
Aweys Osman Yusuf


Mogadishu 27, May.07 ( Sh.M.Network) Four Somali government officials based in Hamar Jajab district, south of the capital, have been abducted by unknown gunmen overnight, according to relatives.

Ahmed Sheik Mohamoud, the district commissioner, revealed to the press on Sunday that the four officials in the division were forcibly taken with gun point by unknown armed men in a small car with no plate number.

“These men were among the local administrators assigned for the district by the federal government and until now we did not hear from their captors, neither do we know why they have been kidnapped,” he said.

He stressed the report has been submitted to the mayor, Mohammed Dheere, who promised restoring peace and security in the gun-infested city, Mogadishu.

This is the first time that unidentified gun men took government officials hostage No group has yet claimed responsibility for the seizure of these officials.

Meanwhile Ethiopia reopens its embassy in the Somali capital Mogadishu for the first time in 16 years. Ethiopian foreign minister, Seum Mesfin, erected the Ethiopian flag inside the newly opened embassy near the presidential palace (Villa Somalia) at the center of the capital.

Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Celebrating the Ethiopian millennium under poverty, war and oppression

What have we Ethiopian achieved that we are rushing to celebrate the ‘Ethiopian new millennium’-2000? Whose millennium is it any way? These are questions that inquisitive minds are likely to ask when observing the rushes and the extraordinary government preparation to celebrate the new millennium in September 2007 Gregorian calendar or known to ‘Ethiopian’ as September 2000, ‘the new millennium’. That comes almost eight years later than the millennium that was celebrated on most of the world’s continents. It is the odd one out I guess. This is perhaps the only millennium of its kind in Africa to be celebrated at this time.

Let us come to the meat of the argument to attempt to answer the questions. The facts scream that Ethiopia’s 76,511,887 population according to CIA (2007) are leaving in abject poverty, major epidemic diseases such HIV/AID are spreading at alarming rates with diverse consequences, the country is involved in major wars and conflicts both internally and externally. Economy-wise there is no story worth telling; those notorious adjectives and pictures which describe the economy are still there - ‘poverty-stricken’ for instance. There is nothing false about the description because it is fact that more than 80 % of its population are unemployed. But sometimes statistics is generous; it takes from the ruling party companies and some people who can afford and says that the per capita GDP is $ 100 ‘giving’ the money to the 80 % unemployed people who do not even have that $ 100. The cause for all major cause for all these appears to be the unending wars and conflicts within and neighbouring countries because of lack of freedom and democracy to mobilise it people. Government’s war spending has even devastated the non- exiting economy for most of its people, BBC. Over 10 big rebel movements are active including the Oromo liberation front and the Ogaden Liberation Front are struggling for freedom because the government has proved that peaceful dialogues is not possible as long as it there.

To me as person who has observed and experienced the pains of this country, most people have more reason to mourn, to cry, and to curse the millennium, 2000, than celebrate it. The government has started the campaign for the celebration at the beginning of this year. A so called ‘millennium celebration secretariat’ (the whole millennium plan is found in the ruling party’s press) has offices in every region and cities in the country to coordinate the effort. EPRDF’s surrogates parties are rushing to spend ‘donors’ money and to achieve publicity internationally. That is because the government wants the world to forget the massacres on all the three de facto elections that took place from 1992-2005 where tanks and helicopters were deployed on protesting civilians to silence them from speaking against injustices of immeasurable magnitude.

Will thousands of families who lost someone to conflicts, wars, hunger even put smile, to the maximum, let alone celebrate the so called ‘Ethiopian millennium-2000’? That is impossible when everyone is aware that the government is trying to project a positive image about itself regardless of the screaming facts about what they have made that country to be. There seem to be many more reasons to mourn than celebrate. My attempt is not to finish all of them but to show that the Ethiopian government is using the millennium propaganda to campaign for acceptance amongst world leaders. The millennium is planned with a ‘great run’ event on which they want to force 30, 000 people out to run to attract the attention said.

Deconstructed, the Ethiopian millennium will be, as the preparations show, celebration of a minority ruling class and affiliates who have amassed the wealth of the poor unjustly. On the millennium date, stories will be told that ‘Ethiopia has never been colonised’. This is completely controversial areas where all people of the country have not yet formed the country by their consent that is agreed to be ‘Ethiopia’. The cultural and linguistic expression of the ruling group has been imposed on rest of the country. Excuse me if you think this is outrageous and not true. Of course I’m a lot patriotic than you think I may not be. May be I love my country better than you do. I am only describing that there is not yet a national identity or a just national state formed since the nations 100 years history by the consent of its people. Ethiopian is an empire which was born and we opened our eyes to see it clamp down on us. Yet, we are ‘Ethiopians’. The year does not matter, it can be 3000 thousand as some historians would flippantly love to write. But where are we in those hundred or 3000 thousand years pretending that history is true. It is painful to and violent to physically fight, but I am only talking, just conversation so that you can question what there really is to celebrate. As rational beings thinking is what precedes doing. Let us think and do something…

Without achieving any freedom and democracy, and as we daily see the all-rounded meltdown of the Empire (oh sorry, I forgot it is now called the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia), it is hard to celebrate but mourn, but cry, but sob, but think that our own land is not ours. What millennium with a pack of 77 million dying people. Ok, I have forgotten the ruling tyranny is not amongst the dying. It leverages the millennium celebration to cover up the stinks in its backyards to stay in power for some more years. This government off people to itself, by itself, and against people is never tired of duping donors to convince them to vote for the cancellation of its debts. The debts were used on military spending not on the bread that people desperately need as the facts suggest. And it will use the new millennium whistles for the same attraction.

Qeerransoo Biyyaa

Africa's secret prisons

May 21, 2007

BYLINE: Christopher Thompson

HIGHLIGHT:

Observations on rendition

BODY:


Regional African wars rarely excite much media interest and Ethiopia's invasion into neighbouring Somalia has been widely greeted with a collective sigh. Even reports of civilian bombardment and television pictures of refugees have failed to elicit much response; events across the Red Sea in Iraq have constantly overshadowed the violence elsewhere.

But, with the world's gaze averted towards the Middle East, the United States government has quietly opened up another front in its war on terror, in East Africa - catching many innocent people in the crossfire.

Central to the new strategy is the use of Ethiopian jails in the "rendition" and interrogation of terror suspects. Hundreds of these, including Britons, have been held incommunicado by the Ethiopian and Kenyan authorities on suspicion of terrorism, according to US-based Human Rights Watch.

In what has been described as "Africa's Guantanamo", the organisation accuses Washington of complicity in the maltreatment of these detainees and of using Ethiopia as a proxy ally in Somalia.

Ethiopia's official rationale for its December invasion was to restore order in a country that has been without a central government since the 1991 collapse of the dictatorship led by strongman Siad Barre. The Ethiopians claimed they were "invited" to invade by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, which had been prevented from entering Mogadishu, the de facto capital, by fighters from the militant Union of Islamic Courts, which held sway there at the time.

And the US has had its own score to settle.

"The US gave [Ethiopia] the green light and logistical support . . . similar to Israel's intervention in Lebanon," says Cedric Barnes, a member of the international affairs think-tank Chatham House's Horn of Africa group. "It was after al-Qaeda suspects for the [1998] bombing of its embassies in Nairobi [Kenya] and Dar es Salaam [Tanzania]."

The stakes were raised when the US used air strikes against three al-Qaeda leaders attempting to flee into Kenya in January, killing scores of civilians. Later, the Pentagon admitted the bombs may have missed their target after none of the intended was found dead.

At the same time, US special forces, along with Kenyan and Ethiopian authorities, were arresting more suspects in operations along the Kenyan-Somali border in December 2006 and January 2007. An unknown number were subsequently "rendered" onwards to Ethiopia.

Last month, Ethiopia's foreign affairs ministry acknowledged that 41 people were held "after being captured by the joint forces of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and Ethiopia". It added that 29 were listed for release, including four Britons, and that there were no "secret" prisons.

But, according to manifests shown to the New Statesman by Human Rights Watch, at least 85 people were deported from Kenya to Somalia on three flights chartered by two little-known airlines, African Express Airways and Sudan's Blue Bird Aviation, on 20 and 27 January and 10 February.

The other 44 captives remain missing.

In April, a man called Ali Jog, a blue-eyed, blond-haired Danish Muslim convert, was released from Ethiopia after being captured in Somalia and flown to a jail in Addis Ababa. Jog appeared on none of the flight logs - sparking fears that < B>Ethiopia is holding more prisoners than it admits.

One human-rights activist disputes Ethiopia's figures, saying there are "up to 300 prisoners". Activists believe that many of these are more likely to be opponents of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government than terrorists.

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing the exact number of prisoners. They are kept in secret detention that bears all the hallmarks of a Guantanamo-type policy: cross-border transfers without judicial proceedings, military tribunals, abusive conditions and the prospect of indefinite imprisonment. "They are being held incommunicado - like Guantanamo - so we represent their families because we've had no contact," says Jonathan Hafetz, the New-York-based lawyer acting on behalf of Amir Meshal, a US citizen.

Meanwhile, there are reports that western intelligence agencies are taking advantage of these conditions - and, by ext ension, Ethiopia's poor human-rights record - to conduct clandestine interrogations.

Last month, the US government conceded that interviews with the detainees have produced "valuable information" but denied the detentions were part of a covert rendition programme.

In an eerie echo of US strategy during its post-invasion "round-ups" in Afghanistan, Halima Hashim, a Kenyan citizen who fled Somalia after the bombardment in December, told the UK human-rights organisation Reprieve that the US had been paying off locals in return for captured foreigners.

According to Hashim, after she took refuge in a Somali hospital, Ethiopian troops entered, and seized the records. "Then, they came back and took foreigners out of the hospital," she said. "At that time, the Americans and Ethiopians were buying foreign nationals from the Somali people."

Research by the US-based Seton Hall University School of Law concluded that 66 per cent of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay seized in Pakistan were handed over to the Americans for a bounty. Five years on, not one of those prisoners stands charged with a crime.

Do those stranded in Ethiopia await the same fate?

EPRDF MP defects

News

EPRDF MP defects

18 May 2007 (EMF) -- Fikru Jeldessa Nikuss, former member of Benishangul Gumuz Front (BGPDUF) and an MP (EPRDF) applied asylum in The Netherlands escaping the ever growing persecutions, it was revealed today.

"The political persecutions are very severing in the regional states, if one is against the will of the ruling party." Fikru said.

"One faces torture, imprisonment and death unless he complies with the interests of the ruling elites. More than 300 political dissents including former vice president of the region, Mr. Abdul Mohamed Ibrahim, are languishing in prison. Hundreds, including president of the regional Supreme Court, Ms. Zeneba Mohammed, are also forced to exile in Sudan." he added.

Having lost almost all seats in the May 2005 general election, the regime has panicked and vowed vengeance against the people. Fikru says there has been increasing discontent among MPs, officer corps and dissent in Ethiopia.

He also said the Meles Zenawi's regime became more irresponsible after the May 2005 election, complaining that the regime has appointed Mr. Al Bedri, a Sudanese citizen, as head of Education to the region. Mr. Bedri escaped to Sudan stealing Millions of birr allocated to the region.

Mr. Fikru, whose responsibilities include head of auditor general in the region, was twice locked up at tatek military camp for exposing the severe corruptions of the authorities.

Commenting on Ethiopia's ethnic federalism, Fikru says, Benishangul Gumuz region is not different from other local states. All key positions are controlled by the Tigrian People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in all the regions.

In practice, Mr. Zeray Asgedom, who is TPLF Central Committee Members and a close ally of Meles Zenawi, is administering the region. The president of the region, Mr. Yaregal Aysheshum is simply a puppet similar to many other regional states. His representation is only symbolic and aimed to deceive the people in the region.

"During my stay in house, I have become increasingly frustrated with the conduct of the TPLF-led government." Fikru said.

"More than 400 people were killed as a result of ethnic clash between Benishangul Gumuz and Shinasha, which was caused by the regime as its strategy to divide and rule." He added.

Nordland: Somalia's Rent-a-Tree Disaster

Nordland: Somalia's Rent-a-Tree Disaster

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Rod Nordland

May 18, 2007 (Newsweek) - How bad is it in Somalia? Bad enough that people fleeing the capital have been reduced to renting trees for shelter. It's the sort of thing that happens when drug-addled warlords roam the countryside, imposing taxes of 50 percent on aid recipients. And the sort of thing to be expected of a government whose prime minister, Ali Mohamad Gedi, has publicly accused the United Nations agency feeding the country of spreading cholera along with food deliveries. And that's the internationally recognized government, which enjoys U.S. support, although it is widely unpopular in southern Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu. That's not surprising, since the prime minister is from a clan that's hostile to the clan that dominates the capital, and the president, Abdulahi Yusuf, is from Puntland, in northern Somalia, a breakaway region that is best known as the homeland of Somalia's pirates, who once again are on the prowl, bedeviling aid shipments even further. "Is there actually any hope for the future in Somalia?" said the World Food Program's Somalia country director, Peter
Goossens. "I don't know."

Sixteen years after the established government fell in Somalia, the East African nation just lurches from one disaster to another, some man-made, some natural, each one deepening the humanitarian crisis. Last year marked more than six years of a record-breaking drought, followed by renewed fighting as the Islamic Courts Union sought to oust feuding clan warlords, which they did, establishing a semblance of order in the unruly capital and most of the country for the first time in a decade and a half. Then the drought ended-only to be replaced by devastating floods, cutting off much of the population from aid deliveries. And by the end of 2006, warfare resumed, with Ethiopia, encouraged by the United States, invading Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts, which were a little too pro-Al Qaeda for U.S. tastes, and prop up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), an amalgamation of former warlords with little popular support in Somalia, but recognized internationally. Faced with Ethiopian tanks and warplanes, the ICU quickly collapsed and for the first time, the TFG took up office in the capital.

This year promises to be no better, and probably still worse. The Courts fought back, particularly in Mogadishu, and the Ethiopians cracked down, killing 2,000 people in the capital (population about 1 million), and sending 365,000 residents fleeing into the countryside; 190,000 of them fled in April alone. It was the biggest exodus from the city in 16 years of conflict, and many thousands more were displaced within, unable to flee or get to their homes. For the first time, residents in Mogadishu had to turn to aid agencies for food aid-something previously only needed in the countryside. There it's even worse, with renewed flooding in this year's rainy season; presently World Food Program food supplies are only reaching 40 to 50 percent of people, and a fifth of those who fled the capital are completely without aid, according to WFP Somalia Country Director Peter Goossens.


The TFG and its Ethiopian allies announced the insurgency was quelled two weeks ago, encouraging African Union (AU) countries to send troops to replace the Ethiopians, who are widely unpopular in Somalia even among those who didn't care for Islamist rule. So far only Uganda has sent a vanguard of 1,500 troops, far less than the 30,000 Ethiopians that the AU intends to replace, but other African countries have balked, saying there's no peace for peacekeepers to keep. While it's true that Mogadishu was quieter than it had been in months, the Islamists were still fighting back, this time using Iraq-style methods of roadside bombs, even suicide car bombings-tactics never before seen in Somalia. When John Holmes, the U.N.'s top emergency relief official, came to visit on May 12, three bombs were set along his route-the first went off and missed him by a few hundred yards, killing three Somalis. And when TFG president Yusuf met Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni on May 16 to thank him for his support, another roadside bomb went off in Mogadishu, killing four Ugandan soldiers and
wounding five more.

"Next it will be a plague of locusts," one aid official said, knocking on wood.

Ethiopia has publicly declared that it wants to leave Somalia, but unless a large African Union contingent replaces them, the TFG will simply collapse; they were never any match for the Islamists. "We have a mandate after 16 years of no government to try and return to sanity," said Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the AU force. "We can't chicken out. There is a lot of goodwill among the populace, and we have the support of the Somali people."

The solution, everyone agrees, is a national reconciliation conference, in which the government and Somalia's powerful clans work out a political settlement that can quiet Mogadishu. That conference, however, has been postponed twice, with no clear date for its resumption. And diplomats worry that the TFG's stance that its opponents are all terrorists makes reconciliation impossible. Although the Islamic Courts did have extremist elements, there were also many moderate elements among them, particularly from the powerful Hawiye clan, which is dominant in Mogadishu. "Before you can have a national conference you need to solve this problem in Mogadishu," said Mario Raffaelli, the Italian envoy for Somalia. "To stop blasts like this, you need to have support of the population."

TFG officials, however, seem to be in denial. The only problem, said government spokesman Hussein Mohammed, is that "Al Qaeda is hiding in the city," which otherwise is generally safe. He claims that bombs are being smuggled in from Iran with Farsi writing on them. "Most of the clans don't want to fight, they're too tired. The people linked to Al Qaeda want to kill all the time, they want to continue fighting," he says. The government has denied there was any mass flight from Mogadishu, saying there were only 40,000 who fled and many had returned-another point aid workers dispute. As for complaints from the aid community that authorities were blocking relief efforts, Mohammed called that a "totally baseless claim."

Officials at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs say their tallies of refugees from Mogadishu are based on long experience and a widespread network of aid agencies working in Somalia, and no one in the aid community disputes the estimates. What's less clear is what percentage of those who fled is getting aid. Raffaelli said it's as low as 15-20 percent; the WFP puts the figure at 80 percent, although nationwide only 40-50 percent of Somalis are being reached now, particularly because of problems getting access to flooded areas. In any case, hundreds of thousands of Somalis are in a perilous condition, and even those refugees who have received food aid often don't have shelter or medical care. In many areas warlords have reasserted their power, aligned to no particular side, taxing aid shipments and demanding half of the aid that individual recipients receive. To make matters worse, there's fear of another cholera epidemic, with 20,000 suspected cholera cases and 700 deaths so far this year in south and central Somalia. Incredibly, two weeks ago prime minister Gedi gave a radio interview in which he accused the World Food Programme of spreading cholera through its food shipments, on which most of the population of southern Somalia depends. Throughout Middle and Lower Shabele provinces, there are reports of refugees arriving in areas where there's already a severe crisis due to flooding and blocked aid deliveries, and being forced to take refuge under trees-and even being obliged to pay rent for those trees. In the Dibiyada district just outside Mogadishu, NEWSWEEK's Abukar Albadri found a group of people who fled Mogadishu huddled under a large acacia tree on a farmstead, plastic sheets tied to the trunk. "We are eight families living under this tree," said Hani Hussein, 27, a mother of three. "We're neighbors and we wanted to stay together. At night all the men sleep on one side, the children and women on the other." For that privilege, she said they paid the local farmer $3 a family for a month, in advance, $24 in all. Farmer Hundubow Ali Hared laughingly acknowledged it. "People are destroying the grass in our farms that we need to feed our animals," he said, and "they are using our fields as toilets."Under another tree not far away, a midwife, herself a displaced person, delivered a baby to another refugee, with no hot water or medical supplies. In all, an estimated 20,000 families are taking refuge in the Dibiyada district, local aid workers said.

The WFP has had growing difficulty getting food supplies into Somalia, as fewer and fewer shipping companies agree to carry grain shipments after a renewal of Somali piracy along the coast. Piracy had been stamped out during the Courts' time, as the Islamists shut down their land bases. Now pirates operating from Puntland in the north seem to do so with impunity. And with normal commercial ports in Mogadishu and Kismayo closed by fighting or instability, the WFP has been offloading supplies onto beaches-a laborious process. "Somehow we still manage to do it," said Goossens.

Lately even American officials have been critical of the TFG. "I think it is very clear that the key to solving the situation in Somalia and stabilizing it is to have this inclusive dialogue," the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, told Voice of America recently. "And so trying to get the Transitional Federal Government to reach out to the various clans and sub-clans is a large part of our diplomacy." If they don't, said Raffaelli, the danger is that more and more Somalis will want to see a return of the Islamic Courts, who at least provided peace and stability in Mogadishu when they were in power last year. "People are already saying, for six months we have tasted security. We need desperately to come back to this."

In aid-worker jargon, the Somalis seem to have developed "extreme coping mechanisms." Whatever nature and man throw at them, they seem for the most part to survive it-although a large part of the credit goes to a massive relief effort involving hundreds of NGOs and U.N. agencies. Goossens worries however that this latest phase could prove the most dangerous. If the Islamists' campaign of roadside and suicide bombing reaches the widespread, indiscriminate level seen in Iraq, it could make it impossible for those agencies to function. Those who fled Mogadishu went to areas where U.N. surveys already reported previous levels of malnutrition above the emergency threshold of 15 percent, and in some cases above 20 percent of the population. "You can't just send food to an area, you have to send people to make sure something useful happens to that food," he said. "And if bombing stops our people from going, I might as well dump that food into the water." In other words, for all Somalia's travails, it could still get worse.

With Abukar Albadri in Mogadishu and Scott Johnson in Nairobi

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18745786/site/newsweek/page/4/

Somalia: An Ethiopian convoy undergoes a roadside bomb explosion

Somalia: An Ethiopian convoy undergoes a roadside bomb explosion

Aweys Osman Yusuf Mogadishu 21, May.07 ( Sh.M.Network) An Ethiopian military convoy narrowly escaped from a roadside bomb explosion in early Monday morning. The convoy was passing the main road in Dayniile district, northeast of the Somali capital Mogadishu. Witnesses told Shabelle that the bomb was hidden in a pile of junk on the roadside and was remotely detonated as the Ethiopians passed. Wariiri Ali Gabow, a resident, told Shabelle that the Ethiopians shot dead a civilian and detained one suspect. “None of the Ethiopian forces was harmed in the explosion,” he said. Gabow also said the victim was killed after he ran as the Ethiopians were telling him to stop. In a Similar incident yesterday, Mogadishu mayor survived from a bomb blast. Mohammed Dheere told journalists that an Islamic insurgent was intending to kill him. “The bomber was on top of a tree closer to the road which my convoy was passing. My bodyguards shot him down after the explosion,” Dheere told journalists Sunday. At least three bomb explosions occurred in Mogadishu in the past 24 hours. Somalia’s transitional government promised a crackdown on the insurgents following its seizure of the capital early this month. Somali and Ethiopian troops supported by tanks and helicopter gunships defeated the remnants of the Islamist fighters in Mogadishu’s fiercest battle that happened between 24 March and 12 April. Residents including relatives of the victim came out after the incident and took the deceased to his home nearby.

Somalia: A bomb blast kills five Ugandan troops in Mogadishu

Aweys Osman Yusuf Mogadishu 16, May.07 ( Sh.M.Network) At least five AU/UPDF forces were killed in a bomb explosion on Wednesday morning. AU spokesman in Somalia, Paddy Ankunda, has told Shabelle that five Ugandans perished in the bomb blast that was targeted at an AU convoy passing near former Finance Ministry in Mogadishu’s Hamar Weyne district, an area frequented by Somali government troops. AU spokesman in Somalia, Paddy Ankunda Witnesses told Shabelle that they saw pieces of human flesh on the ground where the explosion occurred. Government soldiers soon sealed off the area after the incident. AU troops in Somalia have been busy de-mining Mogadishu lately as they seemed to gain confidence from the population in Mogadishu. They have never been targeted until Wednesday morning. The Somalia government has not commented on the event which came as the volatile country’s president, Abdulahi Yusuf, is in the Ugandan capital, Kampala where he and his counterpart Mussevani, appealed for the deployment of more African peacekeepers in Somalia. Meanwhile Mogadishu mayor, Mohammed Dheere, imposed a curfew on Heliwa district, north of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, after the district commissioner, Abdulahi Sheikow, was killed. Dheere said the curfew will be in place until security is improved. Abdulahi Ibrahim Sahal, Hamar Weyne chairman, said two children were wounded in the explosion. No one has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bomb attack

African Liberation Fronts and al Qaeda: a Most Disastrous Confusion

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
May 8, 2007
We have repeatedly illuminated the dangers ensuing from the continuation of the existence of the bogus-Ethiopian Tyranny; Tigray dictator Meles Zenawi’s involvement in Somalia made the situation even more difficult, as it exposed numerous Liberation Fronts to the eventuality of a fruitful cooperation with the Islamic Courts of Justice, al Qaeda’s most notorious ally in Africa. This is no good news for the West, and the entire world…

This combination of struggles, of oppressed African nations for Independence, and of fanatic Islamists for World leadership, would bring forth the ultimate collapse of the West, helping Africa become a vast tinderbox from the Horn of Africa to the Atlas mountains. The effects would be cataclysmic if compared with the insignificant repercussions of 60 years of Palestinian ‘problem’ and the somewhat important consequences of the failed US-led invasion of Iraq.

The Western administrations have no other choice but to satisfy the need for Independence, Democracy, Self-determination, and Freedom of numerous African peoples, from the Oromos, the Sidamas, the Afars, and the Ogadenis of Abyssinia, to the Furs, the Nuers, the Dinkas, the Bejas, and the Nubians of Sudan, and from the Berbers of Kabylia to the Banaadiris of Somalia.

It has to be immediately assessed and ultimately understood that numerous decades of political oppression and economic dispossession of natural resources, and two centuries of cultural alienation and colonial education have created an explosive amalgamation of extreme despair and utmost deception; when you have nothing more to lose, you can cooperate – in order to get your national target materialized – with absolutely anyone.

This has not happened so far; the African Liberation movements displayed refrain and reserve of an unparalleled political maturity. The US administration must seize the opportunity as long as it stands. Perpetuating the despair and the deception or pushing African Liberation leaderships to the menacing embrace of al Qaeda can bring only disaster – to the West, not to Africans, as they have already attested disaster, it’s nothing new to most of them.

The Game is Over: you Cannot Save Tyrannical bogus-Ethiopia!

In this regard, it is of seminal importance for world diplomats and apprentice mass media representatives to refrain from making the confusion of the utmost catastrophe, namely the equation between the African Liberation fronts and the al Qaeda allies. In reality, the former are numerous and the latter are scarce.

Under terms of true judgment and accurate estimation of the African societies’ conditions, the former control vast oppressed masses and few guns, whereas the latter, being few, have already formed a vast arsenal that they intend to make available to the former within the context of an Anti-Western alliance.

The situation is at the brink of abyss, with irresponsible UN diplomats and corrupt media representatives having crossed the Rubicon only to weep tremendously on their fallacious assumptions.

We take as example a recent press release issued by the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) whereby the leading Oromo Liberation organization denounces categorically the unwise discourses of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia that shamelessly associates the OLF with the Islamic Courts Union.

The press release that we publish hereby integrally reports a similarly irresponsible attitude displayed by the Associated Press.

The UN, the African Union, the US, China, the EU and other global players must realize as soon as possible the reality:

- You cannot save the collapsing, bogus-Ethiopian Tyranny; save at least Africa from the clutches of Islamic Terrorism!

UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and the Associated Press; they have it wrong!

In October 2006 the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia reported to the Security Council Committee on Somalia that that the OLF was fighting on the side of the Islamic Courts Union. At the time the OLF rejected this baseless Ethiopian propaganda that turned into UN news stating as a matter of policy the OLF does not interference in neighboring states internal affairs, and that Somalia is no exception. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia simply copied Ethiopian propaganda without any legitimate substantiation and converted it to "news".

The occupying forces of Ethiopia in Somalia have captured thousands of Ethiopian refugees who lived in Somalia for years, killed many of them, and tortured even more to submission and admission of guilt. These individuals are then used through state owned Ethiopia mass media as evidence of OLF armed presence in Somalia. Because of the track record of the Ethiopian regime, this propaganda should not have been trusted. For example, in a letter dated March 22, 2007, the Human Rights Watch, in its letter to Kenyan Director of Political Affairs, Mr. Thomas Amolo, wrote the following:

"Human Rights Watch fears that many of the detainees will face mistreatment

and possibly torture or execution in Ethiopian custody. Human Rights Watch has previously documented that Ethiopian forces routinely engage in torture of criminal, political and military detainees, and in its recent human rights country report on Ethiopia, the US State Department noted that in Ethiopia “There were numerous credible reports that security officials often beat or mistreated detainees. Opposition political parties reported frequent and systematic abuse of their supporters by police and regional militias. . . . in detention centers police often physically abused detainees... Ethiopian security services may suspect some individuals of having connections to Ethiopian insurgency movements, in which case they may face torture or even summary execution if delivered into Ethiopian custody."

The OLF is an Oromo secular political organization rooted inside Oromia, and has no military objectives in any other country than Oromia. It boasts diplomatic presence around the world, including the USA. The OLF abides by international laws and standards, and rejects targeting civilians and terror as a means of achieving its objectives.

In a more recent incident, the Associated Press has attempted to connect an

Ethiopian-born U.S. citizen named Sisaye Dinssa, recently convicted of currency smuggling as an "OLF financier". The said culprit is neither a member of the OLF; neither do we have any record of his financial support to the OLF. We regret that AP sensationalized such news item to the extent of labeling and defaming a legitimate political organization. The OLF channels all its business in North America, financial included, legally, through its bureau in Washington DC. We see no reason to resort to illegal smuggling or use of one.

=======================

Note: in the picture we see that more than half of Abyssinia's territory belongs to the oppressed Oromos who fight for Independence and Democracy.

African Liberation Fronts and al Qaeda: a Most Disastrous Confusion

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
May 8, 2007
We have repeatedly illuminated the dangers ensuing from the continuation of the existence of the bogus-Ethiopian Tyranny; Tigray dictator Meles Zenawi’s involvement in Somalia made the situation even more difficult, as it exposed numerous Liberation Fronts to the eventuality of a fruitful cooperation with the Islamic Courts of Justice, al Qaeda’s most notorious ally in Africa. This is no good news for the West, and the entire world…

This combination of struggles, of oppressed African nations for Independence, and of fanatic Islamists for World leadership, would bring forth the ultimate collapse of the West, helping Africa become a vast tinderbox from the Horn of Africa to the Atlas mountains. The effects would be cataclysmic if compared with the insignificant repercussions of 60 years of Palestinian ‘problem’ and the somewhat important consequences of the failed US-led invasion of Iraq.

The Western administrations have no other choice but to satisfy the need for Independence, Democracy, Self-determination, and Freedom of numerous African peoples, from the Oromos, the Sidamas, the Afars, and the Ogadenis of Abyssinia, to the Furs, the Nuers, the Dinkas, the Bejas, and the Nubians of Sudan, and from the Berbers of Kabylia to the Banaadiris of Somalia.

It has to be immediately assessed and ultimately understood that numerous decades of political oppression and economic dispossession of natural resources, and two centuries of cultural alienation and colonial education have created an explosive amalgamation of extreme despair and utmost deception; when you have nothing more to lose, you can cooperate – in order to get your national target materialized – with absolutely anyone.

This has not happened so far; the African Liberation movements displayed refrain and reserve of an unparalleled political maturity. The US administration must seize the opportunity as long as it stands. Perpetuating the despair and the deception or pushing African Liberation leaderships to the menacing embrace of al Qaeda can bring only disaster – to the West, not to Africans, as they have already attested disaster, it’s nothing new to most of them.

The Game is Over: you Cannot Save Tyrannical bogus-Ethiopia!

In this regard, it is of seminal importance for world diplomats and apprentice mass media representatives to refrain from making the confusion of the utmost catastrophe, namely the equation between the African Liberation fronts and the al Qaeda allies. In reality, the former are numerous and the latter are scarce.

Under terms of true judgment and accurate estimation of the African societies’ conditions, the former control vast oppressed masses and few guns, whereas the latter, being few, have already formed a vast arsenal that they intend to make available to the former within the context of an Anti-Western alliance.

The situation is at the brink of abyss, with irresponsible UN diplomats and corrupt media representatives having crossed the Rubicon only to weep tremendously on their fallacious assumptions.

We take as example a recent press release issued by the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) whereby the leading Oromo Liberation organization denounces categorically the unwise discourses of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia that shamelessly associates the OLF with the Islamic Courts Union.

The press release that we publish hereby integrally reports a similarly irresponsible attitude displayed by the Associated Press.

The UN, the African Union, the US, China, the EU and other global players must realize as soon as possible the reality:

- You cannot save the collapsing, bogus-Ethiopian Tyranny; save at least Africa from the clutches of Islamic Terrorism!

UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and the Associated Press; they have it wrong!

In October 2006 the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia reported to the Security Council Committee on Somalia that that the OLF was fighting on the side of the Islamic Courts Union. At the time the OLF rejected this baseless Ethiopian propaganda that turned into UN news stating as a matter of policy the OLF does not interference in neighboring states internal affairs, and that Somalia is no exception. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia simply copied Ethiopian propaganda without any legitimate substantiation and converted it to "news".

The occupying forces of Ethiopia in Somalia have captured thousands of Ethiopian refugees who lived in Somalia for years, killed many of them, and tortured even more to submission and admission of guilt. These individuals are then used through state owned Ethiopia mass media as evidence of OLF armed presence in Somalia. Because of the track record of the Ethiopian regime, this propaganda should not have been trusted. For example, in a letter dated March 22, 2007, the Human Rights Watch, in its letter to Kenyan Director of Political Affairs, Mr. Thomas Amolo, wrote the following:

"Human Rights Watch fears that many of the detainees will face mistreatment

and possibly torture or execution in Ethiopian custody. Human Rights Watch has previously documented that Ethiopian forces routinely engage in torture of criminal, political and military detainees, and in its recent human rights country report on Ethiopia, the US State Department noted that in Ethiopia “There were numerous credible reports that security officials often beat or mistreated detainees. Opposition political parties reported frequent and systematic abuse of their supporters by police and regional militias. . . . in detention centers police often physically abused detainees... Ethiopian security services may suspect some individuals of having connections to Ethiopian insurgency movements, in which case they may face torture or even summary execution if delivered into Ethiopian custody."

The OLF is an Oromo secular political organization rooted inside Oromia, and has no military objectives in any other country than Oromia. It boasts diplomatic presence around the world, including the USA. The OLF abides by international laws and standards, and rejects targeting civilians and terror as a means of achieving its objectives.

In a more recent incident, the Associated Press has attempted to connect an

Ethiopian-born U.S. citizen named Sisaye Dinssa, recently convicted of currency smuggling as an "OLF financier". The said culprit is neither a member of the OLF; neither do we have any record of his financial support to the OLF. We regret that AP sensationalized such news item to the extent of labeling and defaming a legitimate political organization. The OLF channels all its business in North America, financial included, legally, through its bureau in Washington DC. We see no reason to resort to illegal smuggling or use of one.

=======================

Note: in the picture we see that more than half of Abyssinia's territory belongs to the oppressed Oromos who fight for Independence and Democracy.

Africa: Better off without us?

Africa: Better off without us?
Cover story
Robert Calderisi
Monday 26th June 2006


A year on from the G8 and Live 8, parts of Africa are making good progress. But it's not thanks to the money and the debt relief that often prop up the wrong kind of leader. By Robert Calderisi

Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, looks at the world upside down. In power for almost a quarter-century and seen by almost no one except his aide-de-camp, Biya regards his country's saintly Catholic cleric Christian Tumi as an opposition leader because of his strong support for human rights. "I was born a Cameroonian," the down-to-earth cardinal told me, "and became a Christian and priest. Why can't I have views about what is happening in my country?" On May Day this year, the international community voted for Biya rather than Tumi by awarding the country $4.9bn in debt relief.

Another winner in the moral sweepstakes has been the small Republic of Congo, run by a man who overthrew an elected government in 1997. The African Union once vowed to shun anyone who took power militarily. Yet, five months ago, the continent's supreme political body chose Congo's Denis Sassou-Nguesso as its chairman. True, he was a compromise candidate, as it was Sudan's turn to take charge and a last-minute sense of decency prevailed. But the AU might as well have installed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. The world was also kind to Sassou-Nguesso, writing off $2.9bn of Congolese debt in March. To his credit, the World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, tried to block this measure on learning that Sassou-Nguesso had chalked up an $81,000 bill at a New York hotel. He was overruled. The World Bank press release said grudgingly that something would have to give if the money was "not to be hijacked by vested interests".

Such stories show why many Africans are disgusted with their governments, and with the west's well-meaning efforts to help. As many sceptics predicted, progress towards implementing the decisions taken at last year's much-hyped G8 summit - especially doubling aid by 2010 - has been slow.

Africa has made significant strides over the past year, but none of them was a consequence of Gleneagles.

The most important development was probably also the dullest. In February, Nigeria was given a formal credit rating by international bond agencies for the first time. This was due not just to high oil prices, but also to the determination of the finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has reversed decades of economic mismanagement. Nigeria still has a long way to go to gain the full confidence of the international community - and its own people - but good economic housekeeping in the continent's most populous country is good news for all.

Economic growth has been rising, too, giving African governments breathing space, after decades of being choked between burgeoning populations and falling markets. Unfortunately, most of that growth was the result of the oil boom rather than improvements in agriculture, the source of Africa's greatest wealth. Oil has also filled the coffers of some unsavoury regimes (Angola, Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea), most of whose leaders have been in office for more than 20 years. The dean of the group, Omar Bongo of Gabon, came to power when Harold Wilson was managing a now-forgotten sterling crisis in 1967.

Over the past year, however, some of Africa's "big men" got their come-uppance - or at least an inkling of their limitations. Liberia's Charles Taylor was arrested on the Nigeria-Cameroon border and taken into custody by the international tribunal in Freetown, which will probe his role in human-rights abuses in Sierra Leone's civil war era. Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, suffered a humiliating defeat in the November referendum on a revised constitution that would have given him more power. The Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, faced street battles over the dubious results of the May 2005 elections. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni settled for 59 per cent of the vote. And in Nigeria, the senate, not western editorial writers, killed President Obasanjo's chances of revising his country's constitution and running for a third term.

Making way

The "big men" also had to make way for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a survivor of many election campaigns and death threats in Liberia, whose main rival for the presidency was an international soccer star. At her inauguration, she instructed incoming ministers to open their bank accounts to public scrutiny - and promised to get the lights to stay on in Monrovia by July this year. Six hundred miles to the east, Benin, the first black African country to change ruling parties democratically in 1991, held its fourth multi-party presidential election in a row.

There was even encouragement on the HIV/Aids front, with the World Health Organisation estimating that 17 per cent of those requiring antiretroviral drugs were actually receiving them. While still woefully short of overall needs, the coverage was higher than anyone could have predicted just a few years ago.

But it is too early to be upbeat about Africa. Like slowing the spread of HIV/Aids, progress in opening up the political debate has barely begun. In 1983, the novelist Chinua Achebe wrote, in a blistering essay called "The Trouble with Nigeria" that still applies to most of Africa: "There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership."

Africans hoped that foreign aid could be used to make their governments more open and honest. But in many places, the opposite has been true, and in the one big showdown with a dictator this year, it was the west that backed down.

The Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline was meant to be different. It was the largest private sector investment in Africa in a decade when its principal backer, ExxonMobil, invited the World Bank to help design it properly. Central to the effort was a law assigning most of the oil revenues to reducing poverty in Chad. Last December, the country changed the law to include spending on defence. The World Bank promptly shut down its operations in Chad and blocked the overseas account holding the money. This was a sound decision, even though some thought it an overreaction - as if bankers were expected to invite defaulters on mortgages for a friendly drink.

Four months later, the bank backed off when Chad's president, Idriss Déby, threatened to close the pipeline altogether. The geopolitics was understandable: rebels supported by Chad's neighbour, Sudan, had invaded the capital that month, and few people wanted the Déby government overthrown while it was hosting 200,000 refugees from the Darfur region next door. But the political impact and moral consequences were poisonous. Direct military assistance would have been better than allowing the government a free hand with the oil revenues. Like Nigeria's success in improving its public finan ces, this damp squib of a showdown in Chad had continent-wide implications - but, in Chad's case, of a negative kind.

Sticks and carrots

In other places, gangrene lurks just below the surface. On 2 March 2006, Kenya's internal security minister justified a raid on a major Nairobi newspaper and television station that had criticised the government: "When you rattle a snake, you must expect to be bitten." Certainly, the African Union's feeble efforts to corral Mugabe do not point to the "peer justice" promised in the much-heralded New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) that the continent adopted in 2001.

Darfur's people continue to suffer terribly. Although the international community may not have been able to stop the Rwandan genocide in 1994, it could have done more to halt the carnage in western Sudan. The Rwandan killings lasted a hundred days. Darfur has been going on for three years. Despite the presence of AU troops and a series of truces, the murders, rapes and pillaging continue. Some people question the importance of "yet another" African crisis. But this is no ordinary event. Most civil conflicts in Africa, in places as diverse as Côte d'Ivoire and the so-called Democratic Republic of Congo, have been ended or checked by a combination of international sticks and carrots and the presence of foreign peacekeepers. The horrors of Liberia and Sierra Leone - though not yet Somalia - are a thing of the past. But Darfur is like a seeping sore, reminding us every day that no one has been crueller to Africans in recent decades than Africans themselves.

In the past five years, western countries have taken great steps to protect themselves (in Afghanistan and Iraq), and have stirred up a hornet's nest. Africans may rightly ask how the west can respond so forcefully to the deaths of 3,000 Americans in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001, and yet hesitate to send troops into Sudan after the killing of 180,000 people and the displacement of two million others. US efforts to stem international terrorism in Somalia by supporting local warlords have fallen flat, as the wrong set of villains took Mogadishu this month. International efforts to save the people of Darfur, who face daily terrorism, might have proved more successful.

Which brings us back to foreign aid. As long as dictatorship prevails across much of Africa, the objectives of the G8 leaders at Gleneagles will remain a dead letter.

Countries as canny as Ghana, Mali and Mozambique, which have steadily opened their economies to private investors and their politics to different opinions, do not receive enough aid, while others such as Ethiopia and Cameroon receive far too much. The west must start using more sticks and fewer carrots. And more aid should be targeted at specific Africa-wide causes, such as establishing regional universities and researching new drugs for malaria, rather than just dispersing it over many countries, watering weeds as well as flowers.

A year on from the Live 8 concerts, energies should be aimed at other causes - for instance, barring western arms sales to unrepresentative governments, quarantining any state that imprisons journalists for expressing personal opinions, abolishing laws that make it a crime to criticise African presidents, focusing aid on the few countries that have used it properly, or seizing illicit African holdings in western banks, the way the British navy intercepted slaving ships on the high seas once the abominable trade in human beings was outlawed. Few African leaders would understand that parallel, but most of their citizens would.

Robert Calderisi's "The Trouble With Africa: why foreign aid isn't working" will be published by Yale University Press in July (£18.99)